sgj2

I normally follow conversations in this forum, but have never posted. This thread made me want to create an account so I could post! Speaking as a recent Canadian non-social science PhD grad from a US program, I don't think the US/Canada divide is as relevant as many seem to think, unless you happen to graduate from HYP (you can include Stanford and Berkeley or UK's Oxbridge in this category). The PhD job market seems pretty saturated across many disciplines. A few years ago, my sister graduated from a PhD program in history, so I happen to have some exposure to the humanities. Although I realize history is not a social science, just thought it would be interesting to post links that compare history PhD placement records at Brown (an ivy league), versus those at U of T: http://www.brown.edu/academics/history/graduate/graduate-students/placements http://www.history.utoronto.ca/graduate/successfulplacements.html (for some reason this link only works if you click on it, get an error page, and THEN hit enter on the link again haha ) These records show that although Brown is a US ivy league (a lower-ranked ivy nonetheless), its placement record in the US is not significantly more stellar than U of T's. And although you could say U of T graduates more students, and might therefore have a lower proportion of placements, my sister tells me the history department graduates an average of 6 PhD's a year - not a huge number. The number of Canadian university placements is also obviously greater at U of T, but that makes sense given that most grad students at this university are Canadian and may not look for work in the American job market. I think unless you attend one of the big names (remember, universities like University College London and U of T are 'top 25,' but not big names in the same way HYP are), you are probably as competitive going to U of T (and perhaps McGill) as you are going to most US institutions. This is not to say, of course, that the job search will be easy; it will likely be extremely competitive no matter what. Maybe I'm saying what other posters have already said - just thought I'd put this out there since there is a tendency to undervalue Canadian education, even when it's world class by most standards.