What is going on???

[WRusin]

OK OK !!!

Here and now I promise to publish my official admission results as soon as this information becomes available... I mean I am so grateful to this forum that I'll take that time and write a short story of my experiences...

Have a nice weekend !!!

[bubobi]

Originally Posted by Dragonfinity

Why do we care? Because we want our academic career to continue past the Ph.d.

I can't speak for other programs besides math. However, in math, ranking is very important. No particular ranking matters, but the rankings are reflective of the reputation of the department. If you want any realistic chance of getting a postdoc and a tenured position at a research institution, you really need to be at a Group I school. There is an actual research paper that demonstrates this (can't find the link right now).

consider your favorite Gatech for example
I doubt that 5 years ago it was as prestigious as it is now

If you're an "average player", then the school should really matter,
but if you a "big player", then the team is not really as important as your work, papers, etc.

Besides, I am speaking only about "good" schools here. If I want to go to non-quite-elite school, I will simple pick a good school at home.
So, I am not saying that the school rank is not important, I am saying that it is not that important; and many int. student makes the 'mistake' to judge schools almost entirely on their ranks

[Dragonfinity]

Originally Posted by bubobi

consider your favorite Gatech for example
I doubt that 5 years ago it was as prestigious as it is now

You are correct that reputation ebbs and flows, but it takes time. Tech was a nobody in Math in the 80s, but became a Group I school by the 1995 NRC rankings. They also showed up in the 2002 USA Today rankings in the low 40's.

Nowadays, everyone likes to discount rankings. Being a law grad, rankings are the biggest controversy in law schools. All the school deans say that rankings aren't really that important. However, any lawyer will tell you that is wrong. It doesn't matter how good your grades are, certain law firms will ONLY hire from Yale and Harvard.

Of course, I am not suggesting that Ph.D. schools are the same, BUT you will have a MORE DIFFICULT time getting your foot in the door from an average school. It is just a fact of life in the US. I know it isn't politically correct to say this, but everyone knows it. All of us will be competing for a few jobs in about 5 years. Those at Yale, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Berkeley, etc. will have their first choice, then those at top 20 schools, top 40, etc. If you go to the number 100 school, you better be published multiple times and have done some important work. Even big players have to deal with this. A lousy school makes them less attractive.

Also, consider that schools with lesser reputations are that way for a reason. You are not going to have exposure to the top people in the field at a lesser school. Your training will not be as good, so it will be more difficult for you to do the type of research you need to get noticed. Success breeds success, and that is the biggest reason to consider rankings.

Look, I am the first one to say that talented people will get jobs no matter where they go to school. However, where you went to school matters to hiring committees. Every department wants talent from top schools. It looks good for them to say their professors went to Harvard, Yale, etc.

Again, you may not like it, but its how things work.

[Commentor]

I asked once an advice from quite a competent person and I was answered that you have to choose a suitable place that approximately fits your scientific interests (though they haven't entirely formed yet). I was answered that if you write an excellent Ph.D. dissertation then nobody'll bother about your school, and if you write a weak and inconsistent Ph.D. dissertation then Stanford or MIT won't help you.
On the other side, I was told that you'd better choose a well-known school, if you're aiming towards some business career (Dow Jones & all that crap) but not an academic career.
There are probably lots of opinions. And every opinion depends on the place of work and level of scientific achievments of the opinion holder/teller...

You are not going to have exposure to the top people in the field at a lesser school

. It depends on the field. Moreover, top people will probably spend more time on you in a lesser school. However, it is may be better to be the first in province than the second in the Rome.

[MightyMike]

I`d say that the quality of research is more important than the rank of a school. As Commentor noticed, with an average disserattion even MIT wouldn`t help one. Besides, he mentioned one v.imp. point here. That in the famous schools/teams/etc v.often you`ll be left to your own devices.

Obvioulsy that`s not to say that ranking carry no info at all. But they are subjective and usually they do not take all relevant factor for a prospective grad student into account. So, I feel that we should take them with a dose of scepticism.

After all, if one wins a Nobel Prize then nobody looks at his alma mater. The matter is only where a person currently works.

[Dragonfinity]

I think everyone is ignoring one salient point in my argument. I am not saying that you have to go to a top 10 school. Top 50 is fine, and then you need to find the right fit. However, if the choice is between 40 and 100, you're hurting yourself uneccesarily going to 100. If 40 isn't right for you, why'd you apply there in the first place? Look, I've been talking to students in programs at different levels. The guys at the #78 school (Emory) are VERY frustrated with the job hunt, while the ones at the #50 school (Georgia) seem content. At Emory, they say they will probably just end up as an adjunct or lecturer, while the Georgia students are being favorably received for a postdoc.

In math and science, we have it lucky. There are jobs for us. In the humanities, there aren't. This is all a fact of life. I know it is hard to look past just getting in somewhere, but you need to start planning what happens after you graduate, or you will just be cheap labor for your school and end up nothing more than an adjunct or a lecturer at a community college. Only the top people get to do research for a living. If you want to believe otherwise, that is your prerogative, but there are actual studies that prove this.

By the way, I don't know of many Nobel Prize winners from Georgia State, but Princeton has at least one or two.

[MightyMike]

Yes, Dragonfinity, you`ve got a point here; no. 100 vs. no. 40. However, the difference between, let`s say, no. 5 and no. 15 is v.often almost negligible, and thus some other factors should be taken into account when deciding between two such schools.

Besides, since in the field of math you`ve got plenty of rankings, possiblities of comparing different unis from different tiers are unlimited. On the other hand, in med.chem., I`m applying to, I`ve found only about 12-15 such programs in the whole US. So, while a choice of Princeton (or MIT, Berkeley, Stanford, Cornell) over Georgia, seems perfectly sensible for a person interested in math, physics or chemistry, in my case choosing Ann Arbor or Purdue (two highest ranked unis with med.chem. program, in general) over Kansas, Minnesota or Buffalo is not so obvious.

Anyways, rankings serve us unparalled help when we approach a decider.

[NeverSayDie]

I'd like to support Dragonfinity's point by considering it in the Indian
context. In India, there's IIT and then there's the rest of the crowd.
Having faced the pain of being dismissed without being given a chance,
I know fully well that "brand value" matters to a great extent.
I've worked in startup companies and I know how teams are selected
for those critical projects. I've even asked the people who make these
decisions the reasons for such an attitude and their answer is very simple
- 95 IITians out of 100 are guaranteed to be top class whereas 5 people
among 100 non-IITians are top class. So its a simple case of higher
probability of finding good people. Since some of these people were also
professors, they told me its true even in an academic setting. So, no matter
how good you are, your confidence takes a beating if you are continously
dismissed without being given a chance. one could argue that even non-IITians have been succesful but thats missing the point. The question is not
about ability - the question is about the struggle to continuously prove yourself. Many people also work with a diluted definition of success and
assume that brand value doesn't matter. To be a one-eyed king in a
country of blind you don't need brand value. So, make no mistake -
to prosper where it matters, brand value matters to a great extent.

[Dragonfinity]

One more thing I should add. I chose my law school based solely upon convenience. I could have gotten into a top 20 school and maybe into a top 10, but I didn't think it mattered. However, as NeverSayDie pointed out, I had to continuously struggle to prove myself. I regret my earlier decision. So, when I make the statements I have been making, I make them from personal experience.

C

[ChoBaka]

Originally Posted by bubobi

especially for PhD, the ranking is not that relevant
(in fact, one can hardly argue that any ranking is the RIGHT ranking)

the more important is whether there is a "match" for your interests in their PhD program.
one nice example: there are CS areas which are not researched at all in some of the top 10 schools; so if you are interested in such area...

my point: why all of us care so much about school rank!?
also, in five years many school ranks will have changed...

Actually, the top ten Computer Science schools haven't changed in ranking for more than a decade. The schools that keep going up and down in rankings are further below on the ladder, where ranking means less (since there's very little to actually differentiate between the schools).

Originally Posted by DragonInfinity

I think everyone is ignoring one salient point in my argument. I am not saying that you have to go to a top 10 school. Top 50 is fine, and then you need to find the right fit. However, if the choice is between 40 and 100, you're hurting yourself uneccesarily going to 100. If 40 isn't right for you, why'd you apply there in the first place? Look, I've been talking to students in programs at different levels. The guys at the #78 school (Emory) are VERY frustrated with the job hunt, while the ones at the #50 school (Georgia) seem content. At Emory, they say they will probably just end up as an adjunct or lecturer, while the Georgia students are being favorably received for a postdoc.

In math and science, we have it lucky. There are jobs for us. In the humanities, there aren't. This is all a fact of life. I know it is hard to look past just getting in somewhere, but you need to start planning what happens after you graduate, or you will just be cheap labor for your school and end up nothing more than an adjunct or a lecturer at a community college. Only the top people get to do research for a living. If you want to believe otherwise, that is your prerogative, but there are actual studies that prove this.

What Dragon is saying here definitely has some truth to it. The fact is, the academic community is obsessed with rankings and brand name. I've noticed that people graduating from my program (#60) often have to search long and hard for jobs. Only a lucky few get jobs teaching at fairly good schools, and even they don't make it into research institutions, but rather get hired at private liberal arts colleges. The rest of the graduates end up teaching at community colleges, regional public universities that have 'Western', 'Northern', 'Southern', or 'Eastern' somewhere in their name, or become cheap part-time lecturers at our school (but only until the next academic year, when a newly minted PhD from a top school is hired as tenure-track).

Almost all professors get hired at schools that are below in rank than the institution they graduated from, unless they have had absolutely monstrous careers as graduate students (and believe me, having a great career as a graduate student requires more luck than most people would like to admit). These people from top schools aren't necessarily skilled, however. There are quite a few professors in my program who graduated from top schools, but are not all that great: they are both bad teachers and not very creative researchers. I really do think they were hired because of the brand name of the institution they graduated from.

I've heard industry cares less about rankings (although top research labs such as Microsoft Research, IBM T.J. Watson, and Xerox PARC will only hire PhDs from top schools), and more about skills and what kind of research you did (whether it fits in with something marketable). Most successful graduates from my program actually went into industry, where they got more respect than had they went into academia. That's something to consider if you're a science/engineering grad student at a not-so-top university.