Difference between top 10 and top 20

[hgp]

I've heard that top 5 only hires within top 5 (for my field - sociology) and that the next tier is 6-20. Other people have said that as long as the school is top 20 it's top tier.

 

One of my schools is #10 (ivy) and the other is #20 (state school). Should I consider them in the same tier? I'd sincerely appreciate any opinions on this matter! 

[bsharpe269]

I would also appreciate thoughts on this. Would a school ranked 5th offer much better opportunities than one ranked 15th?

[eeee1923]

Honestly, schools ranked that closely tend to have similar resources and produce pretty similar high caliber research. The things that separate the two are usually pretty minute and I would honestly go where you feel you would flourish the most (fit, environment, post-grad opportunities, etc.). Now the difference between 5th and 50th would certainly be much more pronounced. 

[hgp]

Thank you for your response! 

[hgp]

Honestly, schools ranked that closely tend to have similar resources and produce pretty similar high caliber research. The things that separate the two are usually pretty minute and I would honestly go where you feel you would flourish the most (fit, environment, post-grad opportunities, etc.). Now the difference between 5th and 50th would certainly be much more pronounced. 

Do you think they are looked at differently though? In terms of prestige? 

[juilletmercredi]

I offer a general yes, although it really depends on the field. The number of programs in a field is going to impact this a lot. For example, one of my fields (public health) is relatively small with a small number of PhD programs, so top 15 programs are definitely perceived in a different light than the 16-25 programs. But my other field, psychology, is very large with a lot of PhD programs in many different subfields. There's not huge perceptional differences between the top 20 programs, I would say - a top 25 program graduate with publications and an otherwise outstanding package would have good prospects on the market. I mean, yes, there's definitely a prestige premium for Stanford and Michigan and Princeton (top 10), but I have seen grads from Duke, Ohio State, Penn State, Indiana and NYU (20-30) teaching at great schools as well.

 

The other factor is going to be how tight the market is in your field. I've read in areas that English literature is such an impacted field that even graduates from the top 10-15 programs sometimes have trouble finding good positions, which means that people from outside the top 25 really have trouble entering academia at all. But I've also read that economics PhDs even from top 50 programs are getting good jobs, because economics is such a lucrative field that many PhDs leave for industry and so the academic job market is not as tight. And right now, several top research universities have standing open ads for nursing professors. I mean that they basically have a permanent advertisement on their website saying that they need nursing professors, and by "top" I mean place like Penn and Emory - because there is such a shortage of faculty in that field.

 

It also totally depends on what YOU want to do. It's definitely true that prestigious departments tend to hire only from other prestigious departments - that's true across most fields (there was just a minor academic kerfluffle about a Science Advances paper that showed just that). If your goal is to be a famous sociologist doing cutting-edge scholarship at a top university - training the best doctoral students, teaching a few graduate seminars per year, organizing speaker series and colloquia of top sociologists, and maybe only occasionally teaching undergraduates - that #10 Ivy is probably going to be better at getting you towards that goal (although going to a top 20 school won't necessarily prevent you from doing it - it'll just be harder). But if your goal is simply a good academic job - and non-elite departments, teaching colleges and regional comprehensives are also on the menu - a top 20 school will work just fine for that.

Edited March 19, 2015 by juilletmercredi

[TakeruK]

Completely agree with juilletmercredi. In planetary science, a fairly small and young field (really only invented about 50 years ago), I'd say there are probably only 5-ish programs that are clearly head and shoulders above the rest. But in astronomy, I'd say all the top 20 ish schools are the same tier, more or less.

 

I also agree with eteshoe--go for the school that offers the best opportunity for you! There is a cycle in academia where the best schools produce better scholars because they have more resources, and they have more resources because they have more money, and they have more money because they have more donors and they have more donors because they produce better scholars, and so on....

 

Therefore, I think a big part of why graduates from top tier programs get good jobs is because they are at a place where they are much better supported and have everything they need. I think this plays a much bigger role in your future than the nametag on your degree. That is, picking the #1 ranked university will not help you that much unless that #1 ranked university has the resources to help you reach your goals. Pick the right combination of prestige and resources to best support you (keeping in mind that prestige and resources are often extremely correlated!)

[GeoDUDE!]

Its also important to note how many subdisciplines your field has. For example, lets say you are in geophysics and see a job posting. They say, we are looking for a solid earth geophysicist. Thats a pretty common posting, as specific job postings (down to subdicipline) usually means that they already have someone in mind for the job. That job could hire from exploration geophysics, geodynamics, planetary sciences, earthquake seismology and mineral physics. Thats 5 different subfields, and all those people are qualified to teach the courses they probably want and all those subfields might have a different "top 5". That makes the competition even tougher than one would originally think, so going to the higher ranked school, all things being equal, helps. 

[hgp]

Thank you all so much for the feedback! It has been very helpful.

Edited March 20, 2015 by hgp