Assistant professors at higher ranked vs lower ranked universities

ucbalumnus
Thu, 29 Aug 2013 01:29:22 +0000

Re: #10 and #11

Note that #10 makes a different claim from what #11 opposes.

10 claims that PhD graduates from “top” universities (let’s say in the major for the sake of argument) go widely to faculty positions of various “tiers” of universities. #11 claims that faculty at “top” universities generally got their PhDs from “top” universities.

It is certainly possible for both claims to be true, and non-opposed.

It does appear that faculties tend to hire those with PhDs from similar or higher “tier” departments, although there may be some exceptions. For example, the Berkeley CS faculty roster is heavy with faculty who got their PhDs at one of the “big four” in CS universities (Stanford, MIT, CMU, and Berkeley itself), but with some scattered among other schools (Washington, Harvard, Georgia Tech, Utah, Pittsburgh, UCSD, UIUC, etc.). However, UC Davis’ CS faculty roster indicates a more varied set of PhD origins of the faculty (including some from Berkeley).