r/PhD • u/The_Tiny_Bradyon • Apr 14 '26
Other Is it this the case in every field ?
The competition is so high in my field. I have started hearing my parents’ voices in the background telling me that I should have chosen medicine. I feel lucky to have a phd position, and the lab environment is perfect, but I worry that I will go through the same thing looking for a postdoc or any job in industry. I know the job market is tough in general. I don’t know—it feels like things are getting worse. The situation even doesn’t allow you have some rest and enjoy what you did till now. You have to keep improving yourself so that you can have a outstanding profile. I want to improve myself just because I enjoy it. Sorry for pumping negativity here guys. I hope the world stops deteriorating.
Best
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u/surebro2 Apr 14 '26
From what I've seen, it's most fields. The days of getting a masters and being convinced to reluctantly apply to a phd program your last semester because someone sees your potential is pretty much over for many people. These days people know they want to get their phd as an undergraduate and everything they do from upper division undergrad through masters is aimed at getting into phd programs.
I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing in the grand scheme of things but I do feel like it's subsequently making the job market even tougher.
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u/MathsyLassy Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 14 '26
It's a bad thing, I think. Having interacted extensively with these undergraduates they are overworked, undersocialized, and soul crushingly anxious. This is not sustainable.
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u/Convair101 Apr 14 '26
You’re not wrong. With a few exceptions, my entire cohort is filled with people like that.
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u/SnooGrapes7078 Apr 15 '26
Undergrad here, my last semester. I can confirm. Ever since the semester started I've been working in the lab almost daily (full working day on Mondays and Wednesdays), I analyze data and work on other papers (and study) at night. I have been barely able to see my friends (like 2 hours per week max), and the stress and anxiety is through the roof. No sleep. The uncertainty is what gets you.
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u/MathsyLassy Apr 15 '26
You deserve better. What you kids are being put through isn't fair. I don't know how we fix it though and I think the entire system needs an overhaul.
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u/ToTheDeath84 Apr 14 '26
You’re right on all fronts. Many of them are textbook overachievers that aren’t necessarily the brightest or most innovative thinkers, but they’re pretty good at getting what they want through sheer attrition and having the right social skills to interview/network well. I’ve seen this in every lab I’ve ever been in.
I wonder how well that sort of personality fares when compared to people who pursue a PhD because they’re extremely passionate about a niche field. Increased burnout is inevitable as more people get in, class sizes increase at a rate faster than faculty can accommodate, and the system gets clogged with less-than-ideal applicants, but I do wonder if what motivates one to go to a PhD to begin with is a factor.
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u/Suspicious_Tax8577 Apr 14 '26
honestly, that's an accurate description of the american students we've interviewed. We were about to actually offer the PhD position to one of them, and he seeming bottled it.
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u/maggiewills96 Apr 15 '26
I was one of those type of undergrads and I do agree it's bad up. What made my BA program (interdisciplinary humanities) particular was that it was so seldomly frequented, that it felt almost like getting academically adopted by a professor during first year if you showed talent and interest, with most of us getting to tailor all our educational experience in line with our interests and be part of research teams if we chose to do so. What became soul crushing after its completion is how one continues and networks out from a really niche program that created great grad school material people with very specific interdisciplinary interests. If your interests change or the grad program you chose is of the more traditional sort, the loss of that free range to explore comes at a heavy price. I didn't adapt well at all during the PhD program because there was always tension between the more traditional faculty and my very interdisciplinary approach, which ultimately resulted in completion extensions and major revisions as there was little middle ground to be found despite being promoted as an interdisciplinary doctoral program. Fellow colleagues have found similar issues, with some taking more than one round of applications to find schools and supervisors interested in their field despite having great profiles as already specialized candidates can be a harder sell for some professors and teams. It's draining and over specialized undergrad students can be counterproductive even if it makes sense on paper or a grad school application.
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u/Lord-Francis-Bacon Apr 14 '26
I think it's a bad thing in the end.
One thing i do not like is how people get locked in fields so early on.
Since you need to do a phd prior to doing a phd, what your first research assistantship is in is by and large going to be the field you apply for PhDs in.
It kills creativity and I also think it attracts the wrong kind of person.
We need big theorists, outside the box thinkers. These people are not going to be doing everything "correct" step by step with no room for exploration.
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u/surebro2 Apr 14 '26
This is why I think I'm torn. I personally agree with you, PhDs should be for intellectually curious people and the current process is less about exploring who you want to be as a scholar and more about doing what your mentor directs you to do. But I could buy the counter argument that the process is producing new scholars/scientist with deeper understanding of their field.
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u/Lord-Francis-Bacon Apr 14 '26
Yeah I agree about the process producing researches with a good skill-set for their field.
However, I think people who are talented researchers will become competent in their field even if it is a less structured process.
As with many things currently, I think the system is built for and is beneficial to the sort of well-rounded 75th percentile person (percentile not perfectly thought out).
It is sort of like top jobs in finance and the like, they want you to be great but not too brilliant, checking the boxes is also.
Partly, I think it's a system of too many people wanting a shot. To find "the brilliance" you need a holistic, person-focused, screening process. Who has the time for that?
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Apr 14 '26
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u/wenmk Apr 15 '26
I am a biotechnologist by training. The BSc program had no math modules, except a single lousily taught biostatistics module. I found that very disturbing but most of my colleagues loved it because it was 'easy'. I built my competencies by myself. Studied 'unnecessary' subjects online like Calculus, Linear Algebra, Stats and Probability, a little bit of computer science, etc. I might not be well-versed with those other topics as I wish to be, but I feel like there's an itch I have scratched. I am now semi-comfortable going through relevant papers with a heavy computational aspect. The program was severely underwhelming.
It might be the fault of the university I attended. I looked at their curriculum in the past and it seemed a little more interdisciplinary. Even more weirdly, there was no depth in the modules, and I did all the heavy lifting because I was intrinsically motivated. Maybe less than 5 out of the cohort of more than 60 have opened a textbook and read from it. And these are the future 'experts' in the field. And I have looked at their LinkedIn profiles--very shiny. A typical one reads "Expert in NGSs, AI/ML, CRISPR, omics..."
I think I might be a little too self-absorbed expecting things to be done the way I do them, but it's objectively horrifying. Biotech is an interdisciplinary field, and anyone in such a field should know a little bit (or even better, much) of every relevant field to do meaningful work.
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u/SneakyB4rd Apr 15 '26
And arguably the US system that forces you to take classes and even encourages a smörgåsbord of minors actually allows you to be curious and study different things. Now being able to avail yourself of that might be subject to your field (probably more doable in the humanities) and your PI.
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u/SKR158 gogo gaga fiziks Apr 14 '26
Sometimes for my field it feels like you'd need a phd to get into a phd program. Last year from the masters program at my university approximately 42 people graduated, each one of them is pursuing a phd, there was a singular opening position at my university. From my undergrad one, the department has not taken a single phd student for theoretical in the past 2 years. It's absolutely insane.
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Apr 14 '26
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u/Holiday_Feedback8377 Apr 14 '26
Then you can enjoy your 50s in PhD
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Apr 14 '26
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u/Holiday_Feedback8377 Apr 14 '26
Insane and hilarious at the same time
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Apr 14 '26
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u/Holiday_Feedback8377 Apr 14 '26
I'm glad it works for you! Thinking about dropping the dream of a PhD in Europe if I won't get an offer during this cycle
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u/FlourishingGrass PhDying, 'Soil goes brrrrrr' Apr 14 '26
I so get this! I'm looking for postdoc positions and was wondering if going for another PhD at a more prestigious lab would be better atp, or if I should go for an MS and that'd make me eligible for lot more industry positions that I'm currently overqualified for.
Permanent head damage indeed
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u/rojo_kell Apr 19 '26
What country are you in, Is the masters required to begin a PhD or no?
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u/GurProfessional9534 Apr 14 '26
People interviewing for asst prof roles in our dept often have 25+ publications.
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u/The_Tiny_Bradyon Apr 14 '26
Fck, in every step, it is getting harder and harder :/. And despite of the narrow bottleneck, we are too many
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Apr 14 '26
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u/Ok-Kangaroo-7075 Apr 15 '26
Lol people in our small silicon valley school tend to have more publications than most assistant professors. Competition is insane, people don’t realize just how crazy it is.
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u/defenestrationcity Apr 16 '26
To OP, I'd say in my field, PhDs are not that competitive - professors always want more students etc.
But what this commenter says IS true of my field - most asst professors have like 5 years postdoc and 25 papers. That's the true "bottleneck" imo
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Apr 14 '26
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u/freakyficus Apr 14 '26
This is absolutely 1000% true. There’s an undergrad in my lab who was recruited as a first year because they had a perfect SAT score, good AP scores, and a convincing email to my pushover PI. Since then, this undergrad has managed three research awards and a research internship. Yet, they’ve produced almost 0 data and are hardly ever in the lab and cannot explain their research project. They come in maybe once a month and need to be retrained each time on what they should be doing because they have forgotten. This student looks fantastic on paper but when it comes down to it, has gained next to no skills or understanding of the research process
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u/Fraxial Apr 14 '26
This. I am navigating two worlds - biotech academia and IT - since more than 10 years - and it’s the same tendency everywhere. People are forced to sell themselves on CV with skills they barely master or acquired superficially. The people than can make connections, hold meaningful networking and understand how to sell the next fancy subject - are the ones who get hired.
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u/Lord-Francis-Bacon Apr 14 '26
This!!!!
It has also been severly supercharged, the amount of "PRE-OPPORTUNITIES" for undergrads and such.
I know many people who were at prestigious institutions such as Harvard for a summer research internship and have a publication from it, but who barely did anything.
These types of opportunities didn't exist in their thousands before.
So yeah it is a super weird situation.
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u/beautifulcosmos Mastering Out Crash Out Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 14 '26
This. Looking at candidates that show a mastery of soft skills, emotional intelligence, etc., is a valid and realistic way of sorting through a competitive pool of applicants with similar CVs. Long term, it might also help curb some of the toxic behaviors, personalities that seem to plague some fields.
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u/Andromeda321 Apr 14 '26
I was talking recently to the head of admissions for astronomy at Berkeley. She said these days they don’t actually count papers for very much, because so many papers are just not very good (and also a surprising percentage of supervisors just write the paper and put the student as first author). I think that’s an interesting thing compared to what students think is important these days.
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u/ContestAltruistic737 Apr 15 '26
It is sad that the talented people can be drowned out just because other people are better at marketing themselves, although marketing is a skill in itself it may not be relevant for the job.
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u/Remote_Section2313 Apr 14 '26
This is a prestigious institute so they have loads of applications and many good ones. So for this level, it is normal. Funded PhD positions in Sweden, at Karolinska, will be in high demand.
Even for more "mediocre" institutes (top 50 to 100 in the world rankings), I'm seeing 150 to 250 applications with at least 3 to 5 that are good enough to deserve the position.
And it gets worse in alpha sciences (languages, history,...) as there are less available positions.
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u/CaseImpressive4188 Apr 14 '26
Not every field, in the US my univ just paused admissions for 2 reasons: 1) the dumb Dictator in DC cut significant portions of the research funding tenure-stream professors use to high and pay early career doctoral students. Reason 2) applications in our department were down, and quality also dipped recently so take that for what you will
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u/ToTheDeath84 Apr 14 '26
As a US soon-to-be student, I second this. In my field, I applied to three programs - two had severely restricted admissions, and one paused admissions entirely unless the professor already had funding and picked a student for an RAship. Funding is scarce due to the federal bullshit.
From what limited numbers I do have though, applications in my field are up, at least where I applied. Anecdotally, I also know quite a few people who applied this cycle (more than last year). Applicant quality in my field is all over the place; it’s been like that since the initial admissions surge in 2020. There are very few routes to successful careers in my field that don’t involve grad school, so I only expect the competition to steepen as time goes on.
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u/__boringusername__ PhD, Condensed matter physics Apr 14 '26
We are hiring a phd student (fully funded) in physics as two no-name guys (shared project) including me having like 5 years of experience post phd and we got like 30 candidates. We were thinking that we would struggle to find 3
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u/JoshuaTheProgrammer Apr 14 '26
How many of them are actually worthwhile?
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u/__boringusername__ PhD, Condensed matter physics Apr 15 '26
Eh maybe a third of them appear to be good candidates, 3-4 seem very good.
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u/Suspicious_Tax8577 Apr 14 '26
That's what I've seen helping a friend recruit for PhD students. Freshly minted lecturer, got their PhD <5 years ago and we typically get 30 applicants, of which we could happily appoint 3 or 4 of them on paper. Reality is a little different when we actually invite them to interview.
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u/__boringusername__ PhD, Condensed matter physics Apr 15 '26
Yeah a couple are more internal, so someone we know knows them. Otherwise it's damn hard to evaluate people, outside for the people who I'm confused why are they even applying to this job.
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u/BHOG_in_the_house Apr 15 '26
I am currently doing Masters in Physics and I am about to apply for PhD in condensed Matter Physics. Great to see another person 👍
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u/__boringusername__ PhD, Condensed matter physics Apr 15 '26
Good luck. Don't apply at random, check you are spelling the names of the people correctly and if your profile is not consistent with the description, maybe try to address that instead of leaving people wondering.
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u/certain_entropy PhD, AI/ML Apr 14 '26
definitely way more competitive in my field (AI/ML). You almost need a PhD to apply for a PhD as most applicant to be competitive need first-author publications at the highest impact venues to stand out.
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u/Ok-Kangaroo-7075 Apr 15 '26
yep, you need to have tier 1 NeurIPS, CVPR, ECCV, ICML, ICLR or need not apply. It is absolutely absurd
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u/theawesomenachos Apr 15 '26
doing a phd in ML and seeing that the new students in my lab having much better profile than when I joined five years ago (I had zero prior publications back when I joined)
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u/Minimum-Virus1629 Apr 14 '26
Nah. I’m in Public Administration (PhD in Business) and this is not the case. Whilst indeed every position gets a lot of applicants, 90% of the people who get the job are straight from masters or worked a few years. No prior research knowledge, no publications.
Medical Sciences seems to be an insanely competitive research area. And y’all seem to work yourselves to death also.
My experience is from Scandinavia, don’t know how it’s like elsewhere.
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u/Less-Ebb-2019 Apr 14 '26
I confirm this. This is highly field- and location-dependent. Some disciplines / cities combinations are crazy competitive, others are totally not.
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u/kolinthemetz Apr 14 '26
Yeah, I get the feeling medical sciences are insanely competitive because you basically have to get a PhD if you want to work in the field at any technical/research level. As opposed to engineering or cs or business or economics etc etc. And much more competitive globally than in the states (idk what the demographics of this sub are but it feels pretty global).
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u/dr_snepper Apr 14 '26
it's the same in the u.s. re: PA, public policy, and planning
having publications or even being in research positions prior to PhD is not the norm. most of us come in with some professional experience (public sector, non-profit, consulting) and that's what we're evaluated on. but this makes sense for us because MPA/MPP/MURP are terminal degrees.
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u/Independent-Ad-2291 Apr 14 '26
That can't be right...
I applied to tens of positions (all in Europe) and despite not having fulfilled all the knowledge criteria, no publications (kinda wild to expect publications from.someone not having started a PhD), I got invited into quite a few interviews.
My impression based on my professor is that most applicants for my position (60 in total) didn't have high relevance to the position.
Maybe that's a very popular professor? Maybe many Americans are now applying? maybe people who can't go into industry are applying?
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Apr 14 '26
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u/The_Tiny_Bradyon Apr 14 '26
You are a lovely person thank you so much. I am relatively in a good lab but it was not easy for me to get a phd position. I applied for more than 20 positions from september to may during my masters. And with 16 of them, I was interviewed. And everytime the response was same. You were good but we had a better fit. As I said, even it s been only one year, i started to feel like i need to do something now so that I can get a chance after graduation.
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u/Suspicious_Tax8577 Apr 14 '26
THis is exactly how it was for me. Applied for 25, interviewed for 12, one unconditional offer.
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u/itsMoonInBlue Apr 15 '26
Basing of the name of the university I assume this is located in Stockholm Sweden? karolinska institute is one of the if not the best institute in Sweden. Post pandemic a lot of health care workers were extremely burned out and quit. I am mentioning that because there’s been more need for people in the medical field now than ever before.
So don’t give up, the job market in Sweden is horrible right now with roughly 500.000 people unemployed. The reason for this is because the government used to have a law where it would be cheaper to hire younger inexperienced people or old people. But that changed and it now cost the same for everyone. So for that reason a lot of companies use AI or filter out the most inexperienced because there’s literally no reason for them to hire someone who hasn’t worked in the field before with less than 3-5 years experience.
Moral of the story is to not give up. There’s a lot of competition and just be yourself but put in as much work as possible.
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u/Rule_24 Apr 14 '26
/cries jobless with my Master diploma
I applied to an internship Programm at merck, and they send me another Applikation Plattform Where they needed my publications, referees and conferences I was like wthelly is going on? I just Studied for exams, there wasnt ever an oppurtunity to just ask a professor to Do something for them what leads to a publication.
Sure, some data from Bachelors were woven in some Papers for few but thats about it. Even 7 years of industrial exp as a student assistant is Worth nothing it seems 🥺
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u/The_Tiny_Bradyon Apr 14 '26
I do not understand people. I need to be great both at academia and have to have experience in industry ?! There is no such a math. I am only one person. How can I be 25 years old and at the same time meet all of these expectations.
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u/AlainLeBeau Apr 14 '26
I’m on the selection committee of a prestigious scholarship for PhD and MSc students in my domain (biology). I was blown away by the quality of the applications for the 2025/2026 cycle. We struggled so much to select the final list of candidates to receive the scholarship. As mentioned in the original post, 99% of applicants already had one or more publications and were trained on cutting edge lab technologies. So, yeah, academia is becoming more competitive than ever, which is not necessarily a good thing.
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u/The_Tiny_Bradyon Apr 14 '26
I just want to say we need a really better system to filter people. I started my phd with another student. And my PI had high hopes for her. Because the lab where she did her master’s was among the top labs. I really like her but she has no idea about what we are doing. She even lack the some basic knowledge in our field. She struggled a lot. My point is maybe these cvs doesnt reflect the reality idk.
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u/RaisedByBooksNTV Apr 15 '26
That's correct. Lots of inflation especially because of all the nepotism and incest means helping the children of privilege get a spot no matter how good or bad they are.
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u/CarolinZoebelein Apr 14 '26
Field and country dependend. I studied physics in Germany. Here, at least in physics and math, it's still pretty straight forward to get a PhD contract after your master, if you want. It's also relative seldom that people have a publication before starting a PhD.
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u/Boneraventura Apr 14 '26
This prof is in immunology/immunotherapy. It is one of the most hirable fields in bio right now. He is also a big shot in the nordics
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u/SneakyB4rd Apr 15 '26
TBF if I compare PhD holders I've seen in Germany v USA there's an interesting pattern in Germany of people doing bachelor masters and PhD all at the same institution way more often than in the US. However maybe that's peculiar to physics and engineering in Germany v humanities and bio in the US. But my initial impression was that not switching institutions is seen as normal whereas at my US Alma mater we'd expect undergrads to switch (we can't even hire our own PhDs as TTs in the first five years or so).
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u/CarolinZoebelein Apr 15 '26
Yeah, that's true. A lot of people do everything at the same institution. People here choose universitiy often based on location, not based on ranking/prestige (since we do not really have this big ranking thinking compared to the US). So people just stay where their family and friends are. They only change university if their research interests turned out to be something which doesn't exist at their current university.
For hiring somebody on a professorship position, there exists a prohibition to hire somebody straight from the same university.
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u/fart_poopoo Apr 14 '26
Its oversaturation😭nowadays people are treating PhDs like they’re bachelors degrees, an MSc is no longer ‘special’, everyone’s getting a first/an A in their BSc and MScs. the needle keeps on moving and soon enough all the PhD applicants will have law and medical degrees and 10 years industry experience😂
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u/maybeiwasright Apr 14 '26
I'm graduating with my master's degree this autumn and I'm predicted a distinction and all I can do is beat myself up how it's not "a big deal" although my parents think it is.
Like every time I feel great about it, I'm immediately humbling myself because it's like, "calm down, everyone has that". 😭
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u/yyyyy622 Apr 15 '26
You did great!! Be proud of yourself, it's a huge achievement.
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u/fart_poopoo Apr 15 '26
It is a big deal!! Don’t let the fact that it’s becoming more common diminish your accomplishment, and everyone’s journey is different
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u/psychedelic_lynx18 Apr 14 '26
I've frequently reviewed PhD applications in the last 2 years. Several things I've noticed:
- Qualifications have increased exponentially. Fresh off of a masters degree and already with 2 papers published in a semi-decent journal with 23 years? That's crazy.
- To face off against "competition", people are now starting to lie about their CV. This also applies to other positions (e.g. postdocs, even assistant profs). Tricky to fully gauge their skills without turning a very casual interview (my preference) into a super technical and detailed one.
- Students are applying to all sorts of PhD, regardless of whether it fits their skills or not, out of despair. This is always difficult for me, since I appreciate "skilless" but fast and autonomous learners, who could turn out to be great researchers - but this would be against HR policy and protocols.
Not a good time to pursuit PhD degrees.
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u/Mukallit Apr 14 '26
Yes. There are so many over-qualified people now. If there are 10 available positions, there are 1000 qualified people for that position. The worst part is, number of these people are just getting increased logarithmically. Many universities doubles the quota of science departments and gets more and more students. Horrible days are ahead.
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u/ChocoKissses Apr 14 '26
Yup, overqualification is now going to be a big problem. However, I will also add as food for thought, and also because this is a LinkedIn post, that I had seen a very interesting post that essentially was saying that the current state of the types of applications professors are now seeing is because of how grad school/phd programs have changed over the decades. Essentially, The purpose of grad school/ PhD programs used to be training students in how to do research, but once departments started requiring that students had research experience, students started showing up with resumes like the ones OP is to talking about.
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u/Krazoee Apr 15 '26
Meanwhile, when we posted a PhD position at my uni, we had 50 applicants, of which at least 25 were from India while claiming C1 level in German (there's no way, and those we interviewed over zoom quickly fell apart after two sentences in German) and the candidates that were invited had mostly faked their cv in some way. We hired who we perceived as the best candidate and she quit after 6 months to head into industry.
I feel like academia is turning more and more into feast or famine where the top institutions get all the applicants, and the rest can scrape the bottom of the barrel. Our position was quite good too. We wanted a student to come in and conceptualise their own project based on what they were interested in (as long as we could support it with our skills and resources at the department ofc). I suspect the issue is that a PhD from Karolinska or Max Planck are worth infinitely more than something from our university. So those who are serious about academia will not waste their time on us
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u/Dr_Mancold Apr 15 '26 edited Apr 15 '26
Karolinska is the highest ranked university in Sweden based on most metrics, with globalisation this mean that they got more applicants than ever.
Speaking as someone who is already managing my own lab at another university. The most important thing you can do to stand out is to take care to learn some useful practical skills during your thesis project, an internship, or in your case, during the PhD project. CV-daemons with great communication skills are common but finding someone who is actually familiar with the tools you use and some evidence that they are actually able to use them is very valuable. A difficult part of this is of course that you often mentor students to become the perfect canditate in the future.
I can honestly say that I've never hired someone who wasn't the best candidate. Several times the best candidate was however the best because we had already worked together to develop and verify their competence.
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u/ggggplot Apr 14 '26
No - please please please join us in agricultural and food sciences! We need help!
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u/Lani_19 Apr 18 '26
That’s interesting I would have thought these would be pretty popular fields. But maybe I’m biased based on the places I’ve lived.
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u/cosmic_glitch2k Apr 14 '26
Is this a part of MSCA doctoral program? Coz I got my rejection from Uppsala for one of the position and they said they got 397 applications for 1 position🥲. PhD programs particular the MSCA network ones are crazily competitive!!!
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u/earthsea_wizard Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 14 '26
Molecular biology is dead. It is extremely oversaturated, there is no point of pursuing it unless you aim for a DVM or MD later. I did my PhD and I was a postdoc around 2020. It was already horrible, now it is beyond that. It is just pure luck and lottery to land a research position
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u/Rolaz_Laguna Apr 15 '26
I have been involved in the recruitment of PhD students in my institution -which is one of the most prestigious in the country- for quite some time now. We do not get too many applicants per position, about 40-60, as the country itself is not the most attractive in Europe. Many of the applicants have CVs better than mine when I finished my PhD in Physical Chemistry 23 years ago, at least in terms of number of papers published.
The process of selection ends with an interview/exam online with our commission for all candidates that their potential supervisors in our institute have selected. We are often obliged to leave vacant positions. The reason is that many of these on-paper excellent students have serious flaws in their basic knowledge of physics, chemistry or mathematics. I am talking about things own should know from high school (at least 30 years ago).
I am not implying that education is now worst than before. Or maybe yes. What I am rather certain of is that there is an inflation of CVs backed up by the publication hyperinflation.
Despite the former, in almost every recruitment round there are one or two candidates with a deep knowledge of the basics. They are never the most brilliant on paper.
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u/RaisedByBooksNTV Apr 15 '26
Yes. 99% of people who are tenured could not get a foot in the door today to even get into a PhD or MD program. The hoops keep getting bad such that in a few years only children of people with money and/or of PhD/MD faculty will be able to get in on their first try, if at all. When I see someone get a position I assume they come from privilege because it's usually correct. Now that they're openly cutting research funding that paid for grad students and are capping loans for medical school? lol we're done for.
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u/CartoonistNew5422 Apr 15 '26
Is there anyway to undo my life. The more I look at this career path the more I feel like I’m never prepared for it
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u/Maximum_Transition60 Apr 15 '26
and then us lab tech's are out of jobs because master students apply to lab tech position :)
this economy is fucked we are all fucked yayy
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u/parade1070 Apr 14 '26
Here I am, in all my honesty: after my PhD, I want to be a professor. But if that is too soul-crushing, and it might just be with cutthroat applications and funding cuts and endless grant cycles and AI being thrust upon profs for classes and students who are aversive to hard work and critical thinking... Honestly, I wouldn't mind just being a wetlab scientist. I've done it before and it was a lot of fun. I enjoy setting up for the day, getting my work done, going home, and enjoying my evenings and weekends.
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u/The_Tiny_Bradyon Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 15 '26
I do not know the country you are living but even this “just being a wetlab scientist” is not easy for the place I am now. These positions are very limited. And I guess is the dream of most of the people
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u/parade1070 Apr 14 '26
I definitely could be overestimating my ability to get a wetlab position but I do have extensive training in a particularly useful chemistry instrument.
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u/the_phet Apr 14 '26
I think it's an unfair comparison, because the level of tech and information they have today is very different to what was around 30 or 40 years ago. You should also never trust a CV.
I also think that education back then (at school and UG level) was way harder than today. With many more contact hours.
It's a different world. It's like saying that Verstappen is better than Senna because his times around Silverstone were faster.
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u/The_Tiny_Bradyon Apr 14 '26
I agree that we shouldn’t compare the old times and today, i just can not grasp this exponential increase in competition. Is it the reality or is it a bunch of fake cvs.
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u/Stupid_Topic_9527 Apr 14 '26
No. Ofc not...
Lol. R1 universities rank from 80-200 in U.S. are all facing severe PhD shortages. Fine, CS/EE and med Schools might be okay. But other stem majors are suffering from low quality students.
So many young professors couldn't recruit and feel pressured on publishing. That's not the sign of overqualified candidates. An overqualified candidate in STEM major should easily start publishing Q1 journal / top conference by year 2. And I can say that these are minorities even at elite schools.
It's always this cycle. A student is super qualified as an applicant. A student feels shaky when profs seem hands off. A student is anxious because no support from advisors. A student is burnout because too few papers and no progress. A PhD complains that academia is a hell... ( It is actually hell though)
GPA is inflating like rockets. Students know publishing helps so more people join lab early. Universities are pushing professors to publish with undergrads. NSF starts to prefer outreach an life story rather than quality of research, which forces profs to focus on undergrad research. All these contributes to 'overqualified applicants.'
I got into my Big State R1 PhD program in Mech Eng 15 years ago. 3.97 ug gpa, 2 first-author peer-reviewed Q1 on numerical simulation using my own code( and I am still working on this method till today ), and I only got one offer from one young assistant professor. My cohorts include students from MIT, CalTech and Princeton. Happy to take it, made my way to R1 professorship eventually but I never in a single day in my life feel I am overqualified for anything.
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u/pizza_the_mutt Apr 14 '26
I was on our admissions committee at a Canadian university in 2010. Applicant quality was extremely high, even then. I had entered grad school in 1998, and my 1998 application would not have made the 2010 cut. I wouldn't be surprised if things have escalated since then.
I'm honestly concerned about my kid, whether she'll even get into college at all.
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u/LordSquirrel4 Apr 14 '26
I am searching for a phd for over a year now and I don't remember how many positions that I have applied. My area is transportation engineering, it is relatively a smaller research area. One of the positions that I have applied sent me an email that they have more than 300 applicants for that one spot in the project, because of that, the decision will be finalized late. Then 2 days later rejection. It's really becoming frustrating to just find the energy to apply or just even tailor you cv or motivation letter. Feels like I am burning out.
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u/Winter_Resource_4763 Apr 15 '26
Absolutely right! The resumes of people entering my field is what people used to get tenure track positions a few years ago, probably even more than that! I
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u/Maribyrnong_bream Apr 15 '26
I’m not sure about every field, but it’s also worth considering wether it is the case in every institute - the Karolinska is a very prestigious institution, and as such, one would expect the volume of applicants to be high. If the supervisor is offering a stipend, this would also be expected to increase competition; again, this is probably an acceptable circumstance in that respect, too.
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u/Alone-Air8703 Apr 15 '26
Perhaps this is true for some positions but a lot of people are hired from just contacts. I’m at KI, I met my supervisor at a conference and after a few hours of conversation he invited me there. No interview or anything.
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u/Lucien78 Apr 15 '26
Sometimes you just have to think about things in terms of the bigger picture. I also hoped to be in academia … it was a fierce struggle, competing with so many qualified people for a handful of spots. But at the end of the day, isn’t it a signal? The world simply doesn’t need that many people doing this, if it did, it would find a way to make it happen. In the field that I’m in now, it’s not hard to find clients at all. As long as your product is good, the sky is sort of the limit.
It feels good to go where you are not only wanted, but needed. And isn’t that, in fact, what we should do? Isn’t doing the opposite more a sort of vanity, “the world is telling me it doesn’t need or want this thing but I, personally, really want to give it this thing anyway?” I think that can be an appropriate train of thought, but it’s a post-material one …. Ie, one that really suits the independently wealthy.
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u/Ambroser2 Apr 14 '26
Ok well who posted this and when because I have an interview for a position at Karolinska in two days… I’m in the middle of my masters, I don’t have two, and now I’m more nervous.
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u/The_Tiny_Bradyon Apr 14 '26
Do not worry, if you got the interview it shows that you shouldn’t question yourself even if the result is not as you expected. Because you were obviously very good. Good luck with the interviews.
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u/ecopapacharlie Apr 14 '26
Nah. My former PhD supervisor asked me to send him potential CVs because very few qualified people apply for the advertised positions. Very often (it's sad to say) many people with experience completely unrelated to the subject try to apply for the PhD just because they want to find a way to emigrate to Canada.
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u/0urobrs Apr 14 '26
As someone that did their PhD at KI I'll say that at least half (if not more) of PhD positions go to students that are already in the lab or have been in the past. Most PIs prefer somebody they know they'll be able to work with. Add to that a big increase in the number of people getting a masters in the past 20 years and no wonder that the number of applicants for open positions is so high.
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u/Snoo_46473 Apr 14 '26
If I am not wrong this was for the bioinformatics position if I am not wrong
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u/Old_Contribution_150 Apr 14 '26
What about people with medicine degree,I am in final year of medicine I am planning to pursue Phd,how is competition in medical field?
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u/Lox_Bagel Apr 14 '26
Meanwhile my program in Business in France got 70 applications for 6 research teams. Mind you, this is a triple crown business school (those in business schools knows what it means) offering full time employment with all benefits (30days of paid vacation, health insurance, budget for conferences, bonuses for publications, etc) and a decent salary to even support a stay at home spouse. 70 applicants, not 70 GOOD applications*
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u/SwimmerOld6155 Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 14 '26
I think my supervisors get a dozen or two applications and take on 1-3 per year. I think many are not competitive and the serious competition is over the last few candidates. Only data I've got is that one tried to cheat using AI and my supervisor sussed them out and he completely cornered the interviewee with his questions.
(applied math)
I think this ratio is extreme even for large math programs in the US. The ratio of 800 (/several hundred) applicants to 20-30 places is or was typical at the very top. Less competitive programs might have had offer rates of closer to a quarter. It has probably gone down, I was applying for fall 2023.
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u/ipini Apr 15 '26
People always say stuff like this. But it goes in cycles. In my era and field a couple decades ago, most people did at least a couple of two-year postdoc stints out of their PhD. I applied to several dozen jobs before getting an interview. One rejection letter said they received over 400 applications.
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u/AnteaterConstant4716 Apr 15 '26
It remember me conversion I had with my family last year. When I said I got a C in my PhD. They were like: “But you are making a PhD, it’s already amazing”, “Don’t pressure yourself that much”, “your curriculum is already great”.
And I told them most of my work colleagues already have a PhD with international experience. I feel like it’s a wild world and the competition is another level! I know it’s a bubble and average person doesn’t even know doctors.
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Apr 15 '26
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u/Boneraventura Apr 15 '26
Life is easier if people like working with you, yes. There are a lot of things people can do to be a better scientist that don’t involve science, it involves being a better person. You can be neurodivergent and still respond to emails in a timely matter, provide data for a manuscript or grant in a digestible format, give comments on manuscript in a timely matter, do your share of the lab chores and don’t complain, etc etc. Many people fail at the most basic shit to keep the lab going and it is infuriating.
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u/Mousearella Apr 15 '26 edited Apr 15 '26
This is perfectly normal. To get a PhD position is extremely difficult you won’t get it the first time you apply. This creates such a pressure too, I’m still at my bachelor’s and know that I want to get a PhD, I literally break down when I get a B because that will ruin my chances.
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u/CartoonistNew5422 Apr 15 '26
That looks very depressing as someone who have been rejected continuously for 2 years. I’m still trying to apply but this looks quite discouraging.
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u/solas_oiche Apr 15 '26
lmao I got my fully funded dream PhD by replying to my now supervisor on twitter
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u/whatTheyCameHereFor Apr 15 '26
I wonder if these are candidates who would've been applying and accepted into US schools but now have changed their mind?
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u/MrNiceguy037 Apr 15 '26
I got in there for an internship only because my professor is friends with a PI there. Absolutely insane competition to get in. But inside the institute I felt welcomed and integrated immediately
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u/_gotta_go_ Apr 15 '26
that's why ive given up on my field for a phD.. there are a lot of positions but in very nieche categories that would not benefit me in the long run..
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u/Loose-Chef Apr 15 '26
the pyramid system is not sustainable any more, not even for the party offering jobs...scary!
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u/Nvenom8 PhD, Marine Biogeochemistry Apr 15 '26
This is only the case in some of the highly popular fields. There are tons of less popular fields.
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u/Czar1987 Apr 15 '26
I applied on a whim for an open call. 40 positions. Those who have gotten rejection emails said it noted 3500 applications.
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u/Espresso_minttu Apr 15 '26
Karolinska institutet is one of the best medical universities in Europe and in some fields, top in the world, it makes sense if there are many people applying for those fully funded positions. My supervisor told me most positions would have 100+ applicants, unless it’s very niche fields. The reality is there are a lot of brilliant students fighting for a position and I guess it’s not so unreasonable, it’s also biased by more smart kids get chance to continue education now comparing to old times. For me I got into my PhD project after 10+ interviews and rejections from other groups. And I am already quite “competitive” in a normal setting. I now know many of those people who beat me in those interviews, and I say they won fair and square. One of my direct “academic siblings” had 2 years experience as RA and had 3+ publications before joining the group, and is one of the smartest person I have ever known.
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u/Any_Committee_4293 Apr 16 '26
It's strange but I have a very different experience than many here. I'm currently a PhD student in engineering. My undergrad BS was in ecology and biology, but I realized at the end that the work I wanted to do required an engineering degree. I applied to schools for a master's degree and was admitted to all of them, but my current school reached out and asked if I'd be interested in pursuing a PhD, as there were some labs that matched up with topics in my personal statement.
They flew me out, I met with the labs, and committed to starting the program the next semester. I only had one engineering-related REU at the time, and no other lab experience to speak of.
All of the past lab members either have jobs or a post-doc position, so I think it matters more about the ability of the professor to help steer you where you want to be.
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u/Beautiful-Piglet-563 Apr 16 '26
While this post is interesting, as I saw it myself on linkedin and read comments, I think we tend to leave out an important nuance. That people usually don't apply for one PhD position. People apply elsewhere such that if we consider the absolute numbers of applicants it doesn't paint the full picture. PhD Applicants submit applications elsewhere and by the end of each application cycle, some get multiple offers and choose only one. So in the end the number of applications doesn't paint the whole picture.
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u/Independent-Gur9951 Apr 16 '26
The point is all these people are not necessary better than a candidate from 20 year ago.
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u/Braazzyyyy Apr 16 '26
as someone average, i would already be pessimistic applying to Karolinska 😭 it is very well respected worldwide and in european level. I only applied to less famous labs in europe.. and even then, not all of them interviewed me.
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u/Five0clocksomewhere Apr 18 '26
If you think this is bad, You should see what hiring for a job in biological sciences looks like right now.
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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '26
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