I have just been checking CV's of top schools - harvard, stanford, princeton, yale, berkeley, chicago and everyone of them seem to have taken about 7 years or more to finish. What is making them take so long? Some jd/phd people from stanford and harvard got their PhDs in less than 3 years - how come straight phd people are taking more than double the time of jd/phd people? I will be starting this fall and am just curious. Is it really rare to finish phd in traditional 5 years god forbid 4?
Why 7 years?
(35 posts) (13 voices)-
Posted 2 years ago #
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*Everyone* starts a program thinking they'll be done in 5 years or less. But many of us take longer, for a range of different reasons, many of which you'll never even anticipate at the outset.
Common examples: taking longer to study for qualifying exams than you expected, taking longer to put together a decent proposal, or beginning a project that runs into major difficulties precisely because the initial proposal wasn't good enough, field research or language training, having to teach while you write (a huge drain on your time), or remaining enrolled even when you're practically done because you didn't land a job right away but would prefer to stay ABD rather than defend and have a gap on your CV etc. At the very top schools there are LOTS of internal university teaching and research fellowships for advanced ABDs, so in a tough market many of these graduate students opt to stick around the precincts of Cambridge etc. longer than they need to, thus inflating time to degree statistics.
Posted 2 years ago # -
AVERAGE time to complete a PhD in the Social Sciences & Humanities in the US is 10 years.
Posted 2 years ago # -
It also depends on subfield. Comparative people tend to take longer due to fieldwork, for example. People also need to think about planning their lives outside of getting a PhD. For example, as a woman starting her PhD at 23, it's not unreasonable to think about having a child during dissertation writing (assuming you have a suitable partner) rather than waiting to be pregnant on the job market or during the race to get tenure. As a result, some women will essentially take maternity leave during dissertation writing. This slows things down, as does raising a child while writing.
"User" is also right. In this tough job market, it's not a terrible idea to stick around for a couple of extra years (assuming you're not creeping into the 10th/11th years) to get more teaching under your belt. My program has an award that it gives to one advanced ABD each year to design and teach his/her own course. If one is interested in teaching at a top LAC, that would look great on the CV, but you have to have extensive TA experience before being competitive for that award.
Of course, other disciplines are different. Econ departments, for example, tend to push most of their students out by the end of their 5th year.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Satin, do you have a source for that statistic? I just looked at the NRC data for political science. For median time to degree, all are below ten years. The median median is 6.5.
Posted 2 years ago # -
^ That's what I've heard as well. I know that it used to take longer, but that in the past 10 years, many department have made a concerted effort to reduce the amount of time their students spend in the program.
Posted 2 years ago # -
The median in 6.5, but it might be higher for comparativists, lower for the rest.
Posted 2 years ago # -
At my "top-whatever" Ph.D. program (I'll forego #s to avoid derision (: ), comparativists seem to graduate in 7. A very small minority graduate sooner; many take 8. A handful take longer, but often that's because of extenuating circumstances (e.g., family stuff) unrelated to the degree itself. I think that 7 is completely reasonable for a project a) of much complexity (i.e., what we'd hope people are tackling) and b) that requires fieldwork.
Regardless of subfield (previous paragraph focused on CP), the people who graduate in 4-5 years typically know exactly what project they want to undertake when they start the program OR their data are canned / immediately available. Perhaps in a self-serving way, I suspect that any project you arrive in graduate school with is probably not as interesting as one you would develop later. (After all, presumably we expect some intellectual growth in the Ph.D. program...?)
Posted 2 years ago # -
Time to PhD (from BA, not from MA) in the humanities: 9 years enrolled, or 11.3 years including "stop time." In the Social Sciences, 7.8 years enrolled, 10 years total. In the 1960s, it was about 6 years for each. Source Louis Menand, Marketplace of Ideas (2010). Menand cites Hoffer and Welch, "Time to Degree of US Research Doctorate Recipients," Infobrief (2006).
Posted 2 years ago # -
No one cares how long it took you to get out. They care what you do on your last 2 years as you prepare to go on the market. After that, they only care what you do since you graduated.
Rushing graduate work to get out "early" seems like a bad strategy. More times gives you more time to mature, to read more broadly, and to gain research & teaching experience. I'm often surprised at the young applicants I see who got through quickly, but aren't prepared for the real world of academia. I'd rather take someone who took 12 years to finish, but has done interesting work, can get grants, and has a good teaching portfolio.
Posted 2 years ago # -
I agree that rushing to get out early can backfire, but I disagree that "no one cares how long it took you to get out." I've seen lots of tenure letters over the years that have commented on how much a person has accomplished in a relatively short period of time or that commented on how long the person has been around, how long it has been since the person started graduate school, etc. It may not be linear, but the longer you take to get your degree, and the longer you stretch out your tenure clock, the more that will be expected of you.
Posted 2 years ago # -
No one cares about time to PhD from BA. Why would anyone bring that up?
Comparativists take more time for the reasons mentioned. Theorists too.
Also, let's not lose sight of the fact that for many, grad school is a nice way to make an okay living, especially if you don't have a family. You can wake up or go to sleep at any hour. You don't have to clock in. You don't have to attend meetings. You can skip town. You can travel. Etc. And, of course, you get to work on any project that interests you, with some teaching on the side. And you get paid for it. And you get to hang out with people your age who are engaged in similar endeavors. And finally, especially if you're at a top program (e.g., Ivy), there is a cachet there that makes it even harder to put behind you.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Maybe people bring it up because, contrary to your apparently cush experience, the average PhD accrues $60k in student loans while in grad school, only to find there's no jobs. I'm not sure who is responding to what on this thread, but once again I find it odd that a bunch of political scientists want to reduce what seems a question about structural requirements of higher education (how long it takes to get certified) to a series of benign statements about individual choice n such.
Posted 2 years ago # -
^ Relax, man. The point I was raising is that time since BA isn't a quantity that the OP was referring to. Most people, such as the OP, are interested in the time it takes to get a PhD from start to end of the degree. That's a different quantity. The time since BA attainment statistic is skewed by those who don't go straight to grad school.
I'd be interested to see the data on student debt accrued while doing a PhD. My understanding is that this figure combines both undergrad and graduate loans. Most of that is undergraduate debt. But if the data show otherwise, I'd be happy to revise that statement.
Posted 2 years ago # -
"time to Phd from BA" does not include time between degrees when you're not pursuing a degree. It only distinguishes from "time to PhD from MA." Clock starts to rolling when you enroll in your first class. So the stat is not skewed as you suggest.
Posted 2 years ago # -
^^ What is your source for that average Ph.D. debt?
(I'm shocked at that number.)
Posted 2 years ago # -
^^ My understanding of "total time to degree" includes time off between the end of the BA and the start of the PhD
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf06312/If you look at that graph, when time to degree is around 10 years, age is around 33. Wouldn't this be consistent with time since BA including time off between the BA and grad school? I'm not that familiar with the statistic, but that's what it looks like to me.
^ That figure seemed high to me, but according to this paper, http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/journal_of_higher_education/v081/81.1.kim.pdf
"The median accumulative federal loans for doctorate recipients was $44,743 in 2003/04" (2).
With the mean being slightly higher than the median, that's consistent with a ~$60K average debt today. But note that this is includes both undergrad and grad debt, not debt incurred during grad school only (and again, I'd be shocked if most of that wasn't undergrad debt).
Posted 2 years ago # -
It took me 8 years. I am sure I spent too much time goofing off but I was the second one done in my cohort. At APSA this year I ran into some of my former profs and they told me that half the requirements were removed. It seems an external review of the program determined that pol sci grads were taking too long.
Posted 2 years ago # -
I was done in 4. 3 years of classes ending with Quals then a year to write the dissertation.
Those of my cohort that finished mostly ended at 5 years on average or so and none that lasted longer then 7 finished. At my school if you hit 7 years they sat you down and you had to be darn clear that you are going to finish otherwise it's MA and out. Nearly everyone had some form of financial assistance be it jobs, grants, or other funding and I don't think anyone ended up with all that high a level of debt. Nothing compared to undergrad.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Are times to completion creeping up as people try to game the job-market? It does seem like there is an incentive not to get that final signoff until you have a job in hand. If there is no job, then another year delaying student loan payback and TA'ing might be better than outright unemployment (although definitely not desirable).
Posted 1 year ago # -
If you are gaming the system in this way, it seems like you'd better be cranking out some very good articles in the meantime, rather than having to explain why you spent the last two years sitting on a complete dissertation and not teaching, writing or doing much of anything in the meantime.
Posted 1 year ago # -
How would hiring committees know if one was sitting on a complete dissertation? Just don't defend until you have an offer.
Posted 1 year ago # -
5 years + 2 to find a job.
Posted 1 year ago # -
So the cover story would be, 'I'm just not very productive.' That doesn't sound like a good game strategy.
Posted 1 year ago # -
2 yrs of classes, 1 yr rest, 4 yrs of dissertation.
whats so hard to get?Posted 1 year ago # -
>No one cares how long it took you to get out. They care what you do on your last 2 years as you prepare to go on the market
and
>No one cares about time to PhD from BA. Why would anyone bring that up?
From my own market and search committee experience, mostly true. But not always. I took on the high side to complete and most committees didn't bring that up with me. I was surprised how little it came up, in fact. I did have one dept chair who grilled me hard about it, however.
On the second point, at a nearby R1 where I know people, one of their senior profs cares a lot about time from BA to PHD. If you finish your PhD at age 32 and only took 4 years in the program, he still expects yout to have a story of productivity and accomplishment during those 6 years "off" between BA and grad school. That could be the Peace Corps, making a ton of money on Wall St, playing minor league baseball, whatever, but it had better not be barrista, housespouse, rehab, etc. That his attitude was noteworthy to my friends does confirm the general point, though.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Does the 7 years include post-docs or is that addition time before a TT job?
Posted 1 year ago # -
Data collection can take years, especially if the data leads to weak or contradictory findings. Then it's back to collecting more data.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I'm a solid second tier public, a ton of teaching, fair support for grad students.
Years 1-2 Coursework
Year 3 - Exams, teaching too much.
Year 4 - Dissertation proposal, start writing.
(all according to plan see).Then: If I had a job waiting for me, I could have churned out my dissertation the summer after year five. But I didn't, so I didn't.
Year 6 I spent on the job market, working on articles, and chipping away at the dissertation. Still no job.
I'll defend before I go on the market this coming fall (Year 7), but not submit it to the university because the only way I will have health insurance is if I don't *technically* graduate until May.
Thus, 7 years to completion.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Sometimes it takes an extra year or two to figure out and write down a brilliant idea.
Posted 1 year ago #