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I think different schools have different philosophies as far as that goes. There are schools that admit to the department and have students do very little resea

I think different schools have different philosophies as far as that goes. There are schools that admit to the department and have students do very little research for their first two years, and there are schools that admit by advisor and you start research immediately. My PhD was the latter, but for me it was actually one of the major selling points for me on the program. I had a pretty good idea of the area that I wanted to work in, and I was always bad at learning from classes as opposed to hands-on self-driven learning. By the end of two years, I'd already gotten a lot of research done and moving towards the end of my PhD I was able to branch out within my area and take my own path in a way I doubt I would have been able to do in a different style program, where I wouldn't have had the same depth of knowledge in my field. All that to say, I think these are two different philosophies in designing a grad program, and each works better for a different style of student. To those that are still thinking about applying, its something that I think should be a serious consideration when looking at program fit.

throwawaymath 8y ago
With regard to your first paragraph, I don't think there are any American universities that admit students by advisor. As far as I'm aware, your admission is a decision made solely by the graduate admissions committee. Even if you have an advisor ready to take you on the most they can do is recommend you to the committee, not supplant it. When you're admitted there are still criteria aside from research to work on. I think this is a fundamental difference between American and European universities. In European universities, you can hypothetically join a PhD program without any prior degree at all if an advisor chooses to take you on personally. No such sidestepping can happen in an American institution, and regardless you'll have to take some courses (even if you're only auditing them in effect) before you can begin research. Unsurprisingly, American PhD programs are longer.
- overeater 8y ago
  Sorry to be blunt throwawaymath, but that's just wrong. I am very familiar with several American universities (including Ivy League) where the advisor can admit directly.
  - throwawaymath 8y ago
    I don't mind you being blunt at all, but do you mind naming those schools specifically? I'm still skeptical.
    - csa 8y ago
      Not OP, but Harvard, Yale, and Penn are three that I can speak to with firsthand experience. I will also say that, depending on the specifics of the applicant, you might be shocked by what admissions standards can be bent/broken based on the desire of a faculty member to have a specific student. It’s not common, but it happens.
- davmre 8y ago
  I've been on the PhD admissions committee for the Berkeley CS PhD program. Students in many areas are, for all practical purposes, admitted by an advisor. It's not a formal arrangement in the same sense as European programs, but no one gets admitted unless at least one professor will commit to being willing to advise and fund you. For superstar students this is rarely an issue and you have your pick of advisors, but for many admits there is exactly one professor who's identified your background and interests as a good fit, so you're essentially admitted with the expectation you'll work with that professor. Nothing you say is wrong; you're correct that everyone has to do course requirements. But culturally the course requirements are treated as a distraction from research, and students are expected to start working primarily on research from their first semester. I think this is more or less the case in all top American CS PhD programs, and there are reasons to set things up this way, but it's a very different environment from PhDs in most other fields.
  - ende 8y ago
    Thank you for the insight. Would you be willing to elaborate a bit on finding a good match for advisor, and perhaps any thoughts on approaching someone about exploring an advisorship?
    - linuskendall 8y ago
      First step is to be acquainted with their previous research. Understand the direction they are taking and what their interests are. Find advisors whose work you think you can build on through your PhD. Write down what you are interested in working on and how it relates/expands/builds on your potential advisor's. Then contact them sharing just that and start having a conversation - they will surely have feedback and ideas for directions that your research could take.
- Fomite 8y ago
  I'm at an American university, and while technically this is true, an advisor going to the committee and saying "I want this person and I have the grant funding to support them" is profoundly influential, to the point that I would be shocked if the committee said no.
  - throwawaymath 8y ago
    True, but: 1) It's still ultimately up to the graduate committee, 2) Once admitted, students will have requirements outside of research, for better or worse. I'm not making an indictment of the American PhD system, I'm just pointing out that direct advisor admission and unilateral research focus are very uncommon (non-existant?) in the US.
    - csa 8y ago
      This is about 180 degrees from what I advise anyone asking advice regarding PhDs in the US. Specifically, I tell them that it is best if they know before they even apply who they want to work with and in what capacity. This accomplishes a few things: - Removes several potential surprises about what they end up researching. It is very sad to see someone expecting to do research on topic A (which they love) but end up doing research on topic B (one they care about much less) because that’s where the money is or that’s where the open advisor is. - Helps admissions considerably, especially in competitive schools. If an admissions committee denies an applicant that the professor wants, there will be a lot of explaining to do. I assume that you are not talking about “professional” doctoral degrees like JDs or MDs — those are very different than academic-oriented degrees. - Helps clarify funding. Will you be a research assistant (the answer should be yes if you want to be an academic), a TA, or what? - Helps clarify what knowledge needs to be known or learned before entering so they can hit the ground running. This helps with course selection (when there are options), project selection, team selection, etc. - Know the pluses and minuses of their advisor. The best grad students I have seen have read at least some of the research of all of the tenured professors in the department, and they know who is strong and who is weak. They will also have a feel for the politics. These folks are rare, but they are usually the future big time academics. As someone alluded to elsewhere in this thread, the biggest winners in the academic game hit the ground running for their phd. The folks who come in with an open mind and are looking to learn often will have extremely dim career prospects. > I'm not making an indictment of the American PhD system, I'm just pointing out that direct advisor admission and unilateral research focus are very uncommon (non-existant?) in the US. This might be true in schools or departments with very weak research programs. Even then, an advisor advocating for a specific applicant, even if it is a rare occurrence, would most likely be accommodated. Note that highly talented (relatively speaking) doctoral students are rare. If a professor can get one that’s a great fit, s/he would not be wise to cross their fingers and hope that person gets in and gets assigned as their advisee. Just thinking of a professor leaving that much up to luck makes me laugh — it would never happen.
- gms7777 8y ago
  Strictly speaking, you're right, students aren't admitted by an advisor. However, often they are admitted to work with a specific advisor. That is, there are schools where an advisor cannot unilaterally get you in (its up to the grad admissions committee), but unless there's someone that's wants to take you as a grad student, you're not getting in.
- tnecniv 8y ago
  They may not market it that way, but they definitely do. In my program, you are admitted by a specific professor behind the scenes. You may end up working for someone different during your first year, but there is a specific advisor who said "I think this person is good and I have money for them."
- ISL 8y ago
  It can vary by specialty. A friend applied to several schools for graduate work in geology; the admission process was explicitly admission into a designated professor's research group.
- hpcjoe 8y ago
  For my PhD program, I specifically looked for advisors doing the type of simulations I was interested in. There weren't many (1989-1990 time frame). I found one who on paper looked great: lots of good recent publications, assistant prof (she was working on getting tenure, so she was hungry), she had reasonable grants for a theorist, and she needed an apprentice. Having that helped my application. I started working for her before starting school. I still had to take courses. I passed the PhD qual test on entry, and had 2 years worth of courses to take. Transferring in some of the masters courses helped some. I offered to test out of the courses, but it was explained to me that the physics department liked their revenue, even though most of the money coming in was research grant based. The BS I had to go through to take a chemistry course which would have been helpful was a side effect of their love of inbound revenue, and dislike of outbound payments. Basically, I think the economic model at my alma mater was quite broken. This model generally governs behavior of schools, departments, etc. Having a group to start working with helped me clear some of this BS, but I still had to deal with other crap.

throwawaymath 8y ago

With regard to your first paragraph, I don't think there are any American universities that admit students by advisor. As far as I'm aware, your admission is a decision made solely by the graduate admissions committee. Even if you have an advisor ready to take you on the most they can do is recommend you to the committee, not supplant it. When you're admitted there are still criteria aside from research to work on. I think this is a fundamental difference between American and European universities. In European universities, you can hypothetically join a PhD program without any prior degree at all if an advisor chooses to take you on personally. No such sidestepping can happen in an American institution, and regardless you'll have to take some courses (even if you're only auditing them in effect) before you can begin research. Unsurprisingly, American PhD programs are longer.

overeater 8y ago
Sorry to be blunt throwawaymath, but that's just wrong. I am very familiar with several American universities (including Ivy League) where the advisor can admit directly.
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  I don't mind you being blunt at all, but do you mind naming those schools specifically? I'm still skeptical.
  - csa 8y ago
    Not OP, but Harvard, Yale, and Penn are three that I can speak to with firsthand experience. I will also say that, depending on the specifics of the applicant, you might be shocked by what admissions standards can be bent/broken based on the desire of a faculty member to have a specific student. It’s not common, but it happens.
davmre 8y ago
I've been on the PhD admissions committee for the Berkeley CS PhD program. Students in many areas are, for all practical purposes, admitted by an advisor. It's not a formal arrangement in the same sense as European programs, but no one gets admitted unless at least one professor will commit to being willing to advise and fund you. For superstar students this is rarely an issue and you have your pick of advisors, but for many admits there is exactly one professor who's identified your background and interests as a good fit, so you're essentially admitted with the expectation you'll work with that professor. Nothing you say is wrong; you're correct that everyone has to do course requirements. But culturally the course requirements are treated as a distraction from research, and students are expected to start working primarily on research from their first semester. I think this is more or less the case in all top American CS PhD programs, and there are reasons to set things up this way, but it's a very different environment from PhDs in most other fields.
- ende 8y ago
  Thank you for the insight. Would you be willing to elaborate a bit on finding a good match for advisor, and perhaps any thoughts on approaching someone about exploring an advisorship?
  - linuskendall 8y ago
    First step is to be acquainted with their previous research. Understand the direction they are taking and what their interests are. Find advisors whose work you think you can build on through your PhD. Write down what you are interested in working on and how it relates/expands/builds on your potential advisor's. Then contact them sharing just that and start having a conversation - they will surely have feedback and ideas for directions that your research could take.
Fomite 8y ago
I'm at an American university, and while technically this is true, an advisor going to the committee and saying "I want this person and I have the grant funding to support them" is profoundly influential, to the point that I would be shocked if the committee said no.
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  True, but: 1) It's still ultimately up to the graduate committee, 2) Once admitted, students will have requirements outside of research, for better or worse. I'm not making an indictment of the American PhD system, I'm just pointing out that direct advisor admission and unilateral research focus are very uncommon (non-existant?) in the US.
  - csa 8y ago
    This is about 180 degrees from what I advise anyone asking advice regarding PhDs in the US. Specifically, I tell them that it is best if they know before they even apply who they want to work with and in what capacity. This accomplishes a few things: - Removes several potential surprises about what they end up researching. It is very sad to see someone expecting to do research on topic A (which they love) but end up doing research on topic B (one they care about much less) because that’s where the money is or that’s where the open advisor is. - Helps admissions considerably, especially in competitive schools. If an admissions committee denies an applicant that the professor wants, there will be a lot of explaining to do. I assume that you are not talking about “professional” doctoral degrees like JDs or MDs — those are very different than academic-oriented degrees. - Helps clarify funding. Will you be a research assistant (the answer should be yes if you want to be an academic), a TA, or what? - Helps clarify what knowledge needs to be known or learned before entering so they can hit the ground running. This helps with course selection (when there are options), project selection, team selection, etc. - Know the pluses and minuses of their advisor. The best grad students I have seen have read at least some of the research of all of the tenured professors in the department, and they know who is strong and who is weak. They will also have a feel for the politics. These folks are rare, but they are usually the future big time academics. As someone alluded to elsewhere in this thread, the biggest winners in the academic game hit the ground running for their phd. The folks who come in with an open mind and are looking to learn often will have extremely dim career prospects. > I'm not making an indictment of the American PhD system, I'm just pointing out that direct advisor admission and unilateral research focus are very uncommon (non-existant?) in the US. This might be true in schools or departments with very weak research programs. Even then, an advisor advocating for a specific applicant, even if it is a rare occurrence, would most likely be accommodated. Note that highly talented (relatively speaking) doctoral students are rare. If a professor can get one that’s a great fit, s/he would not be wise to cross their fingers and hope that person gets in and gets assigned as their advisee. Just thinking of a professor leaving that much up to luck makes me laugh — it would never happen.
gms7777 8y ago
Strictly speaking, you're right, students aren't admitted by an advisor. However, often they are admitted to work with a specific advisor. That is, there are schools where an advisor cannot unilaterally get you in (its up to the grad admissions committee), but unless there's someone that's wants to take you as a grad student, you're not getting in.
tnecniv 8y ago
They may not market it that way, but they definitely do. In my program, you are admitted by a specific professor behind the scenes. You may end up working for someone different during your first year, but there is a specific advisor who said "I think this person is good and I have money for them."
ISL 8y ago
It can vary by specialty. A friend applied to several schools for graduate work in geology; the admission process was explicitly admission into a designated professor's research group.
hpcjoe 8y ago
For my PhD program, I specifically looked for advisors doing the type of simulations I was interested in. There weren't many (1989-1990 time frame). I found one who on paper looked great: lots of good recent publications, assistant prof (she was working on getting tenure, so she was hungry), she had reasonable grants for a theorist, and she needed an apprentice. Having that helped my application. I started working for her before starting school. I still had to take courses. I passed the PhD qual test on entry, and had 2 years worth of courses to take. Transferring in some of the masters courses helped some. I offered to test out of the courses, but it was explained to me that the physics department liked their revenue, even though most of the money coming in was research grant based. The BS I had to go through to take a chemistry course which would have been helpful was a side effect of their love of inbound revenue, and dislike of outbound payments. Basically, I think the economic model at my alma mater was quite broken. This model generally governs behavior of schools, departments, etc. Having a group to start working with helped me clear some of this BS, but I still had to deal with other crap.