<p>MenloparkMom, here is a general idea for his field.
Geophysics</a> and Seismology - Earth Sciences - Best Graduate Schools - Education - US News and World Report
Often it can be good to ask professor's opinions of specific schools. They often will volunteer on their own very few. This was my daughter's experience.</p>
<p>Thank you clairmarie and waterlogged. Those are the tips I was hoping to be able to pass on! His own program does not have many "impressive" [ his words] grad students, and is not noted for great placement of UG students into top tier grad programs. He will [hopefully] be published [as the lead author] in a scientific journal by the time he applies to grad school programs, for independent research with a top USGS seismologist he has been doing over the past 4 summers, so he will have 1 great letter from a scientist. He will be doing a different research project this summer. His grades and GRE's should be fine. He hopes to be able to get into one of the top 15 programs in the country, which will be a considerable jump in ranking from his current program, but he was accepted at 3 of those universities as an UG, but chose to matriculate at his current school in great part because of his full tuition scholarship, which we are all very happy about, especially these days!</p>
<p>Some students visit the graduate programs in which they are interested and meet with the professors with whom they want to work.</p>
<p>I would say that it's not unreasonable for him to go, but he needs a backup plan.</p>
<p>There are some non-professorial careers in art history out there, like museum jobs and grade-school teaching jobs. Would he be willing to do those if his Plan A failed?</p>
<p>Or, does he have other employable skills that he can fall back on? Programming ability? A blue-collar trade? If not, it might be worthwhile for him to gain such skills, so that he will have that safety net.</p>
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So how exactly does one find this type of information?I want to be able to pass this on to my S, but it would be helpful to others as well.
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<p>Professors at his current school, and students at the target schools, are the answers that I've heard to this. Students at the target schools can tell you a lot about potential advisors...not just which ones have the best placement rates (which is very important), but which ones are advocates for their students with the thesis committee, which ones have separation anxiety and throw roadblock after roadblock into the path of their students to keep them around, which ones are well-funded, which ones' students tend to actually graduate, which ones squash student research that has a different viewpoint than their own, which ones steal student research, which ones are just plain mean, which ones are helpful and kind, things like that. And this matters, because, from watching my grad school friends, a problematic advisor can really make a student's life (and occasionally, their future career) unhappy.</p>
<p>As someone with a MA in Art History and a daughter about to plunge into grad school in the arts, I would agree with the comments above. Do not go into an unfunded program. Another word of advice: find a scholar with whom you want to study and correspond with that individual. Be selective about the teacher AND the school. As archermom mentioned, faculty mentoring is critical.</p>
<p>One job market advantage for math, engineering and science PhDs is that there are many jobs in industry and/or government which require or can take full advantage of their degrees and qualifications. Unfortunately for humanities PhD, the same can not usually be said for their disciplines.</p>
<p>He would really benefit, as others have said, from talking to professors in his area of interest. In the ideal situation, he has a working relationship with such a professor or a few at his current school. This person can not only direct him to the best programs for his field and interests, but provide advice on what they are looking for, how the essays should read, what research focus he should consider, as well as provide a great letter of recommendation. </p>
<p>This kind of information is much harder to get from an online forum because so many answers depend hugely upon the specific field one is in.</p>
<p>A lot of great advice on this thread. </p>
<p>It is hard to get into a top humanities program--and that is a good thing. There are few jobs and they will go to people coming out of tier one and two departments. The student's professors are definitely the gatekeepers and they should work with undergrads. In fact, without a mentor (or even a team of mentors) willing not only to write for a student but also to look over his or her personal statement and writing sample (if applicable) a student is at a great disadvantage. In other words, if the undergrad professors think the student has potential for graduate work, that is the first step. Without that validation, there is no sense applying.</p>
<p>A word about MA vs. Ph.D. programs. If a student can get into a good Ph.D program they should definitely go!!!! If a student gets into a good MA program and them gets accepted to a top Ph.D> program he or she will probably have to redo some or all of the MA course work. This is fine. These programs are funded, first of all, and secondly, the graduate faculty are very invested in their graduate students succeeding.</p>