How much does prestige matter (physical sciences, engineering)

[SymmetryOfImperfection]

How much does school prestige actually matter for:

1.) industrial research jobs

2.) non-postdoc academic research jobs

in the physical sciences and engineering, especially things like biomedical and materials, at the PhD level?

[Quantum Buckyball]

It will only matter if you planning on teach or starting a research group at a high-ranked school.

Edited June 19, 2012 by SPDFG13579

[SymmetryOfImperfection]

It will only matter if you planning on teach or starting a research group at a high-ranked school.

thank you, but i'm sure a very low reputed school may have a negative effect. After all, its hard to expect graduates of Wyoming State and MIT to be treated the same. I'm wondering when the rankings start having either positive or negative effects. For example, Wyoming State and MIT is a huge difference, but what about say, UC Riverside vs. Penn State?

Edited June 23, 2012 by SymmetryOfImperfection

[TakeruK]

My advisor told me that for academic research job (postdoc or otherwise), the prestige of the institution is not as important as your advisor and your project. The prestige/reputation of the specific program is important too -- for example (just using something I know), in Planetary Sciences, the University of Arizona's Lunar & Planetary Laboratory is one of the top 5 planetary science programs but the University itself is not a top 10 school.

It sounds like that the more academic you go, the less the reputation of the school matters. What's more important is that people know you are capable of doing good work, through publications, presentations at conferences, and what your project is. My advisor said of course the name of the school will matter a bit, and if you're from a top 10, people might give you more "benefit of the doubt" whereas someone from a different school might be expected to prove themselves a bit more in the applications. In his opinion, there is no real difference between a school ranked, say #20 and #40 though. In addition, he doesn't think students should consider school rankings too much when applying to PhD programs -- getting a good research fit is far more important.

But if you are leaving the world of academia, then he thinks the school name may have a bigger effect. But then again, the prestigious schools are heavily academic and you may not develop the skills useful to the "real world" there.

Just repeating what my advisors have told me -- I think they have good points but having not been through it myself, I don't know if they are right or not! Their bottom line was that yes it would help but not so much that it's worth sacrificing a good research fit for (obviously if you can get both, then it's ideal!)

I think the criteria of picking the best research fit will also filter out some of the schools with "very low" reputations -- after all, highly reputed schools get such good reputations by having diverse departments do a lot of interesting research.

Edited June 23, 2012 by TakeruK