juilletmercredi

Eh, that all depends on your PhD advisor and the salaried job you're talking about. I've known PhD students (and postdocs!) who didn't have much control or say over their projects - they were handed a project by their PIs, and they were expected to work on that project in a specific way by their PI. They were expected to be in the lab at specific hours or for a specific amount of time every day and were questioned if they weren't there. Conversely, I've known people in professional salaried positions with a lot of autonomy and ownership. I work as a researcher at a tech company. I was assigned a specific product area to work on - but it's up to me to determine the priorities and projects for that product and how I'm going to approach my work. I also do create projects for myself that I have 100% ownership of and can determine exactly how I want to do them and when. I come and go as I please and as long as I'm getting my work done, nobody questions me about why I came in at 9:30 or left at 3:30. Occasionally, I work from home in my pajamas And I am definitely not at the end of my career - I'm less than 3 years into my current position. It depends on the individual circumstances. * Like others, though, I think the answer to this comes more from within than without. I think I felt less like an 'adult' during the early years of my PhD because...well, I kind of was less like an adult. I started my PhD at 22, fresh out of college, and hadn't yet figured out what being an adult meant for me. I could've chosen to work my PhD like a 9-to-5, or kept more regular hours, or worked in the assigned cubicle I had, but I didn't - I chose odd hours in my PJs-type work most of the time. It wasn't until I made the conscious decision in the last few years of my doctoral program to treat it more like work that I settled into a routine and felt more like an 'adult' - and that was partially motivated by the fact that most of my friends were master's students and had graduated and moved onto professional jobs. If I wanted to hang with them, I had to modify my schedule so that I was working when they were and available to hang out when they were hanging out. The limbo-thing is always a mindset. In the beginning of my PhD I thought about it as a temporary place, simply a stepping-stone to get to where I was going next. It is, and it's important to keep it in the proper context - you are using this as professional training. But there's a way to do that that makes it feel more like an entry-level professional job than actual Limbo...putting down roots in your city and learning how to enjoy it; making friends and expanding your network; pursuing new skills and training while enjoying the work that you do; etc. If you think about it this way, that many 20somethings are working jobs that they know they won't be in forever but are using them as a platform to springboard them to better opportunities - and just realize that your position really isn't much different from that, including the salary - that'll make this easier, I think.

This all depends on what "new" means, because "new" doctoral programs can have different kinds of features. For example, a university can decide to offer a new doctoral program using existing strengths and offerings. For example, let's say that a university decides to offer an interdisciplinary American studies PhD for the first time. But they have powerhouse American history professors in the history department; excellent American literature professors in the English department; some well-established professors studying American culture and issues in the anthropology department, etc.; they've got like six centers dedicated to the study of American problems and topics that have been around for 20-50+ years; and they already have a long record of placing alumni into American studies-related positions. In that case - the program is new, but the study of American studies at this university is not, and the professors have established skill and networks and ability to do the kind of training and professional development American studies scholars need. So it's not so big a deal. A related situation might be when a department has been offering a specific concentration for many years and they finally decide to spin it off as a new field. E.g., let's say that the history department has always had a special concentration or certificate in American studies, and students in this concentration could always work with professors from other fields studying American studies, but they finally decided to make it a standalone PhD. That situation is fine too. In some cases, even an entirely new PhD program can be a great place to go if the university has strengths in related fields and is strong enough overall to attract great faculty in the area. For example, let's say Columbia wanted to start a new data science PhD program. They've already got existing professors in statistics, computer science, operations research, industrial engineering and other fields who can easily contribute, but they also have the institutional resources to easily lure established, powerhouse data science professors from other universities to come teach in their new program. These professors are bringing their networks and resources and grants, and stuff with them. That's not to say there won't be some growing pains as they get settled in, rebuild their labs, figure out their relationship with the new university, etc. Where the true issues come in are if a university doesn't have existing strengths in a particular area and/or the resources to attract them, especially if it kind of seems like they're hopping on a fad train. So you want to ask yourself: Does the university already have existing, established departments with faculty who have been doing work in this and/or related areas for some time? Even if they've never specifically placed someone with that exact PhD, have they placed PhDs from other departments in relevant positions (academic or industry)? What other institutional support - centers, libraries, institutes, consortia, partnerships - does the university have for this kind of work? Look at the whole picture, not just the existence of this specific program or department.

Different rankings have different methodologies, so you really have to pay attention to the methods when comparing across them. U.S News' ranking of programs is based purely on a reputational survey - they essentially ask professors at CS programs what they think about other CS programs, which has a lot of pros and cons. CSrankings is based on the number of publications from a particular program/department (and not their impact or importance). I'm looking at CSrankings right now, and Stony Brook (#30) is ranked a bit higher than Oregon State (#36). However, if you just look in AI, Oregon State (#20) is ranked a bit higher than Stony Brook (#34). I'm also looking at the National Research Council rankings, which are older but far more comprehensive; according to them, Stony Brook is ranked somewhere between #7 and #39, whereas Oregon State is ranked somewhere between #52 and #110. Ranking isn't everything, of course; there are lots of other factors to take into consideration. And there are a lot of other things to consider about the PIs aside from their h-index...you also can think about their personality, what they do research in, whether you think their style will be a good fit for your style.

Prestige can be important in tech. It's not the only deciding factor, but it can play a role, especially if you are competing for jobs at top companies within your field. That said, it's certainly possible to get great jobs from a non-prestigious school, especially if you work somewhere else first. The other thing is that the definition of 'prestigious' is also more expansive than most people would imagine - i.e., not just top/elite private schools but also excellent public universities with good programs in your field. I work at a top tech company now. Although both Michigan and Carnegie Mellon are well-represented here, I know way more Michigan grads than CMU grads. (I know more Georgia Tech grads here than I know CMU grads!) Location does matter, but that's something that also can be overcome. Being in a city with a strong presence in the industry you want to work in increases the chances you can make connections and networks in that industry. Lots of times, companies have special relationships with the schools in their city. For example, on my own team, we often go to networking mixers the schools put on for their students; we host tours and career days here at our campus; we go speak on panels and keynote events at local universities/colleges. I'll often go out to a short coffee or lunch with local students who are interested in having an informational with someone in my field. And some companies offer academic-year internships or freelance options to get some experience; I know some graduate students in my field in tech-heavy cities who are doing freelance UX testing/work for startups and small to medium-sized companies. But, I also know lots of students who come from places that are not tech hubs who have landed well. A recent hire on my team came from a city in the Southwest that doesn't have a big tech culture there. I moved here from New York, but I had never worked in technology before coming to my position. Some students do internships over the summer - and in fact, most big tech/biotech companies will offer summer internships. Sometimes, your professors will have worked in those big tech hubs and/or started their own startups and still have connections. Or you may be located in a smaller tech hub that still has thriving connections.

There are lots of software engineers who have bachelor's degrees in all kinds of things. Data analytics/science is potentially close enough to software development that you can get a job in software development if you take enough coding/data structures/other computer science courses. Of course, it's easier if you go to a computer science program, but it's not impossible from a data science one. Also, Ithaca is a small college town, and you may or may not be able to find a position that will allow you to pay for an apartment fully. Even if you do, it may take a couple months into the year. So let's say best case scenario, you'd borrow $27K total for Cornell; worst-case scenario, maybe you borrow about $25K to survive in Ithaca, and your total debt is $52K after one year ($63K with the undergrad debt). Honestly, even that amount of debt is doable to repay on a software engineer's salary. Eh, I think this one's a toss up, especially because the degrees are in totally different fields and would have different career prospects. If you would prefer a career in software development and you know that up front, from a career perspective it makes more sense to choose Cornell, and even from a debt/financial perspective borrowing that much isn't a bad idea. But a sufficiently motivated person could potentially position themselves well for a software development career from the data analytics program at Fordham, and then you'd have zero debt, which is nice.

I considered the QMSS program myself, and while I was in a doctoral program at Columbia I worked with a couple QMSS students (two came through my lab, and several others took classes with me). I don't know for certain, but my sense is that the graduates do pretty well in going to quantitative social sciences PhD programs (although the program does seem slightly more oriented towards QSS jobs in industry).

Would you rather go to C and D than go to B? That's the key question here. If B is a good fit and you'd rather go there than any other place, then go ahead and decline happily. If either or both of C or D are more appealing than B, then gather information. Drop those departments a line and say that you're in the process of considering some offers from other departments and you'd like to get an idea of when you might hear either way from them. This may speed up the process. (Are C and/or D schools that normally interview candidates? If they are, then you may already have your answer - just not formally.)

I would not necessarily take McCombs lower placement into academia as a sign that people cannot get into academia from there. Decision sciences is a field where there are likely many lucrative non-academic options after graduate school, and precisely because of UT-Austin's location in a thriving tech hub, many students who wish to go into industry or who are undecided may choose to attend. The real question is not how many total graduates go into academia, but how many graduates who actually wanted academic jobs got them. This is a question I would ask your potential PI and the advanced graduate students at UT, as they'll have a sense of where recent graduates ended up in the last few years. On the other hand, 95% of Kelley grads may go into academia because Bloomington is a college town and there are fewer 'distractions', so to speak: fewer examples of PhDs leaving academia to go into well-paying jobs in the immediate area. It's easier to keep your eyes on the prize when you're in a small college town and everyone around you is an academic. Were I you, I'd want to go to a department where I felt like I had options. But you also need to choose for fit. Which research group and which department feels like the best fit for you? Can you visit?

@rising_star's right. I live on the West Coast of the U.S., and people are far less familiar with what schools are prestigious and parts of which tony athletic conferences and whatnot. As someone who grew up on the East Coast, I'm continually surprised about what places people recognize and what places people don't. It's not that people won't respect Brown or even know it, but a lot of people won't know it's in the Ivy League, and even if they did that won't be as important to people. Here where I live, I would say it's a toss-up as to whether people would be more familiar with Brown or UNC. I went to an Ivy for my PhD and I agree with @madamoiselle. What you get from the Ivies is not "Ivy League sparkle", it's the resources: great libraries, world-class researchers, excellent equipment and facilities, excellent career services and placements, consortia, etc. The thing is, there are LOTS of other places that can give you those things. UNC is a world-class university that ALSO has all of those things attached to it. Which athletic conference the university is in is hardly material: both of these universities have great reputations, and in certain fields, UNC's actual research and output trumps the elite name of Brown. (For example, in both of my fields of training - public health and psychology - I'd pick UNC over Brown any day of the week.) With that said, especially with a professional master's look at career placement. Where do UNC's grads end up after they finish, and what about Brown's? What networks do they have and do they end up in places that sound appealing to you professionally?

Yes, advisors can definitely make up for lower rankings. Your advisor is going to be a key component in your training and your career connections post-graduation. Sometimes, very talented and well-known (or well-connected) professors end up at lower-ranked schools...for all sorts of reasons. What's really important is the advisor's placement record and research.

What are your career goals? Academia or industry? I work in HCI but I wasn't trained in it, so I have little knowledge of the reputation of most HCI programs. My browsings and the bit that I do know tell me that Michigan and UC-Irvine are both great places - Michigan probably better-reputed, but the two of them not so far apart in the HCI world that it's a huge difference. CU Boulder also seems to have a lot of people publishing and conducting research in HCI despite the program being new - I presume that they were in other departments at Boulder, which isn't a bad thing. A new program isn't really a danger if the professors are established and if the university had strengths and resources in this area before and are just now bringing them together. Poking around on CU's website, it seems that they have several professors who have been honored by SIGCHI and ACM's CHI, and they've got lots of centers and institutes dedicated to HCI-type research. I also recognize Ben Shapiro! I do research in educational games (for a technology company) and have come across his work a lot. I also recognize Tom Yeh in a couple of other areas I've worked in. So it seems like reputation-wise, you can't really go wrong. So I'd then pick by fit with the department, fit with your potential advisor and where you'd like to live for the next 5ish years. -New junior faculty members aren't necessarily so bad. They tend to be 'hungry', and are usually publishing a lot and trying to get grants. They're going to be busy trying to make a name for themselves in their world, and if you are driven and savvy enough to grasp firmly to their coattails, you can do pretty well for yourself. The flip side, though, is that I think you need to be more self-assured and independent to successfully work with a junior faculty member. Some of them are REALLY good at the networking game and can help you create connections and internships pretty well; others are not so good at that, and some simply haven't had the time yet to build up those chains that more experienced professors have. The same is true of mentoring - some of them are naturally good at it or have practiced it in grad school through selected opportunities; others are going to be learning right along with you. If you are naturally a more independent person, this can be good for you, as you can kind of guide your professor to get exactly what you want out of the relationship. If you need a bit more guidance and support - especially if you are still figuring out your area of expertise or what you'd like to do after grad school - then this may not be adequate support. The advice that I always have is that if you are going to be mentored by a junior faculty member, try finding a more senior faculty member who can serve as a secondary mentor (even informally). -Don't worry so much about the university's housing issues; think about the broader picture of housing across the city and local area. There are lots of places where most doctoral students actually get off-campus apartments. Sometimes, they are less expensive than the on-campus ones; sometimes, they are better-maintained and have more amenities and features than the on-campus ones. Sometimes, the university simply doesn't have enough units. So I wouldn't let UC-Irvine's good housing sway you or Boulder's weird situation deter you. The PhD students who attend must live somewhere: ask them about the true housing situation, looking holistically at regular apartments on the market in addition to the university's resources. -Again, even though CU may not have had this specific program before, they do have a long-standing strength in HCI. It's just that most of them appear to have graduated from the PhD program in computer sciences in the past (with maybe some from communication or media studies, based on the professors who participate in the program). Ask the professors in the program where they have placed students in the past and where they expect students to be able to go after graduating from the new program. Honestly, it seems like you can't really go wrong as these are three excellent programs. CU-Boulder, from your perspective, seems to have the fewest cons in terms of who you will work with, your fit with the department and with the location, your partner's needs, a great location close to larger cities and a thriving small tech industry, and weather. The only downside from your perspective, IMO, seems to be mostly addressed by the long-standing reputation of the professors who were already in other departments and have placed lots of students in HCI before there was a formal information science program.

Relocating and living in NYC - don't worry about that. Lots of people do it, and you can too if you want to. They're not decisions to be undertaken lightly of course - but they are completely doable things and you can succeed and thrive at them. The question is whether NYU is as good a fit for you as UNLV and whether it's affordable. The full-time teaching program sounds like it brings NYU to be pretty close in price to UNLV (assuming $16K a year at UNLV, since it's $8K a semester). But that also assumes that you can get a full-time teaching position in New York in enough time to qualify for the tuition cut. Do you think this is possible? What does the teaching market look like in your field in New York? The cost of living in New York is also way higher than Las Vegas, and it's not uncommon for teachers (especially teachers who are also students) to have roommates, sharing an apartment with 1-2 other people. Think about whether you would have to borrow money to supplement your income in NYC. Also, this sounds like a history MA and not an M.Ed. How flexible is the program at NYU for full-time teachers? Are the classes offered in the evenings and weekends? Basically, are you actually going to be able to continue to work as a full-time teacher to keep your tuition low in NYU? Sounds like UNLV is the same price regardless of whether you are teaching or not. Lastly, are you planning to stay/return to Nevada after graduating?

I know at least four or five people who got their PhDs in neuroscience at UW-Seattle and now work in industry. Two of them (including a close friend of mine) work with me at a large tech company as user experience researchers. The other ones I know are in their extended network; they all work at large, successful technology companies in industry. They generally had very positive experiences in grad school; some of them described their labs as feeling like a family, the department as tight-knit, and the training (both science and professional) as being very good. (I'm sure that UCLA has connections into industry as well; I'm just speaking about what I know second-hand. The industry in LA may be more diversified. Up here in Seattle, it feels like everyone works in tech, which isn't true but that's how it feels. That's great if you would like to work in tech and maybe not so great if you don't.) I currently live in Seattle. It doesn't actually rain all the time here. We get less total rainfall than most major East Coast cities. It's very often gray here between November and April, and often there's a light drizzle or mist. The rain is so light most people walk around without umbrellas - I went to San Francisco for a business trip last week and was surprised to see all the people carrying umbrellas around, lol, because I'd gone so long without seeing people really having them. The temperature's usually mild; it doesn't get much below around 30-40 degrees in the winter and much over around 80 degrees in the summer (with the exception of one week, usually in July or August. There's always one week.) The summers here are absolutely beautiful, though. Mild and delightful with lots to do. And I actually don't really mind the winters that much. They're gray and it gets dark kind of early, but they're not cold. LA, of course, has wonderful weather - bright and sunny year-round if you like that sort of thing, warm to very warm all the time. (I'm laughing at myself now because I'm making a face writing about it - I never thought I'd be the kind of person who appreciates the gray mistiness of Seattle, but I really like it!) Seattle's rental prices are expensive but not compared to LA. This is going to be the less expensive place to live as a grad student.

Yes, I agree - if you can at least give us the name of the schools and your broad field, we can be of more help. That's not enough information to really identify you. With that said, in a general sense - it kind of depends on your field and what you want to do after grad school. I can say that in industry, a "brand" name can help you career-wise, although what's considered a 'brand name' is pretty broad. That can include traditionally elite private schools (like the aforementioned Harvard or Cornell) as well as prestigious public universities (like Michigan, UCLA, Berkeley). And this is going to vary by field - North Dakota State, I have heard, is very good in aviation sciences. Rutgers is a powerhouse in philosophy, although not traditionally thought of when people name prestigious public universities. On the flip side, your PhD program's reputation may be very important if you want to get a tenure-track job in English or philosophy; maybe not so much if you are looking for industry positions in engineering. So the question is, are you talking about actual brand name or are you talking about reputation in your field? I would absolutely choose funding over brand name if the difference was large enough. If we're talking about full finding vs. no money at all, then absolutely I would take the full funding.

I'm sure it's possible, but it seems terribly inconvenient. Having a portable, lightweight laptop will make your life a lot easier. One alternative is to get a tablet and take notes on that, but by the time you get a tablet with a keyboard to take notes in class or the kind that you can use a stylus with you could probably get an inexpensive laptop for a similar price.

Super livable. I got my PhD at Columbia and my stipend was pretty comparable to that. You will need a roommate or roommates and will need to choose an affordable neighborhood to live in. If you go through the university housing you can live in Morningside Heights, nearby Columbia; if you choose an off-campus apartment that neighborhood will likely be out of your reach, and neighborhoods like Harlem and Washington Heights will be more affordable.

There are LOTS of trainings and opportunities in the health disparities and social sciences. What specifically are you looking for? Pre-doctoral programs, summer projects, travel/research abroad projects, grants, dissertation fellowships, postdoctoral fellowships, etc.?

Don't do an unfunded PhD. In addition to the above, consider that unfunded students are far more likely to drop out of their programs and are less likely to get the kinds of experiences (like publications etc.) that help them reach towards academic jobs.

While reputation is important, in certain fields the absolute order is more important than others. In engineering, there is generally less competition for academic positions because there are so many lucrative/appealing non-academic for engineering PhDs, so students from a wider range of programs are competitive for top academic positions than in some other fields. To that end, I don't think there will be a huge difference coming from a top 10 program and a top 5 program. That said, even if there was you shouldn't ever choose a program where you're not adequately funded, especially if you have the option of a program with good funding. School A or School C sound like viable options for you, and it seems like you prefer School A. You can wait and see (or ask) what funding looks like at School B but I definitely wouldn't attend without full funding.

Yes, yes, one hundred times yes. I got my PhD from an Ivy. Departments are going to vary a lot across the same university, so I wouldn't necessarily assume that the department is less nurturing or supportive just because it's at an Ivy. I did my PhD across two departments. One was quite supportive and relatively normal-ish, whereas the other one was less supportive. The overall university vibe, though, was pretty normal. The undergrads were the ones who were competitive and stressy, but the grad students were generally pretty laid-back: definitely about their business and their work, but in a way that was more like "normal more-demanding-than-average job" and less "pressure cooker." We were in a social psychology consortium with Yale and Princeton and I got a similar vibe about their students (Princeton seemed a little more stressy; Yale seemed about on par with us; but this was only outside observation a few times a year, so I'm no expert.) However, I will say that support and good mentorship are absolutely KEY to both your chances of completing the program and your ability to get good jobs afterwards. Sometimes, the attitude at my university tended to be "Well, of course you'll get a job - you go to Columbia" instead of actually taking the time to develop professional skills and helping students network, as if we were supposed to learn that stuff simply by osmosis. Again, departments varied (one of my departments was much better about trying to prepare people for actual jobs than the other), so I would give you this advice for any prestigious program regardless of whether or not it's an Ivy. It's also just easier to deal with all that being a doctoral student brings if you have support and understanding from your mentors and the department around you. Also...depending on your field the Ivy League may not be as impressive as you'd think. I'm a psychologist and while Ivy programs are generally pretty good, some of our best-reputed programs are actually at large public universities like UCLA, Michigan, Berkeley, Minnesota, Wisconsin and UIUC. I would turn down an Ivy for some of those places. (In my field, UIUC is ranked higher than Princeton.) I don't think you'd necessarily regret it forever. There's no real way to know, honestly. I think if you end up somewhere you're happy you won't wonder. And if you end up somewhere you're unhappy you might, but I think that would happen regardless of whether or not you chose an Ivy. But I also believe that because I don't think that Ivy League educations (grad or undergrad) are necessarily the golden ticket for a perfect life in most fields as some people tend to think. I think it does open doors, particularly in non-academic careers, where people may not be aware of departmental/field rankings but are more familiar with overall university quality. But there are lots of other ways to open doors. I mean, don't let imposter syndrome stop you. You are good enough to do excellently at an Ivy. But if you believe the environment is not a good fit for you, don't let a brand-name sticker make you choose a bad fit.

Well, you want to think about other things like reputation in your subfield and your personal fit with the department and the PI. YOUR top choice won't necessarily be the top 5 school, depending on your research area and your personal preferences. (Maybe you like the lifestyle that UCLA or Columbia offers you better than the one at MIT or CMU!) But this is going to vary a lot by field. In some really crowded fields (like the humanities) smaller differences in rankings/reputation may make the difference between tenure-track jobs and not. In fields where there are fewer competitors for TT positions (like accounting or economics) the small differences matter less. I'm guessing data science is closer to the latter end of the field, just because there are so many super lucrative opportunities for data scientists outside of academia. So I would imagine a graduate of a top 20 program (with the requisite publications et al.) would be pretty competitive on the academic market. I would also advise asking the professors at these programs for placement results from previous years. Where are grads getting jobs?

I'm happy where I ended up. But if I could go back in time and change how I evaluated programs or include new criteria I hadn't thought much about before (or emphasize the ones that I did that ended up being really important), here's what I'd highlight. Opportunities/professionalization for career preparation. I would put this at or near the top of the list. Basically, how committed does your department seem to be to getting their graduates prepared for post-graduation jobs - not just in hiring drones who will help them accomplish their own research or help them avoid teaching undergraduates? Talking to other graduate students (especially those who are close to finishing up) and to the professors themselves will be illuminating in this category. What kinds of professionalization activities do they hold (grant workshops, presentation practices, brown bags, CV/cover letter/teaching statement workshops, etc.)? When you talk to your potential PI, what do they talk about? Do they mention their students writing papers, giving presentations, doing whatever else it is they need to do in your field to get a job? When you talk to the DGS, what are they most proud about in the department? Look to the university, too - does the career services office have services for PhDs? Mine had excellent ones, like an annual conference about teaching at small liberal arts colleges (they invited professors from top SLACs to come in and talk about their jobs and the application process), CV and statement review, etc. They also had fellowship application workshops and a whole office dedicated to helping students get those prestigious national fellowships and grants. Check out the support the department and university has for non-academic career placement, too. Even if you know you want to be a professor, your goals may change by desire or necessity. You don't want to be in a department that's hostile to the very idea of leaving the academy so you can feed your family. You also don't want a department that says that they want or expect people to get academic jobs but offers no kind of help for them to get there. People/vibe, especially are they workaholics? In my experience, I was the most successful as a graduate student not when I was grinding out 80-hour weeks but when I took a balanced approach to preserving my mental health and personal life and doing the best high-quality work I could. I was in two different departments because of my joint program; one department supported that more than the other, and it definitely made me a little lopsided in that I understandably spent more time in the department where I felt like my approach and commitment matched the others' around me. You have to pick what matches YOUR personal mantra of achievement. You don't want to be in a department where everyone demands 100-hour weeks if you were looking for a more balanced approach - but neither do you want to be in a department of slackers if you're a hard-driving student. So talk to the students and the professors about their expectations and experiences of work for graduate students. This will also vary by professor (even within the same department, some professors expect more face/lab time than others). Location/city: I ended up picking a place I LOVED living as a doctoral student, despite the expense. But this was kind of by accident. When I was earlier in my grad career, I would tell aspiring doctoral students to devalue location and think about that as a lower priority on their list. Now, my advice is very different...location is important. You may spend more time than you expect in your grad program (it took me 6 years to finish, and in my program, that was fast). You may meet a spouse there. You may begin or continue raising your family there. You will build a network there, even if only by accident. The point is...you want to have a life outside of your doctoral program, even if it's relatively minimal, and you never know how long you'll end up there, so pick a place that you'd want to live for the foreseeable future and that matches the lifestyle you want to have. If you love to travel you don't want to live anywhere with a tiny airport (or worse, that is 2 hours from the nearest airport). If you want to take Soul Cycle classes you'll need to be in an urban area; if you like the mountains and the rivers then you'll want to be somewhere nearby good outdoorsy stuff...etc. Basically, don't cut off the person you are just because you want a doctoral degree. Furthermore, I never realized how much networking I would do almost by accident. New York is a hub for public health, and just by virtue of making a lot of friends with MPH students (many of whom ended up staying in New York) and doing research that involved community public health organizations, I had a LOT of contacts that come my last few years of grad school I could've hit up for career opportunities had I wanted to stay in New York. As someone who was also considering non-academic opportunities, being in a big city like New York allowed me to do an internship that indirectly led to me getting the job I have now. Professional orgs that have chapters often have chapters in larger cities and some major college towns (in the tech industry, that includes Ann Arbor and Corvallis, but not necessarily State College or Burlington). Even if you want academia and especially teaching, some areas offer more opportunities than others - bigger and even medium-sized cities often have more colleges (including community colleges) where you could pick up some adjunct work, or work in their academic affairs office or do some other kind of program. (I worked with undergraduates at an affiliated undergrad college.) So it's not just about personal life but also about professional development. Cost of living. Corollary to the above. Universities do not often care whether or not their stipend makes any kind of sense in comparison to the cost of living in a city. When I was in New York I knew doctoral students with a wide range of stipends - ranging from as low as $18,000 in some programs at different universities. While you don't need much, having some cash to spend (and maybe save a little) will make your life a bit easier. You don't want to be worrying about the third chapter of your dissertation and how you are going to pay rent at the same time. And you don't want debt. (And honestly, living without multiple roommates is nice, too. Having one or two is okay, but I knew some folks who lived 5-6 deep in apartments in the city...that didn't sound appealing to me.)

There's no one-size-fits-all answer to this question - it really depends on the professor's personality and competing interests. In addition to what was said above, since assistant professors are usually untenured professors, they are generally striving towards tenure. That means different things at different universities. At elite, competitive universities, not every new assistant professor may get tenure (in fact, at many of these places most new assistant professors do not get tenure, and end up moving somewhere else somewhere between their third and seventh years on the tenure track). So the struggle is real, and often these professors are very busy trying to do all the things they need to do in order to be competitive: earn grants, write papers, give talks at conferences, become nationally or internationally known. There are pros and cons: these professors are very scientifically active, so if you are a savvy person you can latch onto this momentum and use it to get your own pubs, grants, and papers at conferences. The cons are that these professors are generally building their labs, their networks, and their advisor style, so you are more or less a guinea pig for them in many respects. (Even that can sometimes be a pro: there are lots of things I did as a doctoral student that my old PI currently has undergraduate RAs doing, or has more staff to do, but I think I became more self-sufficient because of it, and learned interesting skills.) They are generally less well-connected than their more senior peers - but even that's not universally true. I've seen some superstar assistant professors who know EVERYBODY and are thought of very favorably. (One of my close friends is an assistant professor at a large prestigious R1 university, and she's got a sprawling and strong network in our field. She's also good at introducing you around to everybody; I met a lot of bigwigs in the field through her.) Associate professors are usually professors who have 6+ years of experience in the game and have earned tenure. There's a wide range; some associate professors never get promoted to full professor, so you could be working with an associate professor who just got tenure last year or an associate professor who's been around for 20 years. Generally speaking they tend to be in the 7-15 year range, though. These folks typically have more stable funding (but not always!) and more developed networks (but again, not always) than assistant professors. They're also less likely to leave the department than assistant professors...usually. But elite universities often poach superstars, and if you find yourself doing your doctoral degree particularly at an R2 or a less active R1, these associate professors are sometimes angling to get a better position at a higher-tier school. My point is simply that working with an associate professor doesn't necessarily mean they won't leave. (My own former department managed to snag quite a few high-flying associate and full professors from other strong programs, including one full professor who was deeply entrenched with another department and who I thought would never leave.) And full professors generally have been around for 12-15 years or more. They've earned tenure long ago, and also got another promotion. They tend to have the deepest roots and the widest networks. Again, there's no guarantee - it kind of depends on how gregarious and professionally savvy they are. Associate and full professors also aren't necessarily less research active than their less advanced peers; there are lots of folks who have been in the game for a long time and are still very passionate and active in their research. But often the quality is very different; at top programs, full professors and more advanced associate professors may have an army of undergrad RAs, grad students, and postdocs to do most of the day to day research work for them and they do more planning and management and research direction. My advice is always if you go with an assistant professor (especially one who's been around for less than 3-4 years) that acquiring an official or unofficial second advisor who is more advanced is usually a good idea. I had two advisors in grad school: my primary advisor was at the time an untenured assistant professor who had just passed third-review, I think, when I started; my secondary advisor was a full professor who was admired in the field and had been around for quite a long time (he was on my primary advisor's dissertation committee, hee hee). I feel like I got the best of both worlds with their advisement together. Which one has more time? There's no guarantees for that, either. I would say that generally speaking full professors have the most time, but only in the sense that there are a lot fewer constraints on their time. They usually have more assistants in the lab and have an easier time generating money, so in theory, more of their time is unstructured. Assistant professors have to spend a lot of time writing, writing, writing, and at certain types of programs when they hit year ~5 they go on what I call their Tenure World Tour (they have to establish that they are nationally known, so they start speaking at conferences all over the damn place). But some assistant professors are just very good at managing their time and will make time for their advisees.

Keep an open mind about that, too. Remember that while a dissertation is the longest thing that takes the most time out of all the things you'll do, it's not the only or even the most important goal of doing a PhD. Your PI is important for a variety of other reasons, and your interests may change and shift significantly in the time you are in your PhD program. In fact, they probably will - you will learn so much and experience so much that you haven't already. My eventual dissertation topic was almost completely different from what I thought it would be when I was applying to graduate school. (Same general area, very broadly speaking, but completely different population and outcomes.) Sometimes, it's better to do a dissertation/work under a PI who's field is not perfectly aligned with yours but is a good advisor for a variety of other reasons: maybe they've got excellent connections, or maybe they are a really good advisor and give you the freedom to do what you want to do, or maybe they have the best funding and will help you get grants, or maybe they're great at helping you get pubs. You have to take all of those factors into account in addition to the research. That's why it's a good idea to identify multiple people - because sometimes the person whose research is best aligned with yours isn't really the best match for your style of learning and research and work. Go to the open house, and pick 2-3 chemistry professors to speak to (or 3-4, depending on how much time you have). Try to select people based on tangential interests or places where your work might intersect...and then talk to them AND their graduate students. Try to get a sense for how open they are to interdisciplinary work, or work that intersects with theirs, and how independent they allow their graduate students to be. I've known several doctoral students who work under an advisor whose research is actually quite different from theirs, but that advisor is senior, well-connected, well-resourced, and allows and encourages independence from their students while also being a great source of advice and learning. In those cases, the students usually have a secondary advisor in another department (and sometimes another nearby university) whose research is more in their area. You may find someone who is amenable to that setup. Don't ask directly, but put some feelers out. You still may decide that ultimately it's not the right choice for you, but at least do your due diligence in making sure it can't work out. Also, it is VERY early yet, so you may yet receive a response from BBMB.

@TakeruK I thought that might be the explanation, too. But according to our national survey - the Survey of Earned Doctorates, conducted by the National Science Foundation - in 2016, people in the life sciences, physical sciences, mathematics and computer sciences, and engineering made up 58% of earned doctorates in the U.S. The numbers in 2011 were pretty similar. Psychology and the social sciences only made up about 17% of the total (in the United States under the auspices of the NSF, they are considered STEM degrees, but the Survey of Earned Doctorates does break them out) and humanities and arts only made up about 10% of the total. (The other degrees are in education and other professional fields, like business and nursing).