Lower ranked programs to fit career aspirations?

[waterloo715]

I am applying this upcoming cycle, and I am looking for some advice on which programs to select. After perusing old results threads, I think I am competitive for programs in the top 20 given my background. However, I am interested in teaching just as much as research, and I am hoping to land a TT position where more emphasis is placed on teaching than, say, an R1. I have little interest in prestige, and actually prefer the life of a journeyman political scientist who enjoys his job and strikes a healthy work-life balance. 

That said, my question is whether I should apply to lower ranked programs which often place students in these sorts of positions? And if so, what are some mid- to lower-ranked programs that provide solid training, adequate resources, and have good placement records? Or should I shoot for top programs regardless of what I want out of my career? 

I will apply for a focus on CP/IR, looking at transitions to and from democracy, hybrid regimes, etc., with a regional interest in the post-Soviet space. 

Thanks for any advice or suggestions! 

[knp]

I'm not in your field, and too early in my career to answer your question as well as it should be answered, but it sounds like you might focus your search on more of the bigger and/or public top 20. Some Ivies and other rich private institutions in the fields I know best—the one in New Jersey especially—do such a good job of financially supporting their students' research careers that most students end up pretty isolated from teaching. They might do it for a course or two, but it's not integral to the program. Like you, I didn't want that. I disliked that setup for different reasons than yours, but CHE/TPII describe those programs as making it more difficult for their graduates to find jobs at high-teaching institutions: a program that mostly expects you to be teaching will expect you to have taught more than just once already. On the other hand, in my field, it looks like it really is harder/more risky to get a TT job of ANY kind if you go to a school much outside the top 30.

So while it sounds like you should avoid the richest private schools, and for placement reasons you shouldn't under-match the graduate training you're competitive for, there are a lot of well-regarded, big, less wealthy institutions in the top 20. The UNCs and University of Wisconsins of the world are very well regarded in my discipline, but don't pay a lot, and require all of their graduate students to do a lot of teaching to get their stipends. That makes things more difficult for students who do want research careers, but sounds like exactly the sort of environment that would work for you. I don't yet know any PhD student who's chosen an institution like that for your exact reasons, but I know a couple students who want to teach community college and who go to that sort of high-support, high-teaching graduate program.

[PoliticalOrder]

Don't do it. Look through placements at top programs and you will see a lot of recent grads who have landed at R1s, R2s, and more teaching-heavy positions such as LACs and SLACs. The simple point is that graduating from a top program gives you more options while lower ranked programs close doors automatically. 

Furthermore, if you want to get TA experience, you can easily get it. You just have to ask. And secondly, a lot of top programs push students to actually run a course of their own which is way better experience than TAing for a redundant amount of times at public schools. The utility of TAing diminishes over time. TAing 8 courses is not much different than doing 4. 

[buckinghamubadger]

The placement at top programs is just so much better than lower tiered ones that it isn't worth it. If you can get in to top 20 programs, go.

[TakeruK]

I am not in this field, but I also want to second the advice of going for the best programs you can get into, as long as you feel like it is a good fit for you. There could be many good reasons to turn down a top 20 program in favour of a lower ranked program, for example you dislike the atmosphere at one of the departments, but it is incorrect to think that graduates from top schools go into research positions and graduates from lower ranked schools go into teaching positions. 

Here are some reasons I think you should go to the best school that is also the best fit for you:

1. There are far more graduates from top 20 schools than there are R1 TT positions. As PoliticalOrder said, graduates from these top programs will dominate the job market in all types of positions.

2. I'm going to repeat another thing that PoliticalOrder said because I think their post is very on point. You can make/find your own opportunities to develop your teaching portfolio. TAing more than 2 or 3 classes isn't going to help. If you are able to teach a class then that could be pretty good. You can also find teaching work outside of your graduate program. My advice would be that since you know you are interested in a teaching career, do your research on which of the best schools would value teaching or have programs that can develop you as a teacher as well as a researcher.  My school has not been particularly well known for its teaching opportunities but I made my own: asked my profs to teach some of the lectures instead of just grading, volunteered with the Teaching Center on campus to get additional training and also to plan TA training etc. 

3. This part might be field-specific but the advice I got from people who hire primarily teaching positions (e.g. at SLAC or similar schools) tell me that they prefer a candidate with a strong research background. Even though the job solicitation might have a lot of words that indicate they want to hire a good instructor, they also want someone that can do a little bit of research and expose their students to research as well (since SLACs want to train their graduates for grad school as well as other career paths). So, the advice I've heard is that given everyone applying would have some sort of good teaching portfolio and teaching philosophy, the thing that will make you stand out is your research. One thing you can do is to look at the CVs of recent hires at the types of schools you want to work at. Where did they do their PhDs, and if relevant, their postdocs? Make sure to look at recent hires because the ones that were hired decades ago were competing with a very different job market. In my field, I've noticed that there is a big trend to new SLAC professors being hired after a PhD and/or a postdoc at top R1 universities.

4. Top ranked programs will be better at providing you with the resources you need to pursue the career goals you want. I talked about volunteering at my school and in my community. I'm able to do this because I have won national fellowships so my advisors don't have to pay me as much, which means I get more freedom on how I use my time. Also, at these top schools, most of the faculty have plenty of grants, so there is little "jealousy" of grad students---that is, the faculty aren't logging our hours and making sure that they get the maximum research output for their grant dollars. This actually improves my quality of life and work-life balance because I can just work my 40 hours per week without feeling the (implicit) pressure from faculty that since grant money is so limited, I have to do other things. Also, at a R1 school, my funding is very secure---I don't have to do RA or TA work that take time away from my own thesis progress in order to fund myself. This leaves me with more free time to do outreach in the community or other things to help me advance my career.

5. Finally, I noticed that you wrote 

On 5/31/2016 at 2:38 PM, waterloo715 said:

 I have little interest in prestige, and actually prefer the life of a journeyman political scientist who enjoys his job and strikes a healthy work-life balance. 

I think it is a fallacy to assume that prestige is correlated with someone who doesn't enjoy their job or someone who doesn't have a healthy work-life balance. Sure, when you visit a R1 school, you will find some people working 60+ hours per week. I would not enjoy that and it doesn't sound like you would either. However, in most cases, this is a choice they made due to pressures they are placing on themselves. And maybe they are happy doing this---I have colleagues who really love their work and would rather spend their time working than doing other things, so they are happy with their 60 hour work week. It's important to remember that you don't need to compare yourself to others and someone else working 60+ hours per week doesn't affect your own work-life balance.

Now, of course, if the general expectation in the department is that everyone has to work 60+ hours per week or they get judged for it, then yeah, that is not a "good fit" and you shouldn't apply/go there. But I think few R1 schools are actually like this. Sometimes it's much more easy to notice the 60+ hours/week workaholic, because well, they are there all the time and you see them more. My experience at lower ranked schools showed me that there are going to be people that prefer working over everything else at all schools.