Success/Passing rate for the PhD students that you supervised/advised

[kerprof]

What is your success rate (passing rate) for the PhD students that you supervised/advised?

If it is higher than the average PhD passing (success) rate, please advise your words of wisdom on how you made this possible.

[fizzycist]

A lot of programs in my nook of academia have gotten rid of various vetting preliminary exams and such. So the primary mechanism for a student "failing" is they fail courses or they can't find a dissertation supervisor who is willing to fund them.

It is pretty rare in my dept--maybe 10% of all students? Another ~20% of students drop out/leave with MS after struggling and its hard to assign whether they would have "failed" anyway. I haven't had either one happen yet out of approximately a dozen PhD students.

Only words of wisdom: try to get enough funding and have enough trainees so that if a few trainees are having a tough time it doesn't phase you. Don't fire PhD students--it's bad for the student, bad for the program, and its terrible for recruiting/retaining other trainees in your research group. Just keep encouraging them through the downtimes and help them find another advisor if they have lost interest in your lab (or to find a job if they insist they are done with academia).

[arcturus]

Success/fail rates can be difficult to calculate. How do you count students who quit your lab but still finish a PhD? Or those who worked with several others before succeeding with you? Is the comparative group other faculty in your department or the national trends?

The short answer for success: funding.

[mamselle]

I'll voice the unspoken assumption here: so far, what is being said holds only in the sciences.

For those reading along from the humanities, other answers may have to be considered....

Just to balance things.

M.

[jerseyjay]

I do not supervise grad students, but in my experience as a graduate student in history, the answer would  depend on what you mean by "passing."

In my experience, students who are not ready to defend usually are either advised to hold off until they are ready, or to drop out of the program. So the "passing" rate is probably high, if measured against all those who defend. If there are separate qualifying exams, I think it is the same principle, but you will see more students who fail on their first attempt but ultimately pass. If you mean how many students who start a graduate program actually end up with a PhD, that's a different matter. There is a large number (maybe 50 percent in history) who drop out, get a terminal masters, stop when they are ABD, etc. So somebody can have a very high percentage of students who successfully defend their dissertations, and a very small number of people who get to that stage.

And of course different schools have very different processes (written exams, oral exams, advancing to candidacy, viva) which means different ways to succeed or fail.

I guess it also depends what you want to use the information for. If you want to reassure your students who are about to defend, telling them 95 per cent of your students who defend do so successfully will be good. If you want to show that you are an effective advisor, saying that 95 per cent of your advisees end up getting a PhD would be good. Of course, showing that 95 per cent of your advisees get tenure track jobs would be even better.

[Hibush]

I've been trying to benchmark our grad program against some similar ones to get at what is normal and what is a good target.

In these programs there are in essence several steps, where the success rates can be multiplied. In benchmarking, it is important to attribute your attrition to the correct category.

• Training and talent to succeed in your grad program
• Grad program provides the training the student needs
• Financial support is sufficient
• Life happens

If you have a competitive grad program and a hard-nosed admissions committee the first one can be 100%.
If you understand your program's strengths and weaknesses, the second can be quite high. Student's interests may change as they learn, so you get some attrition of those who switch to a more suitable grad program. That is a good cause of attrition.
If the students are guaranteed a sufficient stipend until they finish (contingent on academic progress, of course) attrition in this category can be very low. There is huge variation in financial support among schools, so the expected attrition will vary a lot as well.
The last factor includes advisors leaving with no suitable replacement, health problems, and other unanticipated things that are out of the student's control. Within my college, this factor seems to cause about 15% of PhD students to leave.

For an individual advisor, #2 is where you have the most influence. It means having enough grant funding that the student can do the work that is needed and not have to scrape to do second- or third-rate work. Mostly it means providing strong mentoring that lets the student develop into an independent, productive researcher.

[Volhiker78]

In the past 5 years that I have been involved with a funded research consortium at a top 10 university department,  we have had 3 students complete their PhD's,  1 who left the program and moved to another university/discipline and 1 student who should finish next year.  Three students just started working with us this semester.  I think our experience is typical of the department - if they are admitted into the PhD program, there is a strong expectation that they finish.

We meet weekly individually with students to hear about their projects.  We push them to write things up as they go, submit abstracts for meetings, and submit papers in student paper competitions.  My experience is that the technical writing is very difficult for the students so our meetings tend to be discussions/criticisms of that, as opposed to new ideas or brainstorming.

[Caracal]

There is a large number (maybe 50 percent in history) who drop out, get a terminal masters, stop when they are ABD, etc. .

With most of the people I know who didn't finish, their advisor probably couldn't have done anything. I can think of one or two cases where advisors treated students very badly and either drove them out, or ignored them, and a few others where I don't think there was anything malicious, but there were personality conflicts. Mostly, however, it was just people who decided they didn't want to do it anymore.