Got only one offer. Accept it or try next year?

[niketon]

So far I got funding from Northeastern university only for PhD in civil and environmental engineering. I am interested in working in academia but NeU has ranking around 50 in us news. Also I saw that there are very few NeU graduate who got into academia. Should I accept this offer or try next year again? My profile (undergrad 3.90, GRE 314, IELTS 7). I tried only two top ranked university this year and got admission from both with no funding. Is there anyone who can tell me about the quality of the program in NeU?

Edited March 18, 2015 by niketon

[juilletmercredi]

If you want to go into academia but very few NEU graduates go into academia, I would say that's a red flag. I think I would ask more questions before turning them down - you're in a field where industry pay is a lot more and it's quite common for PhDs to enter industry. So are NEU PhD grads not going into academia because more of them prefer industry jobs - but they could get academic jobs if they wanted? Or are they going into industry because they can't get academic jobs? Ask some advisors in the department.

 

But if you aren't enthusiastic about the program and you have reservations about what it can do for you professionally, it would be better to wait and apply more broadly next year.

[minkwoski]

Academic jobs may depend on the school you attended but its not limited by that.....if you do a good PhD research that gets good recognition in your field and with good recommendations, you may land good academic jobs....I have seen great scientist who taught in ivy league colleges but did not even get PhD from top 100 schools in US....so if you research is distinguished then academic jobs may come knocking......also a distinguished PhD research will open good doors for Pos-doc positions in top schools and if you do vert well there you can land a good academic job...so dont think academic job solely depends on your grad school....your RESEARCH and your achievment in your field can take you up there..

[TakeruK]

It's definitely true that your grad school's name by itself won't get you an academic job. But the grad school's name does impact your ability to do good science and research! If you take two equally talented people and put one in a "brand-name" school with lots of resources and another in a lower tier school with fewer resources, the student in the brand name school has way more opportunities to reach their full potential. So in this sense, it's important to factor in the school's name--you can't just count on the fact that if you do great work, you'll be recognized.

 

Also, I agree with juilletmercredi that it's important to determine whether or not the NEU graduates are not able to get jobs in academia or whether they choose not take jobs in academia! And it's important to also "normalize" the fraction by comparing it against the national average etc. So, when you say "very few", do you mean something like 20% or something like 2% ? I think it's important to see how NEU compares with the national average for your field, not just the absolute number.

[juilletmercredi]

I want to add to TakeruK's point on two levels, because I think this is important. I agree that name alone won't get you an academic job, but the short of it is that academia is a very prestige-focused field and the university and department at which you studied DOES mean a lot.

 

One, it matters directly. There was recently an article in Science Advances (that the academic community is buzzing about) that showed that the faculty at top research universities almost exclusively got their PhDs at other top research universities. Even within field, if you look at the professors at the best departments, you will note that they all got their PhDs from the same places. I once did this exercise in computer science and electrical engineering at MIT for someone with the same question, and noted that the CS&EE faculty at MIT mostly came from four programs: MIT, Stanford, and two others that I can't remember but were definitely top 10 programs in CS/EE. And there are a LOT of professors in that department. IN my own top 15 department,with two notable exceptions, all of the faculty got their PhDs at other top 20 departments.  I was curious, so I checked the notable exceptions. One did three postdocs at successively more prestigious places; his third one was in my department. And he had tons of publications. The other one, I realized, got her PhD in a cognate field (e.g. neuroscience instead of psychology) and her PhD program was top 20 in that field. And she still did two postdocs for a total of 6 years.

 

The point is, professors do pay attention to this. Where you go, and who you worked with, has a prestige impact upon hiring. Top schools will only hire from other top schools unless you spend a lot of time and effort working your way up; the "great scientist who teaches at an Ivy League but didn't even get a PhD from a top 100 school" is a rare bird. And even schools that aren't ranked "top" still like to say that the have professors in their departments from top departments/universities. I'm not saying it's right or good, but it is.

 

Second of all, though, it matters indirectly. Well-reputed schools are well-reputed, in part, because they have professors doing high volumes of research, who win large amounts of grant money, and who have lots of resources in their department to facilitate that kind of research. I'm not talking about prestige in terms of street prestige, like Ivy League or somesuch, but legitimate research cred - I'm at a public university as a postdoc without prestigious street cred but that has positively tons of money and data for me to analyze and write papers on, and professors who are successful enough in their careers that they don't care (and, in fact, encourage) me to take their data and publish first-authored papers with it.

 

So, yes, you can get an academic job from a mid-ranked or lower university...but your prospects are better coming from a top-ranked department, and a department that has a reputation and track record of placing students in good academic jobs (whatever "good" means to you).

 

I just want to add the disclaimer that I'm not saying that this is how it should be - but for better or for worse this is how the academic environment has evolved.

[sackofcrap]

Are you saying you only got accepted to one program or that you got accepted to multiple programs and only one offered funding? If you only got accepted to one program all together (northeastern) and they offered you funding, I would say to go there. You say only few of the graduates go into academia, but you don't know if that's because only a few of the graduates want to go into academia. Maybe the majority of the graduates just want to go other things. That doesn't automatically mean that you can't go into academia or that you will specifically have a hard time getting into academia.

 

If you got into multiple programs and only one offered funding then that might be a little bit more complicated. If those other programs have better turnout with getting their grads into academia, I might still consider it, even without funding. Students have been known to not get funding in their first year, but then they get it every year after that. Funding can change from year to year, so there is hope in that. You might not get a teaching assistant job the first year, but then you might get it the second year.