Our older son has some nice acceptances for physics doctoral programs, so yay! Anyone have thoughts to share on big school v small school? There are two universities that he favors - they have good programs in the area he would like to specialize in, but one school has more than 30,000 students and one has fewer than 7,000. Right now, he thinks he would like to end up in academia after doing post-doc work.
One thing to consider is whether there is more than one prof in his area of interest. It is good to have PI choices, and a backup if one leaves. Other questions are whether the stipend is adequate, if health insurance is included (remember that he likely will still be there at age 26 if he is on your insurance now), and how he likes the area.
He should make every attempt to visit before deciding. My kid found that some programs that looked good on paper were not so good upon visiting.
He should try to get information from the programs on where their grads have gone over the past several years.
I assume he has looked at this for information on specific programs:
https://www.gradschoolshopper.com/gradschool/
Note that the info is useful, but not 100% accurate (example: it says my kid’s school does not include health insurance, but it does). But it is useful detail nonetheless.
Focus on school reputation and advisor reputation. For academic jobs, it’s all about reputation and publication record. Fair or not, that’s just how it is.
A higher ranked school comes with better seminars, libraries, etc. which enrich the research experience and expose you to cutting-edge work. A well known advisor provides the network and name recognition within your research field to be credible, and can somewhat help with getting manuscripts accepted for publication.
Finally, the odds of staying in academia to become a professor are not great unless you are more focused on teaching (ie. you’re aiming for primarily undergrad. institutions or community colleges) or really not picky geographically or wrt quality of institution. If your son ends up changing his mind about this career path, then the school’s career network is absolutely crucial. The largest companies and national labs only recruit actively at about 30 universities, though schools close to large company headquarters also do well. Again, if your thesis advisor has a strong reputation, that can open career options too. Also, I mention non-academic careers not just because it’s a tough path that requires a lot of work and equal amount of luck, but because increasingly, the most interesting and world changing work is happening outside academia or in industry/university partnerships. Not to mention work/life balance and pay…
Back to your question though, it’s hard to give useful advice without knowing the schools and the exact field uour son intends to study. Grad school quality does not always track with national/college rankings.
Thanks. @geraniol, the two schools that he is most interested in are Rice and CU Boulder. They are both well ranked in AMO physics, his preferred field. He has visited Rice and was impressed by the university and the work of one of the professors, although I got the idea that he wasn’t bowled over by Houston. He emailed the professor whose work he likes after his trip, although I haven’t heard much more about that. His Boulder visit is in March. @intparent - re: getting information about where there grads go - thanks for the recommendation. He was going to ask for PhD completion numbers, but this is important, too. I tried to find aggregate data for that with no luck. He has checked out gradschoolshopper, along with some other physics oriented websites. Right now, his other possible is Northwestern. He hasn’t heard back from a couple of schools, but if he hasn’t heard by now, I’m assuming he’s not accepted, or possibly on a secondary list? He’s not holding his breath.
He still could hear back. Keep an eye on the gradcafe website, people post in a tool out there about acceptances/rejections. It is a little bit of a headache to use, but you can see if people have been hearing back in certain majors. So you can get an idea of when schools are sending out acceptances and rejections.
I’ll second pretty much everything @geraniol said with only slight modification to the comments about national labs. In my experience, having worked at one of the major national labs, they actually recruit (or at least hire) quite broadly. There were staff and postdocs there from all manner of schools ranging from big public and private name brands down to small private schools and middling public schools. It was really all over the board. If they thought you’d be a fit, they’d give you an extended tryout as a postdoc and your staff conversion. Was based on that rather than your doctoral institution.
If all the other variables come out relatively equal, definitely go for the favorite location. After a long week in the lab (probably in the basement for your son if he’s into optics), being able to enjoy your favorite hobbies and scenery are a must for sanity.
I agree with most of the comments. The advisor is the most important thing for finding a job afterward. The two schools your son has interest in are both excellent. If he is interested in AMO then Colorado probably has the edge. The size of the school is relatively unimportant for a graduate student. More important is the size of the department and Colorado is larger but Rice has a good sized department as well. If they both have equal opportunities for research then he should go for the one which he likes best after he visits.
Boulder. Assuming he’ll be there all year, Boulder summers are better. Winters too.
Size of the school won’t really matter that much for a doctoral student, not in a direct way. Unlike in undergrad, he’ll be mostly in the physics department and the vast majority of his interactions will be there. The only direct way it will matter, I think, is if he serves as a TA in his department or wants to teach some classes. The classes he’d teach/TA at Rice will be smaller and more intimate, maybe good practice if he wants to teach at an LAC; the classes at Boulder will necessarily be bigger.
There may be some fringe/indirect benefits of a larger university - more amenities on campus (big state schools are more likely to have restaurants on campus, for example), maybe more student groups for graduate students (most grad students don’t get too involved in those, but some do). Maybe more related departments or certificate programs he could investigate. But for the meat of his program, it likely won’t matter too much.
I agree that all else being equal location should figure pretty largely into the decision…he will be spending ~5 years there, and grad school can have some miserable moments so it’s nice to enjoy the city/location. He may make some friends there and some networks there, and depending on his choice of career he may even stay close by given the networks he develops.
Also, I agree that he still may hear back from Northwestern. I wouldn’t give up on them quite yet.