Questions to Ask Grad School Programs
Due diligence questions for anyone holding an offer or narrowing a shortlist. These cover what the funding actually pays, how long students really take, what happens when an advising relationship fails, and where recent graduates ended up.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What is the median time to degree for students who finished in the last three years?
Why ask it
Recent medians differ from published targets by a year or more in many departments, and the gap is where debt and lost earnings accumulate. Asking about recent graduates rather than the expectation makes the number difficult to round down.
Of the students who started six years ago, how many have graduated, and what happened to the others?
Why ask it
This is the attrition question in a form that resists softening. Every graduate program knows the answer even when it is not published. Note whether departures are described as the student's choice in every single case.
What exactly does the funding package cover, and which fees would I still owe?
Why ask it
Stipends are often quoted separately from fees, and mandatory charges for health, technology, activity, and registration can consume a noticeable share of a monthly payment. Ask for the annual fee total in dollars rather than a description of coverage.
How do current students afford rent here on this stipend?
Why ask it
Deliberately asks about practice rather than adequacy, so nobody has to defend the figure. Answers involving roommates far into their thirties, long commutes, or second jobs tell you what the stipend really is in that city.
How many hours a week of teaching or lab work does the funding require?
Why ask it
The stated appointment and the actual hours frequently differ, especially for teaching assistants running their own sections. Ask a current student the same question and compare, because the difference is time taken from your own research.
What happens to my funding if I change advisors?
Why ask it
The most important question nobody asks before accepting. Where support is tied to one grant, leaving a bad match can mean losing income, which is why students stay in situations they should leave. Department level guarantees remove that trap.
How are advisors matched with students, and how often does someone switch?
Why ask it
Rotations, first year searches, and admission straight into a lab carry different risks. A program that reports almost no switching is either unusually well matched or quietly discouraging it, and it is worth finding out which.
Where are your last three cohorts of graduates working now?
Why ask it
Ask for employers, not categories. Program level placement rates average across labs with very different records, and a specific recent list is the only version of this answer that cannot be dressed up.
Of the graduates who wanted academic positions, how many got one?
Why ask it
A placement rate that counts all employment obscures this entirely. The denominator matters: those who wanted the job, not those who applied, since many stop applying after a year or two of trying.
What is the qualifying exam, and what happens to someone who fails it?
Why ask it
Policies range from a second attempt to a terminal masters degree to dismissal, and the difference is your risk exposure at year two. Ask how many students failed it in the last five years, not just what the rule says.
Besides my advisor, who reads my work, and when do they get involved?
Why ask it
A committee that first engages at the defense provides no protection against an advisor who is absent or unreasonable. Programs with annual committee meetings catch problems years earlier, and students in them are noticeably less stuck.
How does the department handle a serious conflict between a student and an advisor?
Why ask it
You want to hear about a named person, an ombuds office, or a director of graduate studies with actual authority. If the answer is that people work it out informally, then the student's only real option is leaving.
Is there a written handbook with milestones and deadlines, and may I read it before I decide?
Why ask it
The handbook is the contract, and reading it answers a dozen questions at once: annual review requirements, leave policies, time limits, what happens after funding ends. Reluctance to share it is itself an answer.
What has changed in this program in the last two years?
Why ask it
Surfaces recent departures, funding cuts, curriculum overhauls, and new leadership, none of which appear on a website. A program in the middle of a reorganisation is a different proposition from the one described in the brochure.
How large is a cohort, and do students in it actually work together?
Why ask it
Cohort size shapes daily life more than most applicants expect. Three students means near total dependence on your advisor; thirty means a peer group but more competition for attention. Ask whether they share offices, because proximity is what makes cohorts function.
What does the department pay for beyond the stipend: conference travel, software, moving costs?
Why ask it
These sums are small individually and decisive in aggregate, particularly conference travel, which is how early academic reputation is built. Programs that fund one trip a year are offering something materially different from those that fund none.
What health insurance do students get, and what is the policy on parental or medical leave?
Why ask it
Over five to seven years, illness, caregiving, and births are ordinary rather than hypothetical. Ask whether leave stops the funding clock and the degree clock, because a policy that pauses one and not the other is not much of a policy.
Can students take an outside internship, and has anyone lost funding for doing it?
Why ask it
The written rule and the practice diverge here more than almost anywhere else. Internships are often the deciding factor in landing non academic work, and a department that formally permits them while advisors quietly punish them is worth identifying now.
If I asked three current students what they wish they had known before starting, what would they say?
Why ask it
Phrasing it as a prediction lets faculty be candid without criticising colleagues, and answers tend to be usefully mundane: the cost of housing, the teaching load in year two, how long the exam preparation really takes.
Knowing what you know now, would you choose this program again?
Why ask it
Ask this of students, never of faculty. The hesitation before the answer carries most of the information, and a student who says yes with qualifications is giving you the most honest account of the place you will get.
Evaluating a Graduate Program Before You Commit
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
How to Do the Due Diligence
Ask the Same Three Questions Everywhere
Median time to degree, what happens to funding if you switch advisors, and where the last three cohorts work now. Asking identical questions across programs is the only way to compare them, because each program will otherwise steer you to its own strengths.
Talk to Students Without Faculty Present
Arrange this yourself if the visit schedule does not include it, and ask specifically about the advisor you would work with. Students are usually careful but rarely dishonest, and what they decline to say is legible.
Read the Handbook and the Offer Letter Line by Line
Number of funded years, teaching obligation, fee coverage, insurance, leave, time limits, and annual review requirements. Almost every unpleasant surprise in graduate school is written down somewhere in these two documents before it happens.
Do the Arithmetic on the Stipend
Take the stipend, subtract fees not covered, subtract twelve months of local rent from actual listings, and see what is left. This calculation eliminates more offers than any question about program quality.
Warning Signs Worth Acting On
- Time to degree and attrition figures that nobody can produce, or that arrive only as a range.
- Funding described as typically renewed rather than guaranteed for a stated number of years.
- Current students who are hard to reach, or who are only available with a faculty member present.
- An advisor whose recent students have not graduated, or whose last few left the program entirely.
- Placement described using one exceptional graduate from several years ago.
- Any suggestion that asking about money or outcomes shows the wrong attitude. That reaction predicts how later problems will be handled.
Common Mistakes
Choosing on Rank Alone
Within a field, the advisor and the funding structure predict whether you finish far better than the institution's overall standing. A well ranked department with an absent advisor and no committee oversight is the common shape of a failed doctorate.
Accepting an Unfunded Doctoral Offer
In most research fields, an offer without multi year funding is a signal about how the department ranked you and how it will allocate attention. Self funding a doctorate is a decision to make deliberately, with the arithmetic written down, not out of momentum.
Not Negotiating
With a competing offer in hand, stipend supplements, summer support, moving costs, and reduced first year teaching are all things programs sometimes find. Asking politely and once has little downside and is common practice.
Deciding During the Visit
Visits are designed to persuade and they work. Write your answers down the same evening, then compare programs a week later on time to degree, funding terms, and placement rather than on how the weekend felt.
Two Conversations Worth Planning
With a Prospective Advisor
- 1What are your current students working on, and how far along is each of them?
- 2How often do you meet students individually, and how do you give feedback on writing?
- 3Is your funding secure for the next five years, and what would happen to me if it were not?
- 4Where did your last three students go after finishing?
- 5What do you expect from a student in the first year?
With a Current Student, Alone
- 1How long is this really taking people, and why?
- 2How is your advisor when something goes wrong?
- 3What do you spend on rent, and does the stipend cover the year?
- 4Who has left, and what happened?
- 5Would you choose this program again?