thomaspane

agree. phd is a professional training for an academic career. job placement might be the most important factor we should take into account in considering a phd program. some well-known scholars can definitely derive up the ranking of a specific program, since the research quality weighs heavily in the ranking system. a good and responsible professor is supposed to spend more time on students' training and jobhunting. but I think job is a product of multiple causes. besides advisor's part, the student's performance, publication and subfield, the reputation of a given program in community of political scientists, market demand and budget constraint all play some role. maybe a longitudinal multivariate regression analysis can offer a better answer. the interesting thing there is a multicollinearity between publication and general reputation. according to a professor, importance of publication is negatively related to the reputation of a program, which means the better a program is, the less press for producing pulication a student is faced with. NRC's regression ranking is based on survey of faculties, who choose a score on 1-7 scale. And then, if we take an average of the highest and lowest rank for a program, we can get a result which should be closer to that done by usnews.

Oh, really? that's too weird and dishonest. But it is because this is a very small program.

I see Binghamton ranks high in NRC ranking (S-based:5-20; R-based:23-49). But I have no idea about the real situation of their phd program. Any experiences, "rumors" or thoughts are greatly welcomed and appreciated.

Bases on previous results, Maryland seems already done with the admission. People who received offer in March (through mail) for the past years were international students living outside the states. will this year be different? hope so!