Grad School Rankings

[neuropsych76]

USNews, phds.org, ect... do these rankings matter much? Is there one that is better than the others? I've heard that they are pretty much useless as long as you have a good mentor and are productive with your research. Should I be concerned about applying to schools with lower rankings?

Thanks for any input

[newms]

The rankings are just a guide. There will be lower ranked schools that are excellent in one particular area and generally, when you have a situation like this, people in the field know that a school is better in that area than its ranking would suggest. That said, there could be implications for future job prospects with a degree from a lowly ranked school that isn't well regarded in the area of your research. Of course, this is just a generalization and you really have to look at the strengths and weaknesses of the departments in the area(s) that you are interested in.

[TheDude]

I think name cache can buy you a lot in job markets outside of the US or in a different region of the country. Aside from that, if I'm fortunate enough to get multiple offers I am going to the place where I get the best department vibe.

The rankings are just a guide. There will be lower ranked schools that are excellent in one particular area and generally, when you have a situation like this, people in the field know that a school is better in that area than its ranking would suggest. That said, there could be implications for future job prospects with a degree from a lowly ranked school that isn't well regarded in the area of your research. Of course, this is just a generalization and you really have to look at the strengths and weaknesses of the departments in the area(s) that you are interested in.

[fuzzylogician]

I think it depends a lot on what you want to do with your degree. If you want to go into academia then the name factor will be much less important than the work you produce and the people you work with. You'll want to apply to the best-ranked departments within your sub-field--which may happen to be situated in schools which are not overall top-ranked. If you're interested in going into industry, I think the name-factor plays a much bigger role. People are not going to care that much about your work and will know less about the inner working of each department. A famous school name may help open doors that a degree from good-but-not-famous school may struggle with.

[starmaker]

Rankings are based on certain criteria. If you care about the particular criteria for a ranking, then you probably care about that ranking.

Phds.org shouldn't be lumped in with the other rankings - it's a customized ranking based on which criteria YOU tell the algorithm that you care about and how much YOU care about each of those criteria. The whole point is that you get to create a ranking that matters to you. If you don't care about the results, why did you go through the exercise and pick the criteria that you did?

If what you are really asking is how the rankings relate to your ability to get a job later, fuzzylogician has it about right. I've been working in sub-PhD-level industry research positions for 3.5 years, and the Really Big Name on my resume (where I got my bachelor's) definitely helps me get my foot in the door at places when I'm job-hunting.

[neuropsych76]

Rankings are based on certain criteria. If you care about the particular criteria for a ranking, then you probably care about that ranking.

Phds.org shouldn't be lumped in with the other rankings - it's a customized ranking based on which criteria YOU tell the algorithm that you care about and how much YOU care about each of those criteria. The whole point is that you get to create a ranking that matters to you. If you don't care about the results, why did you go through the exercise and pick the criteria that you did?

If what you are really asking is how the rankings relate to your ability to get a job later, fuzzylogician has it about right. I've been working in sub-PhD-level industry research positions for 3.5 years, and the Really Big Name on my resume (where I got my bachelor's) definitely helps me get my foot in the door at places when I'm job-hunting.

Thank you for all of your replies.

Yes, I was really asking how these rankings relate to getting a job later. I'm applying to some schools that I feel I would be a good research fit for and to work with a specific mentor who seems to be active in research. However, a couple of these schools have lower ranks and I didn't know if that is a adequate reason not to go there. I'm hoping to go into academia in hopes of achieving a tenure track position at some college. So basically, as long as I'm productive with my research it really doesn't matter where I go for academia?

[eklavya]

So basically, as long as I'm productive with my research it really doesn't matter where I go for academia?

it sure does matter. otherwise, why would lebron go to miami instead of staying with the cavs?

but in all honesty, being productive is more important than where you end up. look around, and you'll find that most of the nobel laureates are from schools/places unheard of.

[Bukharan]

look around, and you'll find that most of the nobel laureates are from schools/places unheard of.

Well... this point could be disputed.

I appreciate your point. I totally agree that productivity, not 'brand', is what matters.

However, if we look at 'trans-Atlantic' Nobel laureates, I'd say most of them went to very good schools. I just had a look at the 2009 Nobel winners - there are plenty of Yale, Harvard, Berkeley and UCLA alumni.

If we consider the Nobel laureates who are not from Europe or North America, then of course we would occasionally not know of their universities. I am sure, however, that their alma mater would be famous in their own country (China, Indonesia, Venezuela, you name it).

Edited November 26, 2010 by Bukharan

[starmaker]

I'm hoping to go into academia in hopes of achieving a tenure track position at some college. So basically, as long as I'm productive with my research it really doesn't matter where I go for academia?

Well, no. It does, just not necessarily in the way that you think.

PhDs.org will let you rank programs according to what percentage of their PhD recipients have an academic job offer at graduation. That seems like a ranking that you would care about a lot, because that is the sort of job that you want. If one program only places 10% of its grads into academic jobs, and another places 40%, you would probably rather study in the latter program than the former program, even if the former is a bigger name.

There are many reasons that one program might place more people in academic jobs than another. Some of them are linked with prestige (famous profs with good connections to write your job recommendations, more/better resources to enable your productivity) and some are not (focus of the department on preparing students for academia vs industry, availability of departmental or university-wide job-search training). And clearly, even the ones that are linked with prestige are not entirely tied to prestige (a less-prestigious department can still have really good funding, or good facilities, or a few famous profs).

But really, it is all about the outcomes. Some programs have much better outcomes, from your wanting-an-academic-job perspective, than others, and you want to identify which are which. It's just that outcomes are not solely about which program has the bigger name.