Reputation from Duna - The GradCafe Forums

Duna reacted to somewhat weird in how much does program prestige matter? March 11, 2017

I am merely reporting the themes from my conversations with tenured professors. Princeton, Oxford, etc. have delivered some sub-par professors to our school. It was the opinion of the profs. that gave me this perspective. Sorry if their opinions are insulting to you. But I tend to think they know better about the situation than I do. I'm sorry that you disagree. Also, since you are so lacking in logic and insight that you think that my lack of interest in disclosing my location indicates that I am "ill-equipped," you should probably withdraw your candidacy for a PhD and just go get a job.

Duna reacted to CommPhD20 in how much does program prestige matter? March 11, 2017

Communication is a highly heterogeneous field for the social sciences; enough so that many self-described "communication" programs might take issue with the claim that they are social scientists (instead affiliating with the humanities). This makes some aspects of cross-program comparisons difficult.
For instance, my program often ranks at or near the top of lists of programs with the most-cited faculty members. On one hand, that's because it's a great program! On the other, there are other great programs that won't rank or anywhere near mine by that sort of metric. Why? Well, my program is strongly rooted in the quantitative empirical tradition, mostly inheriting its approach from social psychology (just one of several important intellectual forebears of our field). This way of doing things lends itself to a large number of publications. Other subfields are more focused on publishing book-length manuscripts or using methods that preclude anyone publishing 5-15 papers each year in reputable outlets.
Unlike some other fields for which outlets like US News and World Report has an influential ranking, there are no "official" program rankings in communication that many in the field would ever bother to look at. That means there is probably considerable disagreement about which programs are best and it is something particularly vulnerable to the subfield of the beholder. Still, I would assert that there's a boost that goes along with program prestige. It is one thing among several that will get your application a second look.
But of course program prestige is confounded with many other things. The more prestigious programs tend to support their students better in terms of stipends, health benefits, and so on, so all else being equal they could be preferred by an applicant on those grounds. Further, due to their prestige they are better able to choose from the best applicants (who like anyone else must be developed into scholars), so they get a head start in that way as well. These programs also tend to have more research resources, which enables their faculty to maintain their own standing in the field and also allows graduate students to become involved in and perhaps lead influential research that simply couldn't be done in places without the means. Again, that is somewhat subfield-specific; a rhetorician probably doesn't need eye-tracking equipment or a big budget for representative surveys. Last, when hitting the job market grad students from these programs have recommendations from influential faculty members who will be known to and respected by hiring committees.
So all of the above mostly comes independent of good training, which can be provided by people who aren't "famous" in their field or endowed with all the resources to publish high-impact research. Some of this then depends on your career goals. Many of the benefits of being in a prestigious program are useful only to those hoping to stay within academia. Becoming a competent professional doesn't require some of those things.
Communication is a bit more egalitarian than some other fields, due in part to its youth as a field and its healthy job market, but it's still relatively rare to see graduates "move up" in terms of prestige when comparing their PhD-issuing institution and their hiring institution. Some of this may be due to pure prestige, some may be due to those other factors I outlined which just happen to co-occur with program prestige.
My advice is to focus on job placement. A program that can't furnish detailed job placement information about all of its graduates should be viewed with suspicion. And when they give you that job placement information, look at it. Think about the median job placement in the program. Does that sound good to you? You should also poke around about retention and time to degree. If a program meticulously pushes out students who are unlikely to get a job, it may give false confidence about your own prospects. And if you are going to wait 10 years to get your PhD, the opportunity cost might be too much.

Duna reacted to somewhat weird in how much does program prestige matter? March 8, 2017

I agree with some of the comments here. My own institution has had some negative experience with hiring fresh PhDs from top tier universities. I'm actually appalled at how ill-equipped a lot of them are compared to a lot of less prestigious, merely Masters degree holding professors. Someone at my school actually admitted that the quality of work and also the innovation of research projects is better from less prestigious rural college graduates, who they are looking to hire as new professors. I think they totally look at your work. Maybe the university could break a tie, but I think they want to hire PhDs who will do better work in the end. That's just the sense I'm getting.

Duna got a reaction from somewhat weird in how much does program prestige matter? February 20, 2017

I want to agree /w what letsberealhere responded to you already and disagree strongly with point 1) and I also don't believe that programs at less prestigious universities will require you to do less work (point 2)). That's even somewhat rude to imply imho. As letsberealhere already stated, the higher ranking schools usually fund much better because they have more grants and higher endowment. Kinda makes sense, huh?
I attend one of the prestigious schools. I'm ABD and hopefully finishing up next summer. I don't want to go into academia so I could not care less about the academic job market these days. However, there is a paper or report or something the NCA did several years ago and it describes how productive programs were, where alumni ended up and where the current faculty got their PhDs and it was pretty obvious from that data that 80% of jobs go to graduates of the same approximately 15 programs. Why? Have you studied networks at all? Maybe worth looking into this... Communication is a very small field and preferential attachment is a thing. If you are from one of the 15-20 programs then you will most likely find an alumni of your program at any other of these departments. You usually get in touch with current faculty easily during conferences etc. Do I think connections matter more than publications? No. Do they matter more after you can present your one or two published papers and show sufficient teaching experience? Oh hell yeah. This speaks to your own point "you present yourself with a cover letter and references". Yep, REFERENCES. So which references might matter more?
The actual question is whether you should choose fit over prestige or vice versa. Here, I think you need to find a balance.
I still don't get point 2) after I read through it 3 times now. Why would you fail a prestigious program but won't fail a less prestigious one? Shouldn't the pressure be way higher if you don't have the prestige of your program and the funding (that you don't seem to know of) to get you places? Your logic seems flawed. I once compared myself to some people in my program and got very upset because we really do have impressive scholars in our ranks. A professor told me: "You don't have to compete with them. You're already in the top 5% because you are in this program. The other 95% need to worry."
I don't necessarily believe this and I know people will go nuts on my butts for writing this here but I just like to cause some tension.

Duna got a reaction from gradswag in how much does program prestige matter? February 20, 2017

Given that your current location is "no where important", I don't think your input seems to contribute much to the case. Ill-equipped compared to someone who only holds a Masters degree? That's just somewhat insulting. Following your own argument, you should probably withdraw your applications for PhD programs and just settle on an MA program.
I'm glad I could help.

Duna got a reaction from heyDW in how much does program prestige matter? February 20, 2017

Given that your current location is "no where important", I don't think your input seems to contribute much to the case. Ill-equipped compared to someone who only holds a Masters degree? That's just somewhat insulting. Following your own argument, you should probably withdraw your applications for PhD programs and just settle on an MA program.
I'm glad I could help.

Duna got a reaction from mkm2119 in Communication/Media Studies Ph.D Fall 2015--Apps, Decisions, and Waiting... March 2, 2015