<p>Profs at stronger universities may not publish in order to get out and up, but they certainly publish a lot. Tenure does not make them lazy. It frees them to publish what they want. I know profs who, in their 50s, have learned whole new languages and done research in areas that they previously had never done research in before.
Yes, they are not “extrinsically” driven. But they are “intrinsically” driven by the very factor that led them into academic research in the first place. Just look at the publications by tenured Yale faculty. Not the work of people complacently sitting on their pre-tenure laurels.</p>
<p>“Quote:
Originally Posted by MagnoliaMom
It would be great to have strong recs from rock star professors but the reality is that many of the rock star professors are too busy to give time to undergrads (or grads either in some cases). A rec from a lesser known professor who knows you really well and can talk about the details of your research experience trumps a rec from a rock star prof who knows you were a member of his research team but doesn’t know you well, IMO.”</p>
<p>Posted by IBClass06
“People always claim this, but in my experience it has always been the reverse.
The older, recognized scholars in the field are typically tenured and have more time to relax and devote time to students. It’s the untenured lecturers and professors who are frantically publishing, flying around to give lectures, etc.”</p>
<p>Of course there are always exceptions, but in my daughter’s undergrad program, the grad students of the rock star professor are always complaining that they never see him. The reason they never see him is because of speaking engagement, outside consulting, etc. I’ve not heard of any high profile profs who are relaxed and devoting more time to students; in fact, it’s just the opposite, the more successful and published they are, the more demand for their expertise.</p>
<p>“Let’s be blunt – most of the professors at Mississippi State would rather be at Yale. They’re going to be publishing and devoting a lot of time to getting up and out.”</p>
<p>I don’t agree with this statement. People choose a career and relocate for many reasons. I have academics in my family who vowed never to live in a cold weather climate again. Some choose academia because they love research, others love working with students, still others are trying to relocate closer to family. People are motivated by different things. Not everybody has the desire to work in a Yale environment. The profs I know are working hard to generate research because they care about their fields and want to generate grants to fund and attract talented grad students. I would agree most profs want to be in a department that is respected in that field but that’s not always at Yale or any other CC top school.</p>
<p>So, presume that Mississippi State has a really strong Comparative Lit department–what if the student decides, after a few years, that his/her true passion is philosophy or English lit? That’s the danger, I think, of choosing a school for one particular department.</p>
<p>Keilalexandra: that is an unlikely hypothetical, particularly for comp. lit. A school with strong comp. lit. is very likely also strong in English (many many comp. lit. students, if not most, have English lit. as one of their areas)…
Liberal arts colleges are known for sending students to PhD programs in large numbers; this is in part because the students who go there self-select for places where they can have close relationships with professors dedicated to teaching, and then get to know such professors well, which makes for good recommendations. It depends on the field of course. In the humanities, you might be surprised at the provenance of students in grad programs at places like Harvard - many are from small liberal arts colleges - often in equal numbers to those from Ivy league schools.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That is correct. Bear in mind, however, that the number of research universities and small LACs represented at Harvard or its peers is very small. In fact, there is among the research universities a sort of musical chairs game. Harvard undergraduates going to Yale, Princeton, Chicago, Stanford, Berkeley, Columbia, MIT and the undergraduates of the latter institutions ending up at H or one of the others.
I remember a Harvard prof expressing amazement at how well prepared one of his graduate students was. The student in question had graduated from a top ten LAC that was not one of the automatic “feeders” like Swarthmore or Amherst or Williams.</p>
<p>Ditto everything IBClass06 wrote and absolutely agree with Marite’s musical chairs description.</p>
<p>Regarding humanities: </p>
<p>While some top programs are now accepting only two PhD students out of 200+ applicants, many more than two may fit the following description: Ivy Phi Beta Kappa with impressive senior thesis, whose undergraduate advisor is talking to the Chair of graduate admissions, who happens to be the prof’s dissertation director (or former dissertation student or bff from grad school) at the school about accepting the student whom the professor met while visiting the campus for a conference last year. The committee has been expecting this application for about a year.</p>
<p>How is the MSU student competing with that?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>right! more applicants already than there are spots for!</p>
<p>
I completely agree with the musical chairs comment; however the particular schools involved will vary enormously by discipline and it’s not always the ones mentioned above.</p>
<p>It’s also true that an applicant will have a huge advantage if his/her
But again, the range of schools having these sorts of contacts is very wide. There has been a surplus of PhD.'s in most fields for many years. Professors with prestigious degrees and impressive contacts can be found at many schools.</p>
<p>
Agreed.</p>
<p>
Absolutely true. However, the professors would know without reading USNWR which schools have the strongest <em>departments</em> in their sub-disciplines. Again, this may not correspond in any way to the schools which the general public believes are the most prestigious. I do think USNWR can be useful for its rankings by sub-specialty since this information is not widely known. All the faculty I know are very aware of these rankings by specialty, though they couldn’t care less about the overall list of “top” schools.</p>
<p>I agree that the names on the musical chairs will vary according to field and sometimes subspecialty, and that some LACs rather than others will have a better chance of having their graduates admitted into some PhD programs depending on the specialty or subspecialty. I should have been clearer.</p>
<p>I don’t agree, however, that for a particular field, there is a wide swath of undergraduate institutions that have good records in sending their graduates to top Ph.D. programs. The wide swath includes many schools because many fields are represented (see first para). For any particular field, however, the swath is fairly limited. But there are many Ph.D. programs at many institutions and some are less selective than others.</p>
<p>There is also a significant number of students who go from an MA program at a good but not top institution, and to a PhD program at at top program. Among the downsides of this approach are that MA programs are generally not funded and that you can’t count on being able to transfer, and if you do transfer you will likely take longer to finish. And the biggest downside to consider is that if you don’t finish a PhD at one of very few top programs (this is in the humanities; science may be different), it will be nigh on impossible to get academic job. It is nigh on impossible even if you do.</p>
<p>mamenyu - The actual specifics of my hypothetical are irrelevant. Substitute philosophy, English, and history if you like. Still a lot of interest overlap, but not necessarily faculty-strength overlap.</p>
<p>^ you’re right Keilexandra. Go to a good school. (I know you will…)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I absolutely agree. If a student knows they want to study X with Professor Y, and knows they may not be able to get into Professor Y’s university (because it has less than a 10% accept rate), the safety schools might be the schools where a professor is a student of the Prof Y. It would also be possible to identify respected Professors in the field of X who are at lesser known schools. I thought someone might point out that MSU may have highly respected professors in the field desired.</p>
<p>But I think this would be a much more difficult, and potentially unsuccessful, route especially with the decline in numbers of PhD students accepted. I don’t think it is advisable if there is a choice. JMHO</p>
<p>
That’s how people choose their PhD adviser, and even then it is sometimes less straight-forward.</p>
<p>I think this level of expectations isn’t appropriate for an undergrad. Most students, even the ones who are “sure” of what they want, change their majors (sometimes more than once). They should go to school that offers their intended major. I think it is wise to go to school that generally offers great education (not just in one field). But to “work with professor Y”???</p>
<p>Some professors do not work with undergrads - period. Some will not be good mentors. Some may not be a fit for the student. Some may leave that U even before the student gets there.</p>
<p>Keilalexandra:
pick a school that is strong in all the areas you are interested in; it is very likely that you will find this to be quite doable.
The student of a famous professor may not be your ticket, by the way. It just depends. Is that person close enough to the famous professor to be able to sway him/her to select a candidate over someone from a more prestigious college; is the famous professor on the committee selecting the applicants that year? It does vary from year to year, and it is crucial that when you apply, someone on the committee happens to find your application appealing. It is true though, that lots of PhD’s from top schools (and most who land jobs are just that) wind up in places that might seem surprising. That’s the nature of the job market. If you think you want to go on to grad school, all you can do is: Go to a very good school; cultivate good recommendations wherever you end up, do an honors thesis, write good papers so you have strong writing samples, and get all A’s; on top of that, try to give a conference talk, try to publish a paper in a student journal.</p>
<p>^Well, I wasn’t speaking specifically about my own experience. In my personal situation, no one school is a perfect academic fit–but thankfully several (of varying selectivity) are very good academic fits where I’ll be happy.</p>
<p>sorry I spelled your name wrong, Keilexandra…but sounds like you’ve got a good set of applications. Good luck!</p>
<p>^^post 54</p>
<p>and maybe be aware and take the languages you will need as PhD requirements?</p>