Schools with low graduation rates?

Forum for the GRE subject test in mathematics.
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deckoff8
Posts: 23
Joined: Tue Nov 08, 2011 11:12 am

Schools with low graduation rates?

Post by deckoff8 » Thu Feb 09, 2012 7:44 pm

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?

echo
Posts: 18
Joined: Fri Dec 16, 2011 7:41 pm

Re: Schools with low graduation rates?

Post by echo » Thu Feb 09, 2012 7:54 pm

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 Some of the PhD.'s.org statistics are wrong and often outdated (for example the gender ration in my current program is way off).

sparkplug
Posts: 19
Joined: Wed Feb 01, 2012 5:31 pm

Re: Schools with low graduation rates?

Post by sparkplug » Fri Feb 10, 2012 9:45 pm

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



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