what factors do you consider most important when deciding a school

[Guest criminologist]

my top 3 factors in deciding

1. Ranking (overall) in the national universities by Us News - prefer top 100

2. University Name recognition - I prefer schools well known and regarded beyond academics, like have excellent sports teams, it helps a lot when you get a degree from a big name school

3. Graduate program ranking - Not the most important to me, they are out of date as well

[xxcheshirecatox]

I factored those three things into my decision-making, but not as much as these things:

1. Research fit with my advisor (this was the single most important factor for me), personality fit with advisor, advisor's level of experience in field

2. The program environment (are the students happy, how do professors work with students, etc.)

3. Course selection (does it offer skills that would be potentially useful for the kind of research you do, is it interesting to you)

4. Program location (is it affordable, will I have to go into debt to live in said program location)

I ended up picking a highly ranked program in an affordable location, but I think I would've picked my choice regardless of ranking, solely because it is such a fantastic fit for the type of research I would like to do and the students all seem pretty happy (plus it didn't hurt that I had some insider knowledge into the program from a friend who graduated). I had a bad advising experience whilst doing my Master's and it taught me a painful lesson to make sure that you are happy with the person who will be advising you, as they, for better or worse, will serve as a huge influence on your program progress and will affect your quality of life in the program. It's important to look beyond just the rankings and assess fit.

Edited May 5, 2012 by xxcheshirecatox

[Guest criminologist]

course selection was important to me as well, the school I am in (Michigan state) has a unique "law enforcement intelligence" major offered by the school of criminal justice. I do not have the take typical seminar in CJ and seminar criminology courses which is nice, as it would be repetitive anyway because I studied all of that already in college....my coursework is more focused on crime and intelligence analysis now

Edited May 7, 2012 by gz390

[Guest criminologist]

He gz390,

 

I am getting M.A to in CJ. I hope M.A will give us an advantage when applying to PHD CJ/Crim programs. It would stink if the programs just think having an M.A in CJ is a given.

Hi, I browsed some of the websites for the top C/CJ programs like Univ. of Maryland and Penn State. I saw that a lot of the phd students do not even have relevant degrees in the field. They had majors like education, religion, or psychology, so I think havving a masters especially with a crim/crim justice major will be a great advantage. 

Edited April 4, 2013 by gz390