Is There Another Degree in Your Future? Choosing Among Professional and Graduate Schools by Neale Baxter Neale Baxter is the OOQ's managing editor, (202) 606-5691. Does one good degree deserve another? Having earned a bachelor's, should you now devote a year or 2 or 10 of 60- and 80-hour weeks to earning a master's or a doctorate? Master's, doctoral, and professional degrees have become increasingly common during the past 20 years. In 1989-90, more than 395,000 master's and first professional degrees were awarded, compared to just over a million bachelor's degrees. Consider these figures for degrees granted in 1989- 90, according to the U.S. Department of Education: Medical Doctor (MD) 15,000 Jurum Doctor (J.D.) or Bachelor of Law (LL.B.) 36,000 Dr of Philosophy (Ph.D.) or Dr of Education (Ed.D.) 38,000 Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) 77,000 Other master's degrees 247,000 Along with their popularity have come the proliferation of programs and the growth of competition for entrance. The numbers of schools granting first professional degrees is relatively low, with just 54 for dentistry, 124 for medicine, and 182 for law. But nearly 800 institutions now grant the M.B.A. degree (although only 271 are certified by the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business, according to Chuck Hickman, Director of Projects and Services for the Assembly). With so many to choose from, only you can decide what kind of program you should follow and where you should follow it. How can you make the best decision? Whether buying a car or deciding on a postgraduate degree in medicine, law, business, education, or some other field, the process to follow when making a decision is much the same: * Specify the factors that affect your choice. * Decide how much weight each should have. * Set up a table with a column for each school or program and a line for each factor (see sample). * Determine each program's score for each factor. * Go to the school with the highest score. The easy part is setting up the table. The work comes as you decide what factors are important and gather the information you need. Even after following this procedure, you'll never know whether a different program or a different school would have led to a better future, but at least you'll know that you made the best decision you could with the information available. It's Not Just a Degree, It's a Career A good place to start the decisionmaking process is with a review of your reasons for attending a professional or graduate school. Stay focused on your reasons. As Julie Dolan, the Director of Member Services for the Graduate Management Admission Council, says, "There is no one right school for every applicant. Self-assessment should be the starting point for anyone considering graduate business education." Although good reasons might be plentiful for devoting 1 to 10 years of your life to obtaining another degree, one stands out: A Career. [note to art director: this side bar should appear on the first or second spread of the article. it is not specifically referred to in the text Psst! Are You College Bound? The accompanying article is for people who have finished college and want to continue their education. Even so, most of the questions it asks are also important to high school students and others who are planning to go to college. Compared to a person choosing a graduate school, someone looking at colleges would probably take more interest in the extracurricular and campus-wide academic offerings. Such a person might also be less concerned with the jobs that graduates take. But still, if you are planning to go to college, look over the article. It may point up something to keep in mind as you make your own evaluation of different schools. People with abundant leisure and a steady income may undertake graduate or professional studies for other reasons, such as to acquire a scholarly or professional knowledge of a subject that interests them, to associate with experts in a field, to enrich their lives, or simply to pass the time of day (and night, if they are to keep up with their studies). Whatever the primary motivation, anyone entering a graduate or professional school should have a real interest in the subject of study. But most people embark on the difficult, expensive pursuit of another degree to further their careers. Graduate education is usually vocational education. The purpose of a law degree, medical degree, M.B.A., Ph.D. or Ed.D. is to enable you to qualify for a job you cannot now obtain or to improve your career prospects in a field you have already entered. The job may not be directly associated with the degree. Aspiring politicians, for example, often seek law degrees although they do not intend to practice law and are not required to be lawyers to stand for election. In most cases, however, the degree and the job go hand in hand. A Master of Social Work would be of little value to a manufacturing executive, and an M.B.A. would do little for the career of most social workers. Looking at graduate programs primarily from the point of view of a career makes both self-assesment and program evaluation much simpler than the comparable task of deciding to attend a college. College is both less costly_especially in terms of lost income_and more general in its benefits. Not only do college programs equip a person for many different potential careers, they also have social and other payoffs. But graduate degrees are much more specific, and one that does not improve your earning power or get you into the career you want is unlikely to be worth the considerable cost involved. For this reason, the Graduate Management Admission Council advises, "Your first step should be to explore career areas that interest you." When considering employment, be as specific as possible. Read about the occupation you plan to enter, and ask people in the field about the different specialties. You are deciding how you would like to spend about a third of your waking hours for the next 30 or 40 years. The decision is worth much more time than you would put into buying a car. What if no particular occupation appeals to you? What kind of advanced degree should you get in that case? None. If you do not know why you are getting the degree, you probably should not get one. You can sort out career options just as easily while being paid to work as you can while paying tuition. To be blunt: Going to a graduate or professional school because you do not know what else to do is foolish. Not Just Any School Will Do Just as the kind of work you wish to do for a living should determine the kind of degree you pursue, so should that work be a major factor in picking a school. You will benefit most from a school if you have identified a specialty within an occupation, for you will then be in a much better position to select the appropriate program. No one school is the best choice for every specialty within every field, and some schools are a bad choice for any specialty. Chuck Hickman advises that one should attend a school "not for a credential but for specific skills and knowledge." You need different skills as an entrepreneur than as an auditor, and few schools are equally successful at preparing people for both fields. While president of Law School Admission Council, Peter A. Winograd made a similar point, writing, "Law schools are, and should be, diverse institutions with a wide variety of missions and strengths. What is best for one student (or faculty member, or prospective employer) is not necessarily best for another. The large school, with large sections and a multitude of Wall Street-type employers clamoring at the door, may not be the school of choice for the individual who fails to shine in crowds, hankers to dig into environmental law, or seeks substantial interaction with faculty. Each type [of school] will be right for certain students. . . ." People who want to practice law in their hometowns will quite possibly develop better contacts at a State law school than at one of the famous institutions on the east coast. What is true of business and law schools is true of all the other kinds of graduate and professional schools as well. Dick Green, a spokesperson for the Association of American Medical Colleges, points out that some medical centers stress biomedical research while others serve regional needs. This means that you need to identify the kind of medicine you wish to practice and then select appropriate schools to apply to. Similarly, if your interest is engineering, education, science, clinical psychology, or one of the arts, you must look further than the general subject in order to find the right school. You want to identify how well each school will prepare you for exactly what you want to do_no more and no less. And yet, specialties are not always obvious. For example, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, that bastion of engineering, offers an M.B.A. with a focus on real estate. So the next question is "How do you learn about the various programs." Tiptoeing Through the Catalogs Information on specialties is available in school catalogs, as you well know. The real challenge is learning which of the hundreds of relevant catalogs you should consult and finding information that is not in the catalogs themselves. Basically, you have two resources: publications and people. Publications, speaking as someone who works for one, have many good points: They are easily found (you know where the library is), clearly dated in most cases, often comprehensive, and usually consistent in their treatment of different schools. Publications can also be evaluated against each other with little difficulty: You can judge a book by its contents. Some frequently recommended ones are listed in the accompanying box, "Learning More About Graduate and Professional Schools." Unfortunately, publications also have a drawback or two or three. They don't answer open-ended questions, the way people do. They don't volunteer information that they notice you need, the way people do. And they don't have enough detail about real strengths and weaknesses, the way people do. Where can you find information not in the books and catalogs? From people. When asked how someone can find out about the reality behind the catalog photos, Jackie Rashleger, of the Native American Law Students Association, replies, "Word of mouth is important." Another spokesperson for business graduates, Wayne Jossey, of the National Black MBA Association, agrees with her, as would just about everyone else. To find the information you need, you have to tap into the grapevine, a communication medium that boasts neither the convenience nor the reliability of the phone service. Gathering information in this way might seem like a lot of work to some, and to others it may just seem pushy. But if you were going to pay $100,000 for a car, wouldn't you want to know more than the sales catalog had to say? The cost of a graduate or professional degree can easily exceed the $100,000 mark. Begin your quest for information by asking current or former professors for their advice. Then speak to everyone else who knows something about the field_local lawyers, family doctors, executives who graduated from your alma mater, or anyone else you can contact. If your goal is law or medical school, the prelaw or premed advisor on campus should be helpful. Jackie Rashleger also suggests that you find out the names of student associations at your schools of interest and call them, or get the names of the associations' officers. Forums, which are similar to the college nights you might have attended when looking at undergraduate schools, are another place to find people to talk to; information about them is given in the box, "Learning More About Graduate and Professional Schools." When you speak to someone, you obviously want to know which schools they suggest you look into. It is not merely a matter of a school offering a specialty, it's a matter of how strong the school is in that specialty. The academic atmosphere of the school, a subject discussed below, is also something that people can convey better than books. Other topics to raise will become clear as you read this article and as you begin talking to people. The first people you speak with will rarely have definitive information, so you always want to ask for recommendations of other sources of information, including books, magazines, and journals that discuss the subject. In particular, ask if there is another person you can speak to, especially someone at the schools that have been mentioned to you. Carefully evaluate the information you receive in light of each person's own experience and interests. For example, a person's assessment may be out of date. A relative or family friend may have had a wonderful experience at a school that no longer employs any of the professors who made the time memorable. People who have recently completed their own education often have more reliable information than do those who have not had any direct contact with a school for some time. Not All Programs Are Alike Graduate and professional schools that offer the same degree differ a great deal regarding how they structure their programs. A hint of the variety available just in M.B.A. programs is given in "Destination MBA," published by the Graduate Management Admission Council: Some schools believe all students should be trained as general managers. Other schools allow students great freedom to design courses of study that suit their individual career objectives and special interests. There are joint degree programs, such as business and law, business and engineering, and management of the arts. Specialized degrees in such areas as educational administration, hospital and health care, public administration, and urban and regional planning are also offered. What is true of business schools is true of every other kind of school. A program in one subject at one school may specify only a few required courses and have a flexible curriculum, but that for another subject sets out a fairly rigid course of study. Students in one field may be able to select electives from throughout the university, while those in another must restrict themselves to the school they are in. Internships, other kinds of experiential learning, and opportunities to study abroad may be plentiful at one school and unheard of at another. Programs can be part time, full time, executive, weekend, 1 year, 2 years, or various permutations of the above. The length of a practicum, the value (in credit hours) of a thesis, and the number of foreign language or mathematics courses required all depend on the individual program. Even the total number of credit hours required to complete similar programs may vary. You'll also want to think about the methods used to cover a subject. Teachers at one business or law school, for example, may rely primarily on case studies, while the professors at another take a more theoretical approach, and those at a third balance one against the other. In the liberal arts and social sciences, a particular theoretical approach may dominate one school, while another is more eclectic. You will need to know something of the primary theoretical and pedagogical approaches in your field to identify whether a school will appeal to you. Not All Programs Are Successful The previous section points toward the ways programs differ. The dissimilarity in results may be even more important. As Chuck Hickman says, "The M.B.A. has historically been a ticket to challenging and financially rewarding careers in management. I expect that to continue to be so. Remember, however, that not all M.B.A.'s are created equal. There are places to stay away from." Others would say the same thing about programs in most fields. In order to evaluate a school's results, you need to know more than what it teaches and how. You want to evaluate each school's success at preparing people for the type of career you wish to have. The same people you speak to about programs will be able to give you some pointers, but you will need much additional information from books, periodicals, and the schools themselves. You should first establish whether the school is accredited. Accreditation is crucial in some fields. For example, only graduates of accredited law schools may take the bar exam in many States. Lack of accreditation is not such a definite barrier in other fields, such as business, but it is certainly not a plus. Accreditation also guarantees quality in some fields, such as medicine and engineering. But in other fields, the standards of employers are higher or at least different than those of accrediting bodies. Given that a school is accredited, you next want to gather information about the placement of graduates and the salaries they receive. You might think that such information would give a clear, objective measure of a school's ability to prepare its graduates for the labor market. In the words of Sportin' Life, "It ain't necessarily so." Numbers may not lie, but they do not tell the whole truth, either. As Chuck Hickman says, "Schools will put themselves in the most favorable light." Graduate schools, you should remember, make money from graduate students. Placement of Graduates The department head, dean's office, or placement office at each school should be able to provide information about where graduates work, at least in general. Naturally, you want to be cautious about a program that won't provide such data. The kind of information available will vary with the field. For example, according to Dick Green, data are collected for each medical school indicating the percentage of graduates entering primary care, accepting residencies in that State, or becoming medical school faculty members. Law schools often have similar information, but few Ph.D. programs do. One indication of how seriously a school takes the need of its graduates to find employment is the kind of placement services it offers. A law school that operates its own placement service is obviously more concerned with the careers of its students than is a graduate school that groups new Ph.D.'s in with the undergraduates at the university's placement center. You should also be able to learn the number of recruiters who visit the campus to interview candidates for the degree you wish to obtain. Use caution when assessing the information you receive from the school or elsewhere because placement data looks very precise but may omit important factors that have much to do with the jobs taken by graduates. For example, many recipients of an Ed.D. have years of experience in education. Similarly, many of the students in a weekend or part-time M.B.A. program may already be working in managerial positions when they enroll in the business school. Information about the class that includes these students will tell you little about the outlook for a student who has no comparable experience. Still, the answer to the question "Where were the graduates working?" is likely to give you the clearest picture of the strengths of any school or program so that you can determine if it will really prepare you for the career you want. At a minimum, a school with few graduates who actually find jobs in the specialty you wish to pursue is a school that should fall to the bottom of your list. Students in the sciences and liberal arts may face special challenges regarding placement, as indicated in the accompanying box, "Jobs and Ph.D.'s in the Arts and Sciences." As a prospective student in law, medicine, or a few other fields, you have another fact to check out. Find out the percentage of graduates who pass their board or bar exams. Salary Information Data on average salaries offered to new graduates are available in various publications and from the schools, depending on the field. It looks even more exact than the placement information but may be even less so. For example, the figure for a class's average starting salary varies according to the time of year that the information is collected. Typically, the highest ranked graduates receive the first job offers. Therefore, salary data collected in February often yields a higher average than data collected in August. Consistent data, at least with regard to the time and method of collection, is available in at least one field: Law. The National Association for Law Placement collects data on employment 6 months after graduation. The focus of a school also changes figures for average salaries in ways that might not be relevant to you. For example, data for a law school that prepares large numbers of graduates for the public sector, such as Howard University, will serve poorly as a guide to the salary offers received by graduates who are entering the private sector. On the other hand, public defenders will earn relatively little compared to corporate lawyers no matter where they go to school. Salaries also depend on factors unrelated to the school's educational program. One particularly important element is the amount of experience students had before they started the program. For example, in the survey of M.B.A. programs published in Business Week in October 26, 1992, one finds that graduates of Northwestern's Kellogg school were earning more than $70,000 a year, on average; but one also learns that these graduates had average annual incomes of almost $43,000 before they began their M.B.A. program. An entrant who was not at these high levels before starting school is unlikely to attract the megabuck offers that make the news. The earnings of new M.B.A.'s are also effected by their undergraduate degrees. According to the College Placement Council, 1993 M.B.A.'s with technical undergraduate degrees and 1 to 2 years of previous work experience had an average annual salary offer of 53,345, versus the $36,657 average of those with neither experience nor a technical bachelor's degree. Besides consulting the published reports, seek out personal contacts for insight into the salary situation. Current students and recent graduates will have information not only about fellow students who got high paying jobs but also what might be more important, students who did not. Why Not the Best? Using School Rankings Lists of "The Best" schools, such as those mentioned in the accompanying box, "Learning More About Graduate and Professional Schools," are somewhat controversial, to put it mildly. Peter Winograd calls them beauty contests. In regard to medical schools, Dick Green says, "Rankings oversimplify the relative value or merit that a given institution may have for an individual and the differing missions of medical centers." Associations that accredit schools, whether of medicine, law, business, or some other subject, adamantly refrain from ranking the schools they accredit, saying that any accredited school is a good school and no school can serve every student. Some associations go even further, criticizing the rankings. Consider this statement, signed by the presidents of four associations concerned with legal education: Although we have not had the opportunity to review the U.S. News & World Report article, we believe that any ranking or rating of law schools, based upon data the magazine has asked deans to provide, must be meaningless or grossly misleading. The survey does not and could not measure many important factors involved in evaluating the quality of law schools. Statistics cannot reflect such factors as the quality of faculty, curricular offerings, adequacy of library resources, and quality of life. Most importantly, the U.S. News & World Report ranking or rating is, in significant part, based on responses of legal educators, judges, practicing lawyers, and others who could not possibly know enough about each of the 175 [American Bar Association] accredited law schools to rank or rate the law schools by quality quartiles." The Graduate Management Admission Council warns, "Heavy reliance on rankings may lead to an unnecessary narrowing of choices." In answer to the question "Are school rankings important?" its booklet, "MBA Q&A," states the following: The ranking of all kinds of educational programs has become very popular, and this is especially true for M.B.A. programs. While it is certainly valuable to have a comparative view of different programs, keep in mind that any ranking is only a shorthand method of evaluating schools. The methodology used in any particular ranking will affect its outcome, and these methodologies are not always made clear. Further, rankings do not adequately address the tremendous variety of graduate management programs. The lists may also simply add to your confusion, in part because they are subjective. For example, in a U.S. News survey, one law school ranked 110th by law professors was ranked 51st by lawyers and judges. What is the "real" rank of that school? Much of this criticism is well founded. Some of the surveys that lead to the lists are poorly conducted; the questions asked may be ill defined; and the responses given are likely to be highly subjective. But in the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed person rules, and in the absence of standards set by the accrediting associations or some other group, the cyclopean vision of the magazine surveys will have to do. Most important, they are not read only by prospective students. Recruiters also consult them and use them when deciding where to visit and whom to interview. How, then, should you use the lists? Chuck Hickman advises that you consider the tier or cohort of the school rather than its precise rank. He also offers one last caution: "Ranking should not be used as a surrogate for you asking what you want to get out of this school in terms of your career plans." Admission Requirements Knowing a school's admission requirements and being able to determine whether you are likely to be accepted will save you time and money. In "Medicine: A Chance To Make a Difference," the Association of American Medical Colleges notes, "Applicants apply to an average of 10 schools. Statistically, applying to more than the average will not increase your chances of acceptance." It goes on to make an important point regardless of the type of school you wish to attend: "You will have a much better chance of being accepted if you research the schools carefully and narrow your list to a few well-chosen schools." You do not want to apply to a school to which you have no chance of being admitted. It should also go without saying that you shouldn't apply to a school you would not attend even if you should be admitted. But sometimes people will apply to such schools in the fear of not being accepted anyplace else. At $100 to $200 per application, this can prove to be expensive. Once again, the first place to seek information is each school's catalog, which will indicate minimum requirements. Keep in mind that most schools reject applicants who simply meet the minimum. So, once again, you will need to ferret out information, asking your contacts about your real chances of admission and looking for statistics in various publications. And, once again, some of the statistics you find will not be as definite as they look. The statistics you want concern grade-point averages and scores on standard tests, such as the GMAT. You might find a median, mean, or range of scores for all the students accepted or for all the first-year students. The scores of those who were accepted are generally higher than the scores of those who actually attend. As you sort through the names of schools likely to admit you, recall the advice not to attend a school that will not prepare you for your professional goal. If you conclude that you will not be admitted to a school that meets your needs, do not attend another school. Rather, take other steps to improve your chance of being admitted to an acceptable school. Money Matters Butterflies may be free, but schools are not. Therefore, deciding where to apply requires information on the cost of the education and the aid available. Tuition is one subject about which you can easily obtain accurate information. You already know that State schools can be terrific bargains. Still, writing down that tuition costs $900 at Central State versus $18,000 at Ivory Tower University clarifies the difference. You will have to determine whether the difference in cost_taking financial aid into account_is worth the difference in the value of the degree. The answer will depend on the particular schools and, once again, on what you want to do after graduation. Generally, people advise going to the school with the better reputation even if it costs much more, as long as the reputation is related to what you really want to do. Besides tuition, you need to consider many other expenses. These include the direct costs of the program, such as books and computers, and indirect expenses, such as travel. Some of these costs will not vary much from school to school, but others will. Living expenses may also vary widely. For example, housing for married students may be readily available at one school but not at another, or inexpensive housing may be a long commute from one school and just across the street at another. Medical, dental, and child- care costs may also be much higher in one place than in another. While on the subject of cost, remember that the major cost of furthering your education is likely to be the income you lose while in school. At this stage of your career, you may also be foregoing experience and promotions. Taking these hidden costs into consideration may be especially important if you are comparing full- and part-time programs in fields such as management or education. You also need to determine how much money is available and from what sources. Generally, your earnings and the contributions you can plan on from other people (such as parents or a spouse) will vary little no matter which school you attend. This is not always so, however, especially with regard to your earnings. Employment opportunities may be much better near one school than another, particularly if you or your spouse works in a specialized field. Tuition may be a certainty, but the aid a school will provide is not. About 49 percent of all postbaccalaureate students in 1989-90 had some form of aid. You need to look not only at the total package offered but also at how it is broken up. How much of it will be scholarship or fellowship money that is yours to keep (or spend on tuition) and how much of it will be in the form of loans that will haunt you for the next decade? Loans are a major source of funding for postbaccalaureate education. In 1989-90, about 18 percent had Stafford loans, including 57 percent of those working on first professional degrees. Graduates of Business Week's top 20 business schools in 1992 had outstanding loans averaging $27,000. Here are some other questions to ask: Will you have multiple creditors or will all the loans be from a single source? How much will your monthly repayment charge be once you complete your program? Will you earn enough to pay it? How will additional loans affect the loans you already have from your undergraduate days? Will you be able to consolidate the repayment schedule? Would it be better to go to work for a firm that offers tuition assistance and earn while you learn? Will participation in a work-study program leave you sufficient time to study? Will you have a research or teaching assistantship related to your educational program or will you have a work-study job in which the work has nothing to do with your studies? Where It's At Other readily available information about the schools, such as their locations, may also enter into your decision. Preference for one location over another is not simply a matter of liking a particular climate or wanting to hear police sirens rather than geese in the autumn night. A school's location may make travel expenses much higher. A remote school may attract fewer recruiters. Crime rates may make a library virtually useless after dark. Nor is location simply a matter of where you will spend your next year or 2 or 3. Graduates tend to work in the same region as the school they graduate from, at least in part because they can contact regional employers more easily than employers in other parts of the country. Carl Monk, the Executive Director of the Association of American Law Schools, says, "Physical proximity makes researching employers, interviewing, and so forth easier," a point to keep in mind while reading a catalog's glowing description of nearby wilderness. Besides location, other factors to consider are the size of each school, class size, number of large classes, amount of small-group work, opportunities for independent study, the library and laboratory facilities that will be available to you, and the school's allied institutions. The faculty is especially important. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing believes that two indicators of quality in a doctoral program in nursing are that "Faculty [are] accessible to students to enhance scholarly development" and faculty mentors "socialize students into a career of stimulating and satisfying excellence of inquiry and service." These factors also indicate quality in other programs. Look at the size of the faculty, the student/faculty ratio, the degrees held by the faculty, where their degrees are from, the fellowships they have held, the research they have published, and the kind of nonacademic work they have done_such as industry experience, laboratory research, or judicial clerkships. And look at the opportunities offered students to meet with the faculty out of class or informally. In many fields, individual professors have a great deal to do with the future success of their students. For that reason, the choice of a school may come down to the choice of a professor. As always, one must be careful when making such a decision. Glancing over the visiting writers for a master of fine arts in writing, one sometimes sees the same author listed under two schools. This happens because, with some disregard for truth in advertising, a school may list several celebrities who have been visiting writers in the past rather than listing only the ones who are actually on campus at the moment. If particular faculty members are important to you, find out whether those professors will actually be teaching a class you may enroll in while you are at the school. Some professors only teach doctoral candidates, and most try to take sabbaticals. What It's Like The academic and social atmosphere of an institution is especially difficult to determine, and yet it has a crucial effect on many students. A campus visit is essential. Carl Monk says, "It's very important to spend a day or two at the school sitting in on classes and talking to people in order to get a feel for the institution and the relations of students with faculty and students with each other." Barbara Brookmyer, a medical student on the staff of the American Medical Student Association, notes that being in a place where people are like minded can make medical school a little less onerous. Chuck Hickman also notes that the age and experience of the other students will affect your experience. Even a visit may not convey the feeling of the school accurately, but it will tell you much more than any book, catalog, or video. A visit also enables you to judge class size at first hand. The catalog's description of class size might be low because large classes for first-year students are averaged in with small seminars in the last year. The availability of computers and advanced technology, the quality of the laboratories, the condition of the library and its carrels, and access to clinical facilities can all be judged better on the scene than via catalog. Even before your visit, you will have already learned much from the school's catalog and other publications. For example, the average LSAT score or grade-point average indicates how competitive your fellow students are likely to be. You might also check out the attrition rate as an indicator of student satisfaction. According to the Office of the American Bar Association Consultant on Legal Education, about 4 percent of the law students enrolled in 1991-92 discontinued their studies before the year was out. Attrition rates are much higher in other fields. According to In Pursuit of the PhD, a Mellon Foundation study by William Bowen and Neil Rudenstine, fewer than 60 percent of the English, history, and political science graduate students at four highly regarded universities in the mid- 1970's actually earned doctorates. Personal Factors Finally, you may need to take personal or family considerations into account. A spouse's opportunities for employment, a child's need for medical services, or other concerns might take precedence over any other factors in your particular circumstances. Jackie Rashleger, after stressing the importance of attending a school with an appropriate specialization, suggests that you ask yourself where you would be comfortable. She also points out that family duties might cut into the time available for school or employment. A degree might take longer to earn in such a situation. Some indication of how supportive a school is can be drawn from data on degrees awarded. Degrees awarded is a more meaningful indicator than the number of such students accepted or even enrolled, two other numbers that you are likely to come across. As Barbara Brookmyer says of the graduation rate, "It reflects the philosophy of the program and the administration." Dick Ellis, of the American Association of Engineering Societies, points out that data for engineering schools show that some have clearly been more successful than others at graduating women, members of minority groups, and people with disabilities. For example, Northwestern University has a relatively higher proportion of women who graduate, and people with disabilities make up a relatively larger share of the graduates at the University of Minnesota. Ellis adds, "There is enormous variation in the ability to recruit and graduate students from different groups." One school may have more people skilled at mentoring female students or be more committed to preventing harassment. Another might offer a strong support system through a specialized student organization, such as one for Native Americans, whereas such an organization may be weak or nonexistent at another school. But, whatever the reason for a school's success, you may want to take it into consideration. Other things you may want to check on are student input on committees, universitywide services for health or counseling, and the overriding educational philosophy of the school. In general, however, the university as a whole will be much less important to you than the graduate or professional school you attend. And social amenities are far less important than the academic program. One can imagine the new holder of a bachelor's degree saying that he benefited a great deal from college because of the people he met, the organizations he was a part of, and the new experiences he had, although he did not learn much in class. The holder of a graduate degree who said the same thing would be sadly deluded. Making a Decision Model If you have sorted out what is important to you and gathered all the information available, making a decision model (such as the accompanying one) should prove simple. The decision model is merely a table. Across the top, list the schools you are thinking of applying to. Down the left, list the factors to consider . Next, estimate the importance of each factor. You might begin with verbal statements, such as "very," "most," or "who cares?" But at some point, you need to give a numerical value to each. Is reputation twice as important as cost? Ten times as important? Is one worth a maximum of 20 points and the other only 2? Next, assign a score to each factor for each school. You can guess the last step. Of course, after going through this exercise, you may decide to ignore the results because someone you want to stay close to has just been accepted by a school on the other side of the continent. But at least you'll know the tradeoffs you are making. Doctoral Recipients, 1991 Field Total Percent women All fields 37,451 36.7 Physical sciences 6,276 18.3 Physics and astronomy 1,408 10.7 Chemistry 2,194 23.1 Earth, atmosphere, and marine 837 22.1 Mathematics 1,040 18.6 Computer science 797 14.5 Engineering 5,212 8.7 Life sciences 6,928 38.5 Biological sciences 4,642 37.8 Health sciences 1,049 63.8 Agricultural sciences 1,237 19.8 Social sciences 6,127 49.3 Psychology 3,240 61.2 Anthropology and sociology 806 45.4 Economics 852 20.3 Political science/intel relations 522 27.2 Other social sciences 707 51.0 Humanities 4,094 46.5 History 658 37.5 American/English language/lit 853 56.6 Foreign language and literature 498 60.0 Other humanities 2,085 41.9 Education 6,397 58.1 Business and management 1,164 25.0 Other professional fields 829 41.9 Other fields 81 49.3 Decision Model for Selecting a School Maximum Factor Score School 1 School 2 School 3 School 4 School 5 Suitability of program Placement of graduates Salary of graduates Cost: Tuition Other education Other Reputation or rank Aid Scholarship or grant Assistantship Loans Location Atmosphere Academic: Faculty Library/laboratory Computer facilities Social: Make up of student body Organizations Personal Total Jobs and Ph.D.'s in the Arts and Sciences Associations and accrediting agencies concerned with law, business or management, and the health fields clearly recognize professional employment as the goal of professional school education. As one result of this recognition, the placement of graduates in these fields is closely monitored by various organizations. The employment of recent Ph.D.'s is not watched as carefully. Associations concerned with the arts and sciences often have little current data on the employment of recent graduates. The Modern Language Association_which publishes the single most comprehensive listing of positions for college teachers of English and other modern languages_ has conducted only 8 placement surveys, beginning in the 1970's. Surveys that are conducted often do little more than determine that people are in fact employed, without establishing whether their employment is commensurate with their degrees or even related to their field of study. Even In Pursuit of the PhD, a major study by the Mellon Foundation, skips over the subject of employment, except to note that the poor academic labor market of recent years has evidently led to a reduction in the number of students seeking Ph.D.'s. The Federal Government doesn't provide any help either, for it does not collect employment data that indicate both the nature of the work and the year a graduate degree was awarded, crucial information for determining whether earning a graduate degree is worth the time, effort, and expense involved. As a consequence, prospective graduate students in the sciences and liberal arts have fairly weak information to guide them, some of it indefinite and the rest merely anecdotal. The information that is available points to a shortage of jobs. Some measure of the seriousness of the employment problem of new Ph.D.'s is indicated by statistics from the National Academy of Sciences, which publishes annual reports on doctoral recipients. According to its Summary Report 1991, which appeared in February 1993, about 30 percent of those in the doctoral class of 1990-91 had definite positions for postdoctoral study, were seeking such positions, or were of unknown status; less than half had definite employment prospects; and 20 percent were seeking employment. The percentage seeking employment varied from field to field but was high in all of them: Field of study Percent of 1990-91 doctoral recipients seeking employment in 1992 All fields 20.1 Education 22.1 Engineering 25.0 Humanities 29.5 Life sciences 12.1 Physical sciences 15.1 Social sciences and psychology 22.2 Other professional fields 18.7 These degrees took 6 to 8 years to earn; that's a long time to prepare for unemployment. And yet schools and associations often sound optimistic when describing the employment situation of Ph.D.'s. The Modern Language Association, for example, points to a 5.3 unemployment rate of 1986-87 degree recipients early in 1988, although this rate was not, in fact, significantly lower than the 1988 rate for all members of the labor force ages 25 to 34 (5.4). Schools may be more upbeat than the data appear to warrant. For example, the head of an English department recently reported that all the department's new doctors had been placed by the beginning of the 1992-93 academic year. However, the placements evidently included positions that would not normally require a doctorate in English, judging by the department's newsletter. Looking again at the Modern Language Association's statistics, one notices that while it is true that more than 90 percent of the people awarded Ph.D.'s in English in 1986-87 were employed early in 1988, only 43 percent had tenure-track appointments and more than 15 percent had only part-time or 1-year appointments. One can only speculate as to how they fared when looking for work the next year. In 1991-92, the average job opening listed by the Modern Language Association that was actually filled attracted 100 applicants. One could dismiss the situation in the humanities as being unique. After all, for more than two decades, universities have been producing far larger numbers of humanities Ph.D.'s than were needed. But numerous indicators suggest that Ph.D.'s in the sciences and engineering are also encountering difficulty finding employment. Articles in Chemical and Engineering News, Science, and Bioscience are among the many that speak of job shortages. The October 19, 1992 issue of Chemical and Engineering News makes the point that, "A few years ago, there were warnings of a pending crisis [due to a shortage] in the supply of scientists and engineers. However, today, it is the unemployed and underemployed scientists and engineers who are angry and are experiencing the pain of supply and demand imbalance, not employers looking for workers." The October 1992 issue of Science, which is published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, looks more closely at physicists. Its article, "Physics Famine: A Frenzied Search for Job Stability," discusses the difficulties recent Ph.D.'s have finding permanent positions, requiring that they take at least one and possibly two or more "postdocs," that is, 1-year postdoctoral research positions. The article notes that data from the American Institute of Physics show that "Through the 1980's, the number of permanent jobs fell while the pool of postdocs grew." A sampling of quotations from the same issue's "Postdocs: Tales of Woe From the 'Invisible University'" clearly shows how angry some young scientists are. For example, one says, "Postdocs are rapidly becoming the burger flippers of science; they're cheap, temporary, and highly trained laborers." Another says, "Most of us never realized that one could work hard, contribute to science, do all the 'right' things, and still end up unemployed." A third adds, "It's a pretty bizarre situation when the people doing most of the medical research in this country can't afford health insurance." (According to Science's informal survey, the typical salary for postdoc's was between $20,000 and $25,000 a year; the average salary offer to new college graduates in nursing was $31,731 in 1991-92, according to the College Placement Council.) Judging by data from the National Academy of Science, the picture looks somewhat brighter in the life sciences. The November 1992 issue of Bioscience includes information drawn from a survey conducted by the American Institute of Biological Sciences of its member societies. The agricultural and zoological societies all reported job opportunities as fair to good or excellent, and two of the five botanical societies reported job prospects as good. But it should be noted that even under "good" conditions many new Ph.D.'s are not finding work in their field. One could, of course, hope the job market will soon turn around. For example, Paula E. Stephan, of Georgia State University, and Sharon G. Levin, of the University of Missouri-St. Louis, write, "A wave of faculty retirements starting in the late 1990's will offer a window of opportunity. . . . More faculty jobs will be open. . . ." Certainly, a large number of faculty members in the sciences (and humanities) will become eligible for retirement during the 1990's. However, no one can know for sure the number that will actually retire and be replaced. At present, even a 1 to 1 replacement rate would not suffice to provide all the new Ph.D.'s employment in many fields. Clearly, the question for an applicant to ask is not "Were the graduates working?" People with Ph.D.'s are, after all, qualified for an enormous number of jobs before they become doctoral candidates. One would expect well-educated, highly disciplined people in their late twenties and early thirties to find employment. The question to ask is "What kind of employment did graduates find?" Learning More About Graduate and Professional Schools A great deal of information is available about graduate and professional schools, ranging from simple lists of schools to huge compendiums. The following list has five sections: Associations and accrediting agencies, admissions tests, commercial publications, school rankings, and forums or fairs. The kind of information available from the association, along with title and price information for publications, is included whenever possible. Many of these publications should be available at libraries and career centers. Associations and Accrediting Agencies Business and Management Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) 2400 Broadway Suite 230 Santa Monica, CA 90404 Publications include the following: "MBA Q&A," a 30-page pamphlet with information on the degree, careers, school programs, admission criteria, admission tests, program costs, financial aid, other GMAC publications, order form, forums, and other associations (free). The Official Guide to MBA Programs describes more than 550 programs and discusses the selection of a graduate management school, the application process, financial assistance, and career opportunities in management (1992-94 edition, $13.95). The Official Guide to Financing Your MBA discusses ways to pay for graduate management study, compares financial aid packages, specific schools, total costs, and benefits of attendance (1992-94 edition, $10.95). Dentistry American Association of Dental Schools 1625 Massachusetts Avenue NW., Suite 502 Washington, DC 20036 Publications: Admission Requirements of U.S. and Canadian Dental Schools ($22). Engineering American Association of Engineering Societies 11 19th Street NW., Suite 608 Washington, DC 20036 Publications: Engineering and Technology Degrees (annual, $230) Engineering and Technology Enrollments (annual, $195). Both include data on enrollment and graduation by sex, minority group, and disability. Law Law School Admission Council/Law School Admission Services (LSAC/LSAS) Box 40 661 Penn Street Newtown, PA 18940 Publications: The Official Guide to U.S. Law Schools: Prelaw Handbook, ($14). Send requests to P.O. Box 63, LSAC/LSAS Dept. 0-6. American Bar Association 750 North Lake Shore Drive Chicago, IL 60611 Publications: A Review of Legal Education in the United States_Fall 1991: Law School and Bar Admission Requirements (first copy free; additional copies, $2 each). Medicine Association of American Medical Colleges Division of Communications 2450 N Street NW. Washington, DC 20037-1126 Publications: "Medicine: A Chance To Make a Difference" (free). Medical School Admission Requirements (annual, $7.50). Send requests Attn: Membership and Publication Orders. Nursing American Association of colleges of Nursing 1 Dupont Circle NW., Suite 530 Washington, DC 20036-1120 Publication: Peterson's Guide to Nursing Program, Baccalaureate and Graduate Nursing Education in the U.S. and Canada (available Spring 1994) The Economic Investment in Nursing Education ($3) Enrollment and Graduations in Baccalaureate and Graduate Programs in Nursing ($35, published annually) Veterinary Medicine Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges 1101 Vermont Avenue NW., Suite 710 Washington, DC 20005-3521 Publications: "Information Packet on Veterinary Schools." Admission Tests General GRE Graduate Record Examinations Board Educational Testing Service (ETS) CN 6004 Princeton, NJ 08541-6004 Publications: GRE Registration and Information Bulletin (free). Also provides the Graduate Student Locater Service and Minority Graduate Student Locater Service. These free computer services match prospective students with institutions by factors such as intended major, degree objective, geographic preference, and race or ethnic background. Further information on the service is provided in The Bulletin. Business and Management GMAT Graduate Management Admission Test Educational Testing Service (ETS) CN 6108 Princeton, NJ 08541-6108 Publications and other materials: "The GMAT Bulletin of Information" (free). The Official Guide for GMAT Review includes three complete tests, samples of each question type, test-taking strategies, and math review (1992-94 edition $11.95). The Official Software for GMAT Review, a computerized version of the above, includes interactive tutorials and one actual test different from the one in GMAT Review, (1992-94 edition, $59.95). Dentistry DAT Dental Admission Test Department of Testing Services American Dental Association 211 East Chicago Avenue, Suite 1840 Chicago, IL 60611-2678 Publications: DAT Application and Preparation Materials (free). Law LSAT Law School Admission Test Law School Admission Council and Law School Admission Services LSAC/LSAS P.O. Box 500-57 Newtown, PA 18940 Publications: Registration and Information Book (free) and The Official LSAT Triple Prep ($15). Medicine MCAT Association of American Medical Colleges Attn: Membership and Publication Orders Suite 200 One Dupont Circle NW. Washington, DC 20036 Publication: MCAT Student Manual ($7). Optometry OAT Optometry Admission Testing Program 211 East Chicago Avenue, Suite 1840 Chicago, IL 60611-2678 Publication: OAT Application and Preparation Materials (free). Pharmacy PCAT Pharmacy College Admission Test Psychological Corporation 555 Academic Court San Antonio, TX 78204 Commercial Publications General Index of Majors and Graduate Degrees. New York, NY: The College Board, annual. 1992 edition covers 2,900 colleges, universities, and graduate schools, including 470 master's, 380 doctoral, and 10 professional specialties. Graduate Programs and Admissions Manual. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service, annual, multivolume. Peterson's Guides to Graduate Study. Princeton, NJ: Peterson's Guides, Inc., annual, multivolume. Greene, Howard and Minton, Robert. Beyond the Ivy Wall: 10 Essential Steps to Graduate School Admission. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1989. Law Gillers, Stephen, ed. Looking at Law School: A Student Guide from the Society of American Law Teachers (NY: NAL Books, 1984). Munneke, Gary A., J.D. Barron's Guide to Law Schools, 9th ed. (New York: Barron's Educational Series, Inc., 1990). School Rankings The following magazines regularly publish rankings of graduate and professional schools: Business Week Forbes U.S. News & World Report Forums and Fairs Forums at which representatives from several schools are available to answer questions about their institutions are sponsored by various groups. Among them are the following. Business and Management MBA Forums At each, representatives from 65 or more schools, including faculty, admissions, and financial aid officers, present information. Almost 200 schools participated in the 1991-92 forums, which were attended by more than 12,000 potential applicants for graduate management study. Held in eight American cities, London, Paris, and Yokohama. (Cost: $5.) MBA Forums Graduate Management Admission Council P.O. Box 6106 Princeton, NY 08541-6106 Destination MBA A 3-hour program on the M.B.A. especially for prospective minority students. Sponsored by the Black MBA Association, the National Society of Hispanic MBA's, and the Graduate Management Admission Council. Presented in 10 or so cities annually. (Free.) Destination MBA Graduate Management Admission Council P.O. Box 6108 Princeton, NY 08541-6108 Law Law School Forums Videos concerning legal education, law school admission procedures, and the LSAT are shown. Law Services publications and LSAT preparation materials are available for purchase and admission materials, and catalogs are available from the schools. Representatives of laws school attend each. Held annually in New York, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, and Los Angeles. (Free.) Sponsored by Law Services. Occupational Outlook Quarterly Winter 1993-94 Printer copy date and time printed: January 5, 1994 04:16 PM Occupational Outlook Quarterly Winter 1993-94 Printer copy date and time printed: January 5, 1994 04:16 PM