Of interest to faculty candidates

This very interesting website, Chemistry Placement Data, which shows the tenure-track placement rates for the PhD graduation classes of 2008-2010. The percentages are about what you would expect, and the success rates of the universities are about there as well.

This website has been around for a while, but the authors have now encouraged sharing the data, especially since Dr. Gaule and his team have a new paper out, titled "Biased Beliefs and Entry into Scientific Careers". It's quite interesting:

We investigate whether excessively optimistic beliefs may play a role in the persistent demand for doctoral and post-doctoral training in science. We elicit the beliefs and career preferences of doctoral students through a novel survey and randomize the provision of structured information on the true state of the academic market and information through role models on non-academic careers. One year later, both treatments lead students to update their beliefs about the academic market and impact career preferences. However, we do not find an effect on actual career outcomes 2 years post-intervention.

I will have more to say about this paper later, but I think it's worth reading and thinking about, even as I suspect readers of this blog will agree with the broad conclusions of the article.