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Schools with low graduation rates?

Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 7:44 pm
by deckoff8
I recently got into USC, and am super excited. But, looking at their ranking of PhDs.org, it seems only 32% of their students graduate within 6 years. Is this a major cause for concern? The 2 likeliest reasons for this seem to be either they let in too many students and fail a bunch for quals, or have unhelpful professors, both of which would obvious be bad. Anyone got thoughts?

Re: Schools with low graduation rates?

Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 7:54 pm
by echo
Typically, they will invite you to visit (and reimburse your expenses). Talk to the graduate students there; they will be able to tell you exactly how difficult the qualifying exams, and why people might be dropping out. They can also tell you important things like how many hours you will actually spend TAing (Hint: it's almost never as many hours as it will say on your offer letter). Some of the PhD.'s.org statistics are wrong and often outdated (for example the gender ration in my current program is way off).

Re: Schools with low graduation rates?

Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2012 9:45 pm
by sparkplug
Phd.org is not reliable for those statistics. Nearly all the graduation stats are wrong. They have some masters programs lists as 11 years avg grad time