Advising someone about PhD program

[Charlotte]

I have a friend who is looking at a PhD program. They were quite honest with him that their program is designed to fill the need for professors at regional schools—they are not competing with large schools and do not think their students will go on to be hired at large schools and definitely not R1 schools.

This person would like to be able to complete the program and get hired at a bigger school, perhaps across the country, with resources for them to focus on their research. It is important to them that they are not limited to regional schools as they plan to move away in a few years and want options as to where they go.

This person is unsure what to do because of course they aspire to get hired at a bigger school, but this program is the only local one and they cannot relocate for another PhD program. In a few years, they will be able to relocate but that would mean delaying their PhD by several years and they would not be able to get experience in their area without a PhD. It would delay their career for several years.

How would you advise them? How limiting is a PhD from a smaller, less known university? If they can produce a lot of research while in the program would that potentially mitigate any damage to their career from getting a PhD from this university?

Is there anything else you would recommend to them?

[traductio]

Before my current job, I taught in a department that described its PhD program in exactly those terms. (I thought we had no business running a PhD program, but that's another matter.) I supervised two PhD students -- one is now tenured at a tiny, two-year-turned-four-year public school in rural Georgia. The other had a tenure track position at a tiny religious school in Oklahoma that abruptly went under, and now has landed on his feet at a tiny religious school in Iowa. The job suits him perfectly, but it wouldn't fit your friend's aspirations.

In other words, our students got exactly the jobs we were training them for. The most research-intensive place any of our students ended up was similar to, say, the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. (It wasn't UWL, but a school of a similar profile -- strong, but not the flagship.)

Would your friend have the possibility of working on a master's at this nearby school, with the goal of applying to stronger PhD programs in a few years? At my old school, our best students often got a master's and then applied (and got into) top-notch PhD programs.

[Parasaurolophus]

I'd tell them to look at the program's placement data, and understand that their placement will almost certainly be comparable. If it were my field, I'd tell them they had zero chance at a bigger, fancier institution, because that's just how it is. It's basically impossible for us to publish our ways out of a PhD that's not from Oxford, NYU, Princeton, Harvard, or Pittsburgh. But that's not true for every field.

How's the local program in their intended area of specialization? I'd also tell them that while it's entirely possible to go to a program that's not particularly well-developed in your area of specialization and learn enough, on your own, to make up for it, it's a tough row to hoe. A properly expert advisor is like a huuuuuuge shortcut, and in my experience those who didn't have one tend to struggle to make up the ground. That wouldn't be a problem for placements at small or non-research-intensive schools, but if the aim is to move up, it could make things harder.

[Golazo]

There is also the question of if it makes sense to do a PHD at all. In my field, a social science that is not economics but also not some of the humanities that have been totally hammered, it seems based on data I have seen that before the pandemic, about 50% of people at non-elites finish and 50% of them get academic jobs.

But in most fields, doing the small regional PHD is not a track to anything other than regional schools and usually ones that have something undesirable or otherwise limiting their pool (ie, faith statement).

[Ruralguy]

Once you tell or someone else tells them  the way it is, then they make their choice.
Its up to them. I've seen people leap frog up to R1's but its very rare. I've really only seen one person do it ever at my school in 22 years (though a couple of others went to R2's). But he (the R1 jumper) went to an R1 for PhD and had a book out, and decided to work with us first , basically temporarily, until his reputation was more firm.  But conceptually speaking, I can see someone maybe doing such a leap frog from a lower ranked PhD program, but that would be even more rare...basically your friend would be 1 of only a few in the entire country who do that in more than a generation of time.

[AJ_Katz]

Does this person have a master's degree yet?  If not, get their master's first and then go for a PhD with top scholar or top program in the nation. 

[Charlotte]

They do have a masters degree in a related field. Enough so that the local program will accept them with some prerequisite courses required. However, it's not closely related enough that they could work in the field without the PhD.

I think their main concern is wanting to be at a school with resources to continue their research. Many of our local universities don't have graduate programs or provide faculty with support for research. They don't mind the prestige of the university so much as they want to be able to move to another area of the country and get a job where they can do research.

[Wahoo Redux]

This seems like such a discipline-specific question that I'm not sure how anyone answers it.

If it is humanities, talk your friend out of it.  These regional schools will be downsizing (as ours is), and the jobs the program-in-question used to feed will probably not be there, or the competition will be so fierce that more prestigious schools will probably usurp the jobs.

This is exactly the scenario for our school.  We have a remarkable number of PhDs from a regional school---people who would probably not be able to move other places----and then that hiring trend reversed, partly because the ethos changed and standing faculty decided to deliberately diversify degrees, and because the level of the applicants for even NTT jobs is very impressive.

Actually, I imagine this is the case for most disciplines (did I hear correctly there is a predicted bubble for nursing jobs, or did COVID create a vaccum?).

Maybe I am missing something...

Incidentally, I know U of Pittsburgh is a well respected school, but I was surprised to find them in this company: 

PhD that's not from Oxford, NYU, Princeton, Harvard, or Pittsburgh.

[Hegemony]

Yes, the chances are almost nil. I'm sorry.

[Charlotte]

This seems like such a discipline-specific question that I'm not sure how anyone answers it.

If it is humanities, talk your friend out of it.  These regional schools will be downsizing (as ours is), and the jobs the program-in-question used to feed will probably not be there, or the competition will be so fierce that more prestigious schools will probably usurp the jobs.

It's in the hard sciences. From my understanding, between the masters and this PhD program, their teaching job prospects would be good as the combo would make them able to teach in two related areas.

On the flip side, I wondered if that would make them appear too much of a generalist and further hurt their chances of landing a job at a research university.

[Parasaurolophus]

Incidentally, I know U of Pittsburgh is a well respected school, but I was surprised to find them in this company: 

PhD that's not from Oxford, NYU, Princeton, Harvard, or Pittsburgh.

They're highly ranked in philosophy, but the secret to their placement success is their incredibly successful and top-ranked specialization in the history and philosophy of science, which is a high-prestige subfield.

[Ruralguy]

I don't think discipline is going to matter much here. Its a matter of catching lightning in a bottle, and maybe that's slightly easier in the sciences in that its better defined how it would happen (a major breakthrough discovery basically, and from the basement of a lowly SLAC or Directional somewhere). But the chances that it actually would happen are quite low, and the only two people I know who did this, one of the team ended up being a notorious harasser.

[Caracal]

Location constraints and academia don't tend to mix well. No matter the field, people who are mobile and willing to go anywhere-at least in the short and medium term-have a much better chance. That sucks, and contributes to lack of diversity in the profession, but people going into academia need to understand that. The sooner you start having constraints, the worse it is. If you come out grad school limited to applying for jobs in a particular area, it is often going to be very tough, but if you went to a top ranked institution, at least you will have made yourself more competitive for the limited number of jobs you can apply for. Your friend is going to dramatically limit his opportunities right from the start.

The idea is bad enough if everything goes to plan, but I doubt it will. Most of us become less geographically mobile as we get older, not more. But yeah, I would try to get this friend to stop thinking of going to grad school as something he has to do. Maybe they will be too old if they waits, but they shouldn't consider it unless and until they can go to a stronger program.

[Charlotte]

Location constraints and academia don't tend to mix well. No matter the field, people who are mobile and willing to go anywhere-at least in the short and medium term-have a much better chance. That sucks, and contributes to lack of diversity in the profession, but people going into academia need to understand that. The sooner you start having constraints, the worse it is. If you come out grad school limited to applying for jobs in a particular area, it is often going to be very tough, but if you went to a top ranked institution, at least you will have made yourself more competitive for the limited number of jobs you can apply for. Your friend is going to dramatically limit his opportunities right from the start.

The idea is bad enough if everything goes to plan, but I doubt it will. Most of us become less geographically mobile as we get older, not more. But yeah, I would try to get this friend to stop thinking of going to grad school as something he has to do. Maybe they will be too old if they waits, but they shouldn't consider it unless and until they can go to a stronger program.

That makes sense. They would be able to move in about five years which would give them time to finish a PhD program here before moving. After those five years, they will be able to move practically anywhere. They've considered other countries as well.

I agree that most of us become less mobile as we get older, but they are in a unique position where they can after five years. They are married but spouse is happy to move anywhere, they are unable to have biological children and do not wish to have any so will not be adopting, neither of them have much family, nor are they at all close to existing family.

[Charlotte]

Do we have any independent researchers here? I'd love to hear the perspective of someone who doesn't necessarily have support from their university to do research but still manages to research.

That is the main priority for them. They enjoy teaching too though. I believe their hope is to end up at a location with at least masters level programs so they will know that the university will provide support for research.