Should I delay my PhD an additional year?

Graduate School
1

Here’s the situation: because I feel that graduating from the “biggest-possible-name” schools (both school-wide and in-field) would grant me an edge on the job market, both research and non-research, I feel unsatisfied with the offers I currently have, while losing hope for UPenn and Columbia. If I’m rejected at UPenn and Columbia (as I already am at UChicago and Princeton) I wonder whether I will be able to feel happiness again, unless, in some rather distant future, I would get a job that will allow me to redeem from this horrendous, catastrophic even, failure (it would probably mean the employer paying for a MBA at Brown Prime, Columbia, Cornell, even HBS, Yale SOM or UPenn Wharton, that sort of thing). Here are all the data I feel is relevant to understand my neurosis as an international student:

Undergraduate GPA: 3.67
Graduate GPA: 3.80
General GRE: V162/Q167/AW4.0
Physics GRE: 910
TOEFL iBT: 110
1.5 years on a theoretical particle cosmology project, no papers at present
TA in intermediate EM, applied abstract algebra (implemented 2D grading)

The apps still pending:

UPenn
Columbia
Tufts
Vanderbilt

The acceptances:

Minnesota ($24,440/year)
Notre Dame ($21,000/9 months, 2 months of summer funding at the same monthly rate)

The waitlists:

WUSTL
Carnegie Mellon

The rejections:

UChicago
Princeton
Michigan
Dartmouth

What I would do differently next time:

  • I would axe the following: Michigan, Minnesota, Notre Dame, Tufts, WUSTL replaced by Brown and Duke respectively
  • I would wait until I have a paper that is at least submitted, or better still, accepted

Perhaps I am going the wrong way about this, but I feel I would be unhappy at Minnesota or Notre Dame knowing that it is far from a given that I will get to continue doing research after graduation and that my options, especially non-research, would be a little limited.

That said, I have an idea of the skillset my subfield will provide. I would even predict that the job market for physics PhDs would become more elitist in the long term, if only because of outsourcing.

2

You have until April 15 to make your decisions and I suggest you wait until then to see what you hear form the ones you have not heard back from as yet. Looking at your stats and without knowing what your letters of reference were like, I would say that the decisions are not too surprising. You have two very nice offers form good programs and you still have the chance to get a couple more. No need to jump off a bridge!

Minnesota and Notre Dame are excellent programs in physics. I have sent students there and I have colleagues who got their Ph.D. there as well (they were rommmates in graduate school and one is a Department Chair while the other is a Vice Provost, both are successful researchers). You did the right thing by applying to those two schools as the others have so many applicants that it is almost a matter of chance whether you get in or not. In fact we just sent a student to Notre Dame last year who had 990 PGRE score and a paper but who did not get into the “usual suspect schools”. He is very happy there and is doing well.

From this and your many other posts, it seems that you are far too worried about “ranking”. It really does not mean that much after you have your Ph.D. Getting a Ph.D. form Minnesota or Notre Dame does not mean you will never be able to continue in research. I have graduated students in the past 5 years who are continuing to do research and applying right now for faculty positions. And Illinois Tech is certainly not in the same league as either of the two schools we are discussing here. It is all about your advisor and your ability to do research.

You have to ask yourself a question. Do you really want to get a Ph.D. in physics or not? If you say yes, then this is the time to do it. Your application will not get appreciably better next year and you will not have made any progress toward your goals. If you are really not convinced about Minnesota or Notre Dame because of something tangible (not that they are only “top 50” programs), then wait another year but make sure that when you apply to safeties, you are prepared to attend them when they make you an offer. If you really want to pursue a career in business, then why spend 5-6 years doing a Ph.D. in physics? Start your career right away.

Many years ago, when I was applying to graduate school, I applied to Princeton, MIT, UCSD and UCLA. I did not get into MIT or Princeton and it hurt for a bit but UCSD worked out pretty well and I have no regrets. I spent 5 years there and I didn’t particularly like Southern California but nobody was forcing me to stay there after graduation…

3

Minnesota and Notre Dame may still allow me to continue in research all right, but the job market at home (I didn’t rule out returning home after my PhD) isn’t exactly the best. I might be tempted to lay part of the blame for my obsession over prestige on the job market at home,

Industries at home that hire PhDs seem to hire only from, or to otherwise disproportionately favor, graduates from the following 14 schools if the candidate requires a drastic subfield change to perform the work (e.g. from particle cosmology to condensed matter) and the candidate comes in with an American PhD:

  • Harvard
  • Princeton
  • Yale
  • Columbia
  • UPenn
  • Brown
  • Cornell
  • Dartmouth (although I think it's only there because it's an Ivy League school; if it were only of the physical merits I would attend Minnesota and Notre Dame rather than Dartmouth)
  • MIT
  • Berkeley
  • Caltech
  • Stanford
  • UChicago
  • Duke

In other words, Ivies and Ivy-equivalents. Plus graduates of these same 14 schools seem to have a major advantage with respect to non-research jobs (add Carnegie Mellon if one is talking about an IT or a CS job) at home… to the point a completely abysmal PhD from any of these 14 (or 15 for an IT/CS job) schools would get interviewed over a decent PhD from Minnesota or Notre Dame.

4

P.S.: NWU, Rice, Vanderbilt, WUSTL,Notre Dame, while being highly prestigious from an US standpoint, have almost no clout, no name recognition at home (except maybe Vanderbilt).

One last thing: what else can I do to reinforce my application if it came to me not attending this year, other than getting a paper published?

5

Catria, I think you have some valid concerns…actually. A few questions and ideas…

-You don’t have to answer this one on College Confidential, but “How old are you?”. A year or two of “work” or “life” experience can be very helpful…especially if your are in your mid-twenties.

I was a Physics major once upon a time. I went to grad school in Electrical Engineering… I would do this again…even though I still love physics. I think it is hard to distinguish the difference between the research of EEs and applied physicists 50% of the time. Life is much easier in EE anyway, and there are loads more resources, and more academic positions.

6

If I had to make the switch to EE then Harvard becomes realistic as far as I’m concerned… and then Harvard would become my top choice. In fact, employers recruit at Ivies for EE.

7

Princeton has a better reputation for EE…,but yes engineering is generally well respected at Harvard, Princeton, and Cornell.

8

Then you have answered the question. You are not doing a Ph.D. in Physics because you love physics research but primarily because you need a title for a job. In that case, you should simply find work now and then possibly go to an engineering program for a Masters Degree (a Ph.D. won’t get you a much better paying job than the M.S.).

I am sure some of those “top” schools (whose engineering is not so “top”) will take you if you self-fund a M.S. degree.

9

But the switch to a different field is not a move I would do before April 15… I’m still holding out for Columbia and UPenn.

10

Good luck to you!

11

I’m not in physics.

But in general, from academia, 1) in-field prestige is way more important than general prestige and 2) who you work with makes a big difference. For example, in one of my fields Cornell is technically an Ivy but Minnesota would be a way better place to go. In the other, Minnesota actually has a top 10 program. If you are trying to go on the academic job market, academics don’t care about what general prestige means or who has the biggest name to the average person on the street. It’s about what departments are big in your field and who you’re working with.

A little reconnaissance revealed that Minnesota is a top 30ish program in the field. What would make you think that you couldn’t continue to do research after you left Minnesota? Particularly if you did a postdoc or two afterwards?

12

@juillet My concern is not about the ability to continue in research (industrial or fundamental) from a school at Minnesota’s in-field (or in-subfield) prestige level. If I did 1) publish a couple of good papers and 2) work with someone well-known in my subfield, then I will be able to do a postdoc or two. Much of what applies to academia, applies to industry as well, except that industry cares less about working with well-known people (but still cares on some level).

My concern is the ability to transition out of research, and is borne out of a warning issued by my professors (and issued to just about any undergraduate that seriously considers graduate school in any shape or form) that, even if you worked, and published, with someone well-known. that being able to continue in research is difficult for everyone. A PhD from school that is prestigious in-field but not as much in general may prove to be a disadvantage (over the reverse situation, a PhD from an average school in-field but highly prestigious in general) if one seeks a non-research job in my home country, even if you had the appropriate skillset for that non-research (non-technical even) job.

Off the record: for high school teaching in particular, even though my home province allows school districts to hire without licensure (and, in fact, in the sciences, the majority of new high school hires in my area are unlicensed), a PhD may prove to be a hindrance regardless of whether you have a PhD from Minnesota or one from Princeton, whereas a PhD is a boon for community college positions at home (although neither in-field nor general prestige seem to matter that much in that particular instance) and, since research grants are now open to CC faculty in my home country, new hires in the sciences look as if they would be capable of getting postdocs or, in the most extreme cases, positions at RU/H-VH schools (most common in biology, but it also happens in chemistry). In my current lab, we joke about the CC positions of the future as becoming much like university professorships, without the ability to take graduate students or to teach upper-division undergraduate/graduate material (and with pay being somewhat higher than high school teachers with a PhD).