r/AskAcademia • u/GrandmasterCheetah • 12h ago
STEM How competitive are small R1s now for Asst prof? (STEM/bio)
So my understanding is that for larger R1s you essentially need to be a superstar (K99, impeccable productivity, multiple high impact papers, stand out from sometimes 1k+ candidates). On average. Not saying it’s a must but just typically that’s what you see.
Whereas for smaller R1s, yes the applicant pool will likely still be huge but the shortlist is likely less competitive on average. Like a good track record and good research fit can get you through the door.
However, the funding landscape has clearly changed and the bar has definitely raised for all positions. My question is, are small R1s essentially what large R1s used to be?
Everyone is so desperate for positions so I am wondering how things compare to just a few years ago
EDIT: I get that every single TT position is competitive. I am mostly asking how much more competitive small R1s are compared to pre funding cut days. And by small R1 I mean the average small R1. Not an ivy league outlier.
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u/isaac-get-the-golem PhD | Sociology 10h ago
The entire TT market is beyond competitive.
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u/43_Fizzy_Bottom 7h ago
We get 50 to a 100 apps for opening at my community college. Things are wild out there.
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u/ChaunceytheGardiner 11h ago
Very.
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u/ProfessorStata 11h ago
Some job candidates really need to understand the job market landscape. Most positions are competitive.
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u/GrandmasterCheetah 6h ago
I am mostly asking how much more competitive the market is for small R1s relative to pre funding cut days. Particularly from people who have been sitting on committees during both time periods.
For example, a small R1 could be getting twice as many applicants this year. But a large chunk of those might be simply due to how much easier it is to find positions with AI tools as well as creating application materials with AI which the committee will all reject.
So comparing shortlist competitiveness over recent years is what I am mostly wondering.
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u/ChaunceytheGardiner 2h ago
Competitiveness is just a factor of the applicant pool versus the number of jobs.
Technology doesn't matter. All the qualified applicants have always applied to all the good jobs. It's not a numbers game, because the numbers have always been small.
It's not like industry where people are sending out hundreds of job applicaitons using AI. There are maybe 20 or 50 good jobs nationally in your niche in a given year, and everyone is putting their best into them. Which isn't any different than 20 or 30 years ago.
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u/jcatl0 11h ago
I think that first of all we need to clarify that "R1" is a Carnegie classification for the whole university that doesn't necessarily mean much for individual departments. There are departments without graduate programs where your experience as a faculty wouldn't be too different from a teaching oriented school. Size is even less relevant in this discussion. Cal tech is one of the smallest R1s.
In terms of number of candidates, I'd say that location is probably a bigger deal in terms of competitiveness than whether its a "small R1" vs "larger R1s."
All that said, the job market is insanely competitive. I was talking to a former professor at my alma mater. They were running a search and he essentially said that there 150 people who looked like they could do the job (meaning right mix of publications, specialty, recs).
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u/isaac-get-the-golem PhD | Sociology 10h ago
Yes, this sounds right. Positions in my field are getting now upwards of 500 applications, of which there are at least 50 potential finalists by their historical merit standards. It's no longer "can this person excel and get tenure" but "can they teach this exact course we've been thinking we need" or "Do I like going out for beers with them" lol
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u/cropguru357 10h ago
Name a non-adjunct job that isn’t stupidly competitive these days.
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u/antiquity11 9h ago
This is true. We now have a Teaching Professor track at my R2 school, and even these are very competitive.
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u/animalchinonbetamax 2h ago
I am currently on a search committee for FT chemistry faculty at a community college. We had 12 applicants, we did Zoom interviews for 4 of them. We did not pursue any of the candidates after that.
Our school has high salaries compared to the cost of living. We also have amazing benefits and are in a highly sought after place to live. Maybe it's the fact that we are outside of the normal hiring season, but these candidates were NOT competitive.
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u/cropguru357 1h ago
Hm. Would you consider a soil scientist with a PhD and lots of adult teaching experience? 🤔
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u/antiquity11 9h ago
"Smaller" R1's - like Caltech, Dartmouth, and MIT - will be among the most competitive. R1 status requires both relatively high R&D expenditures coupled with relatively high PhD numbers. So smaller schools are usually more selective and prestigious. Plus, many love the smaller school environment coupled with strong research.
Bottom line, it will be extremely competitive. SLACS, R2's, and R1's are all very competitive. I'm at an R2, and we get close to 100 applicants per TT search in my department (physical sciences). Candidates coming from the top schools and labs in the country.
I'm not trying to discourage you from applying and don't know your track record, but just want to make it clear there is no "easy" TT job to get at strong insitutions.
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u/scruffigan 10h ago
No university that satisfies the criteria to be a “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research spending and doctorate production” is going to be truly small, unless it is simultaneously very selective. This category means they institutionally need to spend >$50 million/yr and graduate >70 research doctorates/yr.
When you look at say, MIT - $50M is a drop in the research budget, but it not actually a small amount of money. These institutions are all productive, credible, and probably recognizable to an average academic, even if you’d rate them as second string amongst R01s.
They are competitive, and while it’s true that the top of the top institutions are hiring the top the top candidates out of the pool more often than not, competition for Assistant Professor roles at any R01 is going to include very, very solid candidates from top of the top institutions, with personally productive research and funding records.
Don’t give up in discouragement if you have a solid profile without all the bells and whistles, but never expect a walk in.
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u/vaelux 11h ago
I don't know if I'd call my school a "small" as I'm not sure how we are measuring size. The university is pretty big... but anyway it is a fairly newly designated R1, and so going through the growing pains of what that means. One thing I see that may not happen at a "big" or well-established R1 (or maybe it does, IDK), is the very strong, new assistant professsors come in, go through t&p here, then apply to somewhere "bigger" that will honor thier tenure and hire them as associate professor. It's still competitive though. Far more PhDs are produced each year than there are tenure track vacancies.
It sucks for us because the talent we are investing in and hoping become permanent fixtures just take that investment and bail. But, from your point of view the stepping stone approach might be worth looking into.
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u/Current-Floor-7456 9h ago
Biomedical sciences postdoc here. My sense as someone who has been on the job market for two cycles is that it is absurdly competitive everywhere, at all levels, because there is a glut of people who are very qualified for every position at every level. And yeah, the funding situation doesn't help.
I am a "superstar" as you defined it, and while I have mostly been targeting "large" R1s/AMCs, I have been applying to smaller R1s if they look like they are a good fit for my research program. I know the same is true for plenty of other people. And last cycle I did get interviews - and an offer - from a small R1 (declined because of the ol' two body "problem"), so it isn't like they are ignoring people that they think might be overqualified. Small R1s are extremely competitive.
Semi-related thing from my experience: I'm actually eminently off the market, as I have a formal offer that I plan to accept, pending approval from my PO at the NIH. I found a spot that is the *perfect* fit, science-wise, and I think that this is what really makes the difference when there are absurd numbers of applicants. I *know* that this (alongside networking) is what made the difference at this interview, versus a handful that did not yield offers this past cycle. It took me a long time to actually believe it, but fit is everything. I went through mental gymnastics over and over last cycle trying to convince myself that every place I interviewed was a fit, and now that I've seen the "right" spot, it's a world of a difference.
Keep strong, believe in yourself, and apply broadly - with some luck, the right department will find you!
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u/stemphdmentor 8h ago
This is completely correct about fit. Departments are generally looking for people who will strengthen their research, who will bring some intellectually that will benefit other groups. Searches aren’t competitions to identify the “smartest scientist on the market” or anything.
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u/Efficient-Tomato1166 9h ago
what is a small r1? do you mean a place like Dartmouth that has <7000 total students? Or a place like Montana State University, that pulls in less federal research dollars?
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u/stemphdmentor 8h ago
I don’t think the small vs large R1 is a useful distinction here.
And the number of candidates for any position depends on the breadth of the search. Some departments go to greater pain than others to define what they are looking for ahead of time. Others kick the can until the applications are in and then have very lengthy meetings as they deliberate on what they want (these searches are often more likely to fail in my experience).
Departments, chairs, deans, and provosts also vary tremendously in what they weigh. Some places do more bean (paper) counting, stare at grant numbers, and try to assess quality based on the IF of the journals you publish in. Others actually judge the quality of the work you do and assess your potential more carefully based on your scientific expertise and plans. I have thoughts about which are better to join.
All this is to say that it’s not very useful IME to decide you will or won’t make a cut based on some avatar that actually applies to very few searches.
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u/ThinManufacturer8679 10h ago
I'm not sure what a small R1 is. What are some universities that would fit this description?
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u/antiquity11 9h ago
Caltech, Brandeis, MIT, Dartmouth. Depending how small one means, perhaps Duke (under 20k students) and University of Rochester.
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u/ThinManufacturer8679 9h ago
I'm not sure if this is what OP means. MIT, Duke and Caltech are as competitive as any school.
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u/antiquity11 9h ago
I know. That's why most are answering that his/her hope that smaller R1's are less competitive is not true (and likely the opposite).
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u/seinchin 1h ago
Caltech and MIT are probably the most desirable and therefore competitive R1 jobs!
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u/OxidusRouge 4h ago
I wouldn't call MIT small, at least in terms of numbers of grad students and research activity. Its just all focused on STEM. Also, at Caltech, I would say most of their student body is graduate students. Their undergrad numbers are tiny, however. Dartmouth, yes, it is small (but rich) in terms of numbers of grad students.
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u/antiquity11 4h ago
Caltech (which I went to) is small. It's only about 1000 undergrads and about 1000 grads. That's small by any measure. Even if you count postdocs. MIT is less than 5K students.
And to your next point, no one is calling them small in terms of research activity. The point is the research activity is very high for them to be R1 in the first place, but the they are still "small" in terms of numbers of total students. And, back to the OPs question, these are decidedly not less competitive for TT jobs.
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u/Think-Jaguar6826 10h ago
Apply. Do your best, pick the best offer. Everything is competitive, every year is different, and every place have different needs
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u/Average650 Associate Prof. ChemE 8h ago
We're an r2 in the south and we get a hundred applicants. 50 are very qualified and 20 are excellent.
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u/cropguru357 9h ago
To add: CC jobs get hundreds of Ph.D. applicants now, too. I remember applying to one in 2006 and there were 250 applications.
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u/moosy85 5h ago
I'm in the south of the US at an R2 in a smaller city, and we're having issues getting decent candidates.
We get 100 candidates say, but half of them don't have a PhD for some reason (they do get removed). From the other half, maybe half don't have any experience (which we don't dismiss, though), and the other half are folks from industry or people who used to have a tenured position and are moving. Most have no interest in teaching or don't even mention that they might. Most also never checked our very very specific mission and have nothing to talk about. A lot of them never really looked at the job description (the mission is in there). For the interviewees who did read the description and tailored their cover letter, we weed out the ones who don't have ACTUAL interest in the mission (you'd be surprised how many don't bother re-reading it before the interview).
We've gotten some top contenders that ended up being fired from their former uni for misconduct and they were hoping a smaller uni wouldn't check (no, your career is over).
Almost all are hyper focused on research when we're looking for 50 to 60% teaching effort. It's such an easy choice when we ask the top 3 to give a teaching presentation and only one of them actually did that (aka asking questions from the audience, having one other interactive part where folks can type smt, or smt else). and the other 2 are just talking about their research without any clear teaching (like just a boring conference presentation where they talk at you).
Our bar is pretty low, but we still have folks doing the limbo under that bar.
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u/Such_Chemistry3721 4h ago
This tracks with my experience at a not super prestigious SLAC in the south. It's competitive, but the real number of people competing are way less than most people would think.
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u/MTNSky86 2h ago
I’m in social sciences but I imagine being in the south is affecting your recruiting.
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u/Aggressive-Wind-8829 5h ago
You might as well be playing the lottery with those scratch off tickets.
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u/Profess0rRacc00n 1h ago
I think it depends more on the departments you are looking at - every position is competitive, and some smaller R1s might want to get someone that might not just leave for 'better' place just as much.
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u/robbie_the_cat 11h ago edited 10h ago
Extremely competitive. Every year at my SLAC we are inundated with hundreds of applications for TT teaching focused positions from people who have clearly spent the last 5-10 years preparing for an R1 position and
connotcannot get one. Many of them look excellent for an R1 position even if they don't really have what it takes to get an interview for a teaching focused position.