I was talking to my brother who just started his program, he is thinking of transferring to a different university with a better program and he said where you go is one of the major points to consider when going to a graduate school. To me this reminds me of the old addage that going to a good undergraduate school matters. However research by Krueger showed that where you go didn’t matter, just as long as you had the skill to get into a harder undergraduate school and completed your degree.
So I’d always assumed graduate school was the same way. I figure all that matters is
Did you want to go to graduate school
Did you complete the program
Was your dissertation/thesis any good
What did the people you worked with have to say about you
In fact I once read that even for graduate school the only value of going to a prestigous graduate program (Caltech, MIT, Harvard) was if you wanted to teach at a prestigous program. Ie, Caltech hires professors who went to MIT, MIT hires professors who went to princeton, Princeton hires Harvard grads, etc. but aside from that it doesn’t really matter unless you want to be a professor at a prestigous university.
So does where you go actually matter for grad school or does it depend on what field you are in and what you plan to do after you graduate? Is there research on this subject?
In my undergraduate major (anthropology/archaeology), if I had chosen to go to grad school the #1 thing would be who I studied under (who my advisor was). If your advisor is a person of prominence, and you do well under him/her, you have a lifelong advocate and reference – the glow of their fame rubs off on you, plus you have access to all the top-level work being done by him or her and usually his or her former students.
Naturally most of the well-known, top people work at the major universities, who also have the well-funded research programs, juicy international projects, and prestigious museums.
So yeah, it does matter, a lot, where you go to grad school in that field. It’s not always the most directly prestigious University though. For example, Emory has a phat Primate Behavior program at Yerkes National Primate Research Center. If your goal was to study Primate Behavior, Emory is where its at. Not Harvard, Emory.
Yes it does with MBA’s. If you are from a top 10 school, you will most definitely be able to land a high paying job. Also, the network of classmates you get exposed to helps you for the rest of your life. It is fairly common knowledge that a Harvard grad is NEVER out of a job. All Harvard grads must find that person a job.
But that seems like what I was referring to, it only matters if you want to work in academia at a prestigous university. After a person gets some job experience in industry I don’t see why it would matter who their advisor was.
The long and the short of it, IMHO is that you should always study under the best and most prominent people who will accept you as a student. When you do that, you join a community of present and former students. Ever heard of networking?
This is true, five years in to your industry job no one is especially bothered about the quality of your PhD. You don’t need to worry about this scenario though, you need to worry about getting a job in the first place, where the quality of your PhD and where you got it will be critical to getting hired. The best companies don’t visit every university in the US looking for good PhDs, they visit the top twenty, or thirty or whatever (you could substitute “take applications from” for the word “visit” in this sentance in many cases). If you are interested in getting a good industry job you should make it your buisness to get into a good graduate school (top twenty, or thirty or whatever).
That’s exactly right. I know for a fact my company has a list of schools they recruit from preferentially. They won’t reject resumes from other schools, but they don’t sed recruiters. When I did recruiting or Bell Labs we had particular students we recruited long before they graduated, and particular universities beyond that.
However a top advisor with good connections is the first thing to look for. After all, the advisor has a lot to do with the quality of your life, getting a job comes after.
I am very confused by this. Many if not most people who complete a Ph.D. want to become college professors with a good line of research going and quality graduate students of their own to help carry out the research.
It sounds like you are asking “Does the quality of your graduate program matter if you don’t give a rat’s ass where you eventually end up?”. I suppose the answer to that question is no but if you want a job at a prestigious or even somewhat prestigious place after you graduate then it does matter. There are plenty of schools other than the Ivy League that you wouldn’t have much chance at if you graduated from Northwest Central Mississippi State.
Better graduate programs have more prestigious faculty, better resources, a higher quality learning environment etc.
If you are talking about other types of graduate programs:
Law school - Yes, it matters a ton if you want to work in a prestigious firm or some parts of government.
Business School - Yes, it matters a ton if you want certain types of jobs.
Medical School - Yes it matters if you want appointments at certain institutions.
True, but that is only a small subset of the total and is only common at all in certain fields. Computer science Ph.D.'s often do go into industry but a Ph.D. is way overkill for most industry jobs. Ph.D. programs teach you to do very focused research. That only applies to a few types of industries like the pharmaceutical industry.
Ph.D.'s are usually not cost or time effective compared to the Master’s degree and sometimes even the Bachelor’s degree when it comes to many jobs in industry. The salary increase tends to be small if it is there at all. I have also read studies that a Ph.D. has a negative impact on hirability if it is not a requirement for the job. I have been on a hiring commitee that selected a Master’s statistician over one with a Ph.D. and the Ph.D. wasn’t even considered to be a plus. There are only a select number of industry jobs where having a Ph.D. is a requirement or even a plus.