How important is the university status? PhD

[PhDhopeful]

I have some thoughts about my PhD that I wonder if any of you experienced academics could help me with. Or reassure me perhaps!

I’ve worked for many years. Over the past few years I’ve thought about doing a PhD. My proposed topic seems to be of high relevance today. I contacted a very prestigious university almost a year ago, met up with the proposed supervisor several times and everything seemed great, but then some internal administrative issues meant that I was put on hold, and couldn’t start ‘immediately’ as planned. Since then I’ve been asked to ‘wait’ for these internal things to get sorted, but nothing’s happened. So a little while ago I contacted another university, and things were much faster there, and I now have a concrete offer of a place. The proposed supervisor at university 2 is respected in their field, but the university itself is nowhere near as prestigious as the first one.

Does anyone have any views on ‘how detrimental’ it might be to an academic career to do your PhD at a ‘less good’ university? To be fair, my field is ranked quite high at university 2, but just naming the university wouldn’t really make anyone go ‘wow’, rather the opposite… The proposed supervisor did their own PhD at a prestigious university, and is of the view that it doesn’t matter (‘you’ll meet people from everywhere and it’s your research that counts’) but they might be biased…

I would be self-funded, the second one is considerably cheaper, and they also talked about funding opportunities and teaching opportunities, which would be helpful. The first university offered little hope when it comes to getting any help etc, and the second one was much ‘nicer’, if that makes sense – they felt so much more interested in me and my plan than that first one. Could be a case of ‘please come here, you’re a great catch and we need you’, I guess.

Any views? Am I too pessimistic about university 2 (I hope so) or should I hold out – maybe give it another year – to wait for university 1? I’m really tired of my job, and just want to stop and do my research, so it would be nice to be reassured to just go for it, irrespective of where it is…

Thank you in advance!

I'd be more worried about self funding TBH. Given you've doubts about the university, can you not wait for the next round of funding and re-apply?

I think it is helpful to have a bit of status, but it matters much less than at undergrad level. I'd look for things like how many of their PhD students complete, how many go on to do things they wanted to do post-PhD, etc.

Agree that you should try to get some funding. When you do a PhD you need a supportive supervisor and department and sounds like maybe things would be better on that front at Uni 2. I also agree that people don’t really look at the status of where you did your PhD but you may be disadvantaged in terms of networks and contacts that you’d have access to at somewhere more prestigious.

Is there a massive difference? Are we talking Cambridge vs Anglia Ruskin kind of thing?

Thank you so much for your insightful responses :-) Really appreciate it. Great questions SarahQ - will look into!

Re funding - in my area there is (apparently) no hope of being funded from the start, so there's no point in waiting - you apply once you've started. I could do it completely self-funded, I'll do some consultancy work on the side, but would prefer to do as little as possible and concentrate on research. I'll probably be forgotten too after a year or so!), but would prefer to get some funding at some point.

I'm not sure whether I should be worried about the university to be honest. I'm not originally from the UK, so haven't 'grown up with' understanding the differences between universities in the way it works here.

Not quite Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin, perhaps, but I'm not sure :-/ Checking the university ranking now uni 1 is amongst top 10, uni 2 is amongst top 70 overall; but looking at my field only, uni 1 is top 20, uni 2 top 50. And checking "research quality" in my area, uni 1 is top - but uni 2 is actually number 2. So maybe that's encouraging...

Re network - from what proposed supervisor says, there is a large network in my field in London (yes, it's London but you probably guessed that ;-) ) that spans universities, so am hopeful I could be part of that.

Support - yes, uni 2 definitely better in that respect. With uni 1 it kind of felt like they thought they were doing me a massive favour, so it was more fun to talk plans with no 2. I'm kind of thinking that over my career so far I've made some decisions based on feeling comfortable, so that's why I was wondering if I'm doing myself a disservice by not aiming higher.

Will keep mulling. Thank you again :-)

Oh, if it's London that helps! I'm not sure whether or not this is field-specific (so do check with your potential supervisor), but in my field, you can often go along to seminars at other universities than your own - not always all of them, but many. If you're in London there would be several places you could network, so you wouldn't be isolated in the way you might be at a university without much networking clout that's also geographically a bit cut off.

Do you want an academic career, OP? You might want to look into prospects of being employed post-PhD and they could be higher at the less prestigious place, especially if they are prepared to give you some teaching. Also, your top concern should be your supervisor and whether you feel you can have a good working relationship. It’s no good being at a prestigious place if you don’t get on with your supervisor.

Great to hear, Sarah! Yes, supervisor did mention one weekly seminar (at prestigious university, actually!) that many in the field attend, and I'd take every opportunity to get around.

Great point, Pota! There's definitely more opportunities at uni 2 for employment post-PhD - in fact they've already approached me to ask if I could do some BA-teaching...

And great to hear that relationship with supervisor should count for a lot. I definitely felt more comfortable at uni 2, they seemed genuinely interested in what I want to do and did put forward some suggestions for other people I should get to know too.

You have really reassured me. Thank you so much!

It depends to some extent why you are doing a PhD, what you intend to do next, and how your work will fit into the greater body of human knowledge.

There are some paths - eg if you are doing the PhD in order to establish your expertise in a specific area which you then intend to work in outside the university sector, with the letters after your name increasing your credibility - then the institution doesn't matter too much.

If you intend to stay in academic research after gaining a PhD (the qualification is fundamentally intended to be a "license to carry out academic research unsupervised") then the most important thing is the reputation and networking power of your supervisor themselves. There will be a strong correlation between that and the standing of the university but its not always going to match up. This factor will be critical in establishing any kind of foothold on the greasy pole of academia.

If your thesis topic is going to be a fairly typical, modest and uncontentious addition to the body of human knowledge then both these matter less than if your thesis is going to need defending against a weight of contradictory research that claims the opposite to your theories. If the latter then both institution and supervisor will matter much more.

Great point, Pota! There's definitely more opportunities at uni 2 for employment post-PhD - in fact they've already approached me to ask if I could do some BA-teaching...

Ok, just be cautious here. That's not 'employment'. That's casualisation of teaching, which is great while you're doing a PhD (you need teaching experience), but which is not wonderful thereafter. Casual teaching at university level is not a job that pays the bills, unless you take on inhumane amounts of it and sacrifice the possibility of doing any research.

I expect I'm over-cautious because you are clearly in a different field from me, and I know that in industry-facing subjects things do work differently. But, I would be a bit nervous of somewhere where they asked me to teach before I'd even started the PhD, because I'd be worried they'd be wanting you to teach so much your PhD would suffer.

None of this is a reason not to go with university 2, who sound like a good fit, but I don't think you should assume that the fact they are keen to get you teaching means that you'll easily move into permanent teaching faculty afterwards.

Tricky. Supervisor support is the most important thing but it's not the only thing. How much experience do the two possible supervisors have? Can you speak to previous or current PhD students for either? (They should be happy to put you in touch.) Would there be other students in your field, a research community? (Though perhaps less crucial in London as there's a big larger pool of seminars etc locally.)

Great points from so many of you - thanks again!

Yoba, very interesting to see the options lined up like that. I am not sure what I want to do later, but I think my proposed topic has the option of making some waves (that's what uni 1 said, and uni 2 is just kind of enthusiastic about everything ;-) ). Proposed supervisor at uni 2 is known, I think, in her/my (tiny!) field - I attended an event this past summer that they organised, and a few other biggish names attended to, that they knew, so thought that was a good sign.

Sarah, yes, well aware that casual teaching is not the same as employment :-) I just thought it was great that they were interested in me in more than one way now. I have no idea what I'll do post-PhD, but it's still a good start, isn't it, to get some teaching experience, whether I end up in academia or not..? They've just talked about one course so far (which is super related to what I work with), so doubt it'd be masses.

kalidasa, great point that is encouraging too - I have met one PhD student at each university (with each of the proposed supervisor) and both were very happy with them. Prestigious uni-supervisor seemed to be a little less approachable/available, but the person was still very happy with their support. So no worries there. Uni 2 PhD person had just finished his, and he was super happy with the support he'd been given.

I should probably not worry too much about uni 2 being less prestigious. Maybe it's my vanity - it felt like such an achievement when prestigious uni were so positive, and less so with uni 2...

I think it is quite subject specific. If you hope to stay in academia I would look at the departments where you might aspire to work after you have completed your PhD and see where their staff got their PhDs from.

As an example, in my own department, there are about 20 staff with UK PhDs, but although it is possible to get a PhD in the subject from most universities, we only have staff with PhDs from six UK universities and have multiple staff from five of those. If you look at the staff at all five of those universities, you will see the same set of UK universities represented, it is quite a closed shop.

You need a supervisor that will support you, as long as the university has a decent research tradition (pretty much all universities established prior to 1992 do plus some newer one in specific areas) then go for it. Dd has friends who have left very prestigious universities to come here and say they get support and learn more

I think you need a better idea of why you are doing this before throwing thousands of pounds of your own money at it! Doing a PhD is utterly unlike doing any other kind of qualification. It is not just the natural next step if you already have a Masters degree.

I didn't start my PhD understanding this, but it wasn't my money. I had full funding.

What is it that makes a PhD seem like the right path, rather than eg a Masters degree or just taking a 1 year sabbatical from work to write a book? Obviously these things are very different but with no plans for what you are going to do next, you really need to examine your motivations and work out what you actually want before you can possibility prioritise what factors are most important in your path to getting there.

Thanks all! Yoba, re my motivation, I find it extremely interesting to read research and carry out research. I have three MAs already (yes... got a bit carried away, but there are so many interesting things to learn about). I have done some freelance work where I have used/interpreted/presented on research, so I think having a PhD would help me push that career as well, if that is what I want to do later on. What were the main "oops" or "wow" things you discovered, Yoba? Was there anything in particular you would have wanted to know prior to embarking on a PhD? Many of my friends are researchers/have PhDs, so in a way I feel that I have some knowledge about what it entails, but I guess you cannot really know until you start yourself...

Phphion, great idea! Will look into to what extent people in my field stay at their universities, or move to other universities afterwards.

I'm doing a self-funded, distant, part-time PhD at a less prestigious university (all the things you'll be told not to do!), chosen entirely for the supervisory team who are perfect for my research, and supportive of my personal circumstances (my own disability and my role as mother/carer) which are linked to my research topic and link to their areas of research interest. It's working perfectly tbh. I've landed some paid research hours on a project loosely related to mine and hopefully will get more similar work. I have absolutely no idea what I want to do with my PhD, but I knew I wanted to be the one to do this specific piece of research, and I'm really enjoying the process.

I am in a similar situation. No one was interested in supervising me at University 1 (stellar), but University 2 were keen to have me.

University 2 is still a recognised research centre for RCUK funding.

However, University 2 is not so easy to get to.

I have shelved the problem for now by postponing until January and applying for University 3 (prestigious and easy to get to) in the meantime.

It will all come out in the wash!