Decision: Fit over rank?

[Throw Away Acct]

Hey all,

This is a throw away account. I just want to ask a question without it being tied to my account, which is more closely linked to me. Call me paranoid if you want haha

I need help in deciding between two programs. One is a top 10. The other is a top 50. I can work well at both programs. I could produce more work. Program A consistently places students, program B, not as much. I feel emotionally connected to program B because i've always wanted to go there (they are very strong in my field). Program A  is not as strong in my specific area, but the areas that feed into my area are much more developed when compared to program B.

 

A: Top 10. Great placement. Strong in my sub-fields.

 

B: Top 50. Strong in my main field. Has no development in my sub-fields (which are very necessary for my work).

 

Both are in the same geographical area. Place A has offered summer funding. Place B has not. Bot are financially great, except place B cuts my funding down by half in the 5th year.  Program A is actually two hours closer to home (6 hours total). Program B is 8 hours away. My quality of life (cultural food, being able to speak in my language, participate in religious activism, even get my hair done) is much, much, much higher in place B. Place B is actually 3 hours away from place A, so if I ever became desperately in need of cultural food or my own people, I could drive over. Place B has really reached out to tell me they want me. Place A has been really nice, but hasn't reached out as extensively as every school i've been accepted into. But, I know that they must be enthusiastic about all their applicants since they only accept 8-12 a year. The student contacts (for both places)  have been great, very realistic and amazing. 

 

 

Help me figure this out. What would you choose? How should I choose? i've declined the acceptances i received at other places, and I need help picking between these two.

I'm trying to decide now, because place A and place B have visitation days on the same day. Place A gave everyone funding to visit. Place B only gave their top choices funding to visit. I would rather have that funding go to someone who can actually attend, but I have to pick which one to go visit (which in my mind= picking a place to go). 

[museum_geek]

Personally, I would choose Place A - better placement, better funding, stronger in your sub-fields, and like you said, it's not that far from the comfort that Place B's atmosphere offers. If you're willing to take a chance and live somewhere that might be a bit outside of your comfort zone in order to reap the benefits of going to a Top 10, then Place A is the right choice.  It does seem like you'll succeed at either school though, so I wouldn't blame you for going with Place B.

[Throw Away Acct]

I was trying to write this during my lunch break, so I just realized my question is riddled with errors. Sorry for that, everyone haha. 

 

@museum_geek, I could do very well there. I was afraid that program A would be rather cut-throat in terms of the interpersonal environment, but the students informed me that this couldn't be further from the case. That's relieved some of the emotional tie-ups I've been having. They were also extremely kind and personable, which is really, really important to me. I can't thrive in a socially cold environment (being a rather awkward, shy-at-first person), so i'm happy to know how personable and warm the program is. 

The Fit is there, it's just not the same as school B. They're different. 

Edited February 23, 2017 by Throw Away Acct

[chellyfish_]

Honestly, I would choose A!  If it were me, I'd also be thinking about my long-term goals.  While both sound like great schools where you'd fit well and do good work, but the tier really does matter in things like these, when thinking about getting a job somewhere after you graduate.  It sounds to me (I don't mean to be presumptuous though) like there are certain emotions tying you to Place B, when your head is saying go to Place A?  If Place B has no development in your subfields and the subfields are vital to your work, that seems like a pretty key point to me.  Place A might not have as good of a backing in your main field as B does, but as you said, the subfields there are strong and I'm confident that with a school at that level, that would provide a very solid support system for you to do your research.

So again, that's why I'd come down on the side of A.  However, I will also say that your personal health and well being are the most important things.  If being in Place A will push you slightly outside of your comfort zone and challenge you, I say that's good.  If it will uproot you from a necessary support system and really disturb your well being, that could be harmful and a reason to choose B.  I'm assuming these are Ph.D. programs, so you'll be spending five years of your life wherever you choose.

Wishing the best for you! 

[lyonessrampant]

Definitely A. Placement (and this statement comes from someone on the market this year for the first time) is EXTREMELY important. Best of luck to you!

[duran0]

2 hours ago, Throw Away Acct said:

Place A has offered summer funding. Place B has not. Bot are financially great, except place B cuts my funding down by half in the 5th year.

 

Funding isn't everything, but this seems to me to be a key reason against B. Having to apply every year to secure summer funding is challenging, and the insecurity can really cut down on your productivity. The deep cut in funding during year 5 is also concerning. I honestly don't know how I would finish my program if my funding were to be cut in half during such a crucial moment (wrapping up the diss, going on the job market, etc). 

If you feel that you could be happy at either place, I would go with the option that provides more security during the PhD program and afterward.

[Tybalt]

26 minutes ago, lyonessrampant said:

Definitely A. Placement (and this statement comes from someone on the market this year for the first time) is EXTREMELY important. Best of luck to you!

This.  When it's as close a call as it is for you, you pick the school 40 rank higher.  If school A was a lousy fit and an unhealthy atmosphere, that would be one thing (because toxic leads to added stress, added stress leads to not finishing, and if you don't finish then placement history means nothing).  But from the sounds of it, you just seem to have a bit of a wistful urge to go to the second school. If it really is as close as you say, go with the first, higher ranked school.  You'll thank yourself five years from now.

 

And @lyonessrampant, how crazy is it that we are job marketing this year?  Wasn't our app season just a few weeks ago?!

[Dr. Old Bill]

46 minutes ago, lyonessrampant said:

Definitely A. Placement (and this statement comes from someone on the market this year for the first time) is EXTREMELY important. Best of luck to you!

16 minutes ago, Tybalt said:

And @lyonessrampant, how crazy is it that we are job marketing this year?  Wasn't our app season just a few weeks ago?!

And you're two of the best "tenured" posters in this forum to boot. I've never read a post from either of you that I didn't find valuable. 

[phoebusrising]

I would also pick place A. Between funding and consistent placement they seem like the better place over all and like you will have more opportunities there. If they fund visiting day for everyone they accept I would guess that they also have substantial travel budgets for their students to go to conferences and the like. 

Quality of life is important though. If you visit place A and feel like you could never live there, it's not like you couldn't decide to go to place B instead. But place A sounds like the better choice academically and career-wise.

[Throw Away Acct]

1 hour ago, eliza_winter said:

 If being in Place A will push you slightly outside of your comfort zone and challenge you, I say that's good.  If it will uproot you from a necessary support system and really disturb your well being, that could be harmful and a reason to choose B.  I'm assuming these are Ph.D. programs, so you'll be spending five years of your life wherever you choose.

Wishing the best for you! 

Being challenged isn't really an issue. I think that both would allow me to nurture my work and challenge me at the same time. Being challenged is necessary for my own intellectual growth, and I welcome it. Place A won't seriously hurt my health. It's just that, it wasn't until i was accepted that I realized how important my culture is to my daily life. I plan on visiting family frequently (5-6 times a year at least), so maybe the cultural piece won't hurt me so badly. I can also probably get my hair done in nearby cities with higher populations of people like myself. It's doable, but just a bit daunting. 

 

50 minutes ago, lyonessrampant said:

Definitely A. Placement (and this statement comes from someone on the market this year for the first time) is EXTREMELY important. Best of luck to you!

 

21 minutes ago, Tybalt said:

This.  When it's as close a call as it is for you, you pick the school 40 rank higher.  If school A was a lousy fit and an unhealthy atmosphere, that would be one thing (because toxic leads to added stress, added stress leads to not finishing, and if you don't finish then placement history means nothing).  But from the sounds of it, you just seem to have a bit of a wistful urge to go to the second school. If it really is as close as you say, go with the first, higher ranked school.  You'll thank yourself five years from now.

I had an advisor of mine gently drop this piece of information my way during a discussion we had. I know rank is important. I'm just not sure how important it is. I always told myself that if my only choices were 50 and below, then I just wouldn't get a PhD. So I understand that it's important at some level. And, yes, my love for school B is mostly sentimental in nature.  I also know people who are professors at the institution, so it's very homey in that sense. It was the first school to accept me this, and I cried my eyes out when they did.

39 minutes ago, duran0 said:

 

Funding isn't everything, but this seems to me to be a key reason against B. Having to apply every year to secure summer funding is challenging, and the insecurity can really cut down on your productivity. The deep cut in funding during year 5 is also concerning. I honestly don't know how I would finish my program if my funding were to be cut in half during such a crucial moment (wrapping up the diss, going on the job market, etc). 

If you feel that you could be happy at either place, I would go with the option that provides more security during the PhD program and afterward.

I'm dirt poor, so the summer funding is a really comforting idea. My advisor also told me that the funding at school A is superb. The plus of it is that I don't have to teach for all 5 years to receive funding. 

 

10 minutes ago, phoebusrising said:

I would also pick place A. Between funding and consistent placement they seem like the better place over all and like you will have more opportunities there. If they fund visiting day for everyone they accept I would guess that they also have substantial travel budgets for their students to go to conferences and the like. 

Quality of life is important though. If you visit place A and feel like you could never live there, it's not like you couldn't decide to go to place B instead. But place A sounds like the better choice academically and career-wise.

I agree.

 

I think I know which one i'm picking. Both programs are great. I'll just have to play my little, sad violin and get over my heartache for school B. 

It's hard to have these convos IRL, because when I have non-academia people looking at, what I call, a coca-cola brand school versus an Uncle John's Pop School (which might be amazing),  they always chose the one that they recognize.  So, I really enjoy coming on here to hash out my questions. Y'all are the real MVP. 

[claritus]

Placement, Placement, Placement. Pick choice A. 

But also, in terms of fit, I think sometimes it's better to figure out how to make a program work for you, than to immediately go somewhere that seems to have all the pieces of the puzzle in place. There's often a social reproduction problem in academia, where students working with the perfect supervisor/committee end up doing very similar, and in the end, less creative work. If you have to put together a committee from various subfields/related areas you'll find that you end up writing more dynamic, relevant, and self-aware scholarship. 

I guess to add to this with a more concrete example—I know of someone who works in the area of contemporary poetics, but with a romanticist as their supervisor. This person is doing some of the coolest, most radically interesting, and most innovative work in the field (in my opinion). Now I don't want to say this is all because of their supervisor, but I think some of it is because that distance from their "field" gave them space to question some received dogmas/orthodoxies. 

Edited February 23, 2017 by claritus

[lyonessrampant]

1 hour ago, Tybalt said:

This.  When it's as close a call as it is for you, you pick the school 40 rank higher.  If school A was a lousy fit and an unhealthy atmosphere, that would be one thing (because toxic leads to added stress, added stress leads to not finishing, and if you don't finish then placement history means nothing).  But from the sounds of it, you just seem to have a bit of a wistful urge to go to the second school. If it really is as close as you say, go with the first, higher ranked school.  You'll thank yourself five years from now.

 

And @lyonessrampant, how crazy is it that we are job marketing this year?  Wasn't our app season just a few weeks ago?!

It's crazy! I hope your job marketing is going better than mine  PM me if you ever want to talk about it.

And thanks Wyatt's Terps! At least I've got "tenure" somewhere. Haha!

[WildeThing]

Definitely A. More money, there's obviously some fit and reputation matters. Only Ivy Leaguers and one or two others lead to tenure track offers with frequency and consistency. The better the placement the likelier you are to get a job later.

[Tybalt]

3 hours ago, Throw Away Acct said:

I had an advisor of mine gently drop this piece of information my way during a discussion we had. I know rank is important. I'm just not sure how important it is. I always told myself that if my only choices were 50 and below, then I just wouldn't get a PhD. So I understand that it's important at some level. And, yes, my love for school B is mostly sentimental in nature.  I also know people who are professors at the institution, so it's very homey in that sense. It was the first school to accept me this, and I cried my eyes out when they did.

It ultimately comes down to the kinds of jobs you want and the number of opportunities you will have.  If you in any way want to land a job at a research oriented school, you need to be in a top 10 to 15 program.  And even then, if you are closer to 10 than you are to 1 your odds are going to get exponentially more difficult.  If you want to land a job at a teaching oriented school, top 40-50 programs can still get you there.  It will be more about what kind of package you can present (CV, professional activity, demonstration of service, ability to wear multiple hats, a variety of teaching experiences etc). 

The top research institutions are looking for potential for prestige.  The teaching centered schools are looking for someone they think will stay there for 30 years, so they tend to be more focused on fit and culture than the research schools.

The reality is that jobs come down to two things--letterhead and accomplishments.  Letterhead opens a lot of doors.  Your accomplishments will land you the jobs. 

[yanicus]

I don't mean to derail the thread, but a quick question for those more experienced than me - when we talk about top X program, is there actually a definitive (meaning something like "matters to hiring committees") ranking for these things? I've only seen the ones on USNews and phds.org, for example.

Edited February 23, 2017 by yanicus

[Tybalt]

28 minutes ago, yanicus said:

I don't mean to derail the thread, but a quick question for those more experienced than me - when we talk about top X program, is there actually a definitive (meaning something like "matters to hiring committees") ranking for these things? I've only seen the ones on USNews and phds.org, for example.

Yes and no.  There are tiers of programs with no clearly defined borders.  You mention Penn, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc, you know you are talking about tier 1 schools.  Where tier one ends and tier two begins is a different story, however.  Pick a school that is very highly regarded (say a UVA or a CUNY), and ask a dozen people which tier it's in, you'll likely get a slew of different answers.  At that point, sub-field comes into play, too.  Some schools are known for a particular field (like Notre Dame, Fordham, or Rochester for Medieval for example).  So a school that might be viewed as tier 2 or 3 for one sub-field might be seen as a tier higher for another. Some schools are more highly ranked in a particular geographic region as well.

There's nothing concrete about it.  Top ivies open doors with their letterhead.  Beyond that, it all comes down to context.

Edited February 23, 2017 by Tybalt

[ProfessionalNerd]

2 hours ago, yanicus said:

I don't mean to derail the thread, but a quick question for those more experienced than me - when we talk about top X program, is there actually a definitive (meaning something like "matters to hiring committees") ranking for these things? I've only seen the ones on USNews and phds.org, for example.

 

2 hours ago, Tybalt said:

 You mention Penn, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc, you know you are talking about tier 1 schools.  Where tier one ends and tier two begins is a different story, however.  Pick a school that is very highly regarded (say a UVA or a CUNY), and ask a dozen people which tier it's in, you'll likely get a slew of different answers.  

There's nothing concrete about it.  Top ivies open doors with their letterhead.  Beyond that, it all comes down to context.

I'll also derail the thread by asking why Cornell is never listed as an Ivy, even though it is? Also, at what point do you say that UBerkley, Stanford, UChicago, Duke, Emory etc are/are not top tier? I've always regarded them highly. To slightly echo @yanicus, what then is considered the top tier?

[claritus]

13 minutes ago, ProfessionalNerd said:

 

I'll also derail the thread by asking why Cornell is never listed as an Ivy, even though it is? Also, at what point do you say that UBerkley, Stanford, UChicago, Duke, Emory etc are/are not top tier? I've always regarded them highly. To slightly echo @yanicus, what then is considered the top tier?

There's a weird fetishization of the HYP (Harvard-Yale-Princeton) triad, by means of which people tend to ignore Cornell, Brown, and Columbia. They're still definitely Ivy Leagues, but don't come with the same sort of hype. That doesn't really have much to do with their worth in terms of graduate programs though. They all have amazing faculty/programs, and I think Cornell and Columbia probably have better placement records than Princeton, for example. Also UPenn, which also gets passed over sometimes in terms of "Ivy League reputation," has done phenomenally well in terms of job placement recently, rivalling any other top program. 

I think the other programs you listed, aside from perhaps Emory, are all top tier as well. Which isn't to say that Emory isn't an amazing program, I'm just not sure that it has the same reach as the others in terms of reputation. I'd also throw UCLA, Northwestern, UT Austin, Rutgers (especially for Victorianists) and Johns Hopkins into a list of the "top-tier," though it varies—as people have said—by period/subfield. 

Edited February 24, 2017 by claritus

[Tybalt]

1 hour ago, ProfessionalNerd said:

 

I'll also derail the thread by asking why Cornell is never listed as an Ivy, even though it is? Also, at what point do you say that UBerkley, Stanford, UChicago, Duke, Emory etc are/are not top tier? I've always regarded them highly. To slightly echo @yanicus, what then is considered the top tier?

The poster who mentioned the HYP hype is spot on.  I think all of the programs you mentioned are "top tier"  All I'm saying is that the perceived top of that top tier, based on hiring trends, seems to open the most doors on the job market.  Particularly with Harvard and Yale, the sense is more "when they get a job" instead of "WILL they get a job."  I think all of the schools you mentioned have the cache to open doors for R1 jobs, but with lesser odds than Harvard and Yale.  Letterhead from a program like mine (and to be clear, I've had an amazing experience and don't particularly want to land at an R1 job) won't really cut it for R1 job postings.  BUT, the experiences I've been able to have at my program could actually make me more competitive for certain teaching centered positions.

 

It's not really a science and there are no clear, concrete markers.  The loosely defined reality is this:  If you want a shot at a R1 TT position, you should really angle to get yourself placed as close to the top as possible in terms of name cache.  If that is less of a concern (ie: if you would be just as happy, or in my case happier, at a teaching centered school), then you can expand your search a bit more within reason.  And even that statement has caveats and exceptions (you could, for example, do your PhD at a highly regarded 2nd tier school and then do a post doc at an elite.  The post doc letterhead would then open doors that your PhD institution wouldn't.  A friend of mine went that route and landed a job at an R1 last year).

[loganondorf]

3 hours ago, Tybalt said:

At that point, sub-field comes into play, too.  Some schools are known for a particular field (like Notre Dame, Fordham, or Rochester for Medieval for example).  So a school that might be viewed as tier 2 or 3 for one sub-field might be seen as a tier higher for another.

 

16 minutes ago, Tybalt said:

The loosely defined reality is this:  If you want a shot at a R1 TT position, you should really angle to get yourself placed as close to the top as possible in terms of name cache.

This is really interesting to me (and directly applicable to my impending decision), and something I'm definitely glad you brought up. In terms of job placement, is it better to attend a school that's better-ranked generally or a school that's well-known in one's specialty but lower-ranked overall?

[Tybalt]

1 minute ago, loganondorf said:

 

This is really interesting to me (and directly applicable to my impending decision), and something I'm definitely glad you brought up. In terms of job placement, is it better to attend a school that's better-ranked generally or a school that's well-known in one's specialty but lower-ranked overall?

If the better ranked school is Harvard/Yale/Princeton/Etc?  Then the better ranked school will lead to more job opportunities.  If it's a choice between schools with comparable reputations overall, then the one with the specialty reputation will generally be better.  Ultimately, the best way to figure it out is to talk to the grad secretaries at the schools you are considering.  Get detailed stats (ie: don't settle for "x% of graduates get jobs at blah blah blah."  Ask specific questions.  Where have graduates landed tenure track positions over the last 5 years?  Who were the last few students to complete their degrees with my proposed advisor?  How did they do on the job market?  How long did it take them to finish?  Etc etc etc). The more specific the info, the better you can get a sense for how that program places people.  That info will be FAR more useful than anything speculative that I could write. 

[loganondorf]

12 minutes ago, Tybalt said:

If the better ranked school is Harvard/Yale/Princeton/Etc?  Then the better ranked school will lead to more job opportunities.  If it's a choice between schools with comparable reputations overall, then the one with the specialty reputation will generally be better.  Ultimately, the best way to figure it out is to talk to the grad secretaries at the schools you are considering.  Get detailed stats (ie: don't settle for "x% of graduates get jobs at blah blah blah."  Ask specific questions.  Where have graduates landed tenure track positions over the last 5 years?  Who were the last few students to complete their degrees with my proposed advisor?  How did they do on the job market?  How long did it take them to finish?  Etc etc etc). The more specific the info, the better you can get a sense for how that program places people.  That info will be FAR more useful than anything speculative that I could write. 

Thanks for the helpful feedback! It makes a lot of sense.

[Throw Away Acct]

Not to further splice hairs (is that even the saying?),  but are we saying that there's even a difference between a top 20, a top 10, and a top 5? I also have options in these categories. After the top 10, I just consider rankings to be mumbo jumbo. Instead of being fixated on the top 50 versus top 10, should I be thinking about school A in relation to school C, which is in the top 20?  I was about to cross school C off my list just for FIT reasons. 

 

Do we have any threads on here about ranking? I've seen a lot of posts on this subject across the Literature forum, so i'm definitely not the only one fretting over the nuances of accepting a PhD program. 

[Throw Away Acct]

Should we be able to decipher much from the US News rankings? Are we saying that within the top 10, there are two tiers? 

Rank	School name	Score
#1	University of California—Berkeley  Berkeley, CA	4.9
#2Tie	Harvard University  Cambridge, MA	4.8
#2Tie	Stanford University  Stanford, CA	4.8
#4Tie	Columbia University  New York, NY	4.7
#4Tie	Princeton University  Princeton, NJ	4.7
#4Tie	University of Pennsylvania  Philadelphia, PA	4.7
#4Tie	Yale University  New Haven, CT	4.7
#8Tie	Cornell University  Ithaca, NY	4.6
#8Tie	University of Chicago  Chicago, IL	4.6
#10Tie	Duke University  Durham, NC	4.4
#10Tie	University of California—Los Angeles  Los Angeles, CA	4.4
#10Tie	University of Virginia  Charlottesville, VA	4.4

[Throw Away Acct]

This thread has provided me with some great advice. It's relieving to know exactly where I'll be going next fall!!!! 

Edited February 25, 2017 by Throw Away Acct