A: Hey, what’s up? You’re looking a little anxious these days.
B: I know. We’re getting close to the romance deadline.
A: The romance deadline?
B: Yeah, in a couple of days I have to decide who I’ll be going out with for the next five years or so.
A: Oh, right, I forgot. Have you decided between boyfriend and girlfriend?
B: I’ve thought about it a lot, and I definitely want a girlfriend.
A: That’s cool. But don’t you worry that the standards are higher if you say you want a girlfriend? I’ve heard that boyfriends are much easier.
B: I heard that, too. But girls are what I’m really passionate about.
A: Couldn’t you just get a boyfriend first, and then switch if you don’t like it?
B: Some people try that, but it can be awkward. Better to just be honest about your intentions from the start.
A: Fair enough. So did you get any acceptances?
B: Yeah, two different women have agreed to date me. Cindy and Alyssa. But I have to choose one.
A: Hey, that’s great that you go two offers. Have you made a choice yet?
B: Well, I had coffee with Alyssa, and we really hit it off — she’s beautiful, and charming, and laughed at my jokes. I definitely think we would get along well over the next few years. I met Cindy, too; she’s a knockout, and clearly very talented, but there wasn’t as much of a spark there.
A: That can happen. So are you going to choose Alyssa?
B: I’m tempted, but the thing is — Cindy’s US News ranking is much higher.
A: Her what?
B: Every year, US News puts out rankings of boyfriends and girlfriends. Now, Alyssa is a solid top-20 girlfriend, but Cindy is top five! I’m really worried I’d be making a mistake by passing up the opportunity to go out with Cindy. Everyone has heard of her.
A: That sounds a little weird to me. How do they come up with these rankings?
B: Nobody knows, really. But everyone takes them very seriously. Still, I keep hoping that the NRC will update their boyfriend/girlfriend rankings soon. Those are supposed to be much more scientific.
A: NRC?
B: The National Romance Council.
A: But look, you seem to have really hit it off with Alyssa. Who cares that US News ranks Cindy higher? The concept of a “boyfriend/girlfriend ranking” just doesn’t make sense — what matters is how well you personally get along with them, not some pseudo-objective measure of excellence.
B: It’s easy to say that, but this is a big decision. I’m really worried that, ten years from now when I’m ready to get married, my prospective spouse is not going to be nearly as impressed that I went out with Alyssa than if I had gone out with Cindy.
A: Come on, it’s five years of your life that we’re talking about here. Your chances of eventually being happily married would seem to be a lot better if you choose someone you’re likely to be happy with right now.
B: You’re right, I know. Well, I hope Cindy won’t be disappointed. I don’t think she’s used to being turned down.
A: Don’t worry. I’m pretty sure she’ll get over it.
If you posit two otherwise equal candidates, one of whom has a “Top 5” PhD, and the other being from a second tier school, I don’t believe the Top 5 person has a big advantage. In fact, it might even go preferentially to the second tier person, as someone with a bigshot advisor (which is more likely for the Top 5 person) always raises the question of whether they are truly intellectually independent.
On Wall Street, I am guessing they would tend to go for the prestige value of the school — and that is probably the prestige of the school as a whole, and not the department or subfield.
The bottom line is that is not an inherently foolish move to accept an offer from a somewhat less prestigious place — but you should have a good reason for doing so. (And this is what happens in practice — most students with an offer from Harvard and a second tier school DO go to Harvard).
The one complicating factor here (at least in my post), is that we have cast the decision in terms of your fit to the PhD program. However, if you are thinking of declining Harvard not because your specific interests are better met at some lower-ranked school, but because other factors in your life (your actual girlfriend or boyfriend, children, family, a fondness for sunbathing, etc) then you possibly ARE trading off more explicitly, I think. And that is indeed a tough problem, since you are not asking “What is the best school for me?” but “How do I balance these two competing desires?”
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Sean, honestly, didn’t you decide to go to caltech on a *soft* position rather than going for tenure (or track) to a lower ranked institution?
Top places are good for a simple reason, they are good. Tons of smart people around to talk to, students are good, postdocs are good, etc. Research wise there is no comparison, lots of seminars, visitors to talk to and learn from.
That being said, having a fun advisor and a good research project counts as much as hanging around with the Ivy league. If you do well, you’ll be fine and get a postdoc and faculty job in a good place you’ll enjoy your life and do good job at. Smart people are recognized no matter where they are, but there are a lot of smart guys out there, and not that much to share, so sometimes it boils down to the fine print…
G
It’s good to know that there are people out there who don’t let their judgements be influenced by the school someone attended, but i have to say that that is quite unusual from what i’ve seen. To give an example: Someone i know who is a temporary faculty at Faraway U. was involved in assessing postdoc applications for a position in the group he belongs to. (And if the “someone” is me i sure as hell won’t admit it since shouldn’t be talking about this kind of stuff on blogs, even under pseudonym.) In the group of candidates that were seriously considered there wasn’t a whole lot to distinguish between them as far as research goes — they had comparable productivity and comparably nice recommendation letters. (I expect this is quite common. The discussion above in this thread gives the impression that one can clearly differentiate between peoples research records, but in practice this is often not the case.) Two candidates stood out however. One, X, because his area of expertese was a good match for the group. The other, Y, worked on stuff not directly related to what the group does, but stood out on “pedigree” grounds — he had been a postoc at Top-5 U. and worked with big-name people. The prof of the group, himself a phd holder from a Top-5 U., was in no doubt about who he wanted: “Wow, look at Y, he was at Top-5 U, worked with famous dude A and then famous dude B…” At this point the person (P) that i know tried to point out that Y’s actual research record wasn’t any better than the others, and that X’s expertese was a better match for the group. But the prof just didn’t hear it. Literally — he continued as if P had not spoken “Hmmm, to get Y we might have to offer him a tenure-track faculty postion…could be complicated…but I expect he will get other faculty offers from elsewhere…”
The outcome was that Y withdrew from the shortlist because he did indeed get a faculty offer elsewhere. None of the other people, whose research records were comparable to Y’s, received any faculty offers themselves as far as i can tell.
I frankly find such a view surprising, as I would have thought that most people who had risen far enough to lead a research group would be smart enough to realize that getting in good postdocs whose research complements the skills of the group is far more worthwhile than any arbitrary measure of “pedigree.” As I said, I have been on such search committees, both as a junior and the senior member, at two different institutions, and have never encountered such a star-struck near-sighted attitude.
Funny, but the analogy is completely off the mark. Tell the kid that, no matter how great his romance and how much fun he has with Alyssa, in five years she’ll tell him “buh-bye” … thereafter, his chances of dating anyone else are much better if he dates Cindy…
A decision on whom to date here should really depend on what you want to be doing several years after you leave behind that girlfriend.
I do agree that the match is definitely very important for your sanity and happiness while dating, but, as many have mentioned, a hot (i.e., ranked higher, better reputation, etc.) girl tends to hang around with a lot of other hot girls and friends. In academia, hot, high-maintenance girls do have more substance, in general.
If your goal is to become a professor at a kind of college you attended as an undergrad, you can just see whom your former professors have dated — mostly smoking hot girls or very pretty girl-next-door types. Who’s better to date for your goal? No brainer there.
Once you leave academia, your potential employers in industry, without any appreciation of your work, often measure your coolness by whom you dated in the past. And they only look at how good-looking they were, and none of substance, unless you develop good skills relevant to the employer while dating your girl.
I feel that some well-meaning people are not very honest in undervaluing the great advantage that students with the hottest girlfriends enjoy. These people ignore the fact that most beginning graduate students do not have sufficient experience and expertise in the field to know what their great matches really are to begin with! They figure that out after they score, at which point they might learn better matches are elsewhere — reason why abstinence can be bad.
In general, hotter girls give you more opportunities or values for your future success one way or another, especially at an early stage of career when you need help most. I do strongly agree with Julianne’s recent post that in the end your can always control your own destiny to a great extent, by working even harder and being goal-oriented than your peers with hotter girlfriends. However, beginning students often need to figure that out themselves or be well-informed by those already in the know when deciding on which girl to date. Most average, matching girlfriends wouldn’t frankly tell you that you might end up needing to crawling up so hard in struggle, once your good days together are in the past. And who knows some might even transmit you an STD without telling you about it…
Good thing students now have Google to gather a lot of information these days.
Also, I disagree that playing around with boyfriends in between undergrad and grad schools can be awkward. Experimenting with boys helped me tremendously in figuring out that I do prefer girls, hot or not. And I’m a guy.
i agree with you(“b”) 100%, ALL THE WAY… Cindy wasn’t ready for you anyway!!!