Prestige Poll

[Tonights]

GOD HELP ME if I'm still a grad student in 9 years.

I feel the same, trust me, but "five to nine" was the quote at most of my schools. One department had a guy who'd been in the program for 25 years on and off!

[plisar]

I feel the same, trust me, but "five to nine" was the quote at most of my schools. One department had a guy who'd been in the program for 25 years on and off!

Anthropology has the longest time-to-degree of any program in my entire university. I'm guessing this is common at most universities.

[ridgey]

For those of you who don't care about rankings, how do you judge a school's prestige and your chances of finding a job afterward?

In my case, my interests are so uncommon that I don't have much choice. My chances of finding a job afterwards (the implicit implication being working in my area of interest) are far more dependent on going somewhere where I'll get the right mentoring and training in my interests.

As for prestige, meh. Of course, I'm not American and so maybe culture comes into play? In the two countries I have direct experience with, prestige of uni doesn't come into employment decisions. There are a total of I think 8 universities in my country. One or two of these are probably thought to be not as good generally, or to only be strong in one or two fields. The others are all much of a muchness - doctoral degrees are only offered by each uni in the areas it has strengths.

There simply isn't that mindset of Harvard c.f. remote, rural, 4th tier U. If you have degree from Harvard, Oxford, etc, your qualification isn't thought to be worth more, it's more like "wow, lucky you, you got to go there" - people recognise that the institution is famous, but don't necessarily buy into it. Prestige is only really important at the other end of the scale; if you went to a famously bad uni, you might have problems.

And, I'm not necessarily going to want to work in the US after I finish, so I guess I have the luxury of thinking this way. Having said all that, if everything else was equal (my perception of fit, departmental culture, funding, city, QoL) between two places, and there was nothing else making me lean one way or the other, I guess I would go by rankings.

[Tritonetelephone]

Yes, and we have no idea what the job market's going to look like in five to nine years. In this country at least, we have a new president now who theoretically is going to do big things for education. Who knows what the atmosphere will be like when we're graduating?

I'm going to worry about just getting admitted, for now. :wink:

Seriously! I'm doing sex/gender and my profs told me that my timing is pretty good because a generation turnover is on the horizon and MANY sex/gender profs are going to be retiring in the next 10 years. I assume they're all from the 70's feminist movement. Might be worth looking into for other fields, too.

I also say this because of grad student friends at UCSD social sciences and humanities (comm, soc, literature). Not top ten program, but pretty up there. One girl: tons of awards, research grants, excellent work, teaching experience, applied to around 30 positions at varying levels of prestige, NOT ONE INTERVIEW.

I noticed that you didn't mention publications. That's a pretty huge factor in job placement, too. What's the old phrase?... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publish_or_perish

[miratrix]

In my case, my interests are so uncommon that I don't have much choice. My chances of finding a job afterwards (the implicit implication being working in my area of interest) are far more dependent on going somewhere where I'll get the right mentoring and training in my interests.

Same here. There are only around 6 strong PhD (plus a couple MA) programs that I know of in the sub-specialty I'd like to study, and only two of them are at schools that have fantastic reputations. (Also, US News doesn't even do anthropology rankings....) It helps that I'm also looking at careers outside of academia, though, and connections to other cultural organizations and agencies is something I looked into when researching schools.

[Tritonetelephone]

What is a good source for info on placement/on the market PhDs?? I'm really curious.

All I know of is this, but it's better than nothing: http://graduate-school.phds.org/

You can choose your field under "personalized graduate program rankings" and put all the weight on "Placement Rate".

Data comes from the SED, 2000-2004 (http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/srvydoctorates/)

In Sociology, there isn't a clear relationship between job placement and overall rank. Wisconsin-Madison (#1) only has an 83% job placement rate, but Nebraska (#49) has 96%. That's part of what I'm talking about with fit being more important.

[freefallen]

I think what I'm concerned with is not my school's name, but my potential adviser's. It was cool to see that the prof I'm currently working with is well-known and respected in her field. When I emailed other professors, a lot replied back with "say hi to XX for me!" I think having that connection is important.

I was also part of a search committee, and there were some comments about "ZZ working with YY and that fits with the department, etc etc."

[Astaroth]

I want to say that I don't give the proverbial fink about rankings, but that's not true, so I voted "below 50". After thinking long and hard about it, I realised there are a myriad other factors more important than prestige when choosing a place to do a PhD. In fact, high prestige may even be a bad thing because of the mentality that goes with the prestige in certain circles. In retrospect, I really wish I had not worried so much about rankings when choosing where to apply. The most important criteria, in my view, are:

- Whether you "fit in". In other words, look at the research done in that department, and see how far it aligns with the things that interest you.

- Location, location, location. And weather.

- Whether you think you can get in. Applying to reaches is a bit silly (I know cause I have done it) unless there is something about the place that you would DIE for.

- Funding.

- Reputation, but not necessarily prestige. You will not get this information from any sort of website or list, you simply need to ask around.

[socialpsych]

In fact, high prestige may even be a bad thing because of the mentality that goes with the prestige in certain circles.

Thank you for saying that.

I am looking for the perfect combination of 1) non-competitive non-angst and 2) having the slightest chance of finding a nice job (in CA) when I graduate!

[dragynally]

Well I'm only applying to 1 school, right? So since it IS a top 5 I had to go w/ the second option.

[saritapie]

Thank you for saying that.

I am looking for the perfect combination of 1) non-competitive non-angst and 2) having the slightest chance of finding a nice job (in CA) when I graduate!

Thank you both. I desperately want to end up in California, but even if I got into a Harvard, say, I wouldn't want to go. I'll take some risks with the academic job market