Do you think this also goes for graduate admissions? What should we anticipate observing if schools were bad at this kind of selection? What would we see if they were good at it?
On the face of it, this strikes me as tough to judge, because if they’re bad at it we should expect to see e. g., people whose abilities within their field are highly apparent to their professors and peers failing to get into programs which people who make a lesser impression on those who know them do get into, but it’s hard to aggregate anecdotes like this to make strong generalizations.
If you could run two academic environments alongside each other, one of which was good at selecting for high aptitude and one of which wasn’t, I expect it would be pretty easy to differentiate between them, but it’s much harder without a basis for comparison.
I’m working largely on the observation that getting a PhD in any field is really very easy. The major barrier seems to be interest. This doesn’t go for all fields, of course. Law is a serious exception. But physics? Mathematics? I lack data here, but I’m skeptical that these are particularly closed academic fields.
I’ve never gotten into a PhD program for either (I’ve never entered a PhD program period, for that matter,) but I don’t share this impression and am curious as to how you formed it.
Even getting into a PhD program in things that we’re inclined to regard as “soft” subjects, such as English, can be quite difficult, since there’s so much competition. “Good enough” means “better than a whole lot of other people who’re also sufficiently invested to apply to the same program.”
Of course, “very easy” is relative, but I think most people would not agree with the assertion that getting a PhD is easy.
I’ve never gotten into a PhD program for either (I’ve never entered a PhD program period, for that matter,) but I don’t share this impression and am curious as to how you formed it.
It’s not based on very much, I admit, beyond talking to some physics and math people I know about graduate school. It is a selection procedure, and it does take some significant work and talent to get in (as well as some luck), but it doesn’t strike me as unreasonably difficult. All the physics and math PhD’s I know seem genuinely (but not off the charts) talented. Many of them have problems finishing their work on time and writing well. Once you’re in the program, getting out the door with a PhD isn’t that hard, since literally everyone making the decision to graduate you wants you to graduate.
What I’m trying to say is that getting a PhD is hard in the way building a nine foot brick wall is hard. There are some basic skills involved, and then it’s mostly just a lot of time and work. It’s not hard like discovering a new proof in geometry is hard. And if you can do the latter kind of work, people are pretty inclined to cut you some slack on the former. My school recently hired a mathematician who earned her PhD at 24, six months after her BA.
Even getting into a PhD program in things that we’re inclined to regard as “soft” subjects, such as English, can be quite difficult,
I’d say these are much, much more difficult to get into. Firstly because there are way more candidates (the negative selection pressures are a lot lower in these fields) and secondly, because it’s not at all clear what talent in these fields looks like, so things are a lot more random.
On the face of it, this strikes me as tough to judge, because if they’re bad at it we should expect to see e. g., people whose abilities within their field are highly apparent to their professors and peers failing to get into programs which people who make a lesser impression on those who know them do get into, but it’s hard to aggregate anecdotes like this to make strong generalizations.
If you could run two academic environments alongside each other, one of which was good at selecting for high aptitude and one of which wasn’t, I expect it would be pretty easy to differentiate between them, but it’s much harder without a basis for comparison.
I’ve never gotten into a PhD program for either (I’ve never entered a PhD program period, for that matter,) but I don’t share this impression and am curious as to how you formed it.
Even getting into a PhD program in things that we’re inclined to regard as “soft” subjects, such as English, can be quite difficult, since there’s so much competition. “Good enough” means “better than a whole lot of other people who’re also sufficiently invested to apply to the same program.”
Of course, “very easy” is relative, but I think most people would not agree with the assertion that getting a PhD is easy.
It’s not based on very much, I admit, beyond talking to some physics and math people I know about graduate school. It is a selection procedure, and it does take some significant work and talent to get in (as well as some luck), but it doesn’t strike me as unreasonably difficult. All the physics and math PhD’s I know seem genuinely (but not off the charts) talented. Many of them have problems finishing their work on time and writing well. Once you’re in the program, getting out the door with a PhD isn’t that hard, since literally everyone making the decision to graduate you wants you to graduate.
What I’m trying to say is that getting a PhD is hard in the way building a nine foot brick wall is hard. There are some basic skills involved, and then it’s mostly just a lot of time and work. It’s not hard like discovering a new proof in geometry is hard. And if you can do the latter kind of work, people are pretty inclined to cut you some slack on the former. My school recently hired a mathematician who earned her PhD at 24, six months after her BA.
I’d say these are much, much more difficult to get into. Firstly because there are way more candidates (the negative selection pressures are a lot lower in these fields) and secondly, because it’s not at all clear what talent in these fields looks like, so things are a lot more random.