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We Need a Yelp for Doctoral Programs

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Re: We Need a Yelp for Doctoral Programs

#41

Post by vnorilo »

I am not sure a Yelp-like system would work for the reasons others have mentioned.

I would suggest these metrics to help you evaluate a doc program from the outside:

Do early-stage grad students get (any) authorship credits together with professors or post docs? (Getting started)

Do they eventually get first author status? (Independence)

Do students go to conferences and read papers? Or does a prof just go and read all 10 from her institution? (Networking)

Do fresh doctors land post docs, tenure, or good private sector jobs? (Outcome)

A lot of this can be deduced by google (scholar) and scanning conference proceedings and video recordings.

(defended my doc in 2016 in Finland, been fairly succesful at post doc funding as well as private sector)

Re: We Need a Yelp for Doctoral Programs

#42

Post by bosswipe »

There's a simple objective metric that could capture most of what you'd want to know about any school and put USNews's rankings out of business: graduates' achievement. How much are graduates making 10 years later? How many have prestigious jobs or other accomplishments such as research grants or awards? Universities do track these kinds of metrics as part of their alumni fundraising efforts but they're rarely publicly disclosed.

Re: We Need a Yelp for Doctoral Programs

#44

Post by supernova87a »

The problem here is that a Yelp rating system for restaurants can be consumed by anyone because everyone wants a good-tasting, cheap, pleasantly-served meal. There's not a lot of range of desire and recipient goals.

Grad students on the other hand, come with a huge range of:

-- Motivations for doing a doctorate (say, purely for job prep, versus wanting a life of academia and intellectual fulfillment),

-- Skills and knowledge (some already essentially begun their doctoral work and have achievements already, versus those who will be wandering around searching for a topic for years),

-- Tolerance or willingness to engage in ambiguous, possibly dead-end leading places with no clear sign of success,

-- Need for financial reward / subsistence and productive return for time or opportunity cost traded off.

Add to that in many fields, the supervising professor is the greatest variable, more than the program or university -- and any rating system will be irrelevant or worse, misguiding. One person's paradise could be another's hell. Unless the rating is so dumbed down to generic factors in which case what are you really informing people about?

To echo some advice of a contrarian grad school dean, go into grad school because you know what you want to write about, who you want to work with, and what you want to come out the other end with. Otherwise, the bulk majority of people going into grad school "on autopilot" or based on a Yelp rating are going to be sorely disappointed at some point.

Re: We Need a Yelp for Doctoral Programs

#45

Post by michaelt »

bosswipe wrote: post #42

There's a simple objective metric that could capture most of what you'd want to know about any school and put USNews's rankings out of business: graduates' achievement. How much are graduates making 10 years later? How many have prestigious jobs or other accomplishments such as research grants or awards? Universities do track these kinds of metrics as part of their alumni fundraising efforts but they're rarely public…

> most of what you'd want to know about any school [...] How much are graduates making 10 years later?

Among my friends in graduate school:

* One was told by their adviser they had enough for a thesis in their second year, and found time to organise a university-wide Dance Dance Revolution championship.

* One was shouted at by their adviser for not coming in to tend to their experiments on Christmas day - the first day they'd taken off that year.

I think a prospective student would like to know which of those experiences they're in store for, regardless of future earnings.

Indeed, if you want to maximise your salary, I'm not sure you should go to graduate school at all...

Re: We Need a Yelp for Doctoral Programs

#47

Post by MaximumYComb »

jseliger wrote: post #40
ISL wrote: post #19

Good luck getting honest reviews. Graduates and recent post-docs are dependent upon good letters of recommendation from their advisors for perhaps a decade after leaving their research groups. The truly disillusioned won't mind complaining, but those with even constructive criticism will feel constrained in their ability to speak out and be specific. The graduate-student experience is deeply advisor-specific. Profess…

In many disciplines, too, the answer is "don't go to any program." Most humanities fields, for example, have numerous essays written about why doing grad school in them is a poor life choice, like my contribution: https://jakeseliger.com/2012/05/22/what-you-should-know-befo... . One could say the same of most social sciences.

I feel that a significant majority people don't weigh up the value of courses for both undergraduate and graduate. Having a read through your contribution seems like you made the same conclusion, albiet slightly late for your own benefit.

Re: We Need a Yelp for Doctoral Programs

#48

Post by sn41 »

abakker wrote: post #29

We barely need a Yelp for restaurants. I think it is time for the internet to acknowledge that the pointless drivel in star rating systems is just not helping anyone. If you’re going to start a system for rating things, give it more nuance and value.

Yup. Recently bought an affordable mechanical keyboard without consulting any review websites. Am very happy with it for about a month. Then I went to Amazon to see the reviews, out of curiosity. They are very negative for the product I am very satisfied with. Had I done due diligence, I would have lost a bunch of cash for a mere marginal improvement which none but connoisseurs can discern.

I think there are a few things in life we must decide carefully - like a partner, which doctor to consult etc. Reading reviews for most of the other stuff is overthinking, and pointless.

Re: We Need a Yelp for Doctoral Programs

#49

Post by chrisseaton »

ramraj07 wrote: post #21

We dont need a Yelp for doctoral programs, we need a Yelp for research labs! It's more about the lab you join than the program itself that makes or breaks your life. In fact, I have heard that minimally there's kind of a toxic labs blacklist maintained in some Chinese message boards. At least that's what a fellow postdoc told me when I mused why we suddenly stopped getting applicants from China to our lab!

More that the lab you’re in it’s about your specific advisor. Two advisors in the same lab could work in a completely different way.

Re: We Need a Yelp for Doctoral Programs

#50

Post by chrisseaton »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #7

No. We don't need a consumer review website, because PhD students (I am one) are not the consumers of doctoral programs. We're the workers. We need a union. If we're in a good program, we're receiving valuable training both in our coursework (or before PhD in an MS/MA if your country does it that way) and in our research work. Ideally, we're building up a network of collaborations and acquaintances in the scientific…

On a PhD you work for yourself - you shouldn’t need a union against yourself!
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