Honest Answers About PhDs...

Graduate School
61

<p>sakky,</p>

<p>i am not going to say anything about your phd before or after claim. like i said earlier i do not disagree with you on this one although i do think that there is a great degree of heterogeneity of the percent who actually hold it before being hired by disciplines. why do schools put job road talk shows? well, the answer to that question is basically the difference between actuality and expectations. if you are familiar with academia, as you claim you are, many schools have oral exams or b exams or some sort of final dissertation committee exam at the end of the year which almost always takes place <em>after</em> the job market is over (early part of the calendar year). the expectation is that for most candidates this final exam will not be a hurdle, but for many it leads to delays, etc. </p>

<p>i still think that while i agree with the majority of argument, a big chunk of it overgeneralizes to an extent that makes me wonder if you are elitist, abrasive or certainly misinformed. like i said earlier just about anyone with a serious knowledge of academia (you can self-place yourself in that group if you wish) likely has heard of ohio wesleyan university. but even more importantly, hiring of new-minted phds is much more a function of the department and the field that you are in than the overall reputation of the school. for example, if you are in education and you are considering ohio wesleyan, it is unlikely that you have heard if you are coming out with an EdD but if you are in environmental sciences of english, i am pretty sure that you have. i can extend the same argument for some, arguably, top schools. say...brown university where some of the departments match with the overall reputation of the school and others (like sociology, economics, portugese) are just as non-prestige evoking as any state school.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
a big chunk of it overgeneralizes to an extent that makes me wonder if you are elitist, abrasive or certainly misinformed

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</p>

<p>See - look at that right there. You are complaining that I "overgeneralize". On the other hand, others here have complained that my posts are too long. If you don't want me to overgeneralize, then that necessarily means that I have to write even longer posts that review every single possible detail. I can't win here. Whatever I write, somebody out there will complain that I am writing too much or too little. </p>

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[quote]
anyone with a serious knowledge of academia (you can self-place yourself in that group if you wish) likely has heard of ohio wesleyan university.

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<p>Let me put it to you this way. I was just in a social gathering in the last few hours where I just talked to a bunch of PhD students at some of the top schools in the nation where I asked them about this subject, and I found the vast majority of them have NEVER heard of Ohio Wesleyan before. Heck, there were even some profs around, and they had also NEVER heard of Ohio Wesleyan. Are you saying that these people ALSO don't have a serious knowledge of academia? </p>

<p>
[quote]
but even more importantly, hiring of new-minted phds is much more a function of the department and the field that you are in than the overall reputation of the school. for example, if you are in education and you are considering ohio wesleyan, it is unlikely that you have heard if you are coming out with an EdD but if you are in environmental sciences of english, i am pretty sure that you have. i can extend the same argument for some, arguably, top schools. say...brown university where some of the departments match with the overall reputation of the school and others (like sociology, economics, portugese) are just as non-prestige evoking as any state school.

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<p>Well, I'm afraid that you just contradicted yourself, in that you now acknowledge that there can indeed be plenty of "serious" academics who have never heard of Ohio Wesleyan, just because they happen to be in the "wrong" field. That seems to be what you are asserting here.</p>

<p>But let's put that aside. Let's be honest. There are schools out there that are famous across the board, even if all of their individual departments are not tremendously prominent. For example, I think we can all agree that everybody has heard of Harvard. That's despite the fact that not all of Harvard's departments are elite (i.e. Harvard engineering is not elite). I think I'm on safe ground when I say that everybody has heard of Yale, again, despite the fact that not every Yale department is elite (i.e. engineering). Some other schools fall into that category as well.</p>

<p>Now, whether you want to say that "serious academics" who are in English PhD programs know Ohio Wesleyan (an assertion that I shall test, as I happen to know some Harvard English Phd students and so I'll ask them whether they have heard of OW), that is irrelevent to my basic point, which is that plenty of newly placed assistant profs do not have their degrees in hand at the time that they actually get the job offer. The job market timing precludes this from happening. If you are going to be hired right out of your PhD program (i.e. no post-doc), then you are probably going to get the job offer in your final semester, before you have actually formally received the degree. Again, this is no different from how most hiring works at all degree levels. For example, plenty of undergrads get full-time job offers in their final semester before they have actually formally received their degrees. I certainly did. So did everybody else. Imagine how inefficient hiring would be if companies actually waited until you actually formally received the degree before they could actually offered you a job.</p>

63

<p>
[quote]
First, as to "graduation". There is no such thing for PhDs. the PhD is awarded the moment that the candidate successfully defends and the paperwork signed and filed. (Or, if revisions are required, when they are approved.) It has absolutely nothing to do with the May/June ceremony where kids get their BAs. Yes, many new PhDs will walk and shake hands with the deans and so forth. That's a purely ceremonial occasion.

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<p>Well, I don't think that's what the context of this thread became about. We are talking about having the actual degree 'in hand' - meaning that you can actually formally and legally call yourself "doctor". Hence, if somebody calls up your school and checks on you, the school will legitimately say that you truly graduated. If somebody punches up the alumni database, your name will be listed. </p>

<p>Again, I will reiterate, a lot of silly things can happen to inhibit the post-defense graduation process that should be largely ceremonial. For example, most schools will require that you actually submit a 'completion document' to the registrar by a certain date. If you don't do it, then you will not be put on the degree list of that semester, and hence you won't actually formally graduate. Then there is the matter of settling all of your bills with the school. I know one particular PhD student who almost wasn't allowed to graduate because he forgot to turn in all of his lab and office keys and so the school was charging him for replacing the locks (and he had gone on vacation and hadn't checked his messages for awhile, so he didn't know what was going on). Most schools have a rule that states that you can't graduate if you have outstanding bills (which incidentally led to my strategy of creating an outstanding bill and just not paying it as a way to delay your graduation if that is necessary). Yeah, these are all silly procedural requirements. But if you don't actually complete them, you won't actually truly have the "degree in hand", at least in the way that I interpreted that phrase. </p>

<p>But in any case, WilliamC, it's good to see that you agree with me. I agree with you: the process you described is EXACTLY the process I have seen myself. Hence, we all agree that the 'degree in hand' is unnecessary.</p>

64

<p>great. thanks for the post. while your first paragraph makes me wonder how stretched your definition of "top" is and specifically how "top" discipline is, your second paragraph makes utterly no sense. my point in the previous message was (read my previous post more carefully) that your placement (hence the demand by the recipient department) is more a function of the reputation of sending department than the overall reputation of the school that it belongs to. e.g. michigan econ which can place you at harvard econ as a new doctoral student without the phd at hand but brown econ most definitely can not do so, even though brown has a better reputation/ranking than michigan. i just reread your second paragraph and i couldn't understand what exactly its punchline was. </p>

<p>i didn't contradict myself though i welcome arguments to convince me otherwise. my point was that some of the soft fields do not have national well-structured markets (e.g. education and many of the humanities). the markets in these academic disciplines will basically suffer from bigger information cost barriers and hence an opening at any school will be less known by the average applicant. but this phenomenon is a trademark of the specific information assymetries of discipline market, not the individual schools per so. </p>

<p>on a related point, i have more of a problem with the logic of your paragraphs, not their length.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
At every university at which I (and my good friends and colleagues) have been employed, the system operates in precisely the way that WilliamC has outlined.

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<p>I actually disagree with WilliamC's description. First of all, it is very rare (in fact, almost unheard of) for a dissertation to be approved by the committee without any corrections. Therefore, the defense by itself , even if the candidate is approved, does not automatically lead to the conferral of the degree. </p>

<p>In order to become a doctor, the candidate must first turn in the final (revised) dissertation copies (approved and signed by the advisor) for library deposit, archiving, etc. That may actually take ** several weeks ** after the defense properly. Then, the dissertation in its final format has to be formally accepted by some higher instance (e.g. a board of graduate studies and/or, ultimately, the dean of the college for example) before the degree can be officially awarded.</p>

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<p>I have quite a few colleagues who passed their defense with no revisions. </p>

<p>Minor revisions are common, and among folks I know, they usually took less than a week to accomplish. Major revisions are the rarity, since it is the advisor's job to make sure objections from the committee are anticipated.</p>

<p>The point is that the few weeks for the diss to be deposited, microfilmed, archived, etc. is administrivia IN THE EYES OF A HIRING DEPARTMENT/UNI. When departments hire someone with the caveat that their degree must be completed by X date, a letter from the advisor saying that the diss was successfully defended is SUFFICIENT assurance of "degree [about to be] conferred, obligation met."</p>

67

<p>I am not disputing that a person may be offered a job before he or she is officially awarded a PhD degree. As it was mentioned on this forum, most academic jobs are directed at applicants "who have earned or are about to earn " a PhD degree. </p>

<p>What I am disputing though is the assertion that a person officially becomes a doctor the moment the defense is over, which is factually wrong. In fact, when I needed to have my degree verified, the certificate I received from my university mentioned the same date that is printed on my diploma as the date the degree was awarded. Therefore, for the record, as far as the university is concerned, I did not officially become a doctor immediately after the defense, regardless of whether someone greeted me the following day as "Dr. X" or not. </p>

<p>As far as corrections to the thesis are concerned, I personally would be very suspicious of a program where several candidates pass the final PhD exam as you've claimed "with no revisions". Maybe by "no revisions", you mean "no major revisions" ? </p>

<p>Anyway, my experience is that even minor revisions take more than a week to be made. In fact, when one submits, let's say, a 10-page double-column paper to a journal and the paper is "accepted with minor mandatory revisions ", some journals , at least those in engineering, math or hard sciences, will give you up to ** four weeks ** to submit the revised version. For a 200 plus-page dissertation, even assuming the dissertation has already been extensively proofread/corrected by one's advisor prior to the defense, completing all minor revisions in a week only would be IMHO quite an accomplishment! At MIT EECS for example, the required time for final thesis preparation after the examination is estimated, according to the department's own website, at half of a full academic term.</p>

68

<p>No, I mean "no revisions." And these colleagues are from many different departments at many different universities.</p>

<p>Personally, my own dissertation required minor revisions. It took me two days to revise to specifications. These minor revisions involved correcting a couple of missed typos, rewording a couple of awkwardly phrased sentences, and making a couple of bibliographical corrections. </p>

<p>In other cases, "minor revisions" have been more substantial, requiring a bit more research, revision of an entire chapter, etc.</p>

<p>Same with journal articles. "Minor revisions" to an article can be really minor, or a bit more substantial, requiring modification of the central argument, expansion of research, etc. Since the author of a journal article is assumed to be employed full time, a month to make minor revisions is NOT a lot of time.</p>

69

<p>
[quote]
great. thanks for the post. while your first paragraph makes me wonder how stretched your definition of "top" is and specifically how "top" discipline is, your second paragraph makes utterly no sense. my point in the previous message was (read my previous post more carefully) that your placement (hence the demand by the recipient department) is more a function of the reputation of sending department than the overall reputation of the school that it belongs to. e.g. michigan econ which can place you at harvard econ as a new doctoral student without the phd at hand but brown econ most definitely can not do so, even though brown has a better reputation/ranking than michigan. i just reread your second paragraph and i couldn't understand what exactly its punchline was.

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<p>Look, peter05, I've said it before, I'll say it again. If you don't like my posts, or their logic, then just don't read them. Allright? Nobody has a gun to your head.</p>

<p>Now, to your point, I of course agree with you that the reputation of the sending department is obviously paramount to where you end up getting placed. When have I ever disputed otherwise? </p>

<p>I am simply pointing out that PLENTY of serious academics have never heard of Ohio Wesleyan. Maybe it's because they just don't happen to be in those particular disciplines that OW is strong in. For example, I just talked to a couple of MIT Chemical Engineering grad students today, and none of them have ever heard of Ohio Wesleyan. {Not that surprising, as OW doesn't even offer chemical engineering.}. Yet I think we can agree that they are 'serious academics'. </p>

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I didn't contradict myself

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<p>Yeah you did. First you claimed that all 'serious academics' have heard of Ohio Wesleyan, and yet I have a number of grad students and profs here who have never heard of them, yet I think there is little dispute that they are serious academics (unless you choose to dispute this point). There's the contradiction. </p>

<p>I think your 2nd point - that serious academics * in certain subjects* will have heard of Ohio Wesleyan - is closer to the mark. But that contradicts your first point, which is that all serious academics will have heard of it. Again, I am quite certain I can go back to MIT and find plenty more grad engineering students, postdocs, and profs who have never heard of Ohio Wesleyan, again, for the simple reason that Ohio Wesleyan doesn't even offer engineering. If nothing else, that proves that Ohio Wesleyan is not well known to serious engineering academics, and therefore also means that it is not well know to all serious academics. </p>

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[quote]
on a related point, i have more of a problem with the logic of your paragraphs, not their length.

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<p>Again, see above. If you don't like their logic, then don't read them. I am not forcing you to read anything you don't like. </p>

<p>Look, peter05, don't get me wrong. We seem to agree on most points. Where we disagree (I think) is that you asserted that all serious academics have heard of Ohio Wesleyan. I think your later posts were closer to the mark - that it is discipline-specific.</p>

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<p>The revision issue really depends on the program. The best program is the kind Prof X describes. In that scenario, the reason there are no revisions is because it is so thoroughly vetted before the defense. It may take longer to get to the defense, but once you get there, you're pretty secure. Other programs either 1) assume that major revisions are part and parcel of the defense process, and so do not vet the diss as closely beforehand, or 2) have power struggle issues within the department, which unfortunately punish the candidate. Unis tend to have some idea of what category most depts fall into and will take that into consideration when hiring. If you come from a program that's seriously hampered by power and personality issues, they want that defense DONE and APPROVED before they hire you. It's a good thing for people to find out through current grad students what type of dept it is in this regard before they accept grad school offers.</p>

71

<p>I agree with DSP that you should find a department, and also an advisor, who will not let you proceed to the defense if serious revisions are necessary. This often times does not correlate with prestige. Berkeley, Caltech, Stanford and MIT are extremely well regarded science/engineering schools, yet I have heard some horror stories about some of the problems that some science/engineering PhD students have faced there.</p>

72

<p>You are splitting hairs on something that wasn't defined clearly. Obviously, your definition of "serious" deviates from mine. From then on, the development of your argument is not entirely incorrect, but you should pause and think what the embedded definition of the term serious was. By "serious academic", I would refer to someone with an exceptional knowledge of the past and contemporary research issues and the academic environment both domestically and internationally of his or her discipline. I can be even more explicit in the definition, if necessary. In any case, OWU along with its peer (and by peer I mean formally and informally self-defined by the schools) institutions (Kenyon, Wooster and Oberlin) have historically been top feeders, from among the top 10 to among the top 50, into PhD programs (caveat: great variation across disciplines due to lack of certain disciplines). In all seriousness, a scholar oblivious to the environment in which he operates in and unaware of names of the schools that his own colleagues have great odds to be coming from obviously will not fit with my definition of "serious academic". Not an attack on intellect, but an attack on imposing relevance and knowledge of the academe if you consider yourself part of this tradition. </p>

<p>In any case, this argument about Ohio Wesleyan is at best secondary to your original claim. It peeved me because it illustrates one of many instances where you pick a wrong example to illustrate a point and not only that it doesn't make your point stronger, but if dissected more carefully, it simply shows that you are wrong. </p>

<p>Should I assume that you in engineering MIT? Because if so, I can definitely provide you with the theoretical model of why many MIT grad students might not even know other top US schools, not just OW, and yet they are students in "top" schools. Actually, I am not even going to resort to informational assymetries and other market imperfections in the discipline markets. Look at how ridiculous your afore-mentioned example is. Now, think about it. You picked a discipline and specifically a school in which the students might have hard time telling you who the US president in 1975 was. Hell, the odds that they might have difficulty speaking understandable english and that they were not born in the US might significantly increase as well. What kind of challenges the example that you picked about top school colleagues knowing about Ohio Wesleyan might present to your logic (hint: generalizability and hidden variable bias)?</p>

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<p>
[quote]
You are splitting hairs on something that wasn't defined clearly. Obviously, your definition of "serious" deviates from mine. From then on, the development of your argument is not entirely incorrect, but you should pause and think what the embedded definition of the term serious was. By "serious academic", I would refer to someone with an exceptional knowledge of the past and contemporary research issues and the academic environment both domestically and internationally of his or her discipline. I can be even more explicit in the definition, if necessary. In any case, OWU along with its peer (and by peer I mean formally and informally self-defined by the schools) institutions (Kenyon, Wooster and Oberlin) have historically been top feeders, from among the top 10 to among the top 50, into PhD programs (caveat: great variation across disciplines due to lack of certain disciplines). In all seriousness, a scholar oblivious to the environment in which he operates in and unaware of names of the schools that his own colleagues have great odds to be coming from obviously will not fit with my definition of "serious academic". Not an attack on intellect, but an attack on imposing relevance and knowledge of the academe if you consider yourself part of this tradition.

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<p>Uh, no, peter05, I believe YOU are the one who is now splitting hairs. You originally claimed that "serious academics" would all know about OWU. Yet I see that now you concede that that isn't always the case. </p>

<p>I don't know what more I have to prove, considering that you are now effectively arguing MY point. You have now implicitly conceded that plenty of "serious academics" won't know about OWU, nor would they be expected to. </p>

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[quote]
In any case, this argument about Ohio Wesleyan is at best secondary to your original claim. It peeved me because it illustrates one of many instances where you pick a wrong example to illustrate a point and not only that it doesn't make your point stronger, but if dissected more carefully, it simply shows that you are wrong

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<p>That's odd, considering that I believe I have shown that it is YOU that is wrong, and you seem to have conceded the point. Plenty of serious academics will never have heard of OWU, something you seem to agree is true. </p>

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[quote]
Should I assume that you in engineering MIT? Because if so, I can definitely provide you with the theoretical model of why many MIT grad students might not even know other top US schools, not just OW, and yet they are students in "top" schools. Actually, I am not even going to resort to informational assymetries and other market imperfections in the discipline markets. Look at how ridiculous your afore-mentioned example is. Now, think about it. You picked a discipline and specifically a school in which the students might have hard time telling you who the US president in 1975 was. Hell, the odds that they might have difficulty speaking understandable english and that they were not born in the US might significantly increase as well. What kind of challenges the example that you picked about top school colleagues knowing about Ohio Wesleyan might present to your logic (hint: generalizability and hidden variable bias)?

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<p>All irrelevent points. All you have illustrated is what you have stated above - that "serious academics" will know their particular field of study extremely well, but won't know much beyond that field. So what? You complain that my examples are "ridicuous", yet your counterexamples are the ones that are ridiculous, because they don't deal with the central point. At the end of the day, the point still stands - plenty of "serious academics", for whatever reason, will have never heard of OWU. It doesn't matter why they have never heard of it. All that matters is that they have never heard of it. Everything you have said up to this point does not detract from that simple conclusion.</p>

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<p>Huh? I apologize, I didn't quite account for the fact that serious academics according to your definition might be actually foreigners who are unfamiliar not just with US institutions but other central to American society facts. "Serious" according to your very specialized def might be a function of where they grew up. You are correct. Gosh, how could have I missed that.</p>

<p>"It doesn't matter why they have never heard of it. All that matters is that they have never heard of it."</p>

<p>Eeeh, yes, you are commiting the prime fallacy of going from the specific to the general. The specific being that many of these PhD students at the ridiculously demographically unrepresentative program that you offer as an example might not even fare well on the market because of something so fundamental as their inability to speak english well. Point being: don't confuse the specific for the general. Once these PhD students become well established academics, then treat them as the "general case". Until then, they are not. </p>

<p>So, what's your field and school? I am all ears after seeing you arguing merits of academic markets so fervently? Demonstrate the legitimacy of your argument.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Huh? I apologize, I didn't quite account for the fact that serious academics according to your definition might be actually foreigners who are unfamiliar not just with US institutions but other central to American society facts. "Serious" according to your very specialized def might be a function of where they grew up. You are correct. Gosh, how could have I missed that.

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<p>No, I am simply saying that plenty of "serious" academics (according to what you would call "serious) have never heard of Ohio Wesleyan. As a case in point, go up to any group of MIT engineering PhD students, even the ones who are Americans, and ask them if they had ever heard of Ohio Wesleyan. Heck, there are even American-born MIT engineering professors who have never heard of Ohio Wesleyan. Yet I doubt that you would contend that these people are not "serious academics". </p>

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[quote]
Eeeh, yes, you are commiting the prime fallacy of going from the specific to the general. The specific being that many of these PhD students at the ridiculously demographically unrepresentative program

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<p>Demographically unrepresentative, is it? Look, the truth of the matter is that any PhD population is inherently demographically unrepresentative simply because the vast majority of people will not get PhD's. Let's face it. Even those Americans who opt for PhD's are not representative of Americans at large.</p>

<p>Yet even if you want to look at only those Americans who obtain PhD's as the overall population, the fact is, people tend to know only their own field. This is a point that you yourself raised. Those who don't pursue subjects that Ohio Wesleyan is not strong in (or doesn't even have) are probably not going to know much about Ohio Wesleyan. I've proferred engineering as a good example. Others would be business. Let's face it. Many (probably most) PhD business students will not know Ohio Wesleyan for the simple reason that it doesn't have a business school. We can continue to go right down the list. Surely you would agree that OWU has plenty of subjects in which it is not strong. Yet that precisely where you would find plenty of "serious scholars" who have never heard of OWU. </p>

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[quote]
So, what's your field and school? I am all ears after seeing you arguing merits of academic markets so fervently? Demonstrate the legitimacy of your argument.

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<p>Let me put it you this way. If I answer your question and everything checks out, such that I am in fact a PhD student at a top school, then will you change your mind? Probably not, right? Seems to me that I'm not going to convince you no matter who I am. So why should I play your game? What do I gain by playing your game?</p>

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<p>It is okay. No worries. The self-righteousness of your argument is quite obvious. At the point that you picked an engineering department students barely able to speak english as <em>the</em> representative academics in US acedemia (most of whom will not even place in an US institution), I knew what was going on. Now, you don't even seem to be able to understand my points at times. I said in my previous post that the students in your department are not demographically representative of the US academia (if you ever were on the academic market, you would know that being a phd student is not equal to being an academic...this divide is more severe in some of the saught after social disciplines). You continued to argue that your peers were not representative of the US population. Go figure...</p>

<p>As to your last point, yes, if you disclose your institutional affiliation, it will buy you a significant amount of legitimacy. I happen to be in academia myself in arguably the top school in the country...to know enough that sometimes you simply don't know what you are talking about.</p>

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<p>
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It is okay. No worries. The self-righteousness of your argument is quite obvious.

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<p>I am being no more self-righteous than you are. </p>

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At the point that you picked an engineering department students barely able to speak english as <em>the</em> representative academics in US acedemia (most of whom will not even place in an US institution),

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<p>Who said anything about engineering students barely able to speak English? Like I said, plenty of American-born engineering students have never heard of OWU. Please, by all means, go to the American engineering grad students at MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Caltech (and there will be some Americans there) or any of the other top engineering schools that are not located in the Midwest and see how many of them have ever heard of OWU. I will bet you that it won't be a high percentage. </p>

<p>Nor is engineering an unusual case. I am simply using it as a prominent example that I happen to know well. I am quite certain that I could find plenty of other people in other disciplines who have never heard of OWU. </p>

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[quote]
I said in my previous post that the students in your department are not demographically representative of the US academia (if you ever were on the academic market, you would know that being a phd student is not equal to being an academic...this divide is more severe in some of the saught after social disciplines). You continued to argue that your peers were not representative of the US population. Go figure...

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<p>Go figure...even if my examples are not "demographically representative", that's beside the point. You asserted that people with a "serious knowledge of academia" (your words) are likely to have heard of Ohio Wesleyan. I am simply questioning that point, and giving you an example of some people who I would contend do have a serious knowledge of academia who have never heard of Ohio Wesleyan. For example, some newly minted MIT engineering PhD students who are preparing themselves for the academic job market have never heard of Ohio Wesleyan. Heck, some engineering *professors *at MIT have never heard of Ohio Wesleyan. </p>

<p>What I think you meant to say, and in fact you did hint at previously, is that knowledge of certain schools is highly dependent on your field of study. I would certainly agree that Ohio Wesleyan is probably indeed very well known by the subset of scholars that study those particular fields that Ohio Wesleyan is prominent within. That is an eminently defensible position to which I would not dispute. Yet the fact remains that very few schools are strong across-the-board or have all-encompassing brand names. </p>

<p>For example, I would surmise that very few English professors or graduate students outside of the Northeast would have ever heard of, say, Olin College. Why? Simple. Olin is a specialty engineering college in Massachusetts. Olin is a big deal within the realm of engineering academia (mostly because of its innovative undergraduate curricula). But I would not expect most English professors to know about it. </p>

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[quote]
As to your last point, yes, if you disclose your institutional affiliation, it will buy you a significant amount of legitimacy. I happen to be in academia myself in arguably the top school in the country....

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<p>Then why don't you disclose your affiliation, and I'll disclose mine. My PM box is full, but my email is open. I am quite confident in my academic credentials. </p>

<p>But as to your point of 'legitimacy', let's say that my bio checks out. Be honest, are you going to change your mind? I didn't think so. Hence, it's still unclear to me what I have to gain from playing your game. If you're not going to change your mind no matter what, then exactly what incentive is there for me to tell you anything? </p>

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to know enough that sometimes you simply don't know what you are talking about

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<p>Is that so? If you continue to assert that most serious academics have heard of Ohio Wesleyan, then I would say that you are the one who doesn't know what you're talking about. As another example, I was just talking to a number of business school professors, and not a single one of them had ever heard of Ohio Wesleyan. Again, I doubt that that is surprising, as OWU doesn't have a business school. But that's exactly my point. If a school doesn't have a strong general brand name, then you're only going to hear about a school if it is prominent in your particular field. If a school has neither, (and in particular, doesn't even have programs in your field) then you're probably never going to know about it. Is this really such a controversial point?</p>

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<p>Before we proceed, because you surely seem be having difficulty in constructing a logically coherent argument, and part of it is the fact that I suspect you are not understanding the original claim correctly...let me ask you, what is your idea of "someone with a serious knowledge of academia"? </p>

<p>As an add-on, do you think that a chinese/india student at MIT who comes from the motherland to his ScD/PhD program at MIT, likely knows only the schools that appear to be generous to internationals and are high in the engineering rankings, finishes his doctorate and never enters academia (for whatever reason) is a person who you will categorize as "someone with a serious knowledge of academia"?</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Before we proceed, because you surely seem be having difficulty in constructing a logically coherent argument,

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</p>

<p>Do I, now? And what about you? You have still failed to show why Ohio Wesleyan ought to be so well known. </p>

<p>
[quote]
and part of it is the fact that I suspect you are not understanding the original claim correctly...let me ask you, what is your idea of "someone with a serious knowledge of academia"?

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</p>

<p>Uh, no, I doubt that my idea of the concept is relevant. I think it is YOUR idea of the concept that is relevant. After all, it was your phrase. So I'm afraid that I have to turn the question around and ask you - what is YOUR idea of "someone with a serious knowledge of academia"?</p>

<p>
[quote]
As an add-on, do you think that a chinese/india student at MIT who comes from the motherland to his ScD/PhD program at MIT, likely knows only the schools that appear to be generous to internationals and are high in the engineering rankings, finishes his doctorate and never enters academia (for whatever reason) is a person who you will categorize as "someone with a serious knowledge of academia"?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>First off, as I have said numerous times, but you seem to not watn to read, what of the guys that I know that were born and raised in the United States, got their PhD at MIT, and then became engineering professors. These people are native-born Americans. Then they became actual professors. Yet they have never heard of Ohio Wesleyan. Are you contending that these people do not fall into the category of "someone with a serious knowledge of academia"? </p>

<p>Secondly, this is all beside the point anyway. Nowhere in your original description of the phrase did you ever exclude foreigners. Where is it written that foreigners cannot be people with a "serious knowledge of academia". So, to take your point, yes, it is true, I also happen to know quite a few Asians who came to MIT, got their PhD's, and then went back to Asia to take academic positions (i.e. professorships in Asian universities), and yes, they do not know about OWU. So what if they're foreign? Seems to me that they would be people with a serious knowledge of academia also. But I leave it up to you. Please justify to me why foreigners should not be counted. Are only Americans allowed to have a serious knowledge of academia?</p>

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<p>You must be kidding, right? You have to be kidding.</p>

<p>I will deign your question with a response in case you actually were seriously asking it: Do a sample survey of that same set of people of "a few Asians who came to MIT, got their PhD's, and then went back to Asia to take academic positions (i.e. professorships in Asian universities), and yes, they do not know about OWU." and ask them basic questions about the US that reasonable people will agree are quite important (e.g. who Woodrow Wilson is, what the Mason-Dixon line, etc)...I bet many of these peers of yours will not know. </p>

<p>My point? You can't take a subset of people (your peers in the engineering program) who barely know anything about the US (note: its academic institutions included) and count their <em>ignorance</em> about life as a litmus test for what institutions are notable and which ones are not. </p>

<p>I am not surprised you chose not to conceptualize your understanding of "someone with a serious knowledge of academia"? No doubt, it is because you simply don't have one. I already provided you what I meant by it in a message from, I believe, 2 months ago. A critical component of it is certainly "engagement". To give you an example(should I even say this if you claim you are in academia?): Serious academics do research, read the research literature in their field on an ongoing basis, go to conferences, present, meet other academics. It is through these channels that they acquire "serious knowledge of academia" in addition to simply expanding their knowledge in general. It is also via these channels that they learn a lot about other schools (Ohio Wesleyan included) who is where, who moves to where, why, etc.</p>

<p>Now, your examples are simply ridiculous one the other. For example, your second one about MBA programs...I actually happened to see a new NSF report that shows Ohio Wesleyan among the top feeders (adjusted for size) to MBA programs. Now, what kind of people (professors of management that you mention) do you think will take to not notice these trends in their academic fields, on an informal basis with the students that they interact, even if they don't read/know about these NSF reports? Seriously, think about it.</p>