Criticism from The Crimson

SteveUK
Sun, 11 Mar 2007 17:40:14 +0000

Marite, either you were deliberately ignoring my point about the “select” population because you couldn’t answer it, or you totally missed the point. I have a feeling it was the former, but I’ll spell it out anyway: Your population in no way represents the UK student body as a whole; it doesn’t even represent that population of suitably successful people who would be able to get places on American grad programs. Hence, you cannot make any meaningful extrapolations from their opinions alone, as it is a completely biased survey.

Regarding your second point, I actually agree. Ensuring PhD students have a good general knowledge of their field is a Good Thing ™, and I am prepared to take your word for it that the US programs do a better job at this. This seems consistent with American unis’ habit of using PhD students to fill in the gaps in the workforce.