Strength of program vs. specificity

Graduate School
1

<p>Hi everyone,</p>

<p>I’m starting to compile my list of grad schools to apply to for Fall 2013, and I’m repeatedly running into the same tradeoff: highly ranked programs vs programs that have programs in the exact topic that I want. Ideally, I want to go into academia, so program strength is something that I have to consider to some extent. However, the exact field of research that I most want to pursue is somewhere between machine learning, artificial intelligence, ecology, and evolution. It’s kind of like very machine learning/AI focused ecological informatics. Most programs are in computational biology/bioinformatics (which is interesting to me, but more molecular than what I really want to pursue), ecology and evolution (which misses the computer science side of my interests), or straight AI (which misses the biology side of my interests). I know that, whatever field I study in grad school, there will be ways to pull the others into it eventually, so I’m not sure how important choosing a grad school with the exact right topic is, when there are so few programs that are really doing research on what I really want. </p>

<p>However, there are a select few programs that do seem to have the exact blends of topics I want, already neatly bundled into a program that I could apply to. I feel like this would provide better support for furthering all of my interests. However, with the exception of Princeton, these programs are all at mid-range universities, like MSU (and really, the MSU program is still a better match for my interests than the Princeton one). If a school is the one of the only ones offering a specific program, does that make it automatically really highly ranked in that sub-sub-field? Or would the school name still hurt my chances of getting a faculty position?</p>

<p>I provided details about my interests for reference, but I feel like this question probably generalizes to anyone else who’s interested in something super specific.</p>

2

<p>You should look at what individual professors are doing at those schools. I imagine groups that work on machine learning/AI can be interested in tackling a wide variety of topics. Most programs have enough flexibility where you could take a course or two in ecology/evolution, especially if it’s going to involve your thesis topic.</p>

3

<p>That’s what I’ve been doing. The problem is that the individual professors that are doing the work that I’m most interested in aren’t at the top tier schools. Given this, I don’t know whether to do work that I’m more interested in at a lower tier school, or work that I’m less interested in at a top tier school</p>

<p>Also, I forgot to mention, I’m applying to PhD programs.</p>

4

<p>When you say “top tier” and “lower tier,” what do you mean? Computational biology/bioinformatics is a hot field right now, and graduates should be able to secure positions from a range of schools. Besides, this question is different if you are comparing top 10 to top 30 (in which case, don’t even worry about it) vs, comparing top 30 to some unranked programs from the dredges.</p>

<p>Ask the professors at the best fit schools for you what their placement rates look like. Where do their graduates end up after school? Also remember that in biology it’s pretty much expected that you do a postdoc, so even if your grad work is at MSU your postdoc could be at Harvard and that’s where your app will come from.</p>

<p>In general, I think you should do work you are passionate about a lower-tier school (given that the school is well-respected in the field). Passion is what will sustain you during those moments you want to pull all the hair out of your head, because your experiment isn’t working/your partner left you because they can’t deal with your schedule/its 2 am and you still have 10 more pages to write/all you have in your cabinets are ramen noodles.</p>