<p>If I obtain a PhD from a lower ranked program in my field, would I stand a lower chance at obtaining a research position or a professorship in my field?</p>
<p>For example, if I am a Chemical Engineering major and I wanted to obtain a PhD in Chemical Engineering, what would be the lowest ranked Chemical Engineering program I can obtain my PhD in Chemical Engineering from and still be competitive for a research position or a professorship? </p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>Do you honestly expect anyone to know the answer to the second question? Are you looking for a magic number? Just get into the best program you can, or pick one with researchers doing stuff you find interesting. If you put in enough effort and do great work and publish a lot, it shouldn’t matter which rank of school you went to. Obviously going to a higher ranked school has its benefits, e.g. the ability to network and work for more prominent professors and so forth.</p>
<p>I wasn’t looking for an exact number. Just a ball park estimate. I already know that going to a higher ranked university has its benefits.</p>
<p>The purpose of this thread is to evaluate the opportunities of a person who went to a lower ranked university for a PhD not a person who obtained his or her PhD from a high ranked program.</p>
<p>First of all, I need to qualify my question by stating my purpose of asking this question.</p>
<p>My question is:</p>
<p>Is it worth spending time (and possibly money if there is no stipend) completing a PhD at a lower ranked university if theoretically I would stand a low chance in utilizing my PhD for a job.</p>
<p>Things I do know so far:</p>
<p>If my goal is to work in the industry , an M.S. is enough.</p>
<p>It is not worth trying to obtain a PhD if you do not have a stipend because if they do not fund you because they do not trust your researching abilities, then you should not trust them either.</p>
<p>Going to a higher ranked university gives you more opportunities.</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
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<p>I would amend that to say that an M.S. is often times enough, but not always. Specifically, if your goal is to work in an industrial R&D job, you may find the PhD to be highly useful.</p>
<p>The vast majority of professors at even the top 25 chem E schools come from the top couple programs (with much of the rest coming from that particular top 25 school).</p>
<p>If you can’t get funding, you should probably do something else.</p>
<p>in general, there are tiers.</p>
<p>if you get your degree in the top 10 schools, you could be employed at the top 10 schools or below. if you get your degree from an 11-20 ranked school, you can teach at an 11-20 ranked school or lower. and so on, down the line. this is not a hard and fast rule. often a student coming from a top 20 program will beat someone from a top 5 program for a job based on other factors (quality of research, meeting the needs of a department, interpersonal relations, etc), but in general, you can go down in rank for employment but not up (or not by much).</p>
<p>again, guideline, not a rule, just in general.</p>
<p>I am glad that strangelight mentioned this. There are tiers of schools, (though I wouldn’t have separated it at 10, I would have separated it at 30 or 50). However, where you go to grad school doesn’t define the tier you are coming from. Where you do your postdoc (s) does. If you go to a low ranked grad school and still do a postdoc with a well regarded lab (which are mostly in highly rated universities due to financial demands, recruiting demands and prestige) then you stand the same shot as somebody who went to a different grad program and the same postdoc. Ultimately, your whole academic career isn’t judged as heavily as your more recent work, particularly your postdoc publications.</p>
<p>Also, an MS in industry brings you in at Associate Scientist 2 instead of Associate Scientist 1 like people with a bachelors. That would normally take a couple of years to advance through. An MS with enough time and accomplishments would likely be able to rise up to middle management. However, any dreams of competing with people who have Phds for upper management (VP of R and D, Product Development, Clinical Trials etc) is naive. Also, Phds enter industry at the Scientist rank, which would take some 8 to 10 years of work to advance to normally. A Phd is really going to be a much better use of your time if you do go into industry.</p>