Question about program prestige/rankings

[88literatureguy88]

Minnesota/Penn State

Missouri

Kentucky

Syracuse

University of Florida

FSU

 

That's much closer to my thinking than the NRC.  Penn State and Minnesota should clearly be on the top.  FSU should be close to the bottom.   I think your Missouri and Kentucky might be a bit off, but I don't know a huge amount about either program. 

[lovinliterature]

For what it's worth, I am currently getting my M.A. at a top 10 school.  When I asked my professors whether I should go with the funded offer from a fairly high-ranked program, or a very well-funded offer from a school that's lesser ranked (and I'm using the US News and World Report rankings, btw), their answers were unanimous:  go with the better ranked program.  

[champagne]

Thanks for your opinion, Dark Matter. As always, enlightening and helpful.

[hashslinger]

And that's where the definition of "job" becomes, I think, a key issue. 

An important point. It all depends on what kind of job you want. Again, just look to the Brown and UConn job placement page to figure that out. Both programs probably have roughly the same placement stats, but one school places many of their grads at national schools, where the other seems to send a lot of grads to regional schools.

 

And that's another important thing to keep in mind--the job market works both ways. Whereas UConn grads are probably not going to get TT jobs at R1s and high-end SLACs, Brown grads might have a difficult time finding more teaching-oriented positions at lower-ranked SLACs and regional publics. I actually know many Ivy grads who have had a difficult time on the job market because search committees at less-cushy schools pass over them, assuming they don't have the teaching experience or the interest in sticking around long term. So this is something to keep in mind. If you're dead-set on going to an Ivy or a similar school, and you don't stand out as a researcher, you should seek out more teaching opportunities at non-Ivy league schools.

[bluecheese]

That said, all of that stuff is "fixable" if pitched correctly in a cover letter for a job. People from Ivy's do get jobs at regional schools, but you also have to consider that departments don't want to waste money flying you out as one of their top 5 picks (or so) if they don't think you're serious about the position. 

[ZacharyBinks]

For what it's worth, I am currently getting my M.A. at a top 10 school.  When I asked my professors whether I should go with the funded offer from a fairly hig-ranked program, or a very well-funded offer from a school that's lesser ranked (and I'm using the US News and World Report rankings, btw), their answers were unanimous:  go with the better ranked program.  

 

I'm in a similar-ish situation and I've received conflicting input from my professors. One of them is advising me to go to the unfunded, better-ranked program while the other insists that I should take my funded offer. The latter explained explained her reasoning:

 

In the end, prestige is a factor, but at the end of the day I think you should go to a department that is excited to have you (because they're funding you) and at which you will receive good professionalization and have an enjoyable (as enjoyable as dissertating is) experience. Plus, a lot of top ten schools are having trouble placing their grads because smaller schools aren't willing to hire someone who is probably just applying temporarily until a better spot opens up somewhere else. The tier-two schools, on the other hand (and especially some state schools) are placing students at a higher rate and are working harder to professionalize their students because they don't have the name of their institution on which to fall back; the school's reputation rests on the performance of its students more so than an Ivy or a top ten school, whose name is always going to carry weight.

 

I don't know necessarily how true any of her advice was, but it made a lot of sense to me. Hope any of this helps!

[Taco Superior]

As someone pointed out elsewhere people tend to gravitate towards the rankings that favor their institution(s), so beware my opinion. I used phds.org (and its NRC data) a lot in my program search and it was helpful. However, much of its hard data is strictly incorrect:

For WashU, phds.org says that

-they have 22 faculty... They have 32.

-they enroll 11 students per year... They enroll 7.

-they grant 20 English MAs per year... They don't grant MAs at all; PhD program only.

 

So, you know, when they say ArizonaState affords you better job prospects than Princeton, I would double check your data there too.