Advice from an actual PhD

[realist]

Advice from an actual PhD

I am a tenure-track assistant prof in political science at a large state university. I was just informed of this forum by one of my students who has been active on it. In reading through the threads, I couldn't help but think about all the things that I wish that I had known before entering my PhD program. So with that, I thought that I'd give you some advice. While some of this may be hard to read, I offer it as-is, with only the thought that more knowledge is better than less knowledge.

CHOOSING GRADUATE SCHOOL

Your graduate school choice is probably the most important choice that you'll make in your career. Do not take this lightly. There are many reasons, but they boil down to some uncomfortable truths.

1. Only the best schools place students in academic jobs. While there are thousands of universities in the United States, there are many many many thousand more political science PhDs. 5-7 years is a very long time to spend in a low-paying job (which is what graduate school is) only to realize that you have chance for promotion. Even at top 10 institution, a good half of entering students do not end up with a PhD and a tenure track job. Is it fair that this is the case? No. Are there very smart graduate students that are not at top departments? Absolutely, there are literally thousands of them. But this is how the world works. And you have no chance to change it from "the inside" unless you are already at a top department.

2. Advisers are fickle beings. Especially outside of the top institutions, they are busy and pressed for time, and they cannot offer you the type of guidance and support that you may believe that you are going to get. I had a very close relationship with a very influential adviser, and saw him for about 10 minutes once every two or three weeks. This is the norm. Do not think that you will have a different experience. Moreover, good scholars are often terrible advisers. I think that one of the worst aspects of our profession is that at middle-range departments, top scholars often will not even acknowledge graduate students.

3. Graduate school is an unequal partnership between students, who receive very little and give very much, and faculty, who have many other things to do but rely on students to do things that are in the university's best interests. Graduate students are (1) essentially powerless and (2) extremely cheap labor. Universities have an incentive to keep a lot of graduate students around to fill instructor slots and TAships. This means that they will keep on a lot of graduate students who will never have a chance at a tenure-ladder job. This is a pathological system of incentives, and I find it repugnant, but this is the reality.

So what sort of advice does this lead me to give? First off, above and beyond almost anything, you need to go to the best possible graduate school. It doesn't matter if you don't like Ann Arbor as much as Athens or Austin, graduate school matters tremendously for your future ability to get a job. At nearly every university or college, a PhD from Michigan will get your file looked at when applying for jobs. I know that this sounds harsh, but for most jobs, a job file from a school out of the top 25 won't even be considered. It will just go on the trash. Let this sink in.

As a corollary, you need to think long and hard about graduate school if you do not have the opportunity to go to a top one. You should understand that you may not have a good chance of landing a tenure track job. The one's available to you, moreover, will likely be at "directional institutions" (think Northern X State) or small, low-ranked liberal arts colleges in the middle of nowhere. Even there, you will be competing with Harvard and Berkeley PhDs for a job. It's hard. It's not as hard as English or History, but nevertheless it's really hard. You should know this and plan accordingly.

Do not choose graduate school based on who you "want to work with." Graduate students very seldom "work with" an adviser. If they do, this is *at best* as a second author, and even this is rare, and almost never enough to get you a job. This also assumes that your research interests don't change (RARE) and that your adviser is a nice and approachable person (OCCASIONAL). Remember, they are approachable during recruitment because you provide them with an unlimited supply of discount labor. They have their own worries and incentives, and these rarely align with yours.

Likewise, funding matters. My general advice is that outside of a top 25 institution, you should not go to graduate school unless you have a full ride and a stipend large enough to live on. Without these, graduate school is a long and expensive process with little reward. There is a constant demand for doctors, so doctors can pay for medical school and still come out ahead. $200,000 in debt and only qualified for a very low paying job is a terrible situation that many PhDs find themselves in.

It is tempting to think that a potential advisor's kind words mean that you are special. You are special, but so are many many others. Wherever you are, you will likely not even be the smartest or most successful member of your cohort. Do not fool yourself into thinking that you are the one who will buck the trends that I have described. It's just not likely.

Finally, I have made a big point about top 25 schools. We all know that Stanford is and Purdue isn't, but what's the definitive list? Simply put, if you have to ask, your school is not in the top 25.

YOUR CAREER

If you decide to go to graduate school, congratulations. I mean this sincerely. You are embarking on the most intellectually rewarding period of your life. (Of course, intellectually and financially rewarding are not the same, as I mentioned previously.) Here are some brief tips.

The best political scientists are the following five things: smart, creative, diligent, honest, and nice. Smart is obvious. The rest are not.

The best political scientists are creative. They look at old problems in new ways, or they find new problems to look at. A good way to land a middling job (or no job) is to find a marginal improvement on an existing estimator, or take lessons from Paraguay and apply them to Uruguay. The best political scientists show us how our estimators are incorrect, or better yet, find new things to estimate.

The best political scientists are diligent. They think about problems for years and years, they rewrite their draft papers repeatedly, they collect giant datasets from scratch, and they go into the field, learn the language, and stay there until they have learned something. There are no quick research trips, there are no obvious philosophical points, and there are no datasets that you can download with results you can write up in a week.

The best political scientists are honest. There are many points at which you might fudge your work: creating a new dataset from scratch, during fieldwork, in writing up your results. You will be astounded at how frequent this is in our profession. Don't do it, for it always hurts you in the end. Being wrong and honest about it is OK. Being wrong and hiding it never works.

Finally, the best political scientists are nice. It is tempting to be prickly to make yourself seem smart or to protect your ego. But the same person you criticize today might be in a position to give you a job tomorrow. As they say, make your words soft and sweet, for you never know when you may have to eat them.

************

I hope this helps you all. I wish you the very best of luck with your careers.

[polisciphd]

Very interesting stuff. Thank you for your input. The situation that I am finding myself in is that I got into a top 25 school (number 22 on US News) but am wondering if I should not accept the offer and try again next year, with the hope of getting in a higher ranked school. The only thing I can reasonably change in my application package would be my gre scores, I have a 1290 now but was scoring closer to 1370 on the practice exams beforehand. My only worry is that I turn down my current offer (with which I have a full ride, stipend, fellowship, etc) on a gamble. Would it matter, say, if I managed to go up a few spots on the list, maybe up to 17 or 18, or should I go with what I have? Thanks.

[Hybrid Nomad]

Thank you for these scary, but I fear rather appropriate points of advice. I have heard similar things both from my own undergraduate professors and from the Chronicles of Higher Education/blog posts etc.

However, given that I have made the decision to go to graduate school, I was wondering if you could give some further advice on how to best succeed in gradschool ( and preferably finish without spending 10 years on the PhD)? The general pointers are appreciated, but for me the devil is always in the details. So, given that you have managed to complete Graduate school and get placed in a tenure-track position what are some pointers you can give to an incoming graduate student? What are things that have worked well for you through the years, and what are things that you wish you had known when you started? How did you organize your work, both in terms of general time management and in terms of keeping track of papers,ideas, datasets etc. ? I am aware that many of these preferences are personal, but it would still be insightful to see how others have reached the place that we eventually hope to reach.

Thank you

PS: On a slightly silly note, is anybody else slightly bummed that now that the pain of rejection letters is fading and the excitement of acceptance is becoming less, a whole NEW mountain of things to worry about is emerging?

[polisciapp]

Finally, I have made a big point about top 25 schools. We all know that Stanford is and Purdue isn't, but what's the definitive list? Simply put, if you have to ask, your school is not in the top 25.

This makes it seem like the T-25 is a definitive list; but there are different rankings systems and lots of gray area around the the rankings. Off of which ranking system are you basing this? Can you give us a reference point?

[yoon7724]

On a similar note, when you say "top 25", do you mean top 25 overalll or in each sub-field? Care to elaborate?

[lenin333]

This is the advice that I hear all the time. A PhD is a horrible opportunity cost to bear if you aren't getting a top notch degree. At least in a field like econ you can get out while you can with an MA and find some work. For me, I am pretty sure even if I get in to any of my remaining picks I will not go. I would rather get a MS in Finance or Economics. Five more years of grad school drama is not for me.

The one point that I really do agree with is that grad school is the most intellectually stimulating period of your life. My MA experience has shown me that for sure.

Good luck to all.

[rising_star]

Very interesting stuff. Thank you for your input. The situation that I am finding myself in is that I got into a top 25 school (number 22 on US News) but am wondering if I should not accept the offer and try again next year, with the hope of getting in a higher ranked school. The only thing I can reasonably change in my application package would be my gre scores, I have a 1290 now but was scoring closer to 1370 on the practice exams beforehand. My only worry is that I turn down my current offer (with which I have a full ride, stipend, fellowship, etc) on a gamble. Would it matter, say, if I managed to go up a few spots on the list, maybe up to 17 or 18, or should I go with what I have? Thanks.

I think you'd be crazy to pass up a full ride for a "maybe/what-if". If anything, go to the school and if you hate it, leave with a MA and apply to other top 25 programs.

[realist]

polisciapp, yoon7724

The top 25 question is difficult, so use the rule of thumb that I told you. If you are not sure, it's not. Do not pay attention to subfield. Do not try to find one list where your school is 20 and pick that list as your basis for comparison.

If there's even a question as to whether your department is in the top 25, it's not.

[polisciapp]

I guess my problem lies in that I can only discern the top 10 Us (e.g., Har. Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Mich, UCB,). After the obvious 5-10, I don't really know where everyone stands. For example, if we are going off lay-prestige, I would say Penn is better than Wisconsin, but not so according to these rankings. Can you help with that?

[MissingVandyCandy]

I just spent all of 5 minutes debunking the myth that a top 25 Political Science PhD is needed to earn tenure as a professor of Politics at a prestigious or quality 4 year college or university. The OP was correct, however, in saying that it is highly correlated to earning such a job. That said, there are many outliers. For example, go to Bowdoin College's (liberal arts yes, but not a slouch school or government department by any means) Government home page. Sure many UW-Madison and Ohio State professors, but the Fletcher School and the New School (both not top Poli Sci programs) are the PhD alma mater of 3 full tenured profs. I'm sure one could find examples elsewhere. While I agree with the OP sentiments that folks shouldn't walk into this process blindly (all PhDs are not and never will be created equal), who you "work with" even if you aren't buddy buddy with them or writing articles with them matters. A strong letter in your dossier from a top Law and Courts scholar like Rogers Smith, Howard Gillman, Ken Kersch,or Shep Melnick will help you land a job even though Penn, USC and Boston College aren't "top departments." And again, defining "top 25" departments as Chingos has shown is dicey. Chingos' placement list does not overlap perfectly with USNews or other surveys. Other than that I'd say 95 percent of what the OP said is on the ball, it's just that like anything worth doing in life there are exceptions. Will you get a tenure track position at Harvard or Berkeley with a PhD from UVa., USC, Boston College or Brown? Probably not. However, your C.V. isn't going in the trash when you apply for jobs at schools like Bates, Bowdoin and Colby. You may not have an edge over the Big 10 school applicants who slaved away on SASS for 5 years, but Bowdoin isn't going to laugh at a thesis committee supervised by Kersch and Melnick at least not if you are applying to teach Judicial Politics at Haverford.

[MissingVandyCandy]

By the way to the OP, if I misinterpreted your comments and your assertion that T25 was necessary to gain TT jobs was confined to T1-Research University Jobs, than I apologize. My interpretation was that you were more broadly stating a PhD outside of a T25 department was more or less useless regardless of one's advisor. I hope I did not misinterpret you and am sorry if I did so.

[BerkeleyGrad]

Sure, you can find specific examples (though I'm not sure how Fletcher fits in, since it is a top international affairs program and one of Tufts' top programs in general). However, it looks like all of those examples that you listed were people that were hired 15+ years ago or are adjuncts. My general impression is that hiring at selective LACs has shifted to focus more on the top schools. At my top 10 program, many of grad students want to teach at LACs. By virtue of being small colleges, there aren't a lot of positions that open up -- a LAC only needs so many people teaching Asian politics! Therefore, competition is pretty prime. At the SLAC I attended, not all profs were hired from top 10 programs, but everyone who has been hired in the past 10 years or so is definitely from a top 25 program.

My impression is that the OP's point was basically that it gets really, really hard if you are not in a top 25 program. You shouldn't assume that you are going to change the mold and be the top student that your famous advisors have ever had. It's not to say that this won't happen, but it's risky to bank on it.

If you are not happy with your current options, taking a year and doing a lot of stats and econ training would definitely improve your application.

[JordanJames]

The question I asked myself before applying to grad school was, "Would I rather be an Assistant Professor at Northeastern Idaho Tech or practicing law in some sweatshop in Chicago or New York?" My answer was a definitive yes. That's obviously not what I'm striving for, but if that's what I end up with, it's better than the alternative. I think I'll be able to find placement at a decent school afterwards, but if not, I'm ready to call Northeastern Idaho home.

[MissingVandyCandy]

But here again is a good point. People's impressions of what a quality tenure track job are, vary tremendously. I don't think any of us would call Northeast Podunk Technical College a great or even good job, but there is a lot in between the Univ. of Phoenix Online and Harvard. Just as there is a lot in between Swarthmore and Sweet Briar College. There are a ton of good LAC's that aren't Williams and Amherst. I mean I'm sure many of us would be happy going for tenure at Bucknell, Lehigh, Bates, College of Charleston, Furman, Wheaton (MA not IL), and again I doubt a BC or WashU PhD would be fighting against the world trying to get a job at Furman.

[realist]

It concerns me that so many of you are worried about "top 25" or not, and are apparently unaware of what is unambiguously a top 25 department.

Here's the best that I can tell of unambiguously top 25 political science PhD programs. These will show up in any list of top programs. Some rankings rank based on faculty productivity, which is not what you're looking for here: you want strength or "reputation" of department, a rather amorphous concept. Notice there are fewer than 25. That's because in any list, numbers 20-25 are really up for dispute. I've grouped them by "type" of school. These are in no way ranked, and I may have forgotten one or two.

IVY

Harvard

Yale

Princeton

Columbia

Cornell

IVY-LIKE PRIVATE (these schools, curiously, are often very technical)

Stanford

Chicago

MIT

Duke

NYU

Rochester

Emory

WashU

CALIFORNIA

Berkeley

UCLA

UCSD

BIG STATE

Michigan

Ohio State

Wisconsin

Are there very very good schools that I've left off, places like Northwestern, UNC, Binghamton, Brown, Rice, Stony Brook, Irvine, Indiana, Georgetown, Iowa, A+M, FSU, etc.? Absolutely. These schools sometimes do place students in good jobs. But it's rare, and you should understand this. I don't think that you should choose such lower ranked schools over any of unambiguous top 25s above. And I'm sure that you should not pay to go to graduate school in these other departments.

I hope this helps.

[lenin333]

Dear Realist,

Would you please comment a little on the racket that is graduate school? Especially the application process and the ambiguity that most admissions pages put forth. It seems to me that I am a fine candidate for something but after my 0 for 7 route, I am absolutely clueless as to what I did wrong. The only school that I think I even had on the hook was Northwestern and I was rejected (Probably because me letters were not from faculty that could speak to my polisci chops).

One thing that I have concluded is that even with good scores, LORs, etc. there are so few spots that it is a lottery nonetheless.

Lastly, I don't know about my SOP. I feel that it probably was absolute crap looking back. But I really am clueless as to what they would want me to say.

Sincerely,

[futureprof]

I just wanted to say thank you to realist. The advice s/he gave is definitly going into the grad information folder on my desktop (come on... you know you have one too). I'm currenly making the agonizing decision between a couple top 20 programs that are okay research fits and a low ranked program that is a fantastic research fit.

Do not choose graduate school based on who you "want to work with." Graduate students very seldom "work with" an adviser. If they do, this is *at best* as a second author, and even this is rare, and almost never enough to get you a job. This also assumes that your research interests don't change (RARE) and that your adviser is a nice and approachable person (OCCASIONAL).

This part is particularly relevant to me because this is the one factor that's keeping me from making a decison on the the lower ranked program. Its just really difficult to pass up the opportunity of working with someone whose work inspired me to enter into my subfield. *sighs* Here's to hoping the visiting students weekends offer a little clairty.

Anyways- thanks realist, and I look forward to reading your other posts on this forum!

[polisciapp]

Realist,

Thank you for the info. I appreciate it. Your rankings help.

Another question: what about placement rankings like this one: http://lawandcourts.wordpress.com/2007/ ... -ruuumble/

It seems like Northwestern, among others, places well. Are these "placement rankings" bunk?

Thanks.

[Quarex]

Firstly, thanks again for your post. It is indeed a great read, particularly the reminder that if you really want to be somebody who stands out, you have to go above and beyond what most people think to do. This is pretty much why I am chomping at the bit to go back to school.

My comment: What really confuses me personally about the top-(X) rankings is that 80% of the top schools had, if my research was not mistaken, either nobody or only one person doing research even remotely in my area. Surely I am not the only person with this dilemma. If some of the most interesting work in the area is coming out of random middle-of-the-road institutions, why does it make sense to ignore them to work on the top tier? Well, other than the notable fact that clearly better schools are going to give some of their prestige to you when you finish, thus increasing your marketability, and it would be awesome to go to a top school.

Of course, this comes back to my often-repeated pondering on this forum, as to why it seems like I ended up with a research focus that seems to straddle three or four academic disciplines and gets a short shrift everywhere. But I am also not the only person in this situation, as I have learned, so it is something worth examining.

Regardless: You have made it abundantly clear that you realize some(infrequent)times people at less-prestigious places do end up with good placements, though focused primarily on the insanely intense competition for tenure track no matter where you go. That is an excellent lesson to learn, and one we all need to take to heart. Still, there are so many factors that seem to go into where someone really "belongs" that it gets hard to keep track of them. That is why I have a spreadsheet.

[adaptations]

To all in this Topic,

I have found it intriguing reading what realist has to say and the responses realist's comments have received. However, I would like to add some skepticism to this forum. First, almost everyone here is a very smart person who has a solid educational foundation - thus use your own research skills to determine what is likely to work for you, rather than drooling over the advice of an anonymous poster (No offense realist - I include myself). Use the information provided here, but do your own research. After all, we all know Poli Sci professors that we can contact directly and receive credible advice with greater details.

Realist has given some valuable information, but none of it is ground breaking. We all know getting a job is going to be extremelly competetive, but why people are freaking out about whether their school is 22nd or 27th doesn't matter. I appreciate realist's point that the cut-off line between top 25 and not doesn't really matter. But that doesn't mean we should disregard schools outside the very top tier. For example, realist says schools outside the top, such as, "places like Northwestern, UNC, Binghamton, Brown, Rice, Stony Brook, Irvine, Indiana, Georgetown, Iowa, A+M, FSU, etc... sometimes do place students in good jobs. But it's rare, and you should understand this."

I beg to differ... it isn't the rare exception that people get good jobs from these schools. Northwestern for example has had the following placement recently: http://www.polisci.northwestern.edu/graduate/phd.html

Northwestern's placement not only includes top tier research universities, but also a great many reputable state schools, and other respectable options I would consider "good jobs." Each school has its strengths and weaknesses and must be analyzed in context, including the weight of its reputation.

I am not out to change the system or to be that lone exception who goes to a lower ranked school and still gets his dream placement, however, I do recognize that good placements are regularly achieved at schools outside the top 25. It is important not to have false optimism throughout this process, but it is equally important not to be too narrow-minded when looking at your existing options and potential for future success.

Cheers,

[realist]

Northwestern is a tough case. Consider it top 25. I was probably wrong not do so.

Aside from this one school, though, you'll find very few big exceptions over many years.

[nativenewyorker]

Realist,

Great advice. I'm in sociology, and your insighful post has gone a long way towards helping me make up my mind. The "who I want to work with" issue almost swayed me to a lower ranked school, but your straight talk on the matter has made me realize what I've known all long. Sure, there are those exceptions we can all point to, that person who landed a great tenure track job despite attending a less stellar program...I just had a meeting with someone like this the other day. But it'll be hard enough to slog through a PhD program. Do we really want the pressure of having to now beat the odds? I know I don't. What if luck isn't on your side? If I go to the program with the better rep, at least I've got that. Thanks.

[rollinson]

http://www.themonkeycage.org/2008/02/post_64.html

If you enroll in a doctoral program in political science, what are the chances that you

[VaclavHavel]

Of the top 20 departments in the US News rankings, 18 are on OP's list of "unambiguous top departments." The two odd ones out are UNC and Minnesota. What is it about the US News methodology that makes these outliers? I'm especially curious about UNC, which is ranked very high (No. 13, tied with OSU and Rochester) in the US News list.

Also, why is Emory ("unambiguous top department" by OP's list, No. 29 according to US News) so low?

US News ostensibly bases their rankings on nothing but reputation. Moreover, according to Emory's, UNC's, and Minnesota's placement histories, graduates of all three do well on the academic job market. I'm curious what OP's empirical -- not anecdotal -- basis is for his/her "unambiguous" list of top programs. Despite his/her best efforts, it seems to remain replete with ambiguity.

Thanks,

[VaclavHavel]

I realize the US News rankings were last completed in 2005, and that recent departures/hires may have intervened. If this is the case, please elaborate.