Choosing Doctoral Programs

A: Great question! They are not created equal.

One key differentiating factor is whether the program is readily able and willing to provide prospective students info on its matriculation rate and placement of its graduates.

I am typically skeptical of programs that cannot or will not provide these stats. If I were a prospective student, I’d want to see these data for the past 5-10 years. Absence of this data might suggest the following:

1. The program is disorganized.
2. The program has a less than stellar track record of supporting and placing its students.
3. The coordinator sees no value in tracking and reporting such information.

Any of these would be red flags for me if I were looking to apply.

I’d also give a program the side eye of they only selectively highlighted their “star” students while simultaneously withholding data on others.

If the program coordinator cannot or will not provide a complete listing of the students that have come through their program, save your time, energy and application fees for programs that will. It’s too big of an investment to proceed without this critical piece of information.

#phdpreplab #FAQ