I’m finishing up my MS at the moment and in the process of moving across the country. I’ve been thinking about my future a lot. I really love learning and i’m not sure that i’m ready to give up being in school just yet. When i look at possible career avenues, i think researching and contributing to my field (criminal justice) would be great. I’d love to someday be a consultant or researcher for a federal agency. One class i had really got me hooked, and i’ve emailed my professor to ask if i’d be a good fit for the PhD program. Before i start studying away for the GRE (since my grad program did not require it), i just want to get a good feel of how marketable a PhD in CJ would be. I would think more research positions would be opening up for this field because it’s constantly growing. There’s always new issues that come up (lately, policing has been a hot one). Anyone have any thoughts on this degree and what i can do with it? I’d be trying to get into the same school i’m attending now, which is ranked as the 3rd best criminology school in the US.
Well, valuable and marketable are two different questions. Valuable is a subjective judgment, IMO, and kind of depends on the individual. Marketable? Eh, that depends on your training and what you do with it.
The best way to approach graduate study is not to think “What can I do with this degree that I want to get?” but rather “What do I want to do, and what kind of degree do I need to do it?” In other words, start with the career and work backwards rather than getting the degree and working forwards. Frankly, getting another degree simply because you’re not ready to give up being in school is not a good reason to get one. You can learn without being in school - there are lots of jobs that enable and foster lifelong learning beyond just being in the classroom. Moreover, I think someone who goes to get a PhD simply because they like to be in school will be disappointed. PhDs are less coursework-based and more research-based; the classes are the least important part.
If you want to be a researcher or consultant for a federal agency, you can do that with a PhD. (You can also do it with an MA, although a PhD might give you an advantage). However, I wouldn’t get it in criminal justice. Sure, there are always new issues that come up, but how many times have you actually heard of the federal government doing some kind of independent research investigation into it with a team of PhDs? A lot of the studies you hear of are done by university professors. The analysts within the federal government tend to have MAs and BAs with experience. (For example, FBI intelligence analyst positions only require a BA. You’d likely be better off with an MA and 5 years of experience in law enforcement or military than you would be with a PhD in criminal justice.)
A broader discipline - like sociology or political science, or economics - would give you more flexibility. But as you work towards the PhD, you have to stay focused on getting the kind of experience that non-academic employers value. PhD programs will not confer that experience automatically. You have to seek it out - do internships, work as a consultant, make sure you get strong statistical/quantitative skills, do some informational interviews and networking with people who work in the federal government.
Honestly, I think the best way to work as a consultant for a federal agency is to work for a federal agency for some time (at least 5+ years, preferably 10-15+) and then offer your services as a consultant. There are certain idiosyncrasies to the system it helps to know.
Thanks for the response @juillet However, i do not want to join the military or law enforcement. My husband is getting out of the army very soon, and i have no interest at all in joining the military. I don’t really care to put my life out there with way things have been going today for police (but i greatly appreciate those that do!). I know statistically speaking, it’s unlikely something will happen to me, but still. I have anxiety about it. I considered it for a bit, but it’s not for me. I want to be the researcher contributing to my field, not the person running around with a weapon arresting people. I’ve actually been reading that there are less and less sociology majors finding jobs, so i’d be concerned going that route. Poli Sci is not my cup of tea. There’s a professor at my school i’d very much like to model my career after. His work is amazing, and it is largely what i am interested in studying (and he has a CJ PhD btw). Criminology is finally starting to come out as a field of its own rather than being a sub topic of sociology. They’re very related, of course, but i’ve read that criminal justice professors are especially needed because schools want to hire them instead of the Sociology PhD holders.
I’ve been applying for crime analyst positions, victim advocacy positions, etc. I’m not totally against doing that, experience is definitely a good thing! However, i also know that the sky is the limit for me in terms of research when i have a PhD. A lot more doors would open up because from what i’ve seen, there aren’t many think tanks that are seeking fresh Master’s grads. I’ve checked them out. They usually want the PhD holders that have been practicing their research skills already (which is another big plus of getting a PhD, you WILL be getting actual research experience).
I don’t think i explained myself correctly when i say i want to continue learning. I know that you can continue learning on your own, i do that a lot with other subjects. What i mean is that i enjoy being in an academic environment, learning new theories, how to critique them, writing, and hopefully, one day, contributing to my field. The best way i know to do that is to obtain a PhD. I know from looking into it online that there are a lot of professor positions for CJ PhD holders, so i’m not worried that i won’t find a job. I’m just wanting to be reassured that one day after years of research experience, my degree would be applicable to federal research groups. I didn’t want to pigeon hole myself into teaching, if that makes sense.
I would also like to mention i am planning on learning more foreign languages. I remember a decent amount of Spanish, but i’m definitely not fluent. Once i get the time, i want to use Rosetta Stone for Russian and Spanish. I know that’s a plus for most federal agencies, esp the FBI and CIA.
I’ve also found programs such as this one that seem like a great idea. Rather than just “PhD in criminal justice” it’s in “justice, law and criminology”. At least with this one, it doesn’t come across as limited as just criminal justice. Perhaps more jobs would be available to this type of degree holder? This is the website if you care to take a look.
However, when you look at the rankings of the graduate programs on US News, this school is down at #19 (tied). The program i’m looking into at my current school (UC) is #3. Seems like a giant step downwards. I’m not sure if it’s the right way to go. What do you think @juillet ?
That’s a completely valid sentiment. But when competing for jobs in the FBI and other federal bureaus that do crime research, you will be competing with people who have that kind of experience, and you will be at a disadvantage. However, I do want to clarify that I didn’t mean “police officer” when I said law enforcement. There are a lot of different ways to work in the military or law enforcement aside from being the person with the weapon arresting people, as you put it. LE agencies hire analysts, too, just like the FBI et al.
Where are you reading this? This doesn’t match up with my experience in academia and research.
From a traditional university standpoint think about it this way: There are far fewer department of criminology and criminal justice than sociology. If a department needs a sociology professor, they are going to prefer a sociology PhD holder to a criminal justice PhD holder, because a sociology PhD holder has been trained as a sociologist and can teach classes in sociology. A CJ PhD holder isn’t a discipline-specific PhD, so many disciplinary departments are more reluctant to hire. On the other hand, a sociologist has no issues getting hired into a CJ or criminology department. Take a look at any sociology department and look at where the PhD holders got their PhDs; compare it to the diverse degrees held in a criminal justice department.
In non-academic environments this maybe doesn’t matter as much, but sociologists still have more versatility across fields because their concentration isn’t so narrow.
This also doesn’t grok with my experience in academia; there aren’t really a lot of professor positions in the social sciences relative to the number of people competing for them. Even if you are seeing a lot of listings on higher ed sites, what you’re not seeing is the number of PhDs who are competing for those slots (PhDs in criminal justice and criminology AND PhDs in related fields that can compete for those jobs, too - sociology, psychology, economics, political science, anthropology, social work, etc., with relevant research). Take a look at some recent articles on the social science job market in academia. It’s not great!
Academics do sometimes transition to non-academic research positions after working in the academy, though. At that point, however, the content of your research and how much you’ve published will be a lot more important than the degree itself. You could be an economist, for example, with a lot of research on the economics of the federal justice system and end up doing that kind of research for a federal employer.
I mean i can take a look at sociology PhD’s, but it’s not really what i want to study. I’m a lot more interested in CJ. If i went with sociology i risk not being able to study what i want. Not only that, but i’d probably have to essentially get an MS in sociology since all of my courses are in CJ at the grad level. Did you take a peek at my most recent post about the two schools? What are your thoughts on that? @juillet
I can’t recall where i read everything, i just remember that i’ve read multiple times that CJ is not a bad PhD to have since there are a lot of students pursuing CJ related careers these days. I understand your points though. I would like to ask, however, are you indicating that a CJ PhD is a waste of time? I would really think it’s heavily dependent on the quality of school you attend. My school is ranked very high in research.
You could also consider getting a PhD in public policy where you focus on criminal justice and research methods. This would help broaden your employment opportunities.
Since you are considering getting a PhD in the department where you got your masters, were you involved in PhD coursework and research projects? Ideally if you did well there in research courses, a faculty member might consider hiring you as a RA if you return as a PhD student.
I did find that UT is ranked quite high for sociology and psychology, but i couldn’t really find much for crim specifically. However, they have a PhD in sociology with a specialization in crime, law and deviance. I know UT is a fantastic school, and i loved living in Austin (so that’s a plus! lol) This seems to be my dilemma. I either pursue a soc PhD from a school not well recognized in CJ, or vice versa. I just finished reading from a few different sites that soc is a dying breed in comparison to CJ since so many schools are opening CJ departments these days. One forum i stumbled upon had a full professor in a soc department say that it’s going to lose the battle to CJ, whatever that’s supposed to mean.
@CheddarcheeseMN i’ve considered that as an option as well, however i haven’t found many public policy PhD’s that i can get into with my CJ grad degree, or, i haven’t found many that specialize\focuc in CJ. Maybe you could point some out to me?
I unfortunately did not have the opportunity to participate in any research because i had to take the program online. If i were on campus i would’ve definitely tried to gain research experience.
I do think it’s important to look at it from a future perspective since this degree will be obtained in 4+ years from now. The professor that i really admire at my school is one of the few in CJ that have done a lot of work in biosocial factors relating to crime. I’m more interested in researching the newer theories that integrate biology and psych rather than only focusing on the old school approach of just sociology. I guess you could say that i like being able to integrate “hard sciences” into CJ because i’m also interested in the epidemiological aspects of violence. I’ve even contemplated getting an MPH for that.
I also understand, however, that at the end of the day, i need a job! I recognize that my interests are rather narrow, so at this point it’s just a matter of A) what is going to allow me to do the most research in my line of interests and B) what is going to most likely land me a job. I have to find the middle ground. This is a very important decision, so i don’t want to waste my time on a PhD that isn’t going to help me.
No, I’m not suggesting it’s a waste of time, per se. It depends on your goals and your values.
Many students/people value learning and research above almost all else; those people would value getting a PhD even if it didn’t lead directly into getting a job. Honestly, there are worse things in life than getting paid a modest amount of money for 6-8 years to study things and answer questions that you are super passionate about. (I have a PhD in public health + psychology.) And the skills that you learn in a PhD you will use, directly or indirectly, in any job that you take after that. Furthermore, the unemployment rate for PhD holders is below 3%. So, if you get a PhD, it is very unlikely that you will be unemployed; you will get to study something you really like; you have a chance at getting jobs that require the PhD in your field and will keep you doing research you love (whereas if you don’t get the PhD, you can’t compete for them); and you will learn useful skills regardless of what you end up doing.
So, for example, I can say that a sociology PhD is “more versatile” than a criminal justice PhD. But if you want a PhD in criminal justice - because that’s what you are passionate about and prepared for - it doesn’t matter, right? It’s kind of like there are more job openings in engineering or computer science, so those PhDs would be more ‘versatile’ than my PhD, but I didn’t get one in those fields because I didn’t want the kinds of jobs they would prepare me for.
I don’t know; ‘justice, law, and criminology’ seems very similar to ‘criminal justice.’ I don’t really see a large distinction between the two. Rankings - or program reputation, at least - play a lot into academic jobs and somewhat into non-academic jobs. #19 is pretty good, though, so within the top 25-30 I would pick the best program that suits you.
While this comment is admittedly off-topic, I think it nevertheless bears mention that regarding certain social sciences - specifically economics and business (insofar as business is a social science) - the demand for academic positions clearly outstrips the supply. Anybody obtaining a PhD in economics or business from even an average program will likely receive an academic job offer if they want one. Granted, it might be a non-tenure track position at a low-ranked university in an unglamorous location, but nevertheless you can almost certainly get one if you want it. Even if you don’t, there are plenty of banks, consulting firms, and government agencies who employ armies of economics PhD’s at well-paid positions.
To quote Noah Smith: “If you get a PhD, get an economics PhD …In an America where nearly every career path is looking more and more like a gamble, the econ PhD remains a rock of stability.” Indeed I would actually slightly disagree with Smith and say that a PhD in business is actually even better than an economics PhD.
^Yes, that is true! I think it’s an important point, especially for anyone whose interests cross both fields. For example, let’s say someone was interested in the economic impact of mass incarceration. That person could theoretically answer that research question from a variety of different angles - from a criminal justice PhD, a sociology PhD, an economics PhD, maybe a business PhD. I would personally strongly encourage them to consider one of the latter two (if they had the background to do so) because of what @peterquill said; the ROI there is just SO much higher than a CJ or soc PhD. Gradautes from mid-tier economics and business PhD programs are more likely to get academic jobs than graduates from pretty solidly reputed sociology programs.
At the same time, I do want to nuance my reply a little by adding that you should not get a PhD in something you are only mildly interested in. Since a PhD is about a career spent doing research in an area, it’s only going to be super frustrating to spend 6-8 years studying something you’re not really passionate about to get a job basically doing the exact same thing for the next 30 years. So obviously, for people who love economics and business getting PhDs in those fields can be potentially very lucrative. For people who are more in love with less lucrative fields…well, that’s okay too! Just go in with eyes open. (I can talk; my PhD is in psychology and public health!)
At the risk of making another off-topic comment, I think it should be noted that the notion of ‘economic impact of mass incarceration’ can actually be highly broadly defined. Indeed, some economists such as Gary Becker - who won the Nobel Prize in Economics - can actually be said to be sociologists; and indeed, some of Becker’s most famous work is regarding the sociology of crime.
The same could be said of the academic field of business, which is arguably even broader than the field of economics. Heck, there are many business professors who publish in the American Sociological Review and other sociology journals.
Regarding the topic of criminal justice specifically, I think it bears note that Modupe Akinola, Associate Professor at Columbia Business School, wrote her entire PhD dissertation while she was a student at Harvard Business School regarding when police officers, depending on their cortisol levels, decide to shoot unarmed white and black suspects. {Note, I don’t believe that I am invading Professor Akinola’s privacy, as her dissertation was subsequently published in the journal Behavioral Neuroscience and is therefore publicly available.} It’s far from obvious to me what that research has to do with business per se. Nevertheless, she got the requisite dissertation signatures to obtain a PhD from Harvard Business School, and she’s now a professor at Columbia Business School earning perhaps triple what a criminal justice professor would make. If she can do that, then it doesn’t seem outrageous to me that other students might earn business PhD’s and place at top business schools with research regarding other criminal justice topics.
Akinola’s PhD is in organizational behavior. Here’s the area of that PhD:
The doctoral program in Organizational Behavior trains scholars who are able to draw on the concepts and methods of psychology and sociology in conducting research on behavior and management within complex organizations.
Her dissertation, Deadly decisions: An examination of racial bias in the decision to shoot under threat, is pretty directly related to organizational behavior - the behavior of people within complex organizations, namely police departments. (She also appears to have been studying social psychology at the same time, maybe in some sort of concurrent program, which would probably influence the shape of her dissertation.) I’d imagine that someone in a similar department could do a similar dissertation, but I don’t think one could get a random management or marketing PhD and do criminal justice research unless that research was about how criminal justice is related to management or marketing or something.
Also - and importantly here - Dr. Akinola’s work after her PhD dissertation has nothing to do with criminal justice. Her overall research seems to be focused on how stress and stress responses influence people’s behaviors and performance within workplaces; it seems as if the police department was simply one example of that rather than her research agenda being actually focused on criminal justice. If you want a career doing criminal justice research, you’d have to go to a department that actually has a focus on that OR do some kind of interdisciplinary research at the intersection of X and CJ (in which X is the department that you’re in).
Nevertheless, Akinola’s degree still counts as a PhD in (a subfield of) business from a top-ranked business school.
More to the point, Akinola’s chair was Wendy Mendes, who is not a business researcher, indeed was never even a member of the business school at all, but rather was part of the Harvard Psychology department (she’s now at UCSF). While Akinola’s two other committee members were from the business school, one was Max Bazerman who is really a psychologist who just happens to be at HBS but would be perfectly comfortable in any university psychology department, and the other was Dave Thomas whose true expertise consists of the sociology of race relations (and who is currently the dean of Georgetown McDonough). The upshot is that Akinola’s committee and dissertation is a clear example of the diversity of research that comprises modern day business academia, to the point, that the dissertation may not have any clear connection to business at all.
{The fact is, at least at HBS, all you need are 3 committee signatures, of which only 1 has to come from HBS, in order to graduate with a PhD in business. You are perfectly free to garner faculty signatures from other Harvard departments and many business PhD students do so. Indeed, some of the faculty signatures can be from another university entirely. {I can think of at least one HBS student whose chair wasn’t even from Harvard at all, but rather was from MIT.} }
Marketing I would agree. But I would argue that the management doctoral program at least at HBS is highly flexible and might very well accommodate a criminal justice dissertation.
As a case in point, I would point to current HBS management doctoral student Peter Scoblic, whose research seems to be focused on political science rather than business per se. {Scoblic was a former editor at The New Republic and Foreign Policy magazine.} Nevertheless, HBS not only admitted him, but also has yet to expel him, so HBS seems to accept what he is doing. If they continue to let Scoblic hang around the business school while conducting political science research, I don’t see why it would be out of the realm of possibility that they would allow somebody else to do criminal justice research. And like I said, all that Scoblic needs to complete the program is 3 faculty signatures, nothing more. Even if most of HBS loathes his research, if he can find just 3 faculty members who agree with him, he’s golden.
But I think it also important to note that Akinola’s police shootings paper was her job market paper when she was on the business school job market. Clearly that paper succeeded: She successfully placed at Columbia Business School, one of the world’s top business schools, and I believe she had offers from several other top business schools as well. Again, I believe that’s additional evidence of the breadth of research that modern-day business academia will consider.
Now, I agree with your point that Akinola’s post-dissertation work has nothing to do with criminal justice, but rather pivoted to more traditional organizational research. But I think it should be emphasized that nobody at Columbia could be sure that Akinola would have successfully made that pivot, nor that she would have even tried. Columbia Business School provides (astounding) 7-year contracts to new junior faculty that can only be pre-terminated for cause. If Akinola had simply decided that she wanted to use those 7 years to pursue additional criminal justice research that has nothing to do with business whatsoever, frankly, nobody at Columbia could have stopped her for the length of her contract. Granted, they would have not extended her contract, but nevertheless, she would have still have presumably used those years to build a robust criminal justice publication list with which to jump to a true criminal justice department.
While I’m aware that that last paragraph might sound Machiavellian, I would couch that by saying that the healthy way for any junior faculty to approach their contracts is to treat them as well-paid long-term postdocs, where for the length of your contract, you conduct the type of research that inspires you. If you’re promoted at the end of your contract, wonderful. If not, oh well, at least you pursued research that you enjoyed. Pursuing research avenues that you don’t care about only because you think that’s what your department wants is a recipe for mental anguish. Hence, if Akinola had decided that she was interested in pursuing more police shootings research, I would argue that she should have done exactly that, even if that’s not what Columbia Business School might have necessarily wanted. After all, it’s your career, not theirs.
{And besides, Akinola is being paid over $200k a year just in salary alone as a business school professor, not even counting Columbia’s generous retirement plan and other benefits. Adding in Columbia’s highly generous faculty housing subsidy, and her true pay is probably closer to $250k a year. Having a 7-year guaranteed contract paying $250k a year for most of us would be a life-changing experience, even after factoring in the high taxes and cost of living of NYC. [Even after Fed/State/NYC income taxes and FICA, she would still be taking home more than $150k a year. Even if she then spends $70k a year on living costs, she’s still banking $80k a year. After 7 years, that’s $500k in the bank, not including her retirement plan.] So even if we imagine that Akinola had continued her police shooting research for her entire 7 year contract at Columbia but could not subsequently find a suitable criminal justice faculty position, hey, she would still walk away with a small fortune.}
All this is a long-winded way of saying that modern-day business academia is far more flexible than generally believed. There frankly are plenty of business doctoral students and even business faculty whose research ties to business are tenuous at best. {Indeed, Rakesh Khurana, former HBS Professor and current Dean of Harvard College, even wrote in his book ‘From Higher Aims to Hired Hands’ that nowadays many business faculty have no intrinsic interest in business.} Business academia might therefore readily accommodate somebody with an interest in criminal justice.
On paper, at the end of any dissertation “all you need” are the signatures from 3-5 committee members who say that you passed the defense. But there are multiple steps that come before that point that you have to step through before you can get to the point of the signatures - you can’t just pick whatever you want, write about it and then go around soliciting people to sign the piece of paper so you can graduate.
Before you even embark on the dissertation itself, you have to write and present a dissertation prospectus, which is basically where you lay out what you plan to investigate and get it approved by your committee. One of the things your committee will evaluate you on is how your dissertation fits into the field of research in which you’ve purportedly studied for the last 4-5 years. And before you even get there, your advisor is guiding you into an area and giving you feedback the entire way.
Again, I am not arguing that someone couldn’t propose a dissertation related to criminal justice in some way in a management department (or organizational behavior). What I actually said was
but I don’t think one could get a random management or marketing PhD and do criminal justice research unless that research was about how criminal justice is related to management or marketing or something.*.
Scobelic’s major book is described as this: “…Scoblic examines how Bush embraced regime change as a means of fighting evil and neglected to secure nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union, failed to prevent North Korea from reprocessing plutonium, rebuffed requests for negotiations from an Iranian regime that was, in 2003, willing to comply with the International Atomic Energy Agency, repeatedly ignored U.S. intelligence and pursued the war in Iraq. Scoblic illustrates how and why conservatism shaped the current administration and explains how it guided Bush’s good vs. evil morality.”
That is very clearly related to management - management in the political sense, but as you’ve pointed out, management is pretty broad.
This is a very fundamental misunderstanding of the way that academic departments and graduate committees work. You don’t just find 3 random faculty members; for one thing, your committee members have to be approved by the department. You can’t, say, pick a physics professor to sign your paper. Many departments have an approved list of mentors (even if the website “says” that you can pick a professor from a variety of departments; you may have to get special approval to do so outside of the list.) You have to defend your dissertation, too, and that often takes place in front of the entire department and not just your committee. But more importantly, most advisors aren’t really interested in irritating the entire rest of their department to the point of loathing just to let one doctoral student write an unrelated dissertation.
When academics interview for jobs, they present their past research and talk about their future research agenda in their job talk. I’m presuming that Dr. Akinola presented her prior research in the context of organizational behavior (because she has other prior work that’s closely related to that) and discussed how she planned to continue this research ALSO in the field of organizational behavior. She probably had some manuscripts already in progress by the time she applied to the program, proving that she planned to perform a research agenda related to organizational behavior. Obviously she could’ve said one thing and done something completely different, but that serves no one and is unlikely. And ‘not doing research related to anything in this department’ could be interpreted as cause; professors obviously want someone who is going to fit into the needs of their department and do research that serves the school and their goals.
tl;dr: Like I said in my earlier comment, I am not saying that someone in a business school absolutely cannot due criminal justice research. What I am saying is that that criminal justice research (or whatever field it is) has to be somehow related to the department in which they are studying.
And to be clear - and bring it back to the OP - a PhD in management or organizational behavior or business could be really awesome, very relevant and get you a lucrative career in the government or doing consulting work, if that’s what you wanted. But you would have to be at least tangentially interested in management or organizational behavior or business (broadly speaking) and willing to do CJ research that intersected that in some way.
Thanks for the input guys. I tend to agree with what @juillet was saying. I really don’t like the idea of doing a PhD in something just for how lucrative it may be. As a side note, it tends to help when you’re doing a business degree at a place as prestigious as Harvard! That school is very hard to get into. Anyway, if I pursue a PhD it will be because the subject fascinates me and i want to contribute to research in that specific field. I agree that some PhD’s are more flexible than others, and some people may branch out to other fields occasionally, however, i don’t want to risk getting a PhD in something that i don’t particularly care for. Business and Econ are two fields that i really don’t care for. Soc is a reasonable alternative to CJ because CJ has been a sub topic of Soc for a very long time.
So given that I decide to pursue a CJ PhD, I would assume that it’s in my best interest to attend the highest ranking grad school (by US news) that I am able to get into? I believe they rank most grad schools based on their reputation for research. I was planning on applying to the top 3 schools for criminology and possibly some in the 20-30 range in Washington, DC.
You do want to go to a reputable program, but you don’t want to split hairs, and you do want to understand which rankings you’re using. U.S. News simply sends a “peer assessment survey” to departments with doctoral degrees in a certain field, and they ask professors to rate doctoral programs in their area. It’s not necessarily about research output; it’s about professors’ perceptions of the quality of other PhDs in their field. That has some value (most professors are going to take research output into account at least indirectly) but also includes a lot of other unmeasurable aspects.
Nonetheless, reputation is kind of what you’re looking for when comparing programs. You should also think about the advisor that you’ll be working with - how productive they are, whether their research aligns with yours, what their reputation is like in the field, etc. Technically the University of Cincinnati is #3, but really Penn State or Florida State may end up being a better fit for you research-wise or advisor-wise.
So it’s a combination of “rankings” (not absolute numerical standards but general information about program reputation) plus your own assessment, and talking to professors in your field to see how they feel about how certain programs will help your career.
