Pick either of two: Rank or Location

[Pair'o'docks]

On February 18, 2016 at 8:27 AM, oldhatnewtricks said:

For those who have been accepted/waitlisted near the top, what is more important for you, rank or location? 

 

For me, I'd say location. I'm stocked about Pitt and WashU, but Virginia has a perfect location...might have to bite the bullet and go there, jobs be damned.

First post - long time lurker. Weird, you and I have very similar outcomes. I have had the incredible fortune of being accepted to Virginia, WUSTL, and Georgetown and waitlisted at the University of Pittsburgh.

I am currently visiting Virginia as we speak. Lovely people. Their placement record is actually quite strong, far better even than similarly ranked departments but I say bah humbug to the the rankings. Over the past few years, they have successfully placed anywhere from sixty to eighty percent of job candidates into tenure-track jobs within two to three years after completing the degree.

Unfortunately, you and I do not share the good fortune of being accepted to Yale. I received my rejection just this morning while en route to Virginia. You've done right well for yourself. Congratulations; I hope the decision process is easy. And that the information above will be of assistance.

Edited March 4, 2016 by Pair'o'docks

[TheJabberwock]

I want to bump this thread. Mainly because I am torn between placement and location. Assuming fit is good between the two schools, and programs are 'ranked' similarly, I don't know which to choose. One school has a superb location in my opinion and seems really nice (good weather, pretty, closer to other cities). The other is in a hotter, muggier with nothing else really nearby that interests me (I like to go hiking and do not prefer flat land). However, the placement record of the better located school is not very good at all, the poorly located school has a decent placement and seems to prepare it students better for careers in academia.

The other thing to mention is I am not set on working in academia after completion of a PhD, but I would like the option to at least pursue it. So which do you all think is more important? All of this is assuming I will be fortunate to make a choice anyway (I being a bit optimistic and prepared in case I need to make a decision).

[maxhgns]

5 hours ago, TheJabberwock said:

I want to bump this thread. Mainly because I am torn between placement and location. Assuming fit is good between the two schools, and programs are 'ranked' similarly, I don't know which to choose. One school has a superb location in my opinion and seems really nice (good weather, pretty, closer to other cities). The other is in a hotter, muggier with nothing else really nearby that interests me (I like to go hiking and do not prefer flat land). However, the placement record of the better located school is not very good at all, the poorly located school has a decent placement and seems to prepare it students better for careers in academia.

The other thing to mention is I am not set on working in academia after completion of a PhD, but I would like the option to at least pursue it. So which do you all think is more important? All of this is assuming I will be fortunate to make a choice anyway (I being a bit optimistic and prepared in case I need to make a decision).

Have you spoken with students in each program? What does your prospective advisor's placement look like? Her graduation rates? (Also: a lot kind of hinges on your assessments of what counts as "good" placement.) Which one is more closely connected (institutionally, geographically, etc.) to the professional organizations relevant to your interests (assuming it's not just the APA)? Does one of them make it easy to get around on the conference circuit (through proximity to regular conferences, access to fundsd, etc.)? Does one program make active efforts to professionalize its students? Are faculty at one place freer with their feedback than at the other? How's the student camaraderie? Morale? What do the recent graduates and job market candidates have to say? Is the money better at one of them?

[philosopher king]

The motto all too often seems to that when things are close "go wherever you think you'd be most happy." Sorry to be cynical, but it's just so difficult to predict "where you'd be more happy" and often even locations that seem at first glance less attractive end up being fine. My brother went to college in the middle of nowhere in the midwest (after growing up in NY... I don't mean to belittle the midwest but I hope you get the idea) and he was completely fine with it. We only get the chance to enroll in a PhD program once. Sometimes going with the prestige (over e.g. location) is the way to go.

Edited April 8, 2016 by philosopher king

[AnotherKantFan]

1 hour ago, philosopher king said:

The motto all too often seems to that when things are close "go wherever you think you'd be most happy." Sorry to be cynical, but it's just so difficult to predict "where you'd be more happy" and often even locations that seem at first glance less attractive end up being fine. My brother went to college in the middle of nowhere in the midwest (after growing up in NY... I don't mean to belittle the midwest but I hope you get the idea) and he was completely fine with it. We only get the chance to enroll in a PhD program once. Sometimes going with the prestige (over e.g. location) is the way to go.

Good point. I've been wondering the same thing lately... But, then, I suppose prestige only comes into play when the difference between two schools in e.g. the overall TGR ranking is more than 4-5 spots? 

[philosopher king]

1 hour ago, AnotherKantFan said:

Good point. I've been wondering the same thing lately... But, then, I suppose prestige only comes into play when the difference between two schools in e.g. the overall TGR ranking is more than 4-5 spots? 

I think an argument can be made for even 1 or 2 spots. It's really depends, I guess. Hard to generalize. The ranking are (obviously) a product of faculty, etc ... and when you consider those difference it becomes more easy to appreciate what 1 or 2 spots means.

Edited April 8, 2016 by philosopher king

[AnotherKantFan]

18 minutes ago, philosopher king said:

I think an argument can be made for even 1 or 2 spots. It's really depends, I guess. Hard to generalize. The ranking are (obviously) a product of faculty, etc ... and when you consider those difference it becomes more easy to appreciate what 1 or 2 spots means.

I'd say overall 1, or 2, or 3 spots down don't matter at all, in terms of overall prestige. When it comes to individual faculty members, of course - this depends on AOI.

[maxhgns]

3 hours ago, AnotherKantFan said:

Good point. I've been wondering the same thing lately... But, then, I suppose prestige only comes into play when the difference between two schools in e.g. the overall TGR ranking is more than 4-5 spots? 

Not really. Even the PGR's most vocal defenders will tell you there's basically no difference between PGR ranks for departments within about .5 of one another (on the mean score).

 

Prestige is a weird thing. It's definitely correlated to rank, but it can deviate significantly. All of the Ivy departments, for example, enjoy a lot of prestige, but for most of them it's totally out of proportion to their philosophical clout (this happens elsewhere too: think of departments housed in universities that don't have a geographical name). And some departments enjoy quite a bit of prestige, but in a fairly narrow band of subfields (think CMU). Departmental prestige is not at all linear, and it peters out pretty quickly.

[NathanKellen]

18 hours ago, maxhgns said:

All of the Ivy departments, for example, enjoy a lot of prestige, but for most of them it's totally out of proportion to their philosophical clout

This is in part due to non-philosophers having input on hiring decisions. Lots of teaching jobs, for example, will have hiring committees which are half non-philosophers. Those folks will recognise certain "brand names" like the Ivys and often act accordingly. Even for research departments, this may happen at the administrative levels (deans, etc.).

[maxhgns]

2 hours ago, NathanKellen said:

This is in part due to non-philosophers having input on hiring decisions. Lots of teaching jobs, for example, will have hiring committees which are half non-philosophers. Those folks will recognise certain "brand names" like the Ivys and often act accordingly. Even for research departments, this may happen at the administrative levels (deans, etc.).

 

Yup, but not just hiring decisions: a lot of how you're treated in the academic world is also just name/brand recognition (think, e.g., of the studies showing how highly Princeton Law ranks, even though they have no law school). Ivies, Berkeley, Princeton, and Michigan would all have to sink quite far to outrun their natural buoyancy! Conversely, a school like Bloomington (just to pick one) would probably have to do quite a lot more to get into those hallowed echelons. This can translate to all kinds of advantages or disadvantages even beyond the job market, from opportunities to publish (political philosophers need only look to the recent publishing scandal) and conference, to making the cut for grants, etc.

 

You can only expect philosophers to have a sense of a school's Leiter rank and "philosophical prestige". People who are outside the field or just not in that loop are operating with a very different list from the one you might assume they're operating with, and it's not necessarily a list that's going to treat Rutgers as a more prestigious institution than, say, Cornell, Brown, or Stanford. It's also not going to be a list that's 50 departments long.

Edited April 9, 2016 by maxhgns

[philosopher king]

On 4/9/2016 at 6:31 PM, maxhgns said:

 

Yup, but not just hiring decisions: a lot of how you're treated in the academic world is also just name/brand recognition (think, e.g., of the studies showing how highly Princeton Law ranks, even though they have no law school). Ivies, Berkeley, Princeton, and Michigan would all have to sink quite far to outrun their natural buoyancy! Conversely, a school like Bloomington (just to pick one) would probably have to do quite a lot more to get into those hallowed echelons. This can translate to all kinds of advantages or disadvantages even beyond the job market, from opportunities to publish (political philosophers need only look to the recent publishing scandal) and conference, to making the cut for grants, etc.

 

You can only expect philosophers to have a sense of a school's Leiter rank and "philosophical prestige". People who are outside the field or just not in that loop are operating with a very different list from the one you might assume they're operating with, and it's not necessarily a list that's going to treat Rutgers as a more prestigious institution than, say, Cornell, Brown, or Stanford. It's also not going to be a list that's 50 departments long.

I see going to a school that has overall prestige outside of just the philosophy department as a small bonus to a program but not anything to worry about when you're considering a top 8 program like Pitt or Rutgers. You go there; you have a shot at a job ANYWHERE basically. You got to Brown, then it's a lot more difficult to get a job at some places that are only considering applications from tier 1 (i.e. top 8) programs.

 

And, about the title of this thread (i.e. location) I just feel like you need to sometimes make the small sacrifice of perhaps living in a mediocre location if it means a better programs with better placement. I'd rather improve my odds of getting a much better job where I work 40 years (and where I raise my family), than settle for less later and have a nice location for a 5-year PhD program (much of which I spend locked in a room writing and reading).

Edited April 13, 2016 by philosopher king