Evaluating Potential PhD Programs

You have applied to and interviewed at several PhD programs, and after hearing back, you now have to decide which doctoral program would be best for you. There are several things to keep in mind when evaluating PhD programs; making sure that your program has the following qualities will help make sure that you will thrive.

1. A supportive community.
Graduate school can be very competitive, especially when funding is on the line. This can sometimes translate to departmental cultures that are cutthroat or unfriendly, which can not only make it difficult to focus on research, but can also result in academic politics hurting your career. In contrast, a supportive academic community, both in terms of ample faculty support and good relationships between graduate students, can go a long way toward improving your research, limiting distractions, helping you network, and opening the door to collaboration. When visiting potential PhD programs, ask current graduate students about the program’s community. If the graduate students are in a state of constant competition for limited funding or seem hostile towards each other, consider looking into a different program. Similarly, if the graduate students indicate that faculty are not particularly involved in mentorship, consider your other options.

2. A sufficient stipend.
Most PhD programs (especially in the US and Europe) will offer PhD students a stipend to ensure they can focus on their research (if a program does not, it is best to avoid it). Make sure to carefully read your acceptance letter and confirm how much money they are offering you. Then, make a rough budget and check the price of housing in the program’s area to make sure that the stipend can cover your living expenses. If you have offers from multiple institutions, it may be possible to negotiate a stipend increase, but this is rare, as stipends are often constrained by university bureaucracy.

Make sure to also check the source of your stipend, noting whether it comes from fellowships, teaching assistantships, something else, or a mix. In the social sciences and humanities, it is common for programs to guarantee a minimum number of years of departmental funding (usually between three and five), with the student being expected to secure any additional funding beyond that minimum themselves. In STEM fields, your stipend structure may be different and more dependent on your supervisor or lab. It is best to prioritize programs that have a clear, reliable, and guaranteed stipend source.

3. Promising alumni careers.
One of the best indicators of a program’s quality is its alumni placement. For each program you have been accepted into, identify several alumni and see what they are doing now. Many programs have webpages where they showcase the careers of successful alumni, and you can also search academic (such as ResearchGate or Academia.edu) and professional (such as LinkedIn) social media sites to identify alumni. If a program successfully places many of its alumni into careers and positions that appeal to you, then consider attending that program.

4. Matching research interests.
Though perhaps obvious, it is also important that the program you are applying to has faculty (and graduate students) that share your research interests. Ideally, you only applied to programs that match your interests, but some programs may have faculty working on topics that are more important to you than others. Some departments will also have official working groups or clusters that you can use to determine whether one program will fit your interests better than another.

5. Good student publication output.
The most important thing in academia is that you publish papers, and looking at how much, and where, graduate students in a program actually publish is a good indicator of the program’s quality and its ability to place students in academic positions (if you are aiming for a job outside of academia, this is less relevant). If current graduate students are publishing first-author papers in reputable journals, that is a good sign, while if current graduate students are not publishing papers or are publishing them in less-reputable journals, that might be an indication to consider looking elsewhere.

6. A good potential advisor.
Your choice of advisor is incredibly important, as it will have a profound impact not only on your professional network, but also on your working environment and opportunities while in graduate school. Make sure that you have spoken with potential advisors in your program before accepting an offer, and ensure that you would be comfortable working with them. It can also be good to talk to a potential advisor’s current students, as they may be willing to share things about the advisor’s expectations or behavior that you would not be able to find anywhere else.

7. A good reputation.
Reputation is not everything, and many of the best departments have stressful or unhealthy work environments. However, reputation should also not be entirely discounted when you are considering possible PhD programs, because a program’s reputation does matter when applying to academic jobs. Check your department’s ranking as put forward by a reputable institution, such as the U.S. News & World Report. Some academic societies also put forward their own rankings or evaluations of graduate departments within their field that can be purchased for a fee. However, keep in mind that these rankings are only general estimates of a program’s reputation and that they can and do change.

Furthermore, the reputation of your advisor also matters, and will almost always be more important than the reputation of the program as a whole. While the academic reputation of individual researchers is not tracked in the same way as that of institutions, you can roughly assess the reputation of potential advisors in a program by seeing how many publications and awards they have on their curriculum vitae, as well as how many citations they have listed on their Google Scholar profile.

8. Ample program resources and opportunities.
Different programs have different resources to offer their students, and it is worth checking to see what each program has to offer its students beyond its faculty. Departmental resources can include extra internal funding opportunities, regular discussion groups, frequent seminars, professional development opportunities, and guaranteed opportunities to teach. The more resources a program has, the more seriously you should consider accepting their offer. Many of these resources will be listed on the department’s webpage, but talking to current faculty and students can help you discover less obvious opportunities.

9. Ample extra-program opportunities.
The university that houses your potential PhD program will have its own resources and opportunities not specific to your program. It is a good idea to look at these resources, as they can be just as important as the resources of the program itself, and can include professional assets such as a writing center, a teaching and learning center, or a career center, as well as recreational assets such as access to good food, gyms, and places to relax and recharge. It may also be worth looking at the area the university is located in to ensure that you can imagine yourself living there.

10. Non-academic career support.
The vast majority of PhD students do not end up in tenure-track positions, and many seek employment outside of academia. Therefore, it is important to identify any resources that the program or university may have for non-academic careers, whether it is because you are interested in a non-academic career or as a backup plan if the academic job market in your field is not strong. Look for available institutional opportunities to develop skills that can be applied outside of academia, including technical skills, project management skills, and writing skills. It can also be helpful to see where program alumni without academic careers end up, and to talk to current graduate students and faculty to see how supportive the program is about students pursuing non-academic careers.