Cohort size?

[futureapppsy2]

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What's the "standard" size for an incoming PhD cohort? Before April 15th,the program I'm going to be attending estimated their cohort at 8-12. Other schools I interviewed at generally seemed to shoot for cohorts in 8-11 range, some going as low as 6. Eleven or twelve seems a bit on the large size to me, but it didn't seem to be a horribly unusual size. At what point do you think cohort size becomes a concern (laying aside funding issues) in terms of training students?

Just curious.

 

[Psychemout]

From personal experience being located in a rural area field placements or practicum sites were extremely competitive. People were not always able to go to the sites that they wanted or had scrambled for placements... I think that with research it has been my experience that a larger team can have its benefits. Again, I am in a very rural area so take that under consideration.

I think regardless of location, having an advisor with a large number advisees can be pretty brutal.

 

[KillerDiller]

I think it depends largely on the size of the faculty and the availability of supervision at the school's prac sites. I would start to be concerned if a faculty member took more than two students into their lab in a given year, but if a program has a large faculty, can provide funding to everyone, and can oversee the practicums of all of the students, I don't think 11-15 students per year is unreasonable.

 

[thewesternsky]

I was a little surprised at your '8-12' quote; that seems high to me. The schools I interviewed at (in the 2008-2009 round) were aiming for an incoming class of 3-6, for the most part.

I did mostly apply to very research-focused programs at universities, so that may make the difference--perhaps more balanced programs have larger classes? (I'm not sure why that would happen, though. Hm.)

 

[futureapppsy2]

I was a little surprised at your '8-12' quote; that seems high to me. The schools I interviewed at (in the 2008-2009 round) were aiming for an incoming class of 3-6, for the most part.

I did mostly apply to very research-focused programs at universities, so that may make the difference--perhaps more balanced programs have larger classes? (I'm not sure why that would happen, though. Hm.)

Maybe. Also, the programs with 8-12-ish cohorts tend to have larger faculty (7-8 faculty). The program that was aiming for 6-8 only had 4 faculty, so I think that does play a role. I agree, though, that anything in the double digits does seem a bit large.

 

[Ollie123]

We usually take 5-10. I agree that in large part it will depend on how many faculty there are. A program with 5 core faculty taking 15 students is a lot different from a program with 15 core faculty taking 15 students. As previously mentioned, the area also matters since apparently practica can be more competitive in some regions. I imagine it would be pretty miserable to not be able to get experience working with the populations you want to as a grad student because you couldn't get into a practica that did that.

It also varies from year to year. For example, we had an odd year where most faculty were not interested in taking students and had a very small incoming class...the next year was larger to make up for it. I wouldn't worry too much about 12. That should be perfectly manageable. Its a bit larger than average but still within a SD or 2 of the mean😉

Usually when myself or others talk about large class sizes being a concern, we are referring to the schools that have incoming classes anywhere from 25 up to 50-60. I can't imagine that being remotely functional or in any way being in the best interests of the students.

 

[krisrox]

Ny incoming cohort is 11. We're all funded, though, and will be for at least 4 years. The program is large (I'd say we have around 11 faculty), so I'm not concerned.

 

[futureapppsy2]

Well, I found out today my cohort will be ten people. Divided among 7 faculty (plus 3 dual-appointed/clinical faculty), that doesn't seem unreasonable.

Usually when myself or others talk about large class sizes being a concern, we are referring to the schools that have incoming classes anywhere from 25 up to 50-60

Why use 25 as a cut point? Just curious.

 

[Ollie123]

Well, I found out today my cohort will be ten people. Divided among 7 faculty (plus 3 dual-appointed/clinical faculty), that doesn't seem unreasonable.



Why use 25 as a cut point? Just curious.

Its not a hard and fast cut point...the point is we are talking about situations where the students VASTLY outnumber the faculty, risk outnumbering the number of nearby sites that can possibly provide good training, etc.. If you want to make a convincing argument for 23 or 27, I'm all ears😉

I'd say the average is probably 5-10. A bit more or less is not going to raise eyebrows. When it is substantially more, then it does.

 

[futureapppsy2]

Its not a hard and fast cut point...the point is we are talking about situations where the students VASTLY outnumber the faculty, risk outnumbering the number of nearby sites that can possibly provide good training, etc.. If you want to make a convincing argument for 23 or 27, I'm all ears😉

I'd say the average is probably 5-10. A bit more or less is not going to raise eyebrows. When it is substantially more, then it does.

I know. I was just asking more of "why not 15 or 40?" I.e., at what point does the student to faculty ratio or other factors become a concern? Is there more allowable size in larger cities, for example, where there are more practicum sites? Or in more clinically oriented programs? etc.

 

[Wildcat06]

my cohort is 6 (which is big for my program). next year's will be 4. but my program is fully funded, guaranteed for 5 years so they really can't afford any more 🙂

i believe we have 20 clinical faculty so there are many faculty who don't take a student in a given year. and practicum sites aren't much of a problem since we're in a metropolitan area. so i think a small cohort is a huge bonus because of the individual attention. although i certainly didn't feel that way when i was interviewing...

 

[Ollie123]

I know. I was just asking more of "why not 15 or 40?" I.e., at what point does the student to faculty ratio or other factors become a concern? Is there more allowable size in larger cities, for example, where there are more practicum sites? Or in more clinically oriented programs? etc.

Again, there is no magical number here, it depends on the situation. I think a good marker is to look at the success of the students. If the school accepts a lot of students but has a low match rate, students who struggle to find paid post-docs (or any post-doc at all), that is probably a sign that they are taking in more students than they can properly train.

 

[PsychPhDone]

Just a lot of factors. It varies depending on number of faculty, funding availability, admissions (waitlist vs. no waitlist), etc. I'm in a "bigger" cohort and love it.

 

[futureapppsy2]

On a semi-related note, here's some cohort size info from last year's APPIC survey. While I was expecting it to be different, I wasn't expecting it to be this different! Interesting food for thought.

4. Size of doctoral class (i.e., number of students who
began doctoral program in the same year as respondent)

Ph.D. Psy.D.
1 - 10 students 74% 8%
11 - 20 students 17% 21%
21 - 30 students 4% 26%
31 - 40 students 2% 10%
41 - 50 students 2% 9%
51 or more 2% 26%

91% of PhD students have cohorts of 20 or fewer, compared to 29% of PsyD students.

 

[futureapppsy2]

Again, there is no magical number here, it depends on the situation. I think a good marker is to look at the success of the students. If the school accepts a lot of students but has a low match rate, students who struggle to find paid post-docs (or any post-doc at all), that is probably a sign that they are taking in more students than they can properly train.

Yes, student internship/post-doc outcomes does seem like a good outcome "marker."

 

[AcronymAllergy]

Just a lot of factors. It varies depending on number of faculty, funding availability, admissions (waitlist vs. no waitlist), etc. I'm in a "bigger" cohort and love it.

This. It's mainly dependent on the number of faculty in the department, and the availability of funding. Our department currently has 8 clinical faculty "on the books," and the average incoming cohort is right around 11.5. Our internship matching rate, when all is said and done (i.e., after both the standard matching phase and clearing house), is ~94%.

(These numbers are based on data from the 2004-2005 through 2009-2010 academic years)

 

[bmedclinic]

my program takes 6 every year. We have 8 clinical faculty.
We have 7 non-clinical faculty, and a MA in experimental on that side of the department. Apparently the experimental MA program takes 7-8 every year.