Does prestige really matter?

[katiegud]

I have in my head the schools I want to apply to (Oxford, Cambridge, Toronto, etc.), but I don't feel like I fit in well with those departments. I have found schools that do exactly what I'm interested in though, and found a potential advisor that said he would be happy to supervise my project at the University of Leeds. Is it better to go to Leeds and do exactly what I want? Or to apply to a prestigious school that doesn't really study what I'm interested in? I feel like if I applied to Cambridge and Leeds and got in at both, I would feel like I "should" go to Cambridge for the ranking. Will it matter that much later on? 

[gilbertrollins]

Prestige is a proxy for actual benefits.  Peer effects are stronger at higher ranked programs -- i.e. you will be interacting with smarter people in courses and at lunch even if you're not working on the exact same things.  Higher ranked programs usually have a greater variety of faculty and areas of interests, which means you can change, which most people do.  First and second year coursework is usually more rigorous at higher ranked institutions, which will leave you in a better position to consider your interests relative to the broader sociological conversation.  Methods training is stronger -- for quant people this means harder math but more sophisticated understanding; for qual people this means working with ethnographers and other analysts who shape methodological orientation of the whole discipline.  

 

I ended up picking a higher ranked program over a couple which were much stronger in a very specific set of interests I had and have right now, because my Big Hit idea is likely to be wrong and/or intractable empirically.  I also had a senior faculty at one of the lower ranked programs whom I wanted to work with in said subfield just straight up tell me to go to the higher ranked school.  

 

I would apply to all of the schools you've considered, and work out the decision of where to attend on the back end.  The marginal application isn't that expensive when you consider how much your graduate education will bear on the rest of your career trajectory -- it is the first 6 years of your career after all.

[EVG14]

It most certainly does matter when it comes to eventually finding a job in the academic market. With that being said, it would be foolish to attend a program that wouldn't foster your research interests. However, if you are able to find an advisor at a higher ranked institution that does similar work to what you would like to do, I would say to go with that over attending a university that is doing exactly what you want to do but may not be ranked too highly. Just my opinion.

Edited September 13, 2013 by EVG14

[surefire]

I have in my head the schools I want to apply to (Oxford, Cambridge, Toronto, etc.), but I don't feel like I fit in well with those departments. I have found schools that do exactly what I'm interested in though, and found a potential advisor that said he would be happy to supervise my project at the University of Leeds. Is it better to go to Leeds and do exactly what I want? Or to apply to a prestigious school that doesn't really study what I'm interested in? I feel like if I applied to Cambridge and Leeds and got in at both, I would feel like I "should" go to Cambridge for the ranking. Will it matter that much later on? 

 

Hi katiegud,

 

You've been given some great advice above! I just have a few points (full disclosure: I'm a second year PhD student in Soci at U of T)

 

- The above posters are absolutely right to suggest going where your interests will be supported. That is fundamental. It certainly IS worth considering that more prestigious departments will often have great general resources that will impact your experience and opportunities (for example: libraries, astounding colleagues, money for things like conference attendance...). But the interest thing is foundational to you being able to thrive as an academic.

 

- That being said: I think that this is an issue that you can work out during the application process. The individual applications will prompt you to parse out and articulate why you want to do your studies at THAT specific institution. Admission committees want to know that you will contribute and also that you will thrive and finish, and you can only give that impression is you can point to "fit". While I admit that the apps are time/energy/money-consuming so you want to dedicate yourself to ones that you want, you can start looking into what each school requires now and start researching faculty pages and drafting SOPs. It's a good test to see if you can articulate "fit"; if you can't convince yourself, you won't be able to convince an adcomm, so it's a good exercise. I also applied to the Centre of Crim here at U of T and realized during the process that the fit wasn't there, but I don't consider the exercise a waste.

 

- Your interests may very well change. You need people in your sub-area of interest, but you don't need a POI that maps on to your interests exactly. That's why, as I said above, conduct an exercise where you articulate interest but also your potential contributions/resources regarding specific departments. Grad school will test your topic, but it will also test you in many other fundamental ways, so you should be aware of the more general strengths that you have and the resources that you will need to become the type of scholar you want to be (balanced in tandem with the type of scholar that the department likes to produce).

 

- Feel free to PM me if you want to talk specifically about U of T.

[jacib]

I have in my head the schools I want to apply to (Oxford, Cambridge, Toronto, etc.), but I don't feel like I fit in well with those departments. I have found schools that do exactly what I'm interested in though, and found a potential advisor that said he would be happy to supervise my project at the University of Leeds. Is it better to go to Leeds and do exactly what I want? Or to apply to a prestigious school that doesn't really study what I'm interested in? I feel like if I applied to Cambridge and Leeds and got in at both, I would feel like I "should" go to Cambridge for the ranking. Will it matter that much later on? 

 

I know very little about European sociology departments, so I can only say three quick things: 1) at Oxford, my colleagues have told me, there's a big difference between studying sociology "at Oxford" and studying sociology "at Nuffield".  If there is an equivalent divide at, say, Cambridge, make sure you know which side of the divide you are on (I think I was told this was a weird, Oxford-only thing though).

 

2) You can delay the decision by applying now, seeing where you actually are accepted, and then making a decision based on those.  Visits are often very important to guage not only the faculty but your peers.  Also, see where the population of recent graduates (rather than just a biased sample) got jobs.  Are those the kind of jobs you want?

 

3) In America certainly, and in Europe almost certainly, where you get your degree matters a lot for where you can get a job.  There's a whole literature on this, the most recent being Burris's "The academic caste system: Prestige hierarchies in PhD exchange networks", ASR, 2004.  I think the name "academic caste system" says it all and I don't even need to quote an abstract.  The rule of thumb I've been told is within the job market, an exceptionally strong candidate can stay in the same "tier" and most candidates will go down at least a tier from where they go their PhD.  I don't know if that's precisely true, but you know, it gives you an idea. 

[katiegud]

I know very little about European sociology departments, so I can only say three quick things: 1) at Oxford, my colleagues have told me, there's a big difference between studying sociology "at Oxford" and studying sociology "at Nuffield".  If there is an equivalent divide at, say, Cambridge, make sure you know which side of the divide you are on (I think I was told this was a weird, Oxford-only thing though).

 

 

Hi, I looked into the colleges at Oxford and there are several that support sociology (I'm actually social policy, but they tend to be the same colleges). Can you elaborate on your colleagues thoughts on Nuffield? What made it stand out from the other colleges?

[jacib]

You'll have to talk to people actually in the program, but my understanding is that graduate studies in sociology at Oxford are primarily carried out either through the Department of Sociology or through Nuffield's Sociology Group.  Nuffield is, from my understanding, the more prestigious of the two.  It's also the older (the history of the Department is surprisingly recent).  It has stronger institutional support, and more resources, some of which were "Nuffield-only".  The two non-Nuffield people were happy with their program, but we were at a small conference and the two Oxford people didn't know each other before hand, unlike all the other pairs of people from universities.   They both joked this wouldn't happen at Nuffield, because Nuffield has teas or some such thing.  They generally seemed to imply that i) the main resources at Nuffield they lacked were social, namely access to the seminars, teas, faculty, and peers, and ii) while they were happy now, they would have been happier at Nuffield.  They both produced good, interesting work, don't get me wrong, but both seemed to feel like they had at various times struggled to find their home at Oxford (people from Nuffield may have had the same experience, but I just didn't meet any of them for comparison).  One found his home in another work group outside the Department of Sociology (and Nuffield Sociology Group); the other had moved to London.  I really can't say more than that, simply because I don't know, but you should try to get in touch with current graduate students and inquire about their experiences.  This is based on one conversation with two people a year ago so take it with a grain of salt.  The experience may also be different as a masters and doctoral student (they were both doctoral students).  I also know nothing about Social Policy at Oxford, which is yet institutional division with I'm sure its own sets of advantages and drawbacks.

Edited September 17, 2013 by jacib

[gilbertrollins]

Nuffield is the spot to be.  It's the center of social sciences out there, and given the abomination of funding at Oxford and very old-school "you're on your own now, kid!" culture, I wouldn't think it'd be much worth it to go across the pond for anything else.  Getting stuck at a low prestige program with no resources in some corner of Oxford sounds like a really bad idea.