Which is most important when choosing a supervisor?

[AllergicBrieaction]

Hello academics! I could do with your advice/thoughts.

I have two different supervisors interested in supervising my PhD. Both are at great universities, I will need to secure funding.

University A is renowned for its work in my field, the potential supervisor seems fine. This university is basically the gold standard in my field.
University B is not renowned for work in my field but is a great uni, and I get on with my potential supervisor like a house on fire - I think shes wonderful. There will however need to be a co-supervisor for my project.

Im not sure what to do! Apparently choosing the right supervisor is vital, so on that basis, University B would win. But objectively, wouldn't University A make most sense + stand me in better stead for securing funding?

apply for funding with both supervisors. whichever place gives you the funding is the place you should study.

you should be applying for funding with 3-5 different supervisors if you really want to stand a decent chance to get funded in any round.

is this a UK university? at my university, PhD students should be contacting potential supervisors in Sept / Oct to complete a funding application with a deadline in Dec / Jan. so you are pretty early to be thinking about applications right now.

If you can, talk to existing PhD students in each lab to find out now about the style of working / atmosphere of the lab. when people say ' the supervisor is very important', I think that 90% of supervisors are fine but 10% are crazy and could ruin your career. so you want to find out if your potential supervisor is sensible and supportive, and not accidentally end up with a bad one.

Thank you for your reply, it is in the UK, yes. I know I'm a little early, but i wanted to gauge interest ahead of time. I had no idea you apply for funding for the same project through multiple supervisors. I thought you had to pick one and be accepted by the university, and then submit a single application via a single institution.
Thank you for the information!

apply for funding with both supervisors. whichever place gives you the funding is the place you should study.

Yes, you can do this.

But be respectful & professional about the time you are asking from both in helping you refine & develop your funding application.

Be upfront with both, that you are applying to both places.

Don't work with one potential supervisor, use her time (a very precious resource), knowledge, and expert advice, then take the application elsewhere. It's absolutely understood that prospective PhD candidates have to go where the funding is, but it's hugely unprofessional to use one academic's time to achieve what you want elsewhere. I've had this doe to me a couple of times, and I have marked their cards - I will act professionally towards them, but they'll never receive the kind of informal support & leg up I often give early career scholars in my position.

However, my strong advice is that you should go for Supervisor A. She is far more likely to be able to guide you to secure funding.

If I were reviewing your application (in a Doctoral Training Programme, for example, all applications are considered by academics from across the consortium, so often at other institutions) I would be wondering why you were not going to Supervisor A - top in the field, in a department top in the field. That would be a real question mark - did they turn you down, did you not realise etc etc etc

you probably won't apply for exactly the same project with several supervisors - you will need to tailor things to the lab and the available resources. but you can certainly start initial conversations and develop more than one application simultaneously.

I'm at a top-5 university and we know that many of our best applicants will also get PhD offers from rival universities.

(I'm in sciences, things might be different in arts / humanities).

Yes @parietal I was wondering whether @AllergicBrieaction is in STEM or HA/SS.

But yes, also that a good PhD candidate will be looking at several universities. However, in the OP's case, I'd advise her to look seriously at Supervisor/University A.

This is so useful, thank you.

I'm in the arts, and I only reached out to these two universities because I didn't want to waste people's time by flitting around. Actually I even felt bad contacting two rather than just one! Should I be contacting more then, and letting them all know that I want to apply for funding through all the supervisors/universities who are interested? Isn't that a massive waste of their time?

Supervisor/University A without a doubt.

The supervisor there will have much more scope for opportunities, networking, follow-on funding etc. And will be better-placed into the field to help your career afterwards.

Doing a PhD in the "gold standard" place for your area carries huge capital. You might have a better time interpersonally with Supervisor B but it'll be to the detriment of your career compared to A.

The advice to find the right supervisor isn't about who you get on with "like a house on fire", it's about research alignment, expertise, standing track record etc 🙄

Sorry if "getting on like a house on fire" made it seem a bit whimsical, like we just happened to have great banter or something.

I mean she has many areas of expertise that overlap with my interests and industry experience, and in our conversation so far she has thrown loads of interesting ideas and suggestions my way. She just seems like a great person with a communication style that matches my own, and I've read so much about how a supervisor can 'make or break' your PhD - perhaps I'm putting too much stock in this.

Sorry if I sound naive, it's been over a decade since I was at university, so I'm learning the process as I go. It was one of the reasons I decided to start looking into this so early!

You don’t need to apologise for being naive about these processes. A lot of stuff people above are sharing is tacit and, as you’ve already seen, can contradict each other sometimes.
As a humanities student funding is going to be very very difficult and competitive. You probably will want to hedge your bets but as others have said, without wasting people’s time.

Sorry, OP. I was a snarky twat when I replied last night. My advice stands though- go with Supervisor A because if her expertise, opportunities, standing in the field.

I'd also be slightly cautious about the advice that a supervisor can make/break the PhD. That's definitely more the case in STEM subjects than SHAPE disciplines. So while it's good advice, it might not be from someone with analogous/applicable experiences IYSWIM.

I'd also be slightly cautious about the advice that a supervisor can make/break the PhD.

Yup. I sometimes suspect that - in the HASS anyway - candidates who are struggling tend to project their difficulties onto their supervisor. Or become too dependent on the good opinion & friendliness of their supervisor.

From what you outline, Supervisor A will offer a far greater set of opportunities for you

I am in STEM and I also vote for University and Supervisor A. I think the supervisor is hugely important but it is about their expertise, professionalism, reputation and contacts rather than personal chemistry.

My slight hesitation concerns your strong overlapping interests with Supervisor B. Do you have sufficient interests in common with Supervisor A to see you through the effort of a doctoral thesis?

I also agree that you need to make about five applications for funding, with the utmost integrity.

Thank you so much!

I think I read too much into that advice, when really it seems like what people are saying is "don't go with a complete monster".

Off the back of this thread, I will contact a few more potential supervisors and be transparent.

I'm wondering though: it looks like I'll be applying for funding from the AHRC. Does that mean they are going to sit there reading through five (let's say) exact same applications from me, just with a different university/supervisor listed each time?

Thank you very much for your input. I do have a lot of overlapping interests with B, and just really liked her manner and how her mind was going down different avenues.

But I have a lot in common with A, too. She is just slightly more distant/formal perhaps, but that's not necessarily a bad thing at all, I understand that now.

I'm wondering though: it looks like I'll be applying for funding from the AHRC. Does that mean they are going to sit there reading through five (let's say) exact same applications from me, just with a different university/supervisor listed each time?

No - as far as I know, once you submit to one Doctoral Training Partnership that's it. But as each DTP runs separately & independent of the others, no-one would be reading 5 identical applications. Have you looked up the way DTPs run?

AHRC DTP explanation

However, you'd be very unwise to submit 5 exact same applications. You need to match
Person - why are you the qualified person to do this project
Place - why University X? What do they have that will be the best environment for your project
Project - the potential for the project to offer (eventually) an original contribution to knowledge.

Frankly, there are so few AHRC studentships that you will really NEED a potential supervisor's input to shape a proposal with even a hint of success. And that's where you need to decide, because you cannot extract the free labour from 5 different potential supervisors, then go somewhere else.

Well, you can, but it's highly unethical & unprofessional.

AHRC funding is very competitive. With that in mind, I would consider:
-Does your potential supervisor/department have a track record in securing AHRC scholarships? While there is an element of luck involved due to the insane competition, some supervisors/departments are better than others at helping potential students shape their proposals.
-What is the best fit - not just in terms of your prospective supervisor and department, but the broader School/College/Faculty - AHRC places a lot of weight on this.

There will be no more AHRC DTPs from next year. The awards will be allocated to individual universities, and significantly reduced in number. So, where my department has secured on average three awards per year until now, we will now have three for all arts and humanities departments in my university.

Yes @GCAcademic were looking at maybe one or two across the whole Arts and Soc Sciences.

I remember when …. This was the way it worked. Pre-DTP.

Supervisor A
Co-supervisor B, if possible

Best luck with your funding!

Supervisor A from me too (RG social sciences professor). It’s not just about the supervisor it’s the department as a whole. As someone who went back to do a PhD in my 30s I’m so pleased I was part of a research intensive faculty. I received all kinds of help from the wider academic community and my PhD gang have grown with me. It’s far harder as an isolated researcher in a non- research intensive department.

As others have said, funding is now even more scarce and most PGRs rely on scholarships. It’s not difficult to get a PhD place, it is very difficult to get funding. If you apply to one university only you are taking a high risk route.

You don’t mention why you’re doing a PhD but I would also think about the Labour market post graduation. Subjects like History have over-produced PhDs for decades which makes securing an academic job incredibly tough. Many bright post-docs go from one temporary contract to another.

Good luck @AllergicBrieaction🍀

Thanks so much for your feedback, you're really helping me feel clearer about this! Its shifting my perspective.
Supervisor A went into GREAT detail about funding they have secured for projects linked to mine (which is interdisciplinary). You're making me see this option in a whole new light.
This week, I'll contact two or three more universities.
I'd like to do a PhD as I already teach at a university (in a different country) but practice only, its just a few hours where they wheel me in and wheel me back out again. I love working with students and it would be great to be able to have more opportunities, but I can't without a PhD.

I didn't know it would be possible to have co-supervisors from different universities.

Just curious: do supervisors actually find it interesting (dare I say 'fun') to collaborate with supervisors from a different university, like a chance to work with a completely different set of people?
Or is it more seen as a hassle?

It depends.

From an administrative perspective,no, not fun at all - can be a massive ballache to arrange if it's even possible at all.

From an academic perspective, it can be good if supervisors already know each other and have previously collaborated. If they don't/haven't, it could be terrible and you wouldn't want your PhD to be the project where they try out a new collaboration. Plus, this isn't your call to make - if the supervisor wants to bring on someone else from a different university, let her suggest it.

I'm not sure you can have supervisors from two different universities on a UKRI PhD funding application. Maybe you can if bith universities are in the DTP.

In current context very few of our decisions are about what’s fun (sadly). Few unis in my experiences will give supervisors any workload hours for external supervision, so it would be in their own time. Not aware of decent systems to split the fee income (joint PhDs vanishingly rare).

It very much depends on the other supervisor and the student. I do a couple of co-supervisions - at my place but different department, and at another whole university. I knew both supervisors before we started to co-supervise, and they're good people. My DTP requires funded students are co-supervised between member institutions - but there's no money for travel for either supervisor. So the supervisions end up being online, and I don't like that so much. When there are difficulties, I find that it's quite hard to get to the bottom of problems via cyberspace. Others may find it easier.

But I learn a lot from my co-supervisors - we're generally quite naturally in sync, with sympathetic approaches, but we also come at things slightly differently, so there's a really interesting richness to the feedback students get at each supervision. (Supervisions are basically really long feedback sessions)

To be in with any hope of an AHRC studentship, you'll need to have a First (or equivalent in other systems) in your BA, and a Distinction (or equivalent) at MA. You'll need to have a proposal that is feasible, shows you know the field broadly, and how your research questions attend to a gap in the field which you define. And then how your previous studies and professional work make you the ideal person to fill this gap in the scholarship & research.

You say you need a PhD for an academic post where you live. Yes, but don't assume that the PhD is an automatic ticket to that post. There's a huge issue with the contraction of the academy here in the UK, in the US, and elsewhere.

I've been an external for job application for entry level posts a lot in the UK (HoD and Director of Research for most of the last 25 years) but also in other European countries - it's possibly even harder in mainland Europe because of the hierarchies, networks of influence, and old boys' clubs.