So you want to get a PhD, huh?

In the last few weeks, I've had several conversations about PhD admissions with folks who were seeking advice, either for current college students or for high schoolers professing a desire to pursue a PhD after college. What they all had in common was a lack of awareness about how different PhD admissions were from undergrad admissions, so at the prompting of another colleague, I figured I'd lay out some useful pointers for anyone considering this path. This is not a comprehensive guide to PhD admissions, but it hits a lot of important points across disciplines, so buckle up! The first and most important thing I can say is that if anything other than a PhD will make you happy, fulfilled, and able to pursue your career goals, you should pursue that thing instead. In many fields, there is an oversupply of PhD-holders and an undersupply of available positions for them -- particularly in academia. To the student who wants to be a psychology professor or a history professor or even a chemistry professor, I salute you and your goals, but even leaving aside any skepticism that your goals won't change, you need to understand that getting the PhD doesn't mean you'll get a college teaching position, let alone a sustainable, tenure-track position. For those of you who want to do research, unfortunately the same is too often true, and even if you're willing to go into for-profit industry, which isn't an option in every field, you should still be prepared to find the pickings slim. And investing 5-10 years of your life becoming a specialist in a narrow corner of your field is a big investment to make in an uncertain future. So please take what I say to heart when I say you should only pursue this path if nothing else will satisfy you, and be sure that truly nothing else will. Still with me? OK. Here we go. The biggest difference between college admissions and PhD admissions is that in PhD admissions it's allllll about convincing the department (and specific professors in it) that you have a path to completing your highly specialized degree, contributing something new and meaningful to the field, in 5 years. If that sounds easy, it isn't. It generally requires the following elements: 1. A relatively narrow, if flexible-ish and possibly not fully formed, idea what you want to pursue for your dissertation research that would contribute meaningfully to the existing research and discourse in the field, 2. An existing body of work/research that makes your stated aspirations plausible to accomplish and testifies to your having the vision and the professional chops to pull it off in a timely fashion, 3. A professor in the department whose research interests and skillset align with yours well enough that they can advise your work -- and who has the time, space, and interest necessary to be willing to agree to do so, 4. Two other professors in the department whose work overlaps sufficiently with what you're proposing to pursue that they would logically fill out your comps/quals committee and subsequently your dissertation committee, 5. A match to department/institutional resources for supporting your proposed work -- including relevant coursework, funding, technology/archives, and institutional motives, And 6. All the other components a compelling application for any academic program would have, including good GPA, good test scores, good letters of rec from people who know the field and your work, and the ability to write articulately about yourself, your academic journey to this point, and your goals. Someone told me recently they'd been informed by a grad enrollment manager that a student hoping to pursue a PhD in STEM must attend an R1 research university for undergrad. Not only is this patently wrong, it's also potentially counterproductive, along the lines of #2 above. More important than attending an R1 research university is actually *doing* research. There are plenty of opportunities to do this in other places -- namely, at undergrad-focused liberal arts colleges -- and being at an R1 institution means nothing (good) if the research opportunities are all given to graduate students. A student looking to build a solid path through undergrad to graduate school should absolutely be paying attention to how available research opportunities are to undergrads and, as an undergrad, actively seeking to participate in and optimize those opportunities for themselves. Not only does this establish #2 on the above list, it's a critical part of having a meaningful answer for #1, and it can launch a student into understanding (and building a supportive network for) #3-5. And all of those first five items are related to the last parts of #6. Ideally, when the graduate admissions committee in the department to which you're applying (because you're almost always applying, functionally, to the department, not the school) reads your application, they should be able to say: "This is a student with a clear idea what they're doing, who they're doing it with, and how we can support their doing it. There's a clear choice for who can advise them, that person wants them here, and there's a ready-made committee waiting for their comps/quals and for their dissertation after that. They've got the grades, the scores, and the research to be a credit to this department, and we want to add them to our portfolio because when they graduate 5-7yrs from now, their accomplishments will reflect positively on us all." So how do students mess this up? Departments that offer PhDs, especially funded ones, do not want to give those spots to students who will not finish or will not finish in a timely fashion. Students who do not finish don't contribute to the field, which departments consider a waste of their resources, and students who do not finish in a timely fashion (they'd love to have every PhD in and out in 5yrs, and faster would be even better!) wreck their stats on time-to-completion, which can make getting research grants and other forms of funding or recognition more difficult. Telling a department, "I've always been interested in this field and want to explore" is the kiss of death, because if you don't see a direct path to the finish, how can they? Exploration takes time and resources -- they'd rather invest those in a surer thing. Equally, you can't have a path to completion if you don't have an adviser and appropriate resources to do that work -- proposing something that the department "doesn't do" not only creates a logistical challenge, it also suggests you didn't bother (or weren't able) to do the basic research of finding a department that fits your needs. A truly strong applicant will take things one step further, too, by confirming that their intended adviser is actually accepting advisees, because not every professor is doing so every term. And the truth is, one isn't enough -- if there's only one professor who does what you do (which may suggest that thing isn't a priority for the department), you're still going to be stuck when you need three for the committee that evaluates your qualifying/comprehensive exams when you finish your coursework to certify you as ready to move on to your dissertation. Those others don't have to be a total match to your interests, but they should line up with important secondary aspects, including filling out any areas that don't overlap with your adviser's expertise. Ultimately, this may also mean that the best and most prestigious place for you to earn a PhD in your field isn't the kind of place you'd think of in the "brand name"-fixated paradigm that too often drives undergrad admissions. Paired with the realization that some of the best undergrad research opportunities are available at schools that may also not make that "brand name" list, it's fair to say that the path to a PhD may not be what you might expect. It may also not be something every student can do straight out of undergrad. One thing that sometimes happens with my students who apply for PhDs straight out of undergrad is that they get denied PhD admission but may get an offer of Master's admission from at least one of those schools. This is often a recognition from the department that the student shows promise but a reflection of the department's lack of certainty that the student has a clear enough path to the finish to yet be worth the department's investment. The (often unfunded) opportunity to complete a Master's is a chance for the student to bolster their research credentials and refine their knowledge of and goals in the field while minimizing the financial and reputational risk to the department. Students should be aware that it isn't a guaranteed path to a PhD there -- not every department likes to admit its own Master's students for the PhD, but that's something you can ask the department -- but it is one path forward in the field if every department you apply to is saying they're not ready to believe (yet) that you can properly finish a meaningful PhD. Whether you choose to take them up on the Master's offer or seek out other ways (research fellowships/internships) to bolster your credentials is up to you, but being denied in one admissions cycle doesn't mean you won't ever be admitted -- just that you have more work to do before you try again. What all of this should make clear is that PhD admissions in particular are a very different animal from undergrad admissions. There's a lot to do (more, even, than I've included here), and a lot that has to be done in exactly the right, tailored way. Be eyes-open about the process early, and you can maximize your chances of success, and if anything other than the PhD will make you happy, consider the merits of doing that instead. But if nothing but a PhD will do, good luck, godspeed, and let us know if we can be of help!