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Post by question on Sept 12, 2011 13:11:23 GMT -5
I suspect this will be the kind of question that could start a nasty debate or lead to snarky comments, but I'm too curious not to ask. I'm ABD in a department usually considered to be in the top 20. When I was choosing a grad program, I chose my current one over another one because of that rank and reputation. I guess my question is, will it matter?
Now, I hope that search committees read writings samples carefully and all that and judge people by their quality rather than the school listed on their CV. I'm not an amazing candidate. I have several publications but none of them are eye-popping or anything.
I guess I'm wondering whether a Ph.D. at a top 10, 20, or 30 department gives you any kind of boost on the market, even "controlling" for other factors. Just curious what people's thoughts and experiences are on this. My sense is that, by itself, it would have a very small effect.
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Post by yes on Sept 12, 2011 13:54:55 GMT -5
Absolutely. (Controlling for all other factors, as you said)
But things are rarely equal, so it depends more on the individual candidate you're talking about. A candidate from a better school, but with a mediocre CV probably would be ranked after someone with a better CV from a somewhat 'worse' school.
(Security code: Act of god... seems appropriate for this market)
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Post by question on Sept 12, 2011 13:56:23 GMT -5
This afternoon I've been getting the security code "call for help," equally appropriate for this forum.
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Post by aaaaa on Sept 12, 2011 17:35:04 GMT -5
Burris, Val. 2004 "The Academic Caste System: Prestige Hierarchies in Ph.D. Exchange Networks." American Sociological Review, Vol. 69, No. 2, pp. 239-264.
I believe the article above at least partially answers your question.
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Post by notreally on Sept 13, 2011 13:38:08 GMT -5
What you are really asking is wether or not there is a causal effect of departmental prestige on job market success. As a new associate at a top-20 department who trained at a top-5 department I would say only a tiny bit. By far most of the observed effect of departmental rank, which many mistakenly assume to be a prestige (i.e. non-meritocratic) effect, has much more to do with two factors:
1) endogenous selection of top students into top programs. Most top programs attract and admit the best students. They place their bets on those most likely to be winners. That is not to say that talented high quality students don't end up at non top-25 places or that top departments don't get their share of slackers. I'm not talking about individuals, I'm talking about the talent/effort distribution. The talent distributions of top departments have higher means and much narrower variances. Most also admit many fewer students. Wisconsin is probably the exception. My guess is they have a high mean but wider variance than say Harvard or Chicago.
2) top departments tend to have more highly productive faculty with big NIH/NSF grants and who publish in highly visible prestige outlets. Their students benefit from being mentored by these individuals and getting research/publication opportunities that students in lower tier programs do not. This is a true causal effect of program just not purely a prestige effect.
However, if two candidates have the same record and one comes from a top-10 program and the other from a place outside of the top 25 then the tie will usually go to those at the top. This is especially true for departments that are especially status oriented like Chicago and the ivies.
All of this is to say what matters first and foremost is the work you do.
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Post by Searcher on Sept 13, 2011 14:37:09 GMT -5
PhD department does help us in filtering through applications, although for a position at even a modest (M.A. only or lower PhD) university, there will be many applications from top-20 prestige department candidates. Carrying a "top brand" doctorate is taken as one marker of quality education, exposure to intellectual stimulation, ability to thrive amidst tough competition, and a candidate's general aspiration to excel at whatever s/he attempts. On the other hand, the top-20 imprimatur can work against you if your reference letters express some doubt (e.g. did you really belong at that top 20 program?), or you're not very productive (e.g. candidate had every advantage but still didn't achieve much). In some departments a top-20 applicant might be seen as overqualified for a modest position (s/he will just get bored here or be planning to leave ASAP).
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Post by question on Sept 13, 2011 14:41:44 GMT -5
In some departments a top-20 applicant might be seen as overqualified for a modest position (s/he will just get bored here or be planning to leave ASAP). Wow. I was actually really interested in this. I'm glad that you mentioned it. I'm in a top-20 department, and I can't imagine being considered "overqualified" for anything, after hearing how brutal and competitive the job market is. There's another thread right now about the effect the top candidates have on the entire market, and I'd wondered whether, in some cases, departments hiring for those more "modest positions" pass on top candidates, for that very reason.
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Post by drbearjew on Sept 13, 2011 15:01:03 GMT -5
Don't get too swayed by "over-qualified." That sounds quite a bit like top-20s finding subtle ways to reinforce the idea that they are top 20s. What is more likely is that, if the candidate was extremely productive, and applying for a Tier 2 school, then committees are more likely to think the candidate is not planning to stay long. But the idea of "over-qualified" is bogus, especially as it's used outside of academia, e.g. Person X has a Masters but is applying for a job as a line-cook, employer thinks they will be bored so will not hire them.
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Post by annnnnoooonnnn on Sept 13, 2011 15:18:26 GMT -5
Most published research on academic labor markets, if not all, have found an effect of prestige on placement and income that is independent of productivity and other measures. Granted that most of these publications have been on political science or economics. But it still seems to me quite undeniable that there is a reputation effect that is strong and significant. And, as the paper by Val Burris and others indicate above, reputation and placement within certain networks go hand in hand.
I'd never thought that I would have to argue that networks and prestige matter in a sociology forum.
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Post by drbearjew on Sept 13, 2011 15:30:18 GMT -5
Hard to tell if ^ is responding to my earlier post so...
I'm not disagreeing with the idea of prestige, and in fact have made that same case in another thread.
But 'over-qualified' is not something that committees think about when they hire. They want the best candidate, because it raises their departmental profile. What they do concern themselves with, however, is if the candidate appears to be using their department as a spring-board into another school. That, however, is not the same thing as 'over-qualified'.
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Post by UTRGV Sociology on Sept 13, 2011 15:57:11 GMT -5
My guess is that if you could control for perstige of advisers and network effects of advisers, the effects of department prestige would be close to zero. That said, the correlation between prestige of program and prestige and networks of advisers -- while not 1 -- is certainly up there...
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Post by annnoooonnn on Sept 13, 2011 16:07:03 GMT -5
Hard to tell if ^ is responding to my earlier post so... I'm not disagreeing with the idea of prestige, and in fact have made that same case in another thread. But 'over-qualified' is not something that committees think about when they hire. They want the best candidate, because it raises their departmental profile. What they do concern themselves with, however, is if the candidate appears to be using their department as a spring-board into another school. That, however, is not the same thing as 'over-qualified'. Sorry, wasn't responding to you. I was responding to the "prestige matters little, publications matter a lot" posts. Well, maybe. But in the end, isn't a high prestige department a collection of highly prestigious people?
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Post by wow on Sept 13, 2011 17:43:38 GMT -5
Some of the responses on this thread are incredibly naive. Of course, prestige of department matters--just as factors such as ethnicity and gender always have. Sociology and academia are far from being meritocracies.
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Post by depends on Sept 13, 2011 19:44:21 GMT -5
I think getting your PhD from a prestigious institution only matters if you are applying for an R1 position. Having been on a couple search committees at a small public university, there was only one candidate ever being noted for their prestigious dissertation committee members. It did NOT affect their candidacy what-so-ever. Having been on the market two times and having done well on the market two times, I feel that liberal arts schools are also similar with prestige. Although I graduated from a program that is considered in the "top 20", it's definitely not the "top 10." As for networking, most of the search committees that were considering me had any idea who my dissertation committee members were (although my dissertation committee members have a reputation in their areas). Based on my experience and observations, prestige doesn't matter much if you are not applying to a "top" program for a job.
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Post by depends on Sept 13, 2011 19:47:54 GMT -5
edit ^ most of the search committees that were considering me had no idea who my dissertation committee members were
Also, I should note that I am currently at a SLAC.
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