how much does program prestige matter?

[rae32]

Hi all, 

I'm finishing my bachelor's degree in Dec. 2016 and am planning to apply to MA/PhD programs this cycle. I would prefer to go straight to a PhD because I have a pretty clear idea of what I want to do and want to settle down somewhere (it feels like I've been moving constantly the last four years because I transferred schools and did internships in different cities each summer). 

I want to do qualitative and mixed methods research on patient-provider communication. I'm really excited about University of South Florida's program and think it would be a great fit. Some of my advisors have cautioned me that USF isn't a highly ranked school (they say it's middle of the road) and have encouraged me to look at higher ranking schools as well (like George Mason and University of Kentucky). My question is: How much does prestige of a program matter after graduate school? Will it affect me longterm as I apply to fellowships or grants if I don't go to one of the top programs? 

I know I'm farrrr away from having to make decisions about schools (haven't even applied yet lol), but I've been wondering about  this subject a lot. I go to a decent but not highly ranked liberal arts college, and if anything I've appreciated the level of attention I get and more laid back atmosphere of less prestigious and competitive school. 

 

[IronicStatement]

I am now a PhD Candidate in Rhet/Comm. I think your gut feeling is right, and your advisors are wrong. Or, to be more diplomatic, their point is of less concern.

In the job market, research interests and your quality will matter over the prestige of the school. Once you get the PhD, you present yourself with a cover letter and references, not just a "Big Impressive Name" + "G.P.A." And there are so many more important factors to weigh in making a decision for one program over another.

1) Minimize your debt. The higher ranking schools can frequently get away with paying less, so they do.

2) It is better to complete a degree at a slightly less prestigious university than to fail out of a higher ranked one. If you think you match a program's pace (you'll get a feel for this during campus visits), I would use that as a barometer for fit.

Good luck!

[letsberealhere]

Nothing IronicStatement said is horribly inaccurate, but let me at least provide a slightly different take so you can figure your own way depending on your priorities.

1) If you look through enough alumni, recent grad, and faculty profiles, the general trend is that in academia you place downward post-PhD in terms of institutional/program prestige. Do you want to stay in academia? Do you want to work at an R1 or is non-R1 fine with you? If you want to go R1, you should certainly keep this in mind. The downward pattern isn't just an observation on my part, I've discussed it with numerous faculty who say that it's inevitably how the market works out given applicant-opening ratios and academia reputational dynamics. I have had faculty mentors bluntly tell me that if it came down to two candidates of equal profile, one from Prestigious Private U University High Rank Program vs Big 10 U High Rank Program, they would go for the former, little doubt about it. I'm not saying any of this is right or wrong, I'm just making you aware it is a thing.

2) The one bit I straight up disagree with is that higher ranking schools pay tend to pay less. If anything, the higher ranked programs tend to have more resources and will be able to/often do compete with each other, matching funding packages if they want you, and pay better on the whole. For example, I hear Northwestern recently raised their funding package to $29k to compete with Penn Annenberg. Furthermore, some of the wealthier programs have the benefit of being able to provide annual personal research/travel purses as opposed to many programs where trying to get the school to fund anything is a struggle. That can mean the difference between being continuously tied to a faculty grant - which is great if you're really 100% interested in that work but can be hell if not - versus being able to dabble in some more specifically personal stuff.

People are certainly right when they say it's your CV and list of pubs that matter most once you have your PhD. Productive people have come out of programs of all different prestige levels, but prestige and the resources that often come with it can mean that it's that much easier to be productive when you don't have to worry about certain things.

That's all a bunch of more general advice, though. Sounds like you've found a program and fit that really excite you, you should apply to it. I personally don't think USF is any worse than GMU or UK.

 

 

 

Edited August 18, 2016 by letsberealhere

[gradswag]

I would also like to chime in and say that unless you already have significant independent research experience coming out of undergrad, it will be extremely difficult to get straight into a PhD program without a masters (nearly unheard of). This is social science specific, it is fairly commonplace in the hard sciences, but almost every Comm PhD program will require holding a masters upon entrance to the program. Some people will stay at the same institution for both their MA and PhD, so that might be a more reasonable option for you if you are looking to stay in the same location for six years instead of moving after two. However, that individualized attention you are seeking might happen at a program with a terminal masters so I wouldn't rule that out entirely.

I do believe there is merit to attending a top institution and being provided with the resources necessary to make the best opportunities happen for you during graduate school. In that sense, all programs are not equal. Additionally, your graduating institution does not inherently make fellowship/grant opportunities happen more easily. What it does mean is that you might be learning from the best of the best in your field, and you will learn the tricks of the trade to writing grant proposals and potentially meet "the right people" during networking events, conferences, etc. through your faculty mentors.

USF is not a nothing school, it is not easy to get into. You would be best off applying to some top tier schools and some middle of the road schools, some terminal masters programs and some joint MA/PhD programs, because you never know where you will get into and campus visits will clarify things like department climate, resources, and student happiness. Make sure you talk to people from several programs, you might think a school is a good fit, but another program might actually be better. It is hard to get a good sense of what a program does from their website alone. Just because a school is top tier does not mean you will not be provided with individualized attention, many of these programs are pretty small and thus offer plenty of one-on-one attention from faculty members.

You will figure it out, don't give into peer pressure (or faculty pressure) about what school to attend, things will become more obvious as the application process happens. Good luck!

 

 

[kicker]

I did quite a bit of research into this before deciding to attend Temple/reject offers from some more prestigious programs. I looked at faculty CVs at the sort of places I'd like to work, and I straight up asked profs about it as well. Here are the factors that drove my decision:

*There seemed to be a limited consensus that program prestige matters, but mainly as a tiebreaker between otherwise qualified candidates. E.g., if two candidates have similar pub records, similar letters of rec, roughly equal interviews, then the penn alum is gonna beat the random school alum most of the time.

*There was a stronger consensus that your adviser's prestige/reputation matters more than the program's prestige/reputation. So, if you're at a really good school but your adviser has a very poor track record, you're probably worse off than somebody at a lesser program with a very strong adviser.

*The quality of your work, especially as reflected by your publication record, is the thing that gets you in the door. To that extent, a lesser program can be a big advantage if you're a big fish and you get lots of opportunities to jump on papers/work with faculty. I think every prof I talked to told me that more/better publications >> better program. So, if you can be a big fish at annenberg, that's optimal. But if you're gonna be jockeying with other students for spots on papers all the time, a lesser program might be a better option. And, like, way nicer from a lifestyle perspective.

But, I'm not on the job market yet. So maybe I'm 2 years away from crying into my bowl at the shelter...

[Duna]

On 8/17/2016 at 4:48 AM, IronicStatement said:

I am now a PhD Candidate in Rhet/Comm. I think your gut feeling is right, and your advisors are wrong. Or, to be more diplomatic, their point is of less concern.

In the job market, research interests and your quality will matter over the prestige of the school. Once you get the PhD, you present yourself with a cover letter and references, not just a "Big Impressive Name" + "G.P.A." And there are so many more important factors to weigh in making a decision for one program over another.

1) Minimize your debt. The higher ranking schools can frequently get away with paying less, so they do.

2) It is better to complete a degree at a slightly less prestigious university than to fail out of a higher ranked one. If you think you match a program's pace (you'll get a feel for this during campus visits), I would use that as a barometer for fit.

Good luck!

I want to agree /w what letsberealhere responded to you already and disagree strongly with point 1) and I also don't believe that programs at less prestigious universities will require you to do less work (point 2)). That's even somewhat rude to imply imho. As letsberealhere already stated, the higher ranking schools usually fund much better because they have more grants and higher endowment. Kinda makes sense, huh? 

I attend one of the prestigious schools. I'm ABD and hopefully finishing up next summer. I don't want to go into academia so I could not care less about the academic job market these days. However, there is a paper or report or something the NCA did several years ago and it describes how productive programs were, where alumni ended up and where the current faculty got their PhDs and it was pretty obvious from that data that 80% of jobs go to graduates of the same approximately 15 programs. Why? Have you studied networks at all? Maybe worth looking into this... Communication is a very small field and preferential attachment is a thing. If you are from one of the 15-20 programs then you will most likely find an alumni of your program at any other of these departments. You usually get in touch with current faculty easily during conferences etc. Do I think connections matter more than publications? No. Do they matter more after you can present your one or two published papers and show sufficient teaching experience? Oh hell yeah. This speaks to your own point "you present yourself with a cover letter and references". Yep, REFERENCES. So which references might matter more? 

The actual question is whether you should choose fit over prestige or vice versa. Here, I think you need to find a balance. 

I still don't get point 2) after I read through it 3 times now. Why would you fail a prestigious program but won't fail a less prestigious one? Shouldn't the pressure be way higher if you don't have the prestige of your program and the funding (that you don't seem to know of) to get you places? Your logic seems flawed. I once compared myself to some people in my program and got very upset because we really do have impressive scholars in our ranks. A professor told me: "You don't have to compete with them. You're already in the top 5% because you are in this program. The other 95% need to worry."

I don't necessarily believe this and I know people will go nuts on my butts for writing this here but I just like to cause some tension.

 

 

 

[DBear]

@Duna I totally see your point and agree with you.. but was curious, since you say you're almost done, out in conferences and such, what's the general consensus on who the top 5% programs are? I saw the NCA rankings but the most recent one is already over a decade old so I'm really not sure how reliable it is. Also, then does it matter after a certain point exactly how prestigious a school is? Like top 5 vs top 20, will that be that big of a difference? Mostly just curious because I'm new to the field...

[ejpril88]

What is the best source for PhD program ranking? I am trying to compare Purdue and UC Davis, but I couldn't find Davis on any of the NCA lists.

[somewhat weird]

I agree with some of the comments here. My own institution has had some negative experience with hiring fresh PhDs from top tier universities. I'm actually appalled at how ill-equipped a lot of them are compared to a lot of less prestigious, merely Masters degree holding professors. Someone at my school actually admitted that the quality of work and also the innovation of research projects is better from less prestigious rural college graduates, who they are looking to hire as new professors. I think they totally look at your work. Maybe the university could break a tie, but I think they want to hire PhDs who will do better work in the end. That's just the sense I'm getting.

[Duna]

Given that your current location is "no where important", I don't think your input seems to contribute much to the case. Ill-equipped compared to someone who only holds a Masters degree? That's just somewhat insulting. Following your own argument, you should probably withdraw your applications for PhD programs and just settle on an MA program.

I'm glad I could help. 

[ThousandsHardships]

@ejpril88 I wouldn't trust online rankings if I were you. Maybe go to a few professors that you know and trust and ask which programs they would recommend and/or classmates who've applied in the past and ask which schools they applied to. Read some commonly cited articles in your field and look up where the authors teach. I think those give you a much better sense of which schools are stronger than online rankings alone. In my field, NYU has by far the biggest program I've seen or heard of in the country, and tons of resources to boot. We all the way in California are recommended to read books written by their faculty, and almost all of my high-achieving classmates have applied there as one of their top choices. Yet the rankings I've seen place it behind schools I've never even heard of, like the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Connecticut.

By the way, I did my master's at UC Davis. If you have any questions about the campus or graduate student life, feel free to shoot me a message! Also, my cousin is an undergrad CS major at Purdue. She spent the entire winter break complaining about the weather (apparently she had to glide her way to finals), though it seems like she's enjoying her educational experience.

[gradswag]

9 hours ago, ThousandsHardships said:

@ejpril88 I wouldn't trust online rankings if I were you. Maybe go to a few professors that you know and trust and ask which programs they would recommend and/or classmates who've applied in the past and ask which schools they applied to. Read some commonly cited articles in your field and look up where the authors teach. I think those give you a much better sense of which schools are stronger than online rankings alone. In my field, NYU has by far the biggest program I've seen or heard of in the country, and tons of resources to boot. We all the way in California are recommended to read books written by their faculty, and almost all of my high-achieving classmates have applied there as one of their top choices. Yet the rankings I've seen place it behind schools I've never even heard of, like the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Connecticut.

First, your field might be very different, but in our field the rankings are pretty accurate. I would use the NCA site to determine which schools have programs with research interests that match your own. For me, I looked at all of the health comm/interpersonal programs. I looked at the faculty lists to see which schools had full professors whose names I recognized, a clear indicator of prestige. However, this is not an indicator of research output. You also would like to be in a place where the younger faculty (the assistant and associate professors, those who are seeking tenure or a full professorship) also have recognizable names, who are actively publishing, which gives you the opportunity to get involved. In our field, NYU is in a desirable location, they have a VERY niche program with very little in-field name recognition (in my opinion). UConn (for interpersonal/health) and Pitt (rhetoric) have exceptional programs. The school name is not so much what matters here, but the department/faculty prestige certainly does. 

On 2/18/2017 at 7:15 PM, somewhat weird said:

I agree with some of the comments here. My own institution has had some negative experience with hiring fresh PhDs from top tier universities. I'm actually appalled at how ill-equipped a lot of them are compared to a lot of less prestigious, merely Masters degree holding professors. Someone at my school actually admitted that the quality of work and also the innovation of research projects is better from less prestigious rural college graduates, who they are looking to hire as new professors. I think they totally look at your work. Maybe the university could break a tie, but I think they want to hire PhDs who will do better work in the end. That's just the sense I'm getting.

This is incredibly untrue. Please do not listen to this! You are severely ill informed if you think that people graduating from better top tier schools are ill equipped, on the whole. Top tier schools have better funding, thus they attract top talent. They typically offer more research funding, and faculty who are top names, the most respected in their field, are the ones who are teaching your classes. You are learning from the best. I am not sure what you mean by "merely" holding a master's. A master's degree is not easy, and holding one does not make you "merely" anything in my opinion, you should value and respect that degree as a fellow academic.

All of you should be looking at where students get placed after graduating. That will tell you whether a program is good or not. Ask for their recent graduate placements. Ask about what the school will do for you if the job market sucks (like do they offer a post doc position for a year or two after graduating). Ask about how long your funding lasts (is it a year to year thing, a 4 year commitment but no more, or 5+ years of funding). Ask about student research and look at the awards won by current students in the last year. This will tell you about the program prestige. Yes, these things do matter. Yes, you should certainly care about them.

On 1/30/2017 at 11:18 PM, DBear said:

@Duna I totally see your point and agree with you.. but was curious, since you say you're almost done, out in conferences and such, what's the general consensus on who the top 5% programs are? I saw the NCA rankings but the most recent one is already over a decade old so I'm really not sure how reliable it is. Also, then does it matter after a certain point exactly how prestigious a school is? Like top 5 vs top 20, will that be that big of a difference? Mostly just curious because I'm new to the field...

It depends on what subsection of the field you are in. The top 5% is different for media studies than it is for critical/cultural studies, for rhetoric, for health comm, for interpersonal. on my side of the field there are clusters of school rankings. Maybe the top schools are UCSB, Penn State, Iowa, Purdue, UIUC, Northwestern, UT-Austin. The tiers kind of muddle from there. The older rankings are not inaccurate, but faculty move around, so I would look at who is at each school right now to make your own prestige determination because it is so subfield specific.

On 8/17/2016 at 7:48 AM, IronicStatement said:

In the job market, research interests and your quality will matter over the prestige of the school. Once you get the PhD, you present yourself with a cover letter and references, not just a "Big Impressive Name" + "G.P.A." And there are so many more important factors to weigh in making a decision for one program over another.

 

This is sort of true. It is not entirely your research interests that matter, but the research you have done that matters. If your research interests don't match your research output, that is potentially problematic. Your GPA literally does not matter at all in graduate school. Do not fail classes, but straight A's do not matter almost at all. Focus your energy on your research. Again, I cannot stress this enough, you want to go to a place where quality research happens, where the research is respected, so that you will be taught how to do things in a way that will be respected in the field. That typically happens at better ranked schools (which is why they are better ranked). 

Edited February 20, 2017 by gradswag

[heyDW]

Ableist language, i.e. "delusional", is completely unnecessary. Please be more careful with your word choice.

[gradswag]

9 minutes ago, heyDW said:

Ableist language, i.e. "delusional", is completely unnecessary. Please be more careful with your word choice.

I apologize. Delusional denotatively means of having mistaken judgement, that was not intentionally an ableist statement. 

[DBear]

@gradswag Thanks for that - I'm in rhetoric so was curious about that, but your answer helps! 

@heyDW Thanks for pointing that out - I didn't realize it could be read that way. Now I do!

[somewhat weird]

15 hours ago, Duna said:

Given that your current location is "no where important", I don't think your input seems to contribute much to the case. Ill-equipped compared to someone who only holds a Masters degree? That's just somewhat insulting. Following your own argument, you should probably withdraw your applications for PhD programs and just settle on an MA program.

I'm glad I could help. 

I am merely reporting the themes from my conversations with tenured professors. Princeton, Oxford, etc. have delivered some sub-par professors to our school. It was the opinion of the profs. that gave me this perspective. Sorry if their opinions are insulting to you. But I tend to think they know better about the situation than I do. I'm sorry that you disagree. Also, since you are so lacking in logic and insight that you think that my lack of interest in disclosing my location indicates that I am "ill-equipped," you should probably withdraw your candidacy for a PhD and just go get a job.

[CommPhD20]

Communication is a highly heterogeneous field for the social sciences; enough so that many self-described "communication" programs might take issue with the claim that they are social scientists (instead affiliating with the humanities). This makes some aspects of cross-program comparisons difficult.

For instance, my program often ranks at or near the top of lists of programs with the most-cited faculty members. On one hand, that's because it's a great program! On the other, there are other great programs that won't rank or anywhere near mine by that sort of metric. Why? Well, my program is strongly rooted in the quantitative empirical tradition, mostly inheriting its approach from social psychology (just one of several important intellectual forebears of our field). This way of doing things lends itself to a large number of publications. Other subfields are more focused on publishing book-length manuscripts or using methods that preclude anyone publishing 5-15 papers each year in reputable outlets.

Unlike some other fields for which outlets like US News and World Report has an influential ranking, there are no "official" program rankings in communication that many in the field would ever bother to look at. That means there is probably considerable disagreement about which programs are best and it is something particularly vulnerable to the subfield of the beholder. Still, I would assert that there's a boost that goes along with program prestige. It is one thing among several that will get your application a second look.

But of course program prestige is confounded with many other things. The more prestigious programs tend to support their students better in terms of stipends, health benefits, and so on, so all else being equal they could be preferred by an applicant on those grounds. Further, due to their prestige they are better able to choose from the best applicants (who like anyone else must be developed into scholars), so they get a head start in that way as well. These programs also tend to have more research resources, which enables their faculty to maintain their own standing in the field and also allows graduate students to become involved in and perhaps lead influential research that simply couldn't be done in places without the means. Again, that is somewhat subfield-specific; a rhetorician probably doesn't need eye-tracking equipment or a big budget for representative surveys. Last, when hitting the job market grad students from these programs have recommendations from influential faculty members who will be known to and respected by hiring committees.

So all of the above mostly comes independent of good training, which can be provided by people who aren't "famous" in their field or endowed with all the resources to publish high-impact research. Some of this then depends on your career goals. Many of the benefits of being in a prestigious program are useful only to those hoping to stay within academia. Becoming a competent professional doesn't require some of those things.

Communication is a bit more egalitarian than some other fields, due in part to its youth as a field and its healthy job market, but it's still relatively rare to see graduates "move up" in terms of prestige when comparing their PhD-issuing institution and their hiring institution. Some of this may be due to pure prestige, some may be due to those other factors I outlined which just happen to co-occur with program prestige.

My advice is to focus on job placement. A program that can't furnish detailed job placement information about all of its graduates should be viewed with suspicion. And when they give you that job placement information, look at it. Think about the median job placement in the program. Does that sound good to you? You should also poke around about retention and time to degree. If a program meticulously pushes out students who are unlikely to get a job, it may give false confidence about your own prospects. And if you are going to wait 10 years to get your PhD, the opportunity cost might be too much.

[Duna]

On 2/20/2017 at 3:51 PM, somewhat weird said:

I am merely reporting the themes from my conversations with tenured professors. Princeton, Oxford, etc. have delivered some sub-par professors to our school. It was the opinion of the profs. that gave me this perspective. Sorry if their opinions are insulting to you. But I tend to think they know better about the situation than I do. I'm sorry that you disagree. Also, since you are so lacking in logic and insight that you think that my lack of interest in disclosing my location indicates that I am "ill-equipped," you should probably withdraw your candidacy for a PhD and just go get a job.

Someone's salty! 

Good luck out there. I am sure your future program and colleagues will appreciate you just as much as the people in this forum. Oh, shucks, they are your future scientific community. Damn. Too bad.