Questions to Ask PhD Programs
Twenty questions to put to a doctoral program, its faculty and its current students before you accept an offer. They cover what the funding guarantee actually says, attrition and time to completion, how advisors are assigned and changed, authorship and data, leave provision, and where recent graduates went.
The questions
Open any question for the note
How many years of funding am I guaranteed, and what does the guarantee actually say?
Why ask it
Ask for the written terms rather than the number quoted at a visit day. Guarantees are often conditional on satisfactory progress, on teaching availability, or on a grant continuing, and the conditions are where students find themselves unfunded in year five.
Does that funding include summers, tuition, fees and health insurance?
Why ask it
A stipend quoted as an annual figure sometimes covers nine months, with summer support left to individual advisors. Ask what fees you would pay out of the stipend, since mandatory fees can take a noticeable slice of it in some institutions.
What is the stipend, and what does a one-bedroom flat near campus cost?
Why ask it
Put the two numbers side by side while you are still on the visit, and ask current students what proportion of their stipend goes on rent. A generous-sounding stipend in an expensive city can leave less to live on than a modest one elsewhere.
Is the funding tied to teaching or to a grant, and how many hours a week does that take?
Why ask it
Teaching assistantships are frequently described as twenty hours and run considerably longer in a marking week. Ask students what the load looks like in the worst month of the semester, not what the appointment letter says.
What is the median time to completion here?
Why ask it
Ask for the median rather than the typical or expected figure, and ask for it by department rather than by university. A gap of two years between the advertised length and the median is common and tells you how the last part of the degree is really funded.
Of the students who started five years ago, how many are still here and how many left?
Why ask it
This is the attrition question that actually gets answered, because it asks about a specific cohort. Departments rarely publish the figure, and current students usually know it precisely, including why each person left.
What happens in the year after funding runs out if I am not finished?
Why ask it
There is usually an informal answer: adjunct teaching, a research assistantship, an unfunded writing year, or moving away and finishing remotely. Knowing which pattern this department follows tells you a great deal about the end of the degree.
How is an advisor chosen, and how easily can a student change?
Why ask it
Some programs admit you to a lab, some rotate you for a year, and some leave you to find someone. Each has consequences: admission to a lab means your funding and your project are tied to one person from the start.
Has anyone changed advisors recently, and did their funding move with them?
Why ask it
The policy always permits a change; the practice is what matters. Ask current students whether the person who moved lost a year, kept their stipend, and is still on good terms with the department.
How often does my prospective advisor meet students, and is that one to one or as a group?
Why ask it
Ask the students, not the advisor. Weekly individual meetings and a monthly group meeting produce very different degrees, and neither style is wrong, but a mismatch with how you work is the most common reason a doctorate goes badly.
How many students does that advisor have now, and where did their last three graduates go?
Why ask it
An advisor with eleven students has limited attention to distribute; one with none has no track record you can inspect. The destinations of recent graduates are the most direct evidence available of what this person's supervision leads to.
Is my prospective advisor going up for tenure, going on leave, or approaching retirement?
Why ask it
All three change your next five years, and none is likely to be volunteered. A pre-tenure advisor may be intensely engaged and may also leave; an advisor retiring in three years may not be able to see you through to the end.
What happens to my project if their grant is not renewed?
Why ask it
In grant-funded fields this is the ordinary risk of the degree, not a remote possibility. Ask what the department does for students in that position and whether it has happened in the last few years.
Would my dissertation be my own project or part of an existing grant, and who holds the data?
Why ask it
Working on a funded project brings resources and a narrower question that is not yours to redirect. Ask what you could take with you: the data, the code, the samples, the right to publish after you leave.
How does authorship get decided in this group?
Why ask it
Practice varies by field and by laboratory, and disputes over order are among the most common serious grievances doctoral students report. Ask for the convention here and ask a senior student whether it is followed in practice.
What are the qualifying exams, and when did someone last fail?
Why ask it
Format matters less than the failure rate and what follows a failure: a second attempt, a masters exit, or departure. Departments where nobody has failed in a decade are either selective at admission or using the exam as a formality.
What are parental leave, sick leave and mental health provision like for students here?
Why ask it
Doctoral students are often neither employees nor covered by staff policy, so the answer can be that there is no formal provision at all. Ask what happened for the last student who had a baby or a long illness, which is the only answer that means anything.
Is there a graduate union here, and what does the contract cover?
Why ask it
Where students are unionised, pay, grievance procedures and workload limits are written down and enforceable, which changes what promises are worth. If there is no union, ask who a student goes to when the problem is their advisor.
Where did the last five graduates of this program actually end up?
Why ask it
Ask for roles and employers, not categories. Placement pages list successes and omit the people who left academia quietly, and a program that cannot name the last five is telling you something about how it tracks its own students.
What do students here complain about, and what has been changed in response?
Why ask it
Ask this of a fourth or fifth year student rather than a first year, and ask it away from faculty. The second half separates a department that hears complaints from one that merely collects them.
Choosing between doctoral programs
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before the visit or interview
- Read three recent papers from the group you would join, including the acknowledgements and author lists. That tells you who does what and who is funded by whom.
- Look up the last five years of graduates from that lab or supervisor and see where they are now. This is public and takes twenty minutes.
- Check the department handbook for the formal requirements, milestones and timelines, and bring any question the handbook does not answer.
- Work out your own cost of living for that city before you arrive, so you can test the stipend against a number rather than a feeling.
- Write down the two things that would make you leave a program. Those are the questions to ask first, not last.
Who to ask which question
Your prospective advisor
Project scope, expectations, meeting frequency, funding source, plans for leave or sabbatical. Ask what they expect a student to have achieved by the end of year two, and listen for whether the answer is about output or about training.
Senior students in the group
The questions with uncomfortable answers: hours, feedback, authorship, what happens when the advisor disagrees with you. Fourth and fifth year students have seen the whole arc and have less to lose than a first year on a recruitment panel.
Students in other groups
Ask about the department's reputation for your prospective advisor, since people are usually franker about a colleague's lab than their own. Also ask what the department does when a supervision relationship breaks down.
The graduate coordinator or director
Written policy: funding terms, milestone deadlines, leave provision, what happens after guaranteed funding ends. These are administrative facts and you should get them in writing.
Recent graduates
Email two or three who have left. They will tell you how the last two years went and whether the department stayed in touch, and they have no stake in your decision.
How the country changes the questions
- In the United States, most doctorates include two or more years of coursework, qualifying exams and teaching duties, and funding is usually a package tied to teaching or a grant. Ask about the exam, the teaching load and the summer.
- In the United Kingdom, programs are shorter, structured around a supervisor and a defined project, and funding may be a three or three and a half year studentship. Ask what happens in a fourth year and whether writing up is funded.
- In much of continental Europe, doctoral candidates are employed on contracts with salary, pension and leave. Ask about the contract length, renewal conditions and whether teaching is included.
- For international applicants anywhere, ask how a visa is tied to enrolment and funding, what happens during a leave of absence, and whether dependants can accompany you and work.
- Ask what tax you will pay on the stipend. A fellowship and a salaried contract can be taxed quite differently for the same headline figure.
Signs to weigh heavily
- Reluctance to say how many students left in the last five years, or an answer that only names the ones who succeeded.
- Current students who cannot be spoken to alone, or who all give the same answer about the same advisor.
- A funding guarantee that exists only in conversation, with no written statement of length or conditions.
- An advisor who describes the project entirely in terms of what they need done.
- Vagueness about authorship, or a recent dispute that everyone declines to discuss.
- Students routinely finishing two or more years beyond the funded period, described as normal in this field.
Comparing offers
- Score each offer on funded years, stipend against local rent, teaching load, advisor availability and graduate destinations. Prestige tends to move ranks less than any of those once you write them down.
- Weigh the advisor above the department and the department above the institution, since most of your daily experience comes from one person and one group.
- Ask each program to put the funding terms in writing before you decide, and ask for an extension if a deadline is forcing a choice before you have that.
- Talk to someone who left a doctorate, not only to people who finished one. It is the most useful conversation available and the one almost nobody has.
- Decide what would make you leave, and write it down before you start. It is much harder to judge from inside year four.