Ideally there would be someone here to take this guy aside and say "Don't listen to Mike." But those are long ago days.

I believe BYU has at least 20 or so PhD programs. I have a buddy getting one in biochemistry, and I know a couple of individuals getting them in neuroscience. It seems like there is more of a push toward graduate training these days.

WHo's your faculty mentor at byu?

I had heard from a PDBio major (now a nursing student at Georgetown) that BYU's MS neuro grads have trouble getting into PhD programs and its PhD students have difficulty finding jobs.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

I can't speak to other PhD's, but I am being recruited for Jobs and have 2 job offers and I have not even gone on internship yet. As I have been going on internship interviews, I feel like I am competing well with those that come from the top schools in the country. There is a good reputation for our program and we do have a couple of psychology legends on the faculty that give our program some clout.

Who?

I didn't know BYU had any notable faculty outside of the MBA or Engineering Departments.

There are several psychology staff who have national reputations. Mike Lambert is easily one of the top psychotherapy researchers.

As far as the MS students, if true, it is probably a function of the students, and not the school. Because certainly BYU students with BS are able to get into top PhD programs directly.

What you have heard about PhD students in the biological sciences sounds totally believable to me. When I was at BYU, most of the biology faculty would not have been competitive for jobs at major universities.

Why is that? The departments I studied under did not exhibit this pattern.

Lack of high-impact research publications. Lack of grants and history of obtaining grants. To some degree, the kind of science professors you would have at a liberal arts college that doesn't have graduate programs. How can you run wet-labs and not have a meaningful graduate program? End of story.

However, I believe things are trending towards better research, more graduate students, better-qualified young faculty.

When BYU was rapidly expanding back in the day (1970s?), they hired a lot of suspect faculty who ended up with tenure. Those guys are dying off.