Getting a career in academia when you didn't graduate from a Top 20 school

In summary: Institute for Problems of Material Sciences (Ukraine)"1 from "Tartu University (Estonia)"1 from "Nanjing University (China)1 from "Utrecht University (Netherlands)"So I wouldn't consider Montana State as an exception. So far, the only exceptions I've seen are small schools and schools outside the US, and the author of the original post discounted those exceptions.Of course this is a small sample size, but I've also looked at other schools that I didn't bother to list here. I also found that most state schools are getting their professors from the top 20 schools also. If you look at the faculty
  • #1
vincebs
148
1
Hey everyone,

I've been wondering about where Physics Ph.D. graduates work a few years after they've graduated and are looking for permanent positions.

I looked at most universities' faculty lists and it seems like they all went to top 20 (actually mostly top 10) schools! This includes schools that aren't ranked top 20, and even schools that don't have physics Ph.D. programs like Cal State's or are liberal-arts colleges. The exceptions seem to be professors who graduated from the same school they work at, but they are few and far between.

So my question is, where do physics Ph.D. graduates end up 10 years down the road if they didn't graduate from a top 20 school? Are they all working in industry? Teaching high school? Working in finance? Working for the government? Where are the permanent research positions for non-top 20 Ph.D. graduates and M.Sc. graduates located?
 
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  • #2
"most universities' faculty list"
- can you name these 10 or 20? I'm sure that there are more from other places...

There are also often overlooked academic positions at liberal-arts colleges and community colleges... and I think there are more of these institutions than universities.
 
  • #3
Look at the faculty list from any school that has a physics department

The top 50 schools are stacked with people from Harvard, Caltech, Princeton, MIT, Berkeley, and Stanford.

All other schools are still filled with people from Yale, Maryland, Columbia, Pennsylvania, Colorado, and UC Santa Barbara.

If you look at the Cal States (most of which don't offer Ph.D.'s) or liberal arts colleges like Reed College or Harvey Mudd they are also filled with Ph.D.'s from the top 20, with a couple of exceptions.

It seems like you can never become a professor let alone get tenure if you didn't graduate from a top 20 place. So where does everyone else go?
 
  • #4
I think observer bias accounts for some of that, and there is probably also an effect caused by the age and size of those programs. I wouldn't worry about it too much with regard to future prospects.
 
  • #5
While I agree somewhat with your "stacked" characteristic (this is sometimes called "academic inbreeding [among the top schools]"),
I think you (with terms like "all" and "never") are taking your generalizations too far or else looking too narrowly at what academia means. I don't have the numbers readily available to show you this... but if I find something, I'll post it here.

For now...
If I count correctly, you have named 12 PhD granting institutions. (Maybe one should add Chicago, Cornell, U. Penn, Urbana, Michigan, Stony Brook, etc... maybe more from a list like http://www.pha.jhu.edu/~zbt/Physicsrankings.htm [Broken] ...which is certainly more than 20. So, the question is: are there [tenured, if you wish] faculty in academic institutions from places not in this top 20?)
 
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  • #6
On a similar but a little different note, how difficult is it to obtain a tenure position - for instance about how many people apply for any given professorship (obviously this number will vary depending on the institution but on average)?
 
  • #8
This is very interesting post that I decided to spend my 10 minutes to participate. If QM homework wasn't due tomorrow, I would have spent more time. ^^

UCSD Physics Department...(Not including ph.d from outside of States)

Princeton University 7
UCSD 6
Harvard 5
Stanford 5
Berkeley 5
University of Chicago 4
MIT 3
Cal Tech 3
Columbia 3
UPenn 2
Cornell 2
Minnesota 2
Duke
UCSB
Notre Dame
Texas-Austin
Maryland
Brown
Iowa
NorthwesternAs far as this UCSD goes, I must agree with the author of original poster. Among them, only Iowa, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Brown rank lower than 20 (more or less). However, still those schools have good academic reputation in general. I see no state schools like Louisiana, Cal state, and SUNY and so on. Zero!
 
  • #9
HungryChemist said:
As far as this UCSD goes, I must agree with the author of original poster. Among them, only Iowa, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Brown rank lower than 20 (more or less). However, still those schools have good academic reputation in general. I see no state schools like Louisiana, Cal state, and SUNY and so on. Zero!

The OP said (highlight mine)
vincebs said:
it seems like they all went to top 20 (actually mostly top 10) schools!

You already admitted that there are some below the top 20 at UCSD.
I said to the OP that
robphy said:
I think you (with terms like "all" and "never") are taking your generalizations too far or else looking too narrowly at what academia means.

Here is UT Austin (which had a convenient list with universities listed) for the US universities.
There are 31 universities listed here [ranked by frequency]. They obviously aren't all top 20.

5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
4 Harvard University
4 Stanford University
4 Princeton University
3 University of Rochester
2 University of Maryland
2 University of Michigan
2 University of Washington
2 University of California, San Diego
2 University of California at Berkeley
2 University of California, Los Angeles
2 University of California, Santa Barbara
1 Duke University
1 Rice University
1 Brown University
1 Lehigh University
1 Purdue University
1 Indiana University
1 Cornell University
1 University of Denver
1 University of Georgia
1 University of Illinois
1 University of Maryland
1 University of Wisconsin
1 Arizona State University
1 Florida State University
1 Johns Hopkins University
1 The University of Chicago
1 University of Pennsylvania
1 University of California, Davis
1 The University of Texas at Austin

Here's Davidson College (in NC).
1 Dartmouth
1 North Carolina State University
1 University of Connecticut
1 University of Georgia
1 University of Virginia
1 Vanderbilt University
 
  • #10
at UT-Austin, we got a few from small schools.
 
  • #11
So, contrary to the suggestion of the OP,
one can get "a career in academia when you didn't graduate from a Top 20 school".
 
  • #12
UT Austin was one of the exceptions I saw. They are one of the schools that don't practice "academic inbreeding" as someone mentioned, despite being a very good school themselves.

Of course, anything is possible. People can get into Harvard graduate school with a 3.2 average undergraduate GPA and get rejected from some middle-tier state school -- but how often does that happen?

Okay, I take back my wording of "all", which I never meant literally.

Some more data points:

At Oberlin College:
------------------
Cornell*
Cornell*
UCSB*
Berkeley*
Cornell*
Berkeley*
Cornell*
Cornell*
Harvard*
Princeton*
Rochester*

All top 20.

Montana State:
---------------
Colorado*
Queens
UIUC*
Harvard*
Colorado*
Harvard*
Yale*
Toronto*
?
?
MIT*
?
Maryland*
Maryland*
Stanford*
New Hampshire
UIUC*
Cornell*
Institute for Problems of Material Sciences (Ukraine)
Utrecht University (Netherlands)
Delaware
UCSD*
Nanjing University (China)
Tartu University (Estonia)
Iowa State
Columbia*

Out of the 19 that went to North American schools, only 4 of them are non-top 20 schools.
 
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  • #13
One thing (certainly not the only thing) that may account for this is that people who go to these top schools might be more likely to have the desire to go into academia, which is one reason why they might choose these top schools to begin with (they love the rigorous academic environment brought by these schools).

I don't really have any hard information to back this up..just a thought.
 
  • #14
let's be honest

I question what Helical says. I think that many people, if not all, say in the top 30 or 40 schools in the field (math, physics, etc), in a Phd program wants to work in academia after graduation, and if they don't, one thing could be that the've realized how difficult is, if you don't graduate from a top 20 or 15 school, to get a position.

The thing is, when you realize your CV is marked forever with the institution you graduate from, which is not in the Top, that mark is the very first thing appearing at committes looking for applicants, and unless you have an incredible research record, almost invariably, physchologically, they are going to be attracted for applicants getting Phd's at the top.

Think about it, when you first hear this person's institution, say Harvard, you're going to expect sth good (even when it's not the case), versus sth State University, when you expect sth not-so-good (because of the place, it's just natural), and therefore, it's automatically placed a invisible constraint between two hypothetically equally competent applicants.

We are involved in the system, cataloging top versus no-top, that prevent us from examining things objectively, in its entirety.

EVERY place wants to admit people from above, everyone tends toward the top. It's almost ridiculous how non research and non good schools, will prefer top-place applicants and question the others, even when the program itself is just not good.
 
  • #15
I would agree with much of what you say if you allow me to add some words to your post.


ab77 said:
I question what Helical says. I think that many people, if not all, say in the top 30 or 40 schools in the field (math, physics, etc), in a Phd program wants to work in academia after graduation, and if they don't, one thing could be that the've realized how difficult is, if you don't graduate from a top 20 or 15 school, to get a position
at a research-university (...like their advisor [as a professor in a PhD-granting institution])
...or at a liberal-arts college (because they have neglected or refused to develop their teaching skills... which is valued as much or above research).

ab77 said:
The thing is, when you realize your CV is marked forever with the institution you graduate from, which is not in the Top, that mark is the very first thing appearing at committes looking for applicants, and unless you have an incredible research record, almost invariably, physchologically, they are going to be attracted for applicants getting Phd's at the top
...although the liberal-arts colleges will quickly focus on the first question on their mind... Can this person teach? ...and are they committed to staying here [and not merely use it as a stepping stone]? (Don't get me wrong... many places want research... but they want teaching first.)

ab77 said:
Think about it, when you first hear this person's institution, say Harvard, you're going to expect sth good (even when it's not the case), versus sth State University, when you expect sth not-so-good (because of the place, it's just natural), and therefore, it's automatically placed a invisible constraint between two hypothetically equally competent applicants.

We are involved in the system, cataloging top versus no-top, that prevent us from examining things objectively, in its entirety.

EVERY place wants to admit people from above, everyone tends toward the top. It's almost ridiculous how non research and non good schools, will prefer top-place applicants and question the others, even when the program itself is just not good.


The point of my comments here [and in other related threads] is this...
if one only considers "academia" as PhD-granting research-universities...
then much of what others have said in this thread are probably true.
However,
if you allow "academia" to include the possibly less glamorous but definitely more numerous undergraduate institutions (including liberal-arts colleges and community colleges) then there are plenty of places for the aspiring academic physicist to go (even if you're not in a school on someone's top-20 or even top-50 list) ... if you prepare your skill set (with significant teaching experience) to compete for those positions as well as the research-intensive positions.
 
  • #16
yeah.. that's very true. it's a possibility that most universitites feel that professors from the top-notch school would attract not only funds/grants but also more students of high-research-calibre. obviously, they put their responsibility to educate as their top priority rather than being an employer. a phd grad from a top school would for sure not be bad with the rigorous training that he/she knowingly or unknowingly acquires. so it seems like it's always a win win situation with employing a top school graduate as a prof.
also it's very likely that a top-school grad would have a greater motivation to teach and pursue reseach which he/she might think could best be done in the academia.
i'm not stereotyping but this is what is mostly seen in academia..
 
  • #17
Some interesting discussion.. in that blog entry and the comments...

"Does PhD pedigree matter?"
http://incoherently-scattered.blogspot.com/2007/06/does-phd-pedigree-matter.html [Broken]

see also:
"Physics Jobs - Part 2 (Demand)" [of 4 parts]
doctorpion.blogspot.com/2007/07/physics-jobs-part-2.html
 
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  • #18
It really seems like it matters, as the first blog entry reveals.

I also googled the names of physics Ph.D. graduates from USC (ranked 50th in the US News & World Report, 50-something according to NRC) who graduated after 1985, and only a small fraction have an up-to-date internet presence, which would be had if the graduate was employed at any type of university or community college or high-ranking position at a laboratory or company:

http://physics.usc.edu/Alumni/

So you'd better get accepted into a top 30 school, otherwise say hello to a career in computer programming or (if you're lucky) finance.
 
  • #19
robphy said:
Some interesting discussion.. in that blog entry and the comments...

"Does PhD pedigree matter?"
http://incoherently-scattered.blogspot.com/2007/06/does-phd-pedigree-matter.html [Broken]

see also:
"Physics Jobs - Part 2 (Demand)" [of 4 parts]
doctorpion.blogspot.com/2007/07/physics-jobs-part-2.html

Thanks for those links Robphy, very informative.
 
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  • #20
vincebs said:
It really seems like it matters, as the first blog entry reveals.

I also googled the names of physics Ph.D. graduates from USC (ranked 50th in the US News & World Report, 50-something according to NRC) who graduated after 1985, and only a small fraction have an up-to-date internet presence, which would be had if the graduate was employed at any type of university or community college or high-ranking position at a laboratory or company:

http://physics.usc.edu/Alumni/

So you'd better get accepted into a top 30 school, otherwise say hello to a career in computer programming or (if you're lucky) finance.

So, you draw a rather strict conclusion [which doesn't logically follow] from a sampling of one school? It would be fairer to include in your conclusion that "it seems more likely that..." rather than suggest that it's hopeless... because it's not hopeless (although it does require some effort)... as I have suggested earlier.
 
  • #21
So, why don't we turn this thread around and ask a different question:

What can an aspiring PhD student do (while still in school) to maximize their chances of landing a tenure-track position at a reasonably-good research institution, if said PhD student is attending a school ranked lower than 25th?
 
  • #22
vincebs said:
Hey everyone,


So my question is, where do physics Ph.D. graduates end up 10 years down the road if they didn't graduate from a top 20 school? Are they all working in industry? Teaching high school? Working in finance? Working for the government? Where are the permanent research positions for non-top 20 Ph.D. graduates and M.Sc. graduates located?


Wow, phd graduates teaching high school? unbelievable
 
  • #23
Oerg said:
Wow, phd graduates teaching high school? unbelievable

Why should that be unbelievable?
It seems a lot of posters in this thread have a negative attitude toward teaching physics... either in a university, college, or a high school. (I suspect these posters only have an outsider's [i.e. a student's or physics-enthusiast's] view of academia.)
 
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  • #24
Oerg said:
Wow, phd graduates teaching high school? unbelievable

Given the current state of education in the US at least, this might actually be a good thing.
 
  • #25
I think most people who already have a B.Sc. in physics and who are aiming for a Ph.D in physics want to do something physics-related after grad school, if possible.

Me personally I would be happy teaching at a community college as long as it's a tenured position, and I would be okay with high school as long as I was specially assigned to teaching physics, and not dodging spitballs at a remedial classroom in a run-down city's public school. So it wouldn't be bad news if I found out that many physics Ph.D.'s do teach in high schools, as long as they're not responsible for that second job...
 
  • #26
vincebs said:
I think most people who already have a B.Sc. in physics and who are aiming for a Ph.D in physics want to do something physics-related after grad school, if possible.

Me personally I would be happy teaching at a community college as long as it's a tenured position, and I would be okay with high school as long as I was specially assigned to teaching physics, and not dodging spitballs at a remedial classroom in a run-down city's public school. So it wouldn't be bad news if I found out that many physics Ph.D.'s do teach in high schools, as long as they're not responsible for that second job...

Few "just get" tenure... practically any academic position requires some effort leading up to tenure [which, to me, is an essential feature of my goals in academia]. For high-school teaching... I agree that the main feature should be the teaching of physics. (In addition to PhDs teaching at "regular" high schools, there are also PhDs teaching at specialized magnet schools... e.g. http://www.ucls.uchicago.edu/academics/science/ [Broken], http://www.imsa.edu/learning/acprograms/science/ [Broken], http://www.lakesideschool.org/upperschool/departments/science/science.htm [Broken] .)
 
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  • #27
Maybe I am naive but what really counts is your research. For instance, a Professor at my school said that when he was getting his Ph.D. at Auburn there was another student with the same advisor who he admitted was smarter than he was. It turns out that as part of his disertation he solved a 40 year old problem that a few people at Chicago had been working on for a while. This guy won the Moore Instructorship prize to go to Chicago. He now is a Professor at UIUC. I really don't think that you can get to Chicago without some kind of outstanding research promise nor get tenure at Illinois without outstanding research no matter what school you graduate from. It may just be that top 20 schools do a really good job training students to become mathematicians than other schools (I am sure it is a combination of that and that on the whole the students who go there are extremely bright). But, Harvard is not meant for everybody. I for one watch way too many movies, sleep way to much, and hang out with friends way too long to ever be able to complete the degree and compete with fellow students at a school like that.
 
  • #28
I think that's an important admission to make, that you value other things above the work required to perform at the level Harvard demands of its grad students. I can respect that. It confuses me to see people think they should be able to expect a tenured university professorship upon completing their Ph.D., when the jobs are so limited and there's so many people working much harder than them. The reason many faculty positions are earned by people with degrees from top schools (which, by the way, is different from everyone from top schools being given faculty positions) seems pretty obvious to me. These people have worked their asses off, probably since high school, toward this singular goal. That's not an indictment of the field of physics, or the structure of academia in any sense. All of the tenured professors I've ever met have been very bright people (but they didn't all graduate from MIT); on the other hand, I don't know anyone who sneaked through a Ph.D. at Princeton.
 

1. How important is the ranking of the school I graduated from when pursuing a career in academia?

The ranking of the school you graduated from is not the most important factor in pursuing a career in academia. While attending a top-ranked school may open up more opportunities, it is not a guarantee of success. What matters more is your research experience, publications, and recommendations from mentors and colleagues.

2. Can I still get a job in academia if I didn't attend a top-ranked school?

Yes, it is possible to get a job in academia even if you did not attend a top-ranked school. Focus on building a strong research profile, networking with other academics, and gaining teaching experience. These factors can help make up for not attending a top-ranked school.

3. Will not attending a top-ranked school limit my chances of getting tenure?

While attending a top-ranked school may give you an advantage when it comes to tenure, it is not the only factor that is considered. The quality and impact of your research, teaching abilities, and service to the academic community are also important factors in the tenure process.

4. How can I improve my chances of getting a job in academia if I didn't attend a top-ranked school?

One way to improve your chances is to focus on building a strong research profile. This can include publishing in reputable journals, presenting at conferences, and collaborating with other researchers. Networking with other academics and gaining teaching experience can also be beneficial.

5. Is it possible to transfer to a top-ranked school after starting my academic career at a lower-ranked school?

Yes, it is possible to transfer to a top-ranked school after starting your academic career at a lower-ranked school. However, it may be difficult to do so, as top-ranked schools often have high expectations and limited openings. It is important to continue building a strong research profile and networking with other academics to increase your chances of a successful transfer.

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