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We Need a Yelp for Doctoral Programs

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Re: We Need a Yelp for Doctoral Programs

#71

Post by Upvoter33 »

The problem in doing this is that saying "school X is great for getting a Ph.D." will never likely generally be true, because the Ph.D. process is so advisor dependent. However, doing this for each advisor is really hard too, because the sample size is small and it's hard for the reviewer to remain anonymous.

All of that said, some set of general statistics (size of program, distribution of research group sizes, percentage of those who wanted a Ph.D. and then got one, etc.) plus a general satisfaction survey among graduate students might be a good complement to the usual ratings one sees in US News.

Re: We Need a Yelp for Doctoral Programs

#72

Post by vnorilo »

kayaeb wrote: post #56
vnorilo wrote: post #41

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 a…

protip: if your prof is tenured and still first author on more than 2 papers a year, they're siphoning their student's work, or they're setting you up for pipelining positions (which are not horrible, but, be aware that's what's up). I've never had a prof insert my work into their own papers, they've hooked me up to contribute to other teams, but with us it was always "my" project. If you get a chance to see them pre…

Good observation.

Writing as second author was a very positive factor very early on. I was an assistant to a research fellow from my second year at uni, mostly because of coding skills. Pretty soon they encouraged me to write a pragraph or two about the implementation details, and I got added to the author list. I felt that was appropriate and a great kickstart to a research career (got my first MIT press journal credit before my bachelor)

I agree however that professors growth-hacking their publication lists with student labor is problematic indeed and looking at first/second author creds is a good way to flag such behavior.

Re: We Need a Yelp for Doctoral Programs

#73

Post by astroH »

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…

Couldn't agree more. Moreover, given that a huge part of the value of the degree is related to the prestige of the University, bad-mouthing your own institution only serves to reduce the value of your own degree. Who cares if I write an honest and bad review about a restaurant that I have no stake in. I just can't envision a scenario where people try to devalue their own diploma.

Re: We Need a Yelp for Doctoral Programs

#74

Post by OldHand2018 »

bruceb wrote: post #58
nabaraz wrote: post #18

A decent review site would be awesome. I have been looking at WGU for an online MBA degree. Reviews are just scattered everywhere from Reddit to affiliates websites.

Can I ask why WGU? Instead of at least a mid-tier school ?

WGU is accredited. If you are sufficiently motivated, it is fast and cheap. It doesn't require you to move or to quit your existing job.

I can't speak to the motivations of the person considering it, but perhaps s/he only needs to check a "do you have an MBA?" box on an application to be able to move forward in their career.

Re: We Need a Yelp for Doctoral Programs

#75

Post by tharne »

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 was at a social event and got to talking with a professor at an Ivy League school. He had a really insightful take on this. He said that the only fair way to present a doctoral program to prospective students is to compare it to trying to become a rockstar.

Every day tons of people form garage bands and have dreams of becoming rock stars. But...they do so knowing they almost certainly won't make it.

This professor said that starting a doctoral program should be viewed the same way, as a sort of moon-shoot that will take a lot of time and resources from other pursuits. If you're okay with that, go for it, and if you're not, find a path that works better for you.

Unfortunately, the administration of the school he worked for told him he would be removed from his position if he shared this philosophy with prospective students.

Re: We Need a Yelp for Doctoral Programs

#76

Post by aj7 »

The variation among thesis advisors within a given doctoral program is sufficiently great that it should be

We need a Yelp for doctoral thesis advisors.

I think the author was reluctant to “go there.”

Re: We Need a Yelp for Doctoral Programs

#77

Post by kerkeslager »

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.

I agree with you that Yelp for restaurants is generally a waste of the electricity used to run it.

However, I think the problem isn't stars or a lack of nuance, it's that you get what you pay for. If you don't pay for reviews, you mostly get two kinds of reviews, which are at the extremes:

1. I'm angry enough that I went online and wrote a review.

2. I own the business or I'm a true believer in the business.

Neither case is actually what you want from a review. But people don't post middle-star reviews because they don't feel strongly enough about it to feel an incentive to do that.

The nuance comes when you pay someone to write an opinion they don't feel strongly about, which is the only time they can maintain anything resembling an objective opinion. I've found very good products by paying for Consumer Reports, for example.

"But it doesn't scale!" says HN. Sure. Lots of working solutions don't scale, and lots of scalable ideas don't solve any real problem. Bad things happen to good people.

Re: We Need a Yelp for Doctoral Programs

#78

Post by tvanantwerp »

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.

My wife and I have learned the hard way: figure out first if the people leaving reviews value what you value, then look at the number of stars.

Re: We Need a Yelp for Doctoral Programs

#79

Post by aj7 »

tharne wrote: post #75
jseliger wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 was at a social event and got to talking with a professor at an Ivy League school. He had a really insightful take on this. He said that the only fair way to present a doctoral program to prospective students is to compare it to trying to become a rockstar. Every day tons of people form garage bands and have dreams of becoming rock stars. But...they do so knowing they almost certainly won't make it. This professor…

Very honest and correct. At least in the sciences, there are “outs” in related business and engineering careers.

Re: We Need a Yelp for Doctoral Programs

#80

Post by aj7 »

AndyMcConachie wrote: post #53
jseliger wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not really any better outside of the humanities. Maybe the prospects are slightly better, but grad school is still a crappy choice. I got a bachelors in Computer Science and then worked for 15 years before going back and getting a masters. While there I was asked to work for free on numerous occasions, we can call if different things, but that's how I saw it. Already knowing the value of my labour I finished my…

At Berkeley, the following phenomenon was well known. Towards the end of your program, you’d have to “fight” your advisor to finish. (You were trained, productive, and still earning the salary of a second-year grad student.) The “pets” didn’t have “fight.” It was adjudged that they could do more for the professor’s reputation on the outside.
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