Recruiting Tools and Strategies

ƒ Alternative to Study Abroad A master’s degree lasts only two years and is a structured program that is easy to understand. For students who either studied abroad as undergraduates or who were not able to study abroad, this can be an opportunity to strengthen language abilities and deepen ties to Germany or to get new inter-national experience that will also help their resumes. The master’s is not intimidating, because the requirements are usually clear and English-language master’s programs offer the possibility of learning some German without the necessity of speaking advanced German prior to entry.

ƒ

ƒ Access to German and European Job Market Since the master’s degree is often tied directly to future employment; students who want to differentiate their resume for jobs anywhere in the world may find an international master’s degree attractive. In fields where Germany is a global leader, there is clearly a strong draw to come to Germany for the actual training as well as the impact on future employability. Equally important, students who want to enter the German or European job market may see a master’s as the best way to gain an easily recognized degree and access to a professional network. For fields where this is the case (particularly business), it is important to emphasize internships, connections with well-known firms, and information about where graduates have gone to work.

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ƒ Stepping-stone to PhD There is essentially no option in the US to

“try out” advanced academic research the way you can in a research master’s. Students apply and are accepted to the entire PhD pro-gram, which also represents a six- to eight-year commitment. They only graduate with a master’s degree if they drop out after their coursework is completed in two years, which is not always an easy process. If a student is not quite sure if he or she would like to end with a master’s or go on to a PhD, applying for a research master’s in Germany can be an attractive, low-cost option. The one caveat to this option is that the coursework completed in Germany (or even at another US university) will rarely be accepted for credit toward a PhD in the US.

7.3.2 Recruiting Tools and Strategies

Because, again, nearly every prospective student will visit the program website, it is important that online information be presented in a clear and compelling manner. The information given should be much the same as with the bachelor’s degree (see above), but it is perhaps even more im-portant to emphasize the career pathways after graduation—whether the program leads into a PhD or to employment.

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M a st e r ’s D e g r e e 7

Students in the US tend to work for one or two years before they begin a master’s program, so it can be more difficult to reach them. There are graduate school fairs on campuses held in the fall, and universities see providing information about other graduate programs as an integral part of the service they provide for their students. More information about these fairs is provided in Section 11.3.4 (see below).

Students may also look at online directories for graduate programs.

Listing programs is almost always free, and this is one area where paying for targeted advertising might make sense. MastersPortal.eu reported in December 2009 that it received over 45,000 visits from people in the US and Canada per month (nearly 33,000 from the US alone)—and this is an audience looking specifically for master’s degrees in Europe. Gradschools.

com is another popular US-based directory of graduate programs.

Reaching out to potential students who have already lived in Ger-many also makes a lot of sense. Spending some time to find out which universities send undergraduate students to Germany in fields that relate to the master’s degree can yield multiple benefits. Short programs can be created for undergraduates while they are in Germany to get them inter-ested in returning for a master’s degree. The various alumni organizations for scholarship programs to Germany may have ways to reach their alumni.

Alumniportal-Deutschland.org is an online community for anyone who has studied, worked, or researched in Germany.⁸¹

81 In the interest of full disclosure, the author has served as a consultant to Alumniportal Deutschland.

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8.1 Overview

Nearly 64,000 doctoral degrees were conferred in the US in 2007–08, with the most popular fields being health and education.⁸² It is important to note that perhaps one of the outcomes of having a PhD that encompasses both the coursework of the master’s degree and the research phase is that people rarely undertake this six- to eight-year process without being fairly certain that they want a career in academia. A PhD even has some stigma attached to it (as being, perhaps, a bit esoteric or not focused on real-world issues), and an individual rarely uses the title of “Dr.” unless he or she is a medical doctor. That said, the shrinking number of full-time or tenure-track positions in academia, along with other factors, has led to an increased number of PhDs finding jobs outside of universities and colleges. This is one of the reasons that many universities are placing increased emphasis on “soft” or “transferrable” skills in the curricula of doctoral programs.

There are also some notable exceptions to this rule: in electrical engineer-ing and mathematics, for example, individuals with doctoral degrees have long been in high demand in the financial sector for their advanced quan-titative and modeling skills.

82 National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics 2009, http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d09/tables/dt09_273.asp.

Source: Jaimie Duplass - Fotolia

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8 D o c to r a l D e g r e e 8

0 2,000 4,000 6,000 8,000 10,000 4,059

4,804 5,296

6,918 8,167

8,491 9,886 Health professions and related clinical sciences

Education Engineering and engineering technologies Biological and biomedical sciences Psychology Physical sciences and science technologies Social sciences and history Business

Source: NCES⁸³

8.1.1 Admissions

To apply to a PhD program, a student generally submits recommendation letters, a personal statement or essay, a transcript of previous coursework, and GRE (Graduate Record Examinations) scores, usually for the general test as well as a subject-specific exam. Applications are generally due in De-cember for the following fall, and all students must decide where they will attend by mid-April. This is an important deadline for German universities to note, as this is generally earlier than students can even apply to master’s programs in Germany—and the same students would be either consider-ing a research master’s in Germany or a PhD in the US.

While rankings play a huge role in the decision-making process for under-graduate and many under-graduate degrees, they are less likely to have an influ-ence at the doctoral level. One reason for this is that the most important ranking—that of the National Research Council—comes out only every 10 years. The delays for the current ranking, now set to be released on Sep-tember 28, 2010,⁸⁴ have led to a nearly 15–year gap between published results. Potential doctoral candidates are more likely to rely on the general reputation of the university and on the opinions of their peers and re-spected faculty members and advisors from their undergraduate program.

83 National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics 2009, http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d09/tables/dt09_273.asp.

84 National Research Council, “Report Release Announcement”, Research Doctorate Programs, Board on Higher Education and Workforce website, August 23, 2010,

http://sites.nationalacademies.org/PGA/Resdoc/index.htm Figure 10: Number of Doctoral Degrees Conferred by Field of Study, 2007–08

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