http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005.article-info
I came across a mention of this paper on Steven Hsu’s blog, but as we can’t link private blogs, here’s the paper.
Very eye-opening, especially for anyone whose child dreams of becoming a professor one day. Prestige does matter, according to this paper, which seems hard to refute, given their data. Fields studied are Computer Science, Business, and History.
It is not news that the relative prestige (in the particular field of study) of the Ph D program of a candidate for an academic job matters. Not news at all.
Prestige for a PhD matters- has anyone ever said otherwise?
It’s undergrad institutions where it is far less important.
In some fields, the strength of the undergrad department and/or the prominence of a given undergrad Prof do advantage applicants who were able to study with said department/Prof(s).
In some cases, having outstanding LORs from such Profs can tip an otherwise seemingly marginal or even abysmal candidate if one only looks at undergrad GPA/stats.
This does mean, however, that the given candidate has impressed influential undergrad Profs enough so they’re willing to write such LORs and/or make phone calls advocating on behalf of such a student. An arguably more difficult feat than getting high GPA/grad standardized test scores.
True, but that student still has to successfully get through the Ph.D. meatgrinder at that top-for-the-subject-area-institution before there is even a prayer of an academic career. Lots fell by the wayside back in my grad school days. I can’t imagine it has changed much since then.
Agreed. However, several relatives and friends who have attended/graduated from PhD programs have found that the dynamics of PhD programs actually favor students who are lopsided strongly in favor of the discipline or even specialized subfield within the discipline compared to being an all-round 4.0 student and can use that to their advantage.
Yes, that is very true. But those students don’t just come from a small set of exclusive undergrad institutions. They come from any tier of institution where there is a faculty member who has a strong focus on a specific subfield within the discipline, or someone at that institution can help the student develop a focus on a field/subfield. By the time a student is thinking about a PhD program, they should be well past the stage where they would care about being “an all-round” student. They should have a clear idea of what they want to be doing with that PhD. Maybe it will change during the course of grad school, but if they don’t have a laser-like focus on entry, the experience will be even tougher.
No to mention of course that in every field of study there always are plenty of students of Dr. Big’s old PhD students who get sent straight to Dr. Big for their PhDs.
You’d be surprised. I’ve posted on some other graduate school forums in which some (mostly current or prospective students) have insisted that the prestige of the department doesn’t matter, and it’s all about ‘what you do’ - aka, how much you publish and who you work with. I have found this to be untrue. There’s not a whole lot of data out there on it - a similar study was done in my field in 2007, but that was 8 years ago and it’s the only one of which I know - but a simple look at who’s teaching where will show that. Elite schools hire graduates from other elite schools.
Honestly - and when I say it, it’s always unpopular - but I think that if a student wants to be a professor in a field that has more graduates than openings (which is nearly every field), they should attend a top 30ish program. Anything below that just gives tenuous chances at best of landing an academic job. Even at public regionals and small teaching colleges, the professors tend to have gotten their PhDs from at least mid-ranked programs. This is especially true in impacted humanities and social science fields.
Evidence:
(Very interesting article, and quite relevant for me - I’ll be on the academic job market in the fall of 2015.
I agree. Had this argument with a couple of college friends who both insisted it’s about “what you do” rather than prestige of department and the level of influence of one’s adviser(s). One became more adamant when departments ranked in the 40s and below were rejecting him or only accepting him as a full-pay student with the widespread perception I’ve observed in academic conferences/academia of a rich dilettante paying to do a PhD.
I am aware even recent PhD graduates in their field* from top 10 departments like Harvard and Columbia are having serious difficulties landing tenure-track positions despite having impressive dissertations, support from prominent faculty, and impressive post-docs.
Unless they’re lucky enough to pull off a miracle, I see nothing…but much more debt and permanent adjunctdom in their futures…assuming they survive to graduate with PhD in hand.
Consider the numbers game. Each faculty member at a research university supervises a few dozen graduate students to PhD degrees over his/her career. This means that the faculty member “produces” a few dozen times the number of PhD degree holders than the number needed to replace him/her when s/he retires.
Of course, PhD degree holders can find other jobs besides faculty jobs in research universities, such as jobs at LACs (not many, since LACs are small), master’s and bachelor’s universities (often low-prestige “directionals”), community colleges, possibly high schools, or (for some majors) industry. But the competition is very heavy for a tenure track job at research universities or the small number of such jobs at comparable LACs and such. So that may mean that, with a plethora of applicants, faculties can afford to consider factors like the name of the PhD-granting school heavily and still have plenty of top-quality applicants, even if they lose a few by heavily considering those factors.