This feature story comes from something I noticed in Survey of Earned Doctorates data: Black PhD recipients in the life sciences are more likely to have a master’s degree before enrolling in doctoral programs than their peers of other races. #BLACKandSTEM asbmb.org/asbmb-today/ca…
I have a LOT more to say about this, including lots of bonus data that didn’t make it into the feature, so here comes a twitter tree.
Read this thread if you aren’t convinced that black PhD recipients in biomedicine are more likely than their peers from other races to earn a master’s first.
Read this thread if you want to hear about what a lot of brilliant #BlackandSTEM experts had to say about potential causes for the discrepancy.
Why are Black students more likely to earn an M.S. before the Ph.D.? Short answer: We don’t know. Longer answer: We don’t know, but some really smart experts have some hypotheses…
First of all, the life-path experts: current students. Of the 3 #blackandSTEM Ph.D. students I spoke to who had earned an MS before starting their doctoral programs, two had gone for the MS without really being aware of the PhD as a career path.
They found out about the possibility of a research career during their master's studies. To me, that's a success story.
(Meanwhile, of the 2 who went straight to Ph.D. programs, both now Drs, each learned during college that she didn’t need an MS to apply to Ph.D. programs – one from her PI and one at @ABRCMS)
Beyond those anecdotes, what do experts think is causing Black students to go master’s-first more often on the population level?
.@averyxaugust pointed out that a lot of URM students whom he advises don’t know that (1) you don’t need a master’s first and (2) PhD programs in biomedicine tend to be fully funded.
.@KennyGibbsPhD of NIGMS said, “As a professional black person, it’s not uncommon to hear you have to be twice as good to get the same results as people from majority backgrounds.” He said that might motivate people to rack up credentials, even if (he thinks) they're not needed.
Rick McGee of Northwestern has worked a lot with students who don't feel ready to apply for a Ph.D. program, so go with a postbac first. He told me, “Your confidence, your self-image, your self-efficacy...
… all this stuff is going to be bolstered at each step along the way (as) you get more data to counter the narrative that ‘I don’t belong here.’” Read his qualitative research for more on students' decisions to take an intermediate step.
A lot of experts focused on admissions-committee factors.
.@doctorkag pointed out that most white Ph.D. recipients went to an R1 university for college, whereas many black Ph.D. recipients went to an HBCU. HBCUs are rightly famous for being great at preparing their students for future academic success.
But, if your research experience only “counts” to an admissions committee if you did it in a lab with a national profile, not being at an R1 may hurt your chances.
Marenda Wilson-Pham points out the importance of homophily, or like-me bias. “If I have to bet on which person is going to succeed, it’s this person that looks just like me — because I succeeded.”
This is extra concerning if the committee is mostly white or male (or both).
This is extra concerning if the committee is mostly white or male (or both).
I didn’t get to talk to @JuliePosselt, but she literally wrote the book on graduate admissions in STEM (it was her thesis). You can read more on how committees work & what pressures they're under in her work.
Keivan Stassun is a loud voice in the #GRExit movement, and he pointed out the well-studied disparities in test scores by race and gender. URM students, including black students, score lower on the GRE on average.
For a student who is refused admission to PhD programs, Stassun added, a master’s or bridge program becomes something like an opportunity to prove themselves.
To that point, @DrLaRuth said she’d seen applicants who wanted a doctorate get invited to earn a master’s instead, at the same department. These are typically funded opportunities. (Marenda Wilson-Pham said she’d seen the same thing).
Does this happen more often to URM students? Don’t know. No data.
Other students may be rejected outright, and find their way to a master’s program on their own as a fallback plan.
Finally, @suzannebarbour5 pointed out that whenever we talk about representation among ECRs, it's important to remember that URM Ph.D.s disproportionately end up outside of academia. So we've got to think about climate retention as well.
