Program Rankings, how important are they for graduate school?

While waiting in line at a local pharmacy the other day, I picked up the latest U.S. News and World Report.  Thumbing through the pages, I turned to the rankings for my discipline and I was pleasantly surprised to see that my program had jumped up a notch in the rankings.  While the U.S. News and World Report rankings provided me with a nice starting point when looking for graduate schools, the only person who really cares that my program jumped one slot in the rankings is probably my mother.  That said, where your graduate program ranks for U.S. News and World Report and the United States National Research Council will likely have a legitimate impact on your career. 

When starting my graduate school search, the National Research Council rankings (which come out every decade) were a bit outdated.  That said, they provided a nice starting point, listing the top twenty-five programs in my field.  I then turned to U.S. News and World Report, which also ranks graduate programs (make sure to check when they were last rated, as many fields are not reassessed every year).  In that publication, my field had been ranked the previous year and the magazine broke down some detailed rankings by sub-field in my discipline.  As I've later learned, the rankings were far from perfect. Any ranking system which heavily weighs peer-perception of other programs can move slowly. Harvard may have been a great program in your field twenty years ago, and it may be that older faculty asked to rate other programs haven't noticed major changes in the department.  Upstart programs bringing in exciting young faculty and graduate students may be forced to wait several years before their position is accurately reflected in the rankings.  

While program rankings may be slow to catch up to reality - perception of how strong your program is matters in terms of winning extramural funding and applying for jobs once you've completed the program.  Brand names of elite institutions may not matter as much as they do for undergraduate programs, but they do matter when a job search committee is trying to justify a hire to a dean.  Graduates of Harvard may have an advantage here, even if the strongest faculty in your field are at Michigan State.  Deep in the recesses of my soul, I hate this sort of elitism, but it is to your benefit to recognize that it exists across many fields before choosing a graduate program.   

In sum, perception matters in terms of program ranking, but it isn't the end-all-be-all for graduate education.   Ask the graduate programs to which you are admitted for information about placement rates.  Where are people getting jobs?  Are people languishing for years on the job market before leaving the profession or the academy?  Or are they getting nice jobs right away?  Rankings can help you choose where to apply and help you choose where to attend graduate school, but remember they are but one of many factors in choosing a graduate program.  

Moving to Graduate School

The following tips aren't really intended to be academic.  Instead, we've tried to think of a couple of tips to help you move to a new city or town in preparation for graduate school. 

Starting a new graduate program isn't just a change in career and a new academic challenge - it can also result in a total lifestyle change. 

Some tips for moving to a program across the country:

1. Price shop for shipping large loads of stuff out.  If you're considering shipping your car and driving out - check out several companies before settling on one - we found a large difference between different companies offering to ship either large loads of stuff or your car.  If you do ship your car (usually via rail, for those who are curious - but there are services of people who will drive your car to your new location that are more expensive), make sure to fill up your car with stuff you'd like to ship out anyway.  This seems obvious, but in the crunch of preparing for grad school you might forget stuff like this.  Don't disregard the obvious, sometimes the US Postal Service offers the best deals for shipping.

2. Scout out entire neighborhoods on craigslist and by reading a local newspaper online.  You don't want to move into a place that it too terrifying or filled with crime - even on that grad school budget.  Make sure to ask more advanced graduate students where people in your program live and try to get acquainted with those areas as best you can.  

3.  Spend a fair amount of time looking at maps.  My first couple of weeks in graduate school - life was a blur because I was totally unfamiliar with the area.  In retrospect, I wish I had spent a little less time reading and re-reading my department's website and a little more time reading about my new surroundings.  I also wish I had simply spent a couple of hours studying a map of the new region and state.  

4. Think about your schedule for the first couple of days.  Are you going to go to Ikea?  Pier 1?  Target?  Where are these places located?  Can you print off some maps in advance?  Will you be setting up internet and phone service in your new apartment?  Can you call ahead to arrange an appointment?  Are you changing your drivers license?  How will you get to the DMV?  Be prepared because, as we mention above, those first couple of days will inevitably be a whirlwind.

Next time, we'll look at some ideas for moving to a new city near where you already live to start a graduate program.  

Pondering Grad School?

Thinking about going to graduate school?  At least one faculty member wants you to think again.  

Questions to Ponder - Quality of Life

Part of the benefit of running an anonymous blog is that we can give potential grad students advice that others might normally be embarrassed to mention.  One piece of advice I wish someone had mentioned to me would be to consider the quality of life of graduate students attending the institutions where you are considering applying.  

Ask yourself, will I be able to keep my sanity for the next several years on my life in the geographic locations of the schools where I am applying?  

Typically, most academic advisors will encourage you to consider only issues related to "the life of the mind".  In other words, will the program be able to do for you intellectually what you need to become a high quality scholar.  And while you'll be giving up a large chunk of your life to your graduate program - you will have some free time.  Many potential graduate fail to consider beforehand that they will, in fact, be spending some of their time doing something outside of school.  Potential students should be able to enjoy the area around where they go to school. 

When you visit a potential graduate program, be sure to talk to graduate students away from faculty about what their life is like at their school.  Do they enjoy the other graduate students? What do they do when they aren't working?  What is the weather like during other times of year? 

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Looking for the Perfect Graduate Program Part I

I realized fairly early on in my undergraduate education that I had an interest in attending graduate school.  The lifestyle of the academy appealed to me.  Despite the low pay, constant stress, and sometimes agonizing pretentiousness, I felt as though I could thrive.  I knew, however, that I would only thrive under the right circumstances.  When I first began looking at graduate programs in the humanities, I was given a lot of advice.  Some of this advice was sound and some of it, well, not so much.  

The best advice I received early on was fairly simple.  If you're still in an undergraduate program, work on getting the best possible grades you can muster in your remaining courses.  Write a strong senior thesis or craft a shorter writing sample for publication in a small journal or magazine related to your field.  Also, continue to cultivate strong relationships with a handful of faculty members by visiting them in office hours.  Study for and take the standardized test required for admission to most of the programs in your field (GRE, MCAT, GMAT or LSAT depending on your field).  

When you visit the aforementioned faculty in their office hours explain to them your major interests and reasons for applying to graduate school.  Pick their brain on who the big players in the field are, where do they teach, where did they attend graduate school?  Do all the best people in your field teach at Virginia?  Minnesota?  Berkeley?  Harvard?  Check out U.S. News and World Report's Best Graduate Schools issue and try to get a field for the important schools in your field.  Many scholars will disagree with how US News ranks graduate programs, but it offers a nice starting point.  Start compiling a list with brief notes describing why they made it on the list (for example, Harvard - ranked no. 2 overall in general field, no. 4 in my proposed area, and has faculty John Doe and Jane Brilliant working on history of women living in urban high rises).  

Build up this list to the point where it is nearly unwieldy.  In conversations I had with faculty at my undergraduate institution and others in the field whom I had met, I came up with a list of about 25-30 schools.  

In our next post, I will talk about paring down that list to a more reasonable list of schools to apply.