Reality: Ultimately, between two-thirds and three-quarters of Yale College graduates will go on for some kind of advanced degree, but it has never been a universal activity. The question really depends upon two criteria: is it necessary; and how much do you want to do it?
If an advanced degree is essential to obtain a position, pursue a particular job, or secure advancement, then a graduate may decide to pursue an advanced degree for these reasons. Equally, a graduate may decide to pursue an advanced degree because he or she is simply interested in the subject matter. These two need not, of course, be mutually exclusive.
At the same time, there are plenty of Yale alumni who decide not to go on for an advanced degree. They may not consider it necessary. They may not be inclined to want to do it. They may be incredibly successful without it. Whatever their logic, this is an individual decision and students would be well-advised to reflect on their own motivations for pursuing an advanced degree, together with an assessment of the opportunity cost, before launching themselves in this direction. Particularly so, if they are simply doing it because they think it is ‘expected’ of them, or that it is “what everyone else does.” It is not.
Reality: Not necessarily, and in some fields it may be almost impossible! Although numbers can fluctuate, often based on the state of the economy, we typically see about 25% of a class continuing straight on to graduate or professional school opportunities. However, within a five-year period of graduating, that number is more like 70%.
There are many reasons for this. Some students want to gain experience in a field first in order to be sure that the field they are committing themselves to is the one they truly want. Others tell us they need an academic break, after being in school for 17 years. Still others find that they need to acquire additional skills, or strengthen their applications through more course preparation, in order to secure positions at the schools of their choice.
Whatever the reason, the essential matter is that this is an individual decision. As such, it is very important to discuss one’s plans with a counselor and, in an academic discipline, with the appropriate faculty members at Yale. This allows us to help students to present themselves at the right time, with the strongest portfolio, and in possession of a thorough knowledge of what is required of them in this process as well as what they might expect to get out of it at the end.
Reality: While some students fall back on this strategy, especially in a ‘down’ economy, this is an extremely poor approach.
It requires work and effort to figure out what one wants to do- not just more time in a classroom or library. In time, more schooling may be required or desirable, but it is a wholly inadequate substitute for giving significant time and thought to the principal problem: what do you want to do? Several more years in a university may well produce no change in the answer to that question. Every year we encounter people with impressive credentials who still do not know what they truly want to do. Sometimes they may describe themselves as “more marketable” but, in reality, they are not any more marketable if they do not know the market in which they would like to position themselves!
As to the ‘down’ economy argument, the reality is that in any economy there are good jobs to be had. One must work much harder to identify and secure them, but they are there. Our students often forget how desirable they are to employers, how much their Yale education is valued by the outside world, and how competitive they are. They forget that they beat out 20,000+ other applicants to even get in to Yale. While high unemployment can be daunting, and the media barrage tends to promote little but bad news, for our students who seriously engage with the job-hunt process, we should expect a positive outcome in the vast majority of cases. As such, retreating to graduate school to ‘wait out the storm’ is an unnecessary, and sometimes counterproductive, strategy.
