Linnea Ista wrote:
My roommate from grad school and I were talking last night and she
> mentioned that the completion rate for PhD students in my former
> department is less than 50% (this from a professor within that department
> who is on the graduate education committee).
>> Is this unusual?
Seems a tad high to me. Is that every class, or did they just have a
bad
year? (Which happens to all of us). But see comments below...
> Also is it unusual for a department to pass people on comprehensives and
> then later decide that their progress toward their degree is
> insufficient and drop them? I was the first casualty in such a purge a
> few years ago and I am just curious.
I think this depends on how the department is set up. Some
departments are more lenient on admissions, expecting to cull the class
later on; others are very rigorous on who gets in, with the
expectation they will all be able to succeed. Many departments
use the comprehensives as a screening process (which personally I
think is appropriate--rubber stamping students with a pass does no
one any favors later on). Others use comps as a means to determine
minimum competence only; they may intend the inevitable screening
to occur downstream in the meat and potatoes of thesis research.
Overall, I think that attrition at most stages is normal,
and not a bad thing. People change, sometimes they find themselves
in over their heads, or in the wrong field.
Problems come when the students feel that they were lied to, or
treated unfairly, and certainly the system is not perfect.
But it is a hard truth that not everyone qualifies, and admission to a
PhD program is not a promise that one will get the degree.
-- susan
>->->->->->->-><-<-<-<-<-<-<-<-
Susan L Forsburg PhD
MBVL, The Salk Institute
forsburg at salk.eduhttp://flosun.salk.edu/~forsburg
