"Safety" Schools?

[drownsoda]

For those of you going the early modern route, UConn and Fordham both look to be good options. Funding over $20K/year is pretty uncommon in schools outside the Top 20, but UConn and Fordham both clock in around $21K. 

 

I'm sure this has been brought up in other threads on safety schools, but teaching loads are real problem for programs outside the top 50. I'm currently in the MA program at Alabama, teaching a 2-2 comp load, and I've found that teaching this much while balancing coursework and writing a thesis is pretty exhausting. From what I've seen, a 2-2 is fairly common at schools lower down the list, especially state schools. Just something to keep in mind.

 

Thanks for this— this is one of the reasons I applied to Fordham. You have to make sure you apply for the early deadline though, which is on the 7th of this month. I believe the later deadline is in April, but you don't get considered for funding or any sort of fellowships if you apply at that time.

[InHacSpeVivo]

It's interesting; the year I applied, people were thrilled to get into Florida or UMass-Amherst or something thereabouts. Now I don't see too many of these schools on people's lists here. I don't know if that's because of the way the job market has tightened up or because people who seek out places like Grad Cafe are generally very motivated. But I would encourage people to look beyond the top 20 or 30 or 40. Had I refused to go outside of the top 20, I wouldn't have gone to graduate school at all--or at least not without several rounds of applications. I'm glad I decided to take the chance and go to the program that accepted me rather than apply multiple times to get into my top school. I know someone who applied three years in a row. Eventually they got into their dream program, but they're still slogging through grad school.

 

Anyway, I have recently met people who go to University of Kentucky and University of North Carolina Greensboro, and they've really enjoyed their programs.

  

I'm also at Florida if anyone has questions. 

Personally, I find Florida's program to be very well-rounded (and the faculty here are amazing, especially if you're interested at all in Children's Literature or genre studies).

 

The department is also hell-bent on professionalization and you will rack up a huge amount of teaching experience in the program. With the new 6-year track (which I'm on), you start teaching your first year (composition mostly) and begin teaching in-department lit courses in your third year. I know several 4th and 5th years (in excellent standing, of course) who have taught 3000- and 4000-level literature courses in the department.

 

I'm very happy that I finally reconciled myself to look beyond top 20 programs; as a result, I'm here at Florida and much happier than I think I'd have been elsewhere.

I submitted the last part of my Florida app today (stayed off grad cafe this round until all apps were in). It's funny to hear anyone mention it as a sleeper program. After being shut out from PhDs in 2012, it's the only one I'm reapplying to, and it's on my list as "higher tier" given their acceptance rate is less than 4.5%. Anyway, it's great to hear good things about it. Florida is on the top of my list, not least because of the fantastic faculty and awesome placement rates.

It's also great to hear that about UNCG and Kentucky. Generally, what I'm getting from profs this go-round is experience over prestige. A lot of the programs below the top 25 give more teaching opportunity, which (I am told) carries a lot of weight when on the job market. This app cycle will be a quasi-test of that for me, I guess. As a second-year MA student, I'm teaching a 2/2 this year in my little regional program. Meanwhile, at a recent conference I spoke with MA students from Toronto and Columbia, and they were shocked I was an instructor of record at a school without a PhD program. I guess we'll see when the letters start coming in...

For those who can decipher NRC rankings (goodness knows it took me a while), I focused on stats like student outcomes, ignoring rankings. Then, I checked where people ended up (TT, research-based, etc). Finally, as some people have already said, I talked to profs to see if reputation countered anything I came across. I think I came up with a balanced list as a result, but only time will tell!

[Catria]

One of the drawbacks to getting a degree from elite university is that it definitely limits who might hire you. Tiny SLAC has the right to wonder whether you're going to just look for a better ranked university during your employment. That may not be the case, but it's something that you potentially have to overcome. The name no longer equals offers. It helps, but you have to make yourself a viable candidate regardless of the program you're in. Top 10 might be the "better" program, but you might produce better, stronger work at a top 50 or 60 or 100. I realize that's what this thread is about, but it can't be said often enough that there is a world outside of elite institutions, and they can be viable options.

 

Before slashing programs, at least those you consider to be potentially good fits, email their DGS and ask if they can share placement rates and institutions where they've placed in the last few years. Some programs don't like transparency, but it can't hurt to inquire. If they aren't placing anywhere, or even graduating students (much harder to find that out without cooperation from professors or current grad students), then you should strongly consider cutting them from your list.

 

Really? That seems counter-intuitive; I would have expected a degree from an elite university to increase one's odds of getting interviews even at non-elite institutions when the job market is horribly glutted... so glutted that, in fact, an Ivy League grad would likely take a job at a directional branch campus if it was the only one they could land, and, once there, forget about teaching elsewhere.

 

Or that a PhD from an elite university would help you land jobs outside of academia more than a PhD from a non-elite university...

 

Then again, maybe I got the wrong impression because of what I have observed in my physics subfield (theoretical particle cosmology), where a degree from an elite school (vs. a non-elite one) definitely gets people interviewed regardless of the type of institution hiring.

Edited January 6, 2015 by Catria

[Bleep_Bloop]

One of the drawbacks to getting a degree from elite university is that it definitely limits who might hire you. Tiny SLAC has the right to wonder whether you're going to just look for a better ranked university during your employment. That may not be the case, but it's something that you potentially have to overcome. The name no longer equals offers. It helps, but you have to make yourself a viable candidate regardless of the program you're in. Top 10 might be the "better" program, but you might produce better, stronger work at a top 50 or 60 or 100. I realize that's what this thread is about, but it can't be said often enough that there is a world outside of elite institutions, and they can be viable options.

 

Before slashing programs, at least those you consider to be potentially good fits, email their DGS and ask if they can share placement rates and institutions where they've placed in the last few years. Some programs don't like transparency, but it can't hurt to inquire. If they aren't placing anywhere, or even graduating students (much harder to find that out without cooperation from professors or current grad students), then you should strongly consider cutting them from your list.

 

I'm not in English but rather a similar humanities field and figured I'd chime in, for what it's worth. I hear this opinion a lot, and disagree. First of all, the numbers don't add up. Students from ivy and other top programs dominate the job market, at least in my field and I'm assuming English is no different. I was shocked when I went to my first major conference and realized the social capital that being affiliated with an ivy offered me. This is not to brag or look down on other programs, but to give my personal insight into the darker side of academia that people don't really like to discuss: the prestige of your institution and who you know (the two are correlated) go very, very far.

 

Small schools will certainly be on guard when considering applicants from top-tier programs, and they'll try to get a feel for where they stand professionally (whether they will jump ship when given the opportunity) during job interviews. If they have no reason to suspect that a candidate is just using them to buy time until something better comes along, then of course they'll hire them if they're the best applicant, and sometimes (unfortunately) even if they're not. Let's not kid ourselves...academia loves pedigree, especially department heads and deans.

 

I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade, and I'm certainly not trying to look down upon programs outside the top 10. Of course you can get a great education at many programs, but you have to be realistic about the job market. It's difficult to compare the resources that a grad student at an ivy has with a grad student at some public universities. Students at ivies are given ideal conditions to work: no need to worry about funding anything, minimal teaching so that you can focus exclusively on researching/publishing/presenting, huge names to collaborate with (even if they can be hard to work with sometimes), incredible archives and special collections in the library, the academic network that the faculty have, etc. All of this means that they can produce amazing job applicants that will have no problem finding employment, and SLACs know that. I myself went to a SLAC and all but one member of the faculty in my department had a degree from an ivy. A PhD from an ivy won't guarantee you a job anywhere, but it will get your foot in the door and give you a really good chance of at least getting a job interview in which to sell yourself, if you've prepared your application thoughtfully. It will not automatically disqualify you from a job search, as the previous post suggests.

Edited January 6, 2015 by LKS

[ToldAgain]

On the subject of job prospects with grad degrees from an Ivy, I have a story:

 

One of my professors at the small commuter college where I spent my first two years of undergrad got her AB from Yale and was an admissions officer at a different Ivy for a number of years. She claims that it is a little-known fact that English PhDs tend to get teaching jobs at schools ranked slightly higher than where they attended grad school. Because of this, Ivy-Leaguers don't get jobs since they are already bumping against the ceiling. She claims she was accepted into a grad program at an Ivy and turned it down in favor of a state school because the job prospects were much better.

 

She certainly did alright -- Associate Professor in regionally-respected CW program -- but I don't know about her argument. It has always sort of gnawed at me, because it seems like she was and is in a place to make informed comments about that sort of thing, but her advice seems to go against a lot of other information out there. People who know more about the Ivies than me, feel free to comment.

[mikers86]

To clarify my earlier statement - yes. The ivy will most likely give you the best chance in this market. Who you know can make a world of difference, though there are a host of other factors that play into hiring decisions. But as I stated, you can't rest on your laurels, particularly because of the state of the market. My undergrad/masters institution is not incredibly highly ranked yet produces strong candidates and very rarely does not place students who complete the doctorate in TT positions, even resulting in multiple offers. Since this thread is focused on "safety" schools, I thought it pertinent to at least allude to some potential pitfalls associated with big names - because it can and does happen. Not to mention attrition rates in elite programs (and grad programs in general), and overall mental well-being. If you know you'll be happier going to smaller state school than ivy, then who are we to judge you for that decision?

 

No one is going to tell you NOT to consider elite institution - obviously - but I still suggest that you not limit yourself to the mystical realm of the top 10 because #25 or #70 might allow you to produce stronger work with faculty whose interests are a better match with your own. Application season is a numbers game: 100s of applicants for only X number of slots (and dropping) in top ranked (and all) programs = do yourself a favor and look outside top programs for other strong departments, something I think this thread has done a good job of highlighting.

[Bleep_Bloop]

On the subject of job prospects with grad degrees from an Ivy, I have a story:

 

One of my professors at the small commuter college where I spent my first two years of undergrad got her AB from Yale and was an admissions officer at a different Ivy for a number of years. She claims that it is a little-known fact that English PhDs tend to get teaching jobs at schools ranked slightly higher than where they attended grad school. Because of this, Ivy-Leaguers don't get jobs since they are already bumping against the ceiling.

 

In my opinion, ultimately what will get you a job is your work; overwhelmingly this means your research (even at SLACs you'll be giving a job talk), but includes recommendations and such. Your work will do more for you than the name on your degree, yet coming from an ivy privileges you because you have more opportunities to produce research (teaching just enough to make you competitive on the market, but not so much as to distract you from writing), and have fantastic opportunities to network. I would not advise someone to avoid an ivy because they think it would hurt them on the job market, which is what it sounded like people were saying earlier in the thread, and what it sounds like your professor did. [EDIT: it looks like you clarified this point as I was writing this, mikers!]  Looking at the students who have graduated from my program or are currently on the market, the opposite is true. To my knowledge no one from my program has been totally shut out of the job market in recent memory. They might not all have gotten their dream job, but those who wanted to work in academia are doing so (with the vast majority of them on the tenure track). Many of them are not working at elite universities, and some are. I'm definitely not saying all ivy grads get jobs, just that they tend to fare well on the job market, from what I've seen.

 

What surprises me about your professor's story is that typically the opposite is true. Most people talk about downward mobility in academia, at least in your first hire out of grad school. But this is just what I've seen and heard, perhaps someone else on the forum has personal experience that suggests otherwise.

Edited January 6, 2015 by LKS

[ToldAgain]

LKS, this is my impression also. I find it funny that somebody with a decent amount of experience at that level has opinions which are so out of line with the general consensus.

[lyonessrampant]

The step-down model is also what I've heard and observed for hiring at my institution.  The candidates with on-campus talks come from Ivies or top 20 (roughly by USNWR standards.  We have good job placement, but it is definitely not at the R1 flagship level.  Instead, TT CC, non-flag ship, small SLAC, and some visiting positions first followed by TT positions are the norm, though it varies by subfield.  As to the value of the Ivy, if you get in, the money alone is probably enough to be a deciding factor.  Combined with brand recognition and a low to nonexistent teaching burden, an Ivy offer would be pretty compelling.  That said, Ivy candidates and large public u products, while competing for many of the same jobs, also end up going toward different kinds of jobs.  Small SLACS, TT CCs, non flag-ship campuses in remote areas tend to hire much more from the non-Ivy group to avoid attrition, so it really just depends a lot on the ephemeral constitution of the job market from year to year as far as which group is likely to experience more 'success' in terms of job offers.  Of course, an Ivy comes with advantages, but I think the point of this thread is that if you don't get into an Ivy, don't think your academic life is over (no disrespect to people at Ivies, but admissions is quite capricious and I've met people--both profs and grad students--shut out of Ivies producing far, far more cutting edge/interesting work than Ivy products.  Of course, there are lots of brilliant Ivy products, too, but the myth of the meritocracy can be pretty alluring to the point of perpetuating abjection and shame among the 'lower' tiers in a way that I personally find distasteful. . . aside done).