I am researching for grad school to apply to, and one thing that many people advised me to see is whether the programs I am applying to are well funded.
How exactly can I find information about this? Do schools release it on their websites?
What field?
Most programs will discuss it somewhere on their websites. In most academic fields for PhD programs, good programs are funded - but funding levels will vary by field and program.
The NRC site http://phds.org has data about funding. It is a bit old but you can make funding a criterion in your search.
For engineering research, see page 37 of this PDF. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.asee.org/documents/papers-and-publications/publications/college-profiles/16Profile-Front-Section.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjhh-Hd857ZAhVC02MKHT9qB9EQFjAAegQIDxAB&usg=AOvVaw3cMG6wmxMgR4BhiRu8WyA5
thanks yall.
Also, if a college doesn’t disclose average GPA and GRE score for their PhD program (i.e. I m doing Chem. E), is that a red flag?
No. Some just don’t. And it doesn’t seem to be consistent within schools based on the programs I looked at with two daughters and another friends child. Ssometimes it’s really buried in the website. Easiest to call and talk to someone and ask what they’re looking for .
I would even say that MOST don’t. There are too many other factors to consider, and a lot/most programs don’t see it as helpful for their applicants.
wrt funding, it’s more important that your specific PhD advisor is well funded, rather than the department. You can find out just by emailing the professors you’re interested in, or a lot of this information is publicly available. For example, all NIH grants are listed in RePORTER. There are federally run portals that list NSF and military grants as well.
Depends on the program. In some programs students get equal levels of funding regardless of their own PI’s grants; in others the PI’s grant directly affects the stipend level that the student gets. A PI being well-funded does sometimes influence things like travel, equipment, etc., and the kinds of research you can do.
It also depends on the field. In the humanities individual professors are unlikely to be very well funded, and that doesn’t matter as much because students aren’t really organized into labs the same way.
In the sciences/engineering, all students generally get the same salary/stipend unless they’re on fellowship.Then it can depend on the school-some let you keep the whole value of the fellowship which might be higher than the base stipend. In places where the fellowship value is less than the stipend, they will sometimes give you a bonus or offer to cover your health insurance or remove your teaching requirement.
Departments are funded by the university budget, so that differs school to school. But also from external private sponsorship and patent licensing royalties. This is why CS, med schools, and engineering departments are generally well funded. Also, the more research grant money a department’s professors pull in, the more money the department has because the university takes at least half of the grant amount as ‘overhead’, which funds administration, keeping the lights on, facility services, etc.
As for the advantages of being in a well funded department, for Chem E, it’ll likely mean better quality and better run facilities, more efficient administration, better seminar speakers and varied opportunities for learning like workshops and such. In the end though because of where universities get their money from, a well-funded department essentially means a department that has well-regarded research output/reputation and therefore international ranking. There are some exceptions, especially in STEM, there are some schools funnelling significant investment there in order to grow those departments since they can be a great source of fundraising in the long run. These can be really exciting places to study/work with really good young faculty or well known professors hired with the promise of great facilities. Here I’m thinking particularly of UCF.