Your humble bloggers here at Cosmic Variance have spent quite a bit of accumulated time in academic and research settings — in fact, my guess is that none of us have spent an entire year away from such a setting since the age of about six or so. That’s a lot of accumulated wisdom right there, and it’s about time we started sharing it. Since it’s that time of year when applications are being sent off to graduate schools, I thought I would start off by letting everyone in on the secret to how to get accepted everywhere you apply. Of course I can only speak for physics/astronomy departments, but the basic lessons should be widely applicable. [Update: see also Choosing a Graduate School and How to Be a Good Graduate Student.]
So, here goes: have great grades, perfect GRE scores, significant research experience, and off-scale letters of recommendation. Any questions?
If, perhaps, it’s a bit too late to put that plan into action, here are some personal answers to questions that come up during the process. Co-bloggers (and anyone else) are free to chime in with their own take on these complicated issues. Keep in mind that every person is different, as is every grad school — in fact, specific schools might behave quite differently from year to year as different people serve on the admissions committee. Don’t sink your sense of self-worth into how you do on these applications; there’s a strong random component in the decisions, and there are a very large number of good schools where you can have a fun and successful graduate career.
- What do graduate school admissions committees look at?
Everything. Keep in mind that, unlike being admitted to college (undergrad), at the grad school level the admissions are done by individual departments, with committees comprised of faculty members with different kinds of expertise, and often students as well. They’ll look at your whole application, and in my experience they really take the responsibility seriously, poring over a huge number of applications to make some hard decisions. Still, it’s well-known that careful examination of a thick file of papers is no substitute for five minutes of talking to someone, which schools usually don’t have the luxury of doing, so decisions are always somewhat fickle. - Even my personal essay?
Well, okay. I wouldn’t sweat the personal essay; in my experience it doesn’t have too much impact. Let’s put it this way: an incredibly good essay could help you, but a bad essay won’t do too much harm (unless it’s really bad). To a good approximation, all these essays sound alike after a while; it’s quite difficult to be original and inspiring in that format. - Are GRE scores important?
Yes. At least, in the following sense: while bad GRE’s won’t kill your chances, good GRE’s make it much easier to admit you. (We’re speaking of the Physics GRE, of course; the general tests are completely irrelevant.) It stands to reason: given two applicants from similar schools with similar grades and interests, there’s no reason for a department to choose the student with lower GRE scores. At the same time, you can certainly overcome sub-par GRE’s by being outstanding in other areas; this is particularly true for students who want to do experiment. I know at Chicago that we let in students with quite a range of scores. - What about research experience?
Research can be a big help, although it’s by no means absolutely necessary. These days it seems that more and more undergrads are doing research, to the point where it begins to look unusual when people haven’t done any. There is some danger that people think you must want to keep on doing the kind of research that you did as an undergrad, although I wouldn’t worry too much about that. Mostly it shows some initiative and passion for the field. It can be very difficult to do theoretical research as an undergrad, but that’s okay; even if you eventually want to be a string theorist, it’s still great experience to do some experimental work as an undergrad (in fact, perhaps it’s especially useful). - How do I get good letters of recommendation?
It’s more important to have letters from people who know you well than from people who are well-known themselves. One of the best side benefits of doing research is that you can get your supervisor (who hopefully has interacted with you quite a bit) to write letters for you. It’s really hard to write a good letter for a student who you only know because they took one class from you a year or two ago. Over the course of your undergrad career, you should find some way to strike up a personal relationship with one or more faculty members, if only to sit in their office now and then and ask some physics questions. Then they can write a much more personal and effective letter. Of course, if you are just a bad person who annoys everyone, it would be just as well to stay hidden. (Kidding!) - Is it true that the standards are different for theorists and experimenters?
Typically, yes, although it might be different from place to place. Because a lot of undergrads haven’t been exposed to a wide range of physics research, a large number of them want to be Richard Feynman or Stephen Hawking or Ed Witten. Which is great, since we need more people like that. But even more, we need really good experimenters. Generally the ratio of applicants to available slots is appreciably larger for theorists than for experimenters, and schools do take this into account. Also, of course, the standards are a little different: GRE’s count more for prospective theorists, and research experience counts more for prospective experimenters. And let’s be honest: many schools will accept more prospective theorists than they can possible find advisors for, in the hopes of steering them into experiment once they arrive. - So should I claim to be interested in experiment, even if I’m not?
No. Think about it: given that schools already tend to accept more students who want to do theory than they can take care of, what are your chances of getting a good advisor if you sneak into a department under false pretenses and have to compete with others who came in with better preparation? It makes much more sense to go someplace where they really want you for who you are, and work hard to flourish once you get there. - Do I need to know exactly what I will specialize in?
Not really, although in certain circumstances it can help. Professors like to know that someone is interested in their own area of research, and might push a little harder to accept someone whose interest overlaps with their work; on the other hand, most people understand that you don’t know everything after three and a half years of being an undergraduate, and it can take time to choose a specialization. In particular, at most American physics departments (unlike other countries and some other disciplines), it is generally not expected that you need to know ahead of time who your advisor will be when you arrive, or which “group” you will work in. - Should I contact faculty members individually if I’m interested in their research?
That depends, mostly on whether the person you are contemplating contacting is desperate for more grad students, or is overwhelmed with too many requests as it is. In popular areas (ahem, like theoretical particle physics, string theory, and cosmology), there are generally more applicants than departments have advisors for. In that case, most people who receive random emails from undergraduates will just urge them to wait for the admissions process to take its course; remember that it’s a zero-sum game, and for everyone who gets in there’s someone else who doesn’t, and it would be a little unfair to penalize those applicants who didn’t contact faculty members personally. On the other hand, if you have reason to believe that someone you’re interested in working with is trying to get more students, or if you think your case is somehow unique and requires a bit of attention, feel free to email the appropriate faculty member with a polite inquiry. The worst that can happen is that you get a brush-off; I can’t imagine it would actually hurt your chances. - Is my life over if I don’t get into my top grad school?
Yes. Well, only if you let it be. The truth is, how you do in grad school and beyond (including how you do on the postdoc and faculty job market) depends much more on you than it does on where you go to school. In the next episode of “unsolicited advice,” we’ll think about how to actually choose where to go, including how to get the most out of visiting different schools.
Actually this episode was not completely unsolicited; thanks to Philip Tanedo for suggesting we share some of our invaluable insight. See, sometimes we really do listen.
Hey Sean 🙂
After what you write, on the time needed. It sounds like a bad idea for me to do PhD in the US, since I could get it here in something around 3 years. And it would be a lot cheaper, as far as I understand graduate education (you still pay tuition fees, and it is not completly sure you get support).
I would still like to spend a part of my life in the US. Just when, all options till now always seem so expensive. 😉
Helge
P.S. Smilies are not rendered in the preview.
Helge, it would likely be slower in the U.S., but not more expensive. You almost never really pay tuition fees; they will be paid by a research assistantship, teaching assistantship, or a fellowship. Of course you need to be sure that you get such support, but it is standard, not the exception.
Statistics on PhD employment “one-year out” from AIP:
http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/reports/fall2005c.pdf
Of the 1100 PhDs granted in 2002/2003 in the US:
* 11% left the US
* 25% took “potentially permanet positions”, 3/4 in the private sector.
* 56% took postdoc positions
* 6% took “other temporary positions”, 3/4 in academia
* 2% were “unemployed the winter after they took their degree”
Only 75 of the 980 students who stayed in the US found “potentially permanet positions” in academia immediately after earning the PhD. Here “academia” covers “universities, 4-year and 2-year colleges”. Even if all of these were tenure-track positions (which they certiainly all werent’) this is less than 10%.
I looked for numbers on what the situation is 4, 6, 8 years after the PhD, but didn’t find anything.
Anonymous (#47). I still disagree. I’ve never seen the Ph.D. institution come in even at that stage. Typically, committee members not in the area of hiring will defer to those committee members who are in that area, at the early stages. If a university is looking for a theoretical particle cosmologist (say), and an established particle cosmologist (say) is on the committee, then if that person doesn’t know your work – that is a problem. If they do know your work, that and your letters will be what matters.
I suppose that people from lesser known universities should apply for faculty positions to Mark’s school and not to mine. 😉
Your example of theoretical particle cosmology is atypical, in that this is a very small field, and you are likely to know anyone of interest personally. In other fields such as experimental condensed matter physics or experimental particle physics, most of the interesting candidates will be people that even the experts on the committee might never have heard of. In this case, coming from a brand-name school can give you an edge, although I will certainly agree that it won’t make up for a weak research record or letters. (On the other hand, a strong research record and good letters certainly can make up for coming from a lesser-known school—we’re talking about PhD school as one factor among many, not as a determining factor) As much as we might wish that school bias doesn’t happen, I’m telling you empathically that it is present, and I think it’s better to recognize that fact than to pretend it doesn’t matter.
Would you really maintain that what school you went to has NO impact on how your application is perceived? If so, how do you reconcile that with the academic pedigrees of the large majority of your colleagues?
Goodstein’s article “Inside Science” is also relevant to the issues Dissident raises.
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/science_art.html
#50 Dissident: If everyone smart enough to complete a PhD was allowed to and then employed by academia, I suppose after a while we’d reach a balance where a professor has on average one PhD student. I guess that would be every physics nerd’s dream society. Of course, it’s not happening. Seems to instead be common to just tell students that there will be an increasing demand of science majors, when in reality there won’t be, just so that when they get to select who gets to succeed within academia, they have a lot of choice. It all seems to be very much about luck and very different from the fairytales we’re fed from the media, be that underdog stories such as Einstein’s or more straight-to-the-top-stories like Feynman’s.
Btw, how come you’re the dissident? Someone who got fed up with the system and got into industry instead? A disgruntled graduate student? What? 🙂
Let me try to expand on some of the things that have been swirling around here.
If most physics Ph.D’s don’t go on to research careers, then the important thing is to focus on your well-being in graduate school, rather than on some long-delayed future academic job. That means you should select advisors on the basis of whether it will be enjoyable and fulfilling to work for them, and whether they will help you get a non-academic job once you get out of grad school.
There is also the question of money. Since a Physics Ph.D. does translate into a higher salary, it makes sense to get one. However, while in grad school you are typically paid extremely poorly, and have less freedom to pick the problems you want to work on than you would later.
If we run the statistics, the smart thing to do is pick a subfield and professor that will translate into a good non-academic job once you get out. This analysis also implies that you should stay in grad school only as long as you enjoy it. The minute you find yourself wanting more money or responsibility or security, you should buckle down, write the thesis, and get out of there.
This isn’t the way grad school is explained to most undergrads. If anything, the less time you spend in grad school, the better, because you can do everything you wanted to do in grad school as a postdoc, being paid better with more responsibility and higher status. This is most clearly shown in the British system, where Ph.D. take three or four years, as opposed to the American five or six. Now, I would agree that American Ph.D.s are better prepared for physics research than their British counterparts, but that doesn’t matter much if you aren’t doing physics research, which is true of most.
There is one final thing to consider. The long road of grad school followed by multiple postdocs, each in a different place, takes a heavy toll on personal relationships. The system is set up for semi-celibate men with stay-at-home wives. That’s harder to convince people to enter into nowadays on a physicist’s salary. Divorce rates are high among physics professors, as far as I can tell. Others put off marriage and children indefinitely while looking for a job. Look at the contributors to this site (I apologize in advance for any mistakes here):
Joanne: late thirties, married, kids, moved twice after her Ph.D.
Mark: late thirties, married, no kids, moved three times after his Ph.D., also moved to a new country for his Ph.D.
Clifford: late thirties (as far as I can tell), unmarried, no kids, moved at least three times after his Ph.D. including back and forth to England
Sean: late thirties, unmarried, no kids, moved three times after his Ph.D., soon to move again after the recent tenure decision
Risa: early thirties, unmarried, no kids, moved twice after her Ph.D. in 2001 and will likely move again after her Hubble Fellowship is over.
So that is what being a very successful physicist is like. (I would characterize everyone on Cosmic Variance as a very successful physicist.) You are more unlikely to be married than not in your thirties, you are unlikely to have children, you have had to move around a lot since your Ph.D., possibly to other countries. You may in fact think that this sounds like a great lifestyle, and it might be for you. But you should go into this with your eyes open.
Presumably you mean OR those with stay at home wives? Even assistant professors are let out of the office every now and then.
I think what you have really proved is that blogging is the province of the childless, if not the single. Too much time on their hands (ducks for cover).
More generally though, I think the arbitrariness of the job market (and the multiple moves it frequently entails, which are disruptive to social networks and families) is the bane of the young academic’s life. On the one hand, my post-doctoral career gave me the chance to live in both New York and Tokyo, two cities that I love, but would not want to spend my whole life in. On the other hand, you definitely reach a point in your life where you want to know you will not need to move in three years’ time.
Like many young professionals, I suspect that the average age at which academics have children is increasing and sooner or later this runs into the limits of human biology (especially for women in the field). However, I am not aware that physicists divorce at a higher rate than, say, lawyers or doctors. If anything I would guess that the rate was lower.
It is easy to make cynical arguments about academia, and they all contain a grain of truth. However, if you can point to some line of work that is well paid, free of extraneous personality politics, low stress, stimulating, and involves a 35 hour work week, I would very much like to know what it is. It is reminiscent of the old saw about democracy — it is a terrible system, but better than anything else we have tried.
“It all seems to be very much about luck and very different from the fairytales we’re fed from the media”
Is it really all about luck? Maybe an analogy to professional sports is helpful.
Consider baseball. Every player in MLB is a *much* better baseball player than 99% of the population. But even among MLB players there is a wide range of ability. Manny Ramirez is much more valuable to your team than Tony Womack, despite the fact that Womack is a tremendous athlete and would dominate any recreational baseball leage he played in.
MLB has a highly effective system in place to identify the best players and promote them. You will not find any players who failed to make it out of AAA, and for whom an argument could be made that they could have contributed at the level of a Manny Ramirez “if only they had the chance”.
On the other hand, there are plenty of players in AAA who are just as good as the weakest MLB players, and quite a few who could probably be average MLB players, but never stuck in MLB. For this caliber of player, there is going to be an element of luck, or personality, or other factors other than skill that determine who makes it to MLB.
So all of those with truly exceptional levels of talent make it to the big show. For those with “replacement level” skills – i.e., those as good as the average AAA player – it’s a crapshoot. If everything goes right, you get to play MLB. Otherwise, it’s the AAA bus for you.
Would physics (and science in general) work in a similar way? Steven Weinberg is a much more productive researcher than Joe Average physicist at a typical university, despite the fact that Joe Average is still a very smart guy, and much better at doing research than your average tax accountant (who isn’t exactly stupid himself). Does anyone really think that there are researchers of the same caliber as Weinberg who are somehow unlucky and fail to find tenure-track research positions?
Given the enormous advances made by physics over the last century, it’s hard to believe that there are. I mean, we’re doing pretty good already with this system – how much better can we reasonably expect to do?
But luck can still be an important factor for Joe Average! For every Weinberg there are hundreds (thousands?) of Joe Averages, so that’s where the competition is fiercest. Since there aren’t enough positions for all the Joes, and since the differences among them are fairly small (especially compared to their collective difference from Weinberg), there could be a large element of luck in who gets the prize. That sucks for us Joe’s, but I’m not sure that there is ever going to be a solution for that problem.
“Does anyone really think that there are researchers of the same caliber as Weinberg who are somehow unlucky and fail to find tenure-track research positions?”
An interesting question, and probably not as clear-cut as you may think. Einstein clearly managed without the support of academia. If his personality would have been different and he’d been more prone to give up, who knows…?
There really should be some version of Godwin law about Einstein myths when discussing the flesh and blood realities of acedemia.
I am puzzled by the direction the discussion took, I don’t see anywhere in Sean’s post anything promoting the idea of going to gradaute school, just good advice for those who make that choice.
#48 and #51 Helge and Sean:
Helge:I support your idea to stay in Europe for your PhD. Gather your information and ask alot of questions of US schools, if you want to be sure, but I think that you will still have a loan to pay off at the end, which is the last thing you need with which to begin a new scientific (postdoc) life. I chose to go (from the US) to Germany for my PhD because not only was the researcher who I wanted to work with located in that country, but the PhD education was free and the time for the degree was strictly limited to three years. For me, it was a win-win situation to get the PhD degree (Note: I moved to Europe with an M.S.Physics degree already, so it was simple to embed myself in the German university system).
amara,
When you applied to US grad school, did you apply planning to only get MS? Or did you apply for PhD and then leave after the MS?
Moshe, you should know that people want to ride their hobby horses, not talk about the subject of the post. But the detour into the age and marital status of the CV bloggers was a little bizarre, I have to admit.
For any impressionable young folks still reading: please understand that it’s the internet, anyone is allowed to comment, but not everyone knows what they are talking about.
True: Scientific research, and academia more generally, is an incredibly demanding profession, demanding years of work and considerable personal sacrifice in the name of an uncertain future. Many more people get Ph.D.’s than get faculty jobs, as anyone with thirty seconds of contemplation and a small dose of common sense can figure out. A typical career track is quite unpredictable and can be very stressful; more so than it needs to be, in my own opinion, but we haven’t yet progressed as a society to the point where my opinions automatically become law.
False: Graduate school is an embittering and slave-like existence, and if you don’t land a great job you’ll be washing floors for those that do. Sorry, that’s just not right. I’m sure there are plenty of embittered grad students, but there are quite a few people who look back at those years as some of their best. And, at least in physics, the rule of thumb is that you either get a postdoc, or a job out of the field that pays at least twice as well. Not without exception, but usually.
True: Studying the secrets of the universe for a living is a wonderful and unique occupation; that’s why so many people want to do it. I don’t go around encouraging people to go to grad school if they don’t want to, quite the opposite — I think you shouldn’t go to grad school unless you are passionate about the material for its own sake, and aren’t too focused narrowly on careerist objectives. We don’t need more physics grad students, but we would love to have more good ones, and would be especially happy to have more people who can appreciate the beauty of the natural world while remaining interested in other things as well.
Moral: Don’t go to grad school if you aren’t thrilled at the prospect. But if you are, don’t let the tiresome naysayers get you down. It’s an exciting ride.
invcit – Einstein’s path in physics (myths or reality) isn’t really relevant in a discussion of the system in place today. His was a far different time.
Moshe – you are right, this has taken a different turn. So I have a relevant question.
If one’s goal is to teach at the college level, should one state this on their statement of purpose? Or is it better to pretend that your primary goal is to do research after you earn your PhD?
My impression from conversations with physicist friends is that stating you are primarily interested in teaching is a bad idea, at least when applying to the top schools. The idea is that the top schools only really care about producing researchers who will do great research and give their school glory.
The implication was that there is a catch-22: in order to have a realistic chance at getting a position at even a non-research instituion, it’s a huge help to have name-brand PhD. But the name-brand PhD’s don’t want you if all you want to do is teach.
Is this accurate, or is honesty always the best policy?
Yeah Sean, that was the most puzzling aspect of the detour (and I should learn to use these smiley faces, as much as I dislike them, without them things sometimes look harsher than intended).
weichi, that’s a good question, I honestly don’t know the answer, but I am curious what more experienced people have to say.
#64 weichi:
When I got my M.S. Physics it was while I was working quasi-fulltime (my jobs always drove my education, rather than the other way around) and the goal was ‘just’ the M.S. degree; my university didn’t offer a higher degree, nor did I want it. why? I had already seen three generations of graduate students and postdocs go through my research institute where I was working and I didn’t want “that life” (too difficult to build a real life, I thought). At that time, I was a scientific programmer for about 15 years working for different astronomy groups. Some years after I finished my masters, I decided that a PhD was necessary for me to get the more interesting scientific jobs (programming or teaching or whatever), so I headed off to Germany where my advisor was. In my view, the advisor makes or breaks the PhD experience, and I thought that the person I chose in Heidelberg (I researched everything I could about him) was the best person for me (and he was). I published a Nature paper while I was there, so many things worked well. Once in Europe, I decided I liked it enough to stay. The road to my PhD was a long circuitous path, though, I earned my PhD at age 40, and doing the necessary things to live in two different European cultures (Germany and now Italy) has taken a toll in time. I suggest to be as flexible as one can when one chooses the “scientific life”. You never know where it will take you…
I was once told by a faculty member at a liberal arts college (read “teaching-oriented college”) that it would be a bad tactic to apply for a job at his school while claiming to be interested in only teaching, even though in fact the members of his department did not have active research programs. His explanation was that even though they aren’t really doing research, they still like to think of themselves as researchers, and like to maintain the illusion that they’ll get back to doing research whenever they get a free moment. So his advice was to claim to have strong commitments to both teaching and undergraduate-friendly research, even if in reality you really are in it for the teaching and will be evaluated and promoted almost entirely on your teaching perfomance. Sounds like a weird self-delusion, I know, but that’s what I was told.
My two cents:
1) It’s important to try to visit the departments of your one or two top choices to get a feel for what the working environment is like and what the people are like. It’s also good to visit with as many of the faculty as possible so that they can put a face with the name when they’re reading applications. That’s really the best way to stand out from the crowd.
2) It’s also important to find how who has research funding (and be aware of who doesn’t). If you want to do bellybutton research, but there’s only funding for toejam research, you need to know that.
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I don’t regret going to grad school, and I don’t think it was a slave-like existence. But I definitely endorse going into grad school with your eyes open. If anything, that makes it easier for you when you get there, and it’s something you take into account when you apply to different places. More information is always useful, and grad school applications and grad school itself are systems that have rules, both written and unwritten.
I know people want to make grad school seem, for those who really would do well there, a great experience, but that argument gets blown out of the water after 15-20 minutes of reading Jorge Cham’s webcomic, PhD. I have the sneaking suspicion that there have been some fairly radical changes in the last 10-20 years, because of the few science and enginerring grad students I meet these days who haven’t heard of PhD, as soon as they read a couple, they go “My God, that’s my life…” The comp sci department at my school now gives his book to incoming grad students, both as a welcoming gift and a warning of what the next few years will be like, even with the most wonderful advisors and department and research.
The fact that so many of us stick with it is amazing, the fact that so many more bother to try is mindboggling. The payoff, for those who make it, is absolutely worth it. But let no one claim that it isn’t a grueling, soul-sucking experience. To say anything else these days is a lie, just ask the grads students you know (not yours, they will NOT answer you honestly because it could damage the relationship). Potential grad students should go into this with eyes wide open, and an honest evaluation is prerequisite for that.
“Victory belongs to the most Persevering”
— Napoleon
http://www2.moment.net/~cocllano/Decision.html
I am more pragmatic than some other posters:
OF COURSE where you went to grad school is a key factor. If you spent 30 seconds per CV while reviewing 100’s of them, this is the first criteria that would jump right at you. Also, people seem to never trust themselves, and so knowing that other top schools at some point thought you were smart enough to get in (and finish) the program, is an immediate seal of approval for life. This is why you don’t see too many people from Podunk State schools making faculty at Harvard and other places. It’s true that its difficult to separate self-selection, but as a foreign (western-european) undergrad, I have seen plenty of super-smart people from my college not get into top schools, while other equally good people did, and their subsequent careers were almost invariably working downhill only. You will see the same thing if you talk to chinese or indian students – there’s oversaturation of smart chinese physics guys, to the point when if PhD applications were considered completely blindly, all top tier schools would be 90% chinese. So top schools have to reject some very smart people from China, and they almost never come back to top tier as faculty.
I would argue that your PhD granting institution is actually more important than where you did your postdoc. The choice of grad school is more likely than not made based on quality of the program – but as a postdoc plenty of people make their choices based on the science, so it’s often justifiable to go to a few places down the list if that gives you better science for what you have been doing already.
Finally, points raised by Dissidents are very valuable and important. This is the elephant in the room that nobody likes to talk about. I think most grad students and even postdocs are living in their personal dreamworlds. Many advisors feed on these dreams by encouraging people to work for them while knowing full well that chances of academic jobs for these people are slim to none. I have yet to hear about exchange between a professor and a potential postdoc or grad student along the lines of: “Work for me for 2-3 (6-7) years, but just so you know, I don’t think you will ever make it into academia. You can try of course, but if I had to bet on it, I’d rather bet on a person A who has a 2% shot vs. your .001%”. People need to face the truth that they are in a lottery with very low chances of winning, and that out of a class of 30, 29 of them will have to look for permanent jobs in careers that have very little to do with physics, and where their PhD might be quite useless (except to impress people since that’s what they see on CV, see first paragraph).
PhD’s often take a lot longer in experimental sciences by the way. 7 or 8 years is not unusual nowadays.
Very good points on enjoying grad school. This is pretty much the path I have taken and I have seen plenty of people to get “burned out” because of terrible relationships with bossy/jerky advisors, or even because of their own over-ambitious drive to get ahead.
Trying to get out of PhD as soon as possible may be a good bit of advice, but I have seen plenty of people who got burned by this as well. It may sound counterintuitive, but if you want to stay in science, you might invest into developing a solid research record from your grad school years. Graduating with less than 5 publicaitons means you will compete for postdoc jobs against people who might have 10 or 15 or 20. Sometimes the final year or two of your PhD may be the most productive – sometimes you can accomplish more in those final 20% of your PhD than in previous 80% – at least in terms of research papers and other things which are important for bean-counters. Number and quality of publications is next to your PhD granting institution for people otherwise unfamiliar with you or your work.
Let me offer an example of someone I know personally – a student who graduated in experimental field from top of Tier 2 type school with 3 publications because he desperately wanted to move onto “higher paying slave” position of a postdoc – except new position at Tier 1 type school required some new technique and new science, and now 3 years after his PhD he has produced only one very technical and insignifican publication during his postdoc stint, and is applying for faculty jobs. What are his chances with 4 publications, vs. those with 20? An extra year or two of PhD would be extremely productive as he already learned the basics and could have cranked out plenty of experiments.
Postdocs are tricky, especially for experimenters. Experiments take a long time to set up and even longer to complete and write up. Two or three years of postdoc go very quickly – last year is essentially spent looking for new job, and first year is spent learning the new ropes.
So if you are trying to write up your PhD at any cost, you may be sacrificing your career to some extent. True, you could try to do in your first postdoc the same thing you would otherwise do in your final PhD years, but then you would have to spend your second postdoc doing what your competitors may be doing in your first postdoc etc. Overall people look at your publication record much more than at how many years it took you to finish your PhD.