Making Program Comparisons

[DaniB23]

If you had to make a chart that weighed the pros and cons of a PhD program, what percentage of importance would you assign to the following:

-Cost of Living/Rental Options

-Research fit

-Job placement rate

-Congeniality of program

-Funding offer

-Summer funding opportunity

-Ranking

-Weather

-Departmental support

I'm inclined to say that research fit and job placement would have the highest percentage of importance, myself.  Something like 30% each, funding 20% and so on.  But I'm really curious what others think, and I'm selfishly hoping that looking at an aggregate of opinions will help me in weighing my own options.  How would you all apply a percentage to importance when it comes to final program decisions?

[EmmaJava]

Yeah - totally. I think we're all somehow indexing these factors together into a maximum curve kinda thing - a "what's hitting on all or most cylinders" kinda thing. I'm so not a math person, so I just kind of mentally calculate, but I'm using pretty much the exact same criteria as you, and weighting them more or less the same.  Research fit and placement record come just above ranking, for me. Check and checkmate. The idea being that if you can do your absolute best work in a place that excels in placing people who do their absolute best work, then ultimately that counts more than a ranking, since - let's face it - the end goal of a rank is to accomplish getting placed, presumably because you were able to do your best work there. And doing your best work will make you a happier person. Everything else is a sort of icing on the proverbial cake. I've also thrown "ability to teach upper division courses in my own area" into the mix, and I generally put in a "geography" factor in place of your "weather" factor, but same diff. "Cost of living" factor sky-rocketed on my list, somewhat unexpectedly, after my Hawaii acceptance and my UC-SB waitlist - then you index cost of living with the offer itself in a way that is well-documented (x money goes much further in x location, etc.). Didn't see that coming (although in retrospect it's totally obvious). It's funny what this process will do to your perspective on certain things. I was just thinking about how difficult it was to discern "good fit" or the general character of a department when I was trying to figure out which schools to apply for...now that things are unfolding, the character and fit of the departments seem obvious, too. Then again, if we knew everything in advance, we'd only apply to the schools that accepted us, so I'm not too hard on myself. But it is interesting.

Last October feels so long ago, next August and start of fall semester feels so far away.

[DaniB23]

4 minutes ago, EmmaJava said:

Yeah - totally. I think we're all somehow indexing these factors together into a maximum curve kinda thing - a "what's hitting on all or most cylinders" kinda thing. I'm so not a math person, so I just kind of mentally calculate, but I'm using pretty much the exact same criteria as you, and weighting them more or less the same.  Research fit and placement record come just above ranking, for me. Check and checkmate. The idea being that if you can do your absolute best work in a place that excels in placing people who do their absolute best work, then ultimately that counts more than a ranking, since - let's face it - the end goal of a rank is to accomplish getting placed, presumably because you were able to do your best work there. And doing your best work will make you a happier person. Everything else is a sort of icing on the proverbial cake. I've also thrown "ability to teach upper division courses in my own area" into the mix, and I generally put in a "geography" factor in place of your "weather" factor, but same diff. "Cost of living" factor sky-rocketed on my list, somewhat unexpectedly, after my Hawaii acceptance and my UC-SB waitlist - then you index cost of living with the offer itself in a way that is well-documented (x money goes much further in x location, etc.). Didn't see that coming (although in retrospect it's totally obvious). It's funny what this process will do to your perspective on certain things. I was just thinking about how difficult it was to discern "good fit" or the general character of a department when I was trying to figure out which schools to apply for...now that things are unfolding, the character and fit of the departments seem obvious, too. Then again, if we knew everything in advance, we'd only apply to the schools that accepted us, so I'm not too hard on myself. But it is interesting.

Last October feels so long ago, next August and start of fall semester feels so far away.

Yes to all of this, but especially your last sentence.  I feel like I'm just in this little floating bubble and the second I make a decision it will pop.  I'm so torn on how much emphasis I should be putting on ranking, because as you said, much of all of this is based on the ability to do my best work wherever I go and the rankings don't speak to the quality of my work, the time and energy I put into bettering my work, and my ability to sell myself as a job candidate.  I think the ranking is really giving me a hard time, actually, because research fit is set with all my choices.

[silenus_thescribe]

I don't know that there's an exact science to this, but I think research fit and job placement should be good things to put at the top of the importance list. Overall, though, these features are hard to reduce down to any exact formula if the schools you are choosing between are really close together in ranking and job placement. 

My own initial (and highly imprecise) ranking of these things would be:

1. Research fit
2. Job placement rate
3. Departmental support 
4. Congeniality of program
5. Cost of living/rental options
6. Ranking
7. Funding offer
8. Summer funding opportunities

A couple of thoughts about this. Some might think I put funding too low. In the case of an offer that is much higher than another school's, that ranking might be higher. (For instance, full funding trumps no or partial funding.) But in my experience, the funding offers I received were all different only on the margins, certainly not enough to outweigh other factors like fit. I have also read many reports on GradCafe of students giving up more lucrative offers for schools with better placement rates and fit. In the majority of cases, you'll be making very little money in the short term, so enhancing your long-term job prospects by making sure you have (1) good faculty/research resources and (2) a killer placement committee backing you is of high importance. I rank "cost of living" higher than funding itself because, while money is scant no matter where you're a grad student, some places do make it especially difficult to get by, and I don't think it's unreasonable to turn down even a good fit if the stipend is near impossible to live on. 

Edited March 9, 2016 by silenus_thescribe

[Dr. Old Bill]

Fit, placement rate, and program reputation (which is often quite different from ranking) matter a lot to me. Congeniality is also pretty high as well. There's one top tier program I previously applied to that I won't be applying to next time around, based on a friend's detailed account of the lack of congeniality during her accepted student campus visit. I do good work, write well, contribute regularly etc., and a lot of that is because I don't feel like my peers are constantly trying to undermine me. A couple of weeks ago, I missed a couple of key points in a text, and put my foot in my mouth about a misinterpretation...and I certainly wasn't mocked or derided for it. One student made a point of saying "Oh, I see how it could have been read that way..." The work required in grad school is difficult enough without having to feel like you're under constant scrutiny and can't make a mistake once in awhile...

Location matters quite a bit to me based on my life circumstances. My wife is very much established in her career in this city, so she wouldn't be accompanying me to wherever I get into. As such, I want to remain within a day's drive (let's call that eight hours) of where I am right now. Fortunately that doesn't limit my options too much, but it knocks out two or three places I would have applied to otherwise (and adds in a couple I might not have previously considered). So my list would be...

1. Research fit
2. Program reputation
3. Job placement rate
4. Congeniality of program
5. Location
6. Departmental support
7. Funding offer
8. Cost of living
9. Ranking
10. Weather

 

[knp]

I just have two tiers. (NB That I am young, single, and fairly open to living wherever, which means I have more than average freedom in making this choice.) In the first tier, I have four mandatory factors: research fit (1) and placement rate (2), followed by whether or not I can get a bare minimum of funding in relation to COL (3), as well as whether I find the "vibe" of the department, potential advisor, and location, pleasant enough that I can imagine being content there for the duration of my work (4). The goal for 3 and 4 is not to maximize either funding or happiness (that's in the next tier), but I'm willing to rule out any program for which I'd have to go into substantial debt, as well as any program where I think I couldn't be at least medium happy long term. What's the point of doing this for the next 7-9 years if you're just going to be miserable, you know?

My second, bonus tier is largely unranked, but includes things like funding beyond the minimum, an extra good "vibe" about an advisor, department or location, weather, track record of students winning grants, interdisciplinary institutes on campus related to my interests, department's willingness to let a student have a scholar from a different field on their committee, etc. These are all nice things, and I hope I have two choices that are both so good on my first tier that the second group comes into play! But there's no combination of excellent bonus factors that could overcome a big weakness in the fundamentals.

[CarolineNC]

It's really too late for me to consider this because I'm already in a PhD program, but here's what I considered when I made my decision. 

1. Placement Rate

2. Ranking

3. Congeniality of program

4. Funding offer

5. Departmental Support

6. Research fit

7. Summer Funding

8. Weather

9. Cost of Living

I put research fit low because I'm not too attached to my research area to switch if need be. In fact, I switched from 19th-C American to Contemporary American last semester. Couldn't be happier about it. 

 

[KappaRoss]

Fit, placement, and funding. The others seem somewhat minor and transient in comparison (weather, summer funding, congeniality).

[klader]

It's different for me because I'm pursuing my MA first, but I'm really looking at research/program fit, funding, and faculty support first. At the same time, though, location is important to me (I really love my state and my region!), so that's not something to laugh at for some people (especially if they have strong family ties or something as well).

I'm going through an awful time of this as well since I can genuinely see myself doing well in both of my top choices (which is, I guess, why I applied to them in the first place). In the end, I think I'm going to be doing some follow-up emailing to both the faculty and current grad students and just really think about what I want and which program can best help me get there.

[KappaRoss]

Yeah, it's pretty different for an MA. The general advice is to go to the school that gives you the most funding. This is because you can get an MA at any state school and still go to basically any PhD program. So, you can have different criteria for MA programs, and you can more heavily factor things such as location and support. And of course, support is actually really important in an MA program if your plan is to pursue a PhD afterward.

Edited March 12, 2016 by KappaRoss

[Apogeee]

On 3/9/2016 at 1:43 PM, DaniB23 said:

If you had to make a chart that weighed the pros and cons of a PhD program, what percentage of importance would you assign to the following:

-Job placement rate

You need enough money to live on. After that, job placement rate as expressed in terms of a percentage of all students who begin the program is a serious consideration that very few programs share, and nobody seems to ask.

 

 

[haltheincandescent]

On 3/9/2016 at 2:42 PM, silenus_thescribe said:

 I have also read many reports on GradCafe of students giving up more lucrative offers for schools with better placement rates and fit. In the majority of cases, you'll be making very little money in the short term, so enhancing your long-term job prospects by making sure you have (1) good faculty/research resources and (2) a killer placement committee backing you is of high importance. I rank "cost of living" higher than funding itself because, while money is scant no matter where you're a grad student, some places do make it especially difficult to get by, and I don't think it's unreasonable to turn down even a good fit if the stipend is near impossible to live on. 

I second this. While on a visit one DGS basically said the same: as long as each funding package is livable, pick the program among those that's best for you, not the one that's just going to give you 5000 more a year, because this is temporary, 5-8 years or so. Of course, this was coming from someone at the school that probably has the tightest budget of those I applied to, and so kind of has to say something like this to make up for the fact that they can't "compete" flat-out financially--but I'm pretty sure he meant it generally and sincerely, and I'm taking it to heart. All offers I have now are similar, within 5K or so, somewhat adjusting for CoL, and so I'm turning focus to mostly now on: research resources available, my interactions so far with faculty, interdisciplinary opportunities, teaching opportunities and responsibilities, location (somewhat), job support, interactions w/ other students (both current and other prospectives), and general program reputation (not in terms of ranking or just pos/neg, but how each department sees itself/is seen oriented w/in the discipline--as far as it is possible to glean that from a distanced perspective).

[EmmaJava]

1 hour ago, haltheincandescent said:

...interdisciplinary opportunities...

Yep, I've been asking this, too. Definitely a factor, even if I'm not sure how much I weight it.

[NowMoreSerious]

I wanted to add a few things that I've posted on here before, but that I haven't seen said lately. 

When looking at placement, look deeper.  In other words, make sure that the school places students from a variety of fields and through a variety of dissertations and professors.  

It might be, for example, that your program is really really strong in Medieval, (maybe having some prominent professors in that area), and that they place a lot of Medieval students in tenure track jobs. 

But if you are in American Literature, where does that put you? Look also at the specific professors you want to work with, and if students with them in their dissertation committees have a good placement record. 

This being said, it might be that the university has an infusion of new professors in a specific field/area, so you can't really judge placement.  If this is the case, and you are planning on working with these professors, do make sure you ask them about their mentorship/advisement style.  Ask them what they look for when they plan to be on a committee, etc.  Ask them how they handle professionalization.  (Or as I call it, the P word) 

[NowMoreSerious]

RE: interdisciplinary opportunities 

Much of this depends on your program.  Specifically, do they allow you to take coursework outside of the department? Do they allow people from other departments to be on committees? Do they have strong programs in a wide variety of departments related to your interdisciplinary interests? Are there reading groups that cross departmental boundaries? Are some professors cross listed?  These things usually point towards interdisciplinary opportunity.  Some English programs are very insular.  In fact they are known for being insular.  Other programs are pretty open. For instance my program at UCLA is strong in Literature and the Sciences, even.