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Program prestige comparisons in applying to PhD programs?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

Asking as an upcoming applicant: What are mid-ranked programs and how should we compare them? My sense is the following:

1. The current top 9 (ending with USC) plus Stanford are the best.
2. Top 14-22 — from CUNY to Cornell are second-tier.
3. Top 22-36 — from UCSD, Chicago, to UPenn are third-tier.
4. The rest, starting with Georgetown, progressively gets worse.

So what are "mid-ranked" programs here? Is it 2 and 3, or just 3, or some of 2, 3, and some of 4? Where do UCSD and Chicago fall, for instance? In addition, do you have a sense as to which programs are on the rise and which ones are on the decline?

I'm genuinely asking this to figure out people's actual perceptions and predictions about prestige. I am aware that there are other factors important to consider; my question is just about prestige comparison. I'm not interested in a discussion of the absurdity of rankings or whatever. Clearly, everyone cares about these and takes them seriously to an extent whether they find it absurd or not.

Another reader submitted the following reply:

I know very few people who put a lot of stock in rankings (whether from US News, Leiter, or elsewhere). They are maybe useful in a general way, but not at the granular level. If you are trying to decide where to apply, I'd advise making a list of scholars whose research you find exciting and then apply to the programs where they work. Once you get your acceptances you can go from there. Don't discount quality of life considerations. At the end of the day there aren't that many jobs, so I advise prioritizing fulfillment over prestige. There's no sense in spending 5-10 years miserably when there's no guarantee you will get to do philosophy after you finish the PhD. Perceived prestige counts most on the job market, but I doubt the general prestige of say Cornell vs Chicago is going to make any difference in your employment prospects. However if one of those programs is really strong in your particular AOS, that can make a huge difference – even if it is technically "ranked" a couple slots lower. This is especially true if you work hard on networking and getting good letters of reference from important scholars in your area.

I think this reply makes some sense, but if I were applying to PhD programs, I think I'd probably focus the most on different programs' job-placement rates (see here and further ADPA data here). If you're going to spend 5-10 years in a PhD program, you should probably care a lot about how likely it is that you'll actually finish the program and obtain a job. 

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours? 

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11 responses to “Program prestige comparisons in applying to PhD programs?”

  1. Caligula

    I think the applicant should focus on whether they have good reasons to believe this: “Clearly, everyone cares about these and takes them seriously to an extent whether they find it absurd or not.”

    Reply
  2. of two minds

    On the one hand, I can appreciate where the OP is coming from. One fallible heuristic, unfair as it may be: private institutions in the middle probably get a bump in prestige over public ones(Brown, Chicago, Penn, Cornell, maybe WashU, etc.).
    On the other hand, to the extent that you can, you really shouldn’t worry these kinds of considerations. You are far more likely to succeed wherever it is that you can do consistently good philosophy. Think about what factors you in particular need in order to do this, and let those factors guide any decision you might be fortunate enough to have.

    Reply
  3. Stewie, PhD candidate

    As a PhD candidate: I second the suggestion that one “focus the most on different programs’ job-placement rates”.
    If a program cannot consistently send their graduates to good places (i.e., only those with outstanding publication records can find TT jobs), the whole program would likely not to take their students’ academic careers seriously. The academic climate in the department would likely to become “bleak” especially from the perspective of the students–even if the department is still very active in doing research. The program I am currently in does not even offer any training sessions for candidates going to the job market (something I know is a standard part of many top programs). My advisor offers no help either. Nobody in the department seems to want to talk about the job market with students, except that the admin staff sends job posts occasionally.

    Reply
  4. PhD Student

    Something else to consider is the speciality rankings! I am a PhD student at UNC Chapel Hill, which is considered to be in the #2 bracket generally, but it would probably be better/worse depending on your subfield. In ethics and epistemology, we are very highly regarded (perhaps in the #1 bracket), but we have very few famous people who do metaphysics (probably not in the #1 bracket lol). So keep that in mind as you consider different programs.

    Reply
  5. well,

    @Caligula: There are excellent reasons for believing that people think prestige matters. A brief look at recent appointments on PhilJobs does show that the best jobs (jobs at places you have heard of) often go to people that have a prestigious PhD. Like the majority of other people, the applicant might be trying to get the best thing possible, and the chances are significantly higher, if this is not a necessary condition, if people think your PhD has enough reputation. I’m not necessarily making a universal claim, as there probably are desperate Harvard PhDs as well, but there probably are more (in number and intensity) desperate low-ranked PhDs.

    Reply
  6. Tim O’Keefe

    @well,: I wouldn’t say that “the best jobs” = “jobs at places you have heard of.” That’s because what job is best depends on the person’s own priorities (in research, teaching, institution type, location, etc.), and isn’t equal to “the most prestigious job.”
    Leaving that aside, it is true that that PhD program prestige, as measured by ranking in the Leiter report, is roughly correlated with a person’s chances of getting a TT job in an R1 school with a PhD program. But even this correlation is only really, really rough. Check out the placement data in the links Marcus provides above, which does break down results by the type of program people got jobs at, if that is important to you. And as people note above, a program’s reputation (and placement) can vary a lot in different areas of philosophy. I think it’s a mistake to focus a lot on PGR overall rankings in a really fine-grained way.

    Reply
  7. FWIW

    I think no one will be able to give a sufficient answer to OP’s question because no one really compares the applicants from mid-ranked programs according to the prestige of their institution. It comes to their publications, teaching, and overall research program. The jobs you are competitive for coming out of mid-ranked programs are mostly R2 and teaching jobs, and folks in those institutions don’t care about prestige nuances. They mostly care about teaching, and some of them care about research prospects. Of course, there are cases of coming out of a mid-ranked or low-ranked program and landing a job in an R1 institution, but in my opinion, that has nothing to do with being on the upper side of the mid-rank-low-rank spectrum but has everything to do with being a publication machine and working with the right advisor who is respectable in R1 circles.
    So if I were applying to grad school right now, I’d definitely check the data about placement records, the department climate, and the prestige of the particular scholars that you might end up working with.

    Reply
  8. UK Grad Student

    I guess I’d roughly categorise the programs ranking ~1-13 as “top-tier”, ~14-35 as “mid-tier”, the remaining ranked programmes as “low-tier”, and all departments falling outside the top-50 as “unranked”. People use these terms in different ways, bit this is roughly how I’d understand them.
    Having said that, I think that the commenter posted in the original post is probably correct to say that prestige rankings are less helpful at the granular level. It’s pretty fuzzy whether, say, UCSD is more or less prestigious than Chicago. (I also think job placement data is probably less helpful at the granular level given that the dataset is small).
    But it’s well worth keeping an eye on a department’s trajectory. Two metrics I’d use are (a) how did the department(s) in question fare on historical PGR reports (e.g., are they rising or falling over time?), and (b) how has their faculty evolved since the last PGR report (Leiter keeps track of this on the “Lateral moves/retirements (etc.) since the 2021 Philosophical Gourmet Report: 2023 edition” post on his blog)?

    Reply
  9. just_op_questions

    I am also ignorant, but will try to answer OP’s questions as someone senior to OP. I suspect what people mean by mid-ranged are mostly your 3 and 4, like 21-40. 11-20 sounds pretty top to me. I also suspect that such words do not have a precise meaning.
    Could be wrong on both, but did my best (educated) guess.

    Reply
  10. Caligula

    @well,: Check the referent of “them” in the statement toward which I suggested the OP be skeptical. It does not refer to prestige.

    Reply
  11. TT

    As someone who has been on search committees at a desirable R1 institution, I never got the sense that a candidate’s PhD programme mattered to anyone. It may matter to postdoc search committees, though–I’m not sure. As a PhD student from a mid-ranked institution I was convinced that this would disadvantage me on the job market. Now that I am on the other side, I believe it did not.

    Reply

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