This is The Collective Edge, a newsletter for curious people to learn how the science of groups and organizations can help us live and work better together. Not to be confused with the eponymous book that I’ll reference incessantly. (Ghostly whisper: Go and buuuyyy the booook…Review it on Amazon or Goodreadsssss…Post about it on social mediaaaa….)
At The Collective Edge, you’ll get twice-monthly-ish newsletters that help you understand and shape your own moments of collaboration and creativity, mixing essays and interviews. You’ll also learn about social science, the writing process, and the non-stop action of academic careers.
We have a lot of new readers, so welcome! Seriously - we cracked #15 on the Substack “Rising Science Newsletters” leaderboard! If you don’t know what the heck this is, please start with this post.
“I’m thinking of getting a Ph.D.”
I’ve had many conversations that begin this way. That’s no surprise, given that (a) I administer advice to PhD students on LinkedIn, and (b) I’m the Ph.D. Programme Director at UCL School of Management.
Yet, interlocutors are often surprised by my stony reply: “You probably don’t need a Ph.D.”
As I wrote in my post “How to Survive and Thrive in Academia”:
For those who are PhD-curious, do your homework before making a decision. Many people like the idea of having a PhD, but not the reality of getting one - or an academic career. For 99.87% of people, a PhD is a questionable life decision (p < .05). Go save the world or something. Take it from the guy whose responsibility it is to help those who mistakenly started down this path and then need to get themselves out again: Leave it to us pie-eating weirdos.
It is extra-weird for me to discourage aspiring academics for not knowing what they are getting into — because I had no idea what I was getting into! I was ridiculously unprepared for my own PhD. The journey from jazz trumpeter to business school professor was serendipitous and, for me, wonderful. Although it has its challenges, an academic career is one of the best I can imagine for myself.
So why don’t I encourage others to walk a similar path? And why does my whimsical tone turn terse when I talk about PhDs? (Or, “supercilious,” as one commenter called me).
There are two main reasons.
I’ve been around academia long enough to know: Research academics are weirdos. Including me. I don’t mean the stereotypical nerds of Big Bang Theory who lack certain social graces (although there’s plenty of that).
I mean that we like doing things that most people hate.
![Mit dem Urknall ins Sitcom-Universum: Die Nerds von "The Big Bang ...](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!nEFL!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F52da3ebb-6691-4664-9213-edfa1d11c4fc_630x412.jpeg "Mit dem Urknall ins Sitcom-Universum: Die Nerds von "The Big Bang ...")
Official Spouse of the Blog, Carola, has declared that my job often would be torture to her. I write a lot. I then throw away what I have written and rewrite it. I repeat this process dozens of times. I read hundreds of pages of dry, dense journal articles each week. I play with spreadsheets and analyze data (OK, not as much as I used to). I do a lot of public speaking (and less teaching than you might think).
Normal people hate one or more of these tasks. Which means that normal people will hate one or more of the core tasks of a research career. But people often don’t know this because…
The biggest misconception is that a PhD at a research-focused institution is “school.” It’s not school. It’s an entry-level job. Although the title may be “PhD student,” you are not really a student in the sense that an undergraduate or master’s student is. You are an early-career researcher, training to do the same job as your supervisors — synthesize new knowledge. If you want a PhD to “continue your education,” you’re headed the wrong way.
When things go awry for our PhD students, it’s my job to help sort them out. I have seen too many people languish in PhD programmes.
Many people start a PhD programme without much understanding of what they are signing up for. So I try to give applicants a realistic idea of what this is. And, if I can talk you out of it, I will. Because you have to really, really want this weird-ass career for it to be worth it.
Strong academic credentials (e.g., grades, test scores) are, of course, helpful. But the fit between your research interests and faculty members’ research interests is essential.
At UCL School of Managment is a relatively small school and we define “fit” quite narrowly. That means that both students and advisors are fascinated by overlapping topics, which improves advising and collaboration. So, in your personal statement, take care in articulating your interests and how they fit with the interests of specific faculty members.
Some schools have you apply to individual faculty members, running a “laboratory” model. At UCL School of Management, we do PhD admissions as a department. You should list at least two faculty members as potential advisors. Maybe even three if there’s a real fit. You don’t know which faculty members already have too many students, which are going on sabbatical, etc. If there’s only one faculty member who shares your interests, that can be a risky place to get a PhD - you don’t want to stake your whole career on a single person.
✅ Understand the “job” you are applying for. At our school, we are training PhD students to be research-focused academics. If that’s not the career you want, we are a bad fit for you. Schools vary in how much they emphasize research vs. teaching vs. practice. Do your homework to find out which programmes match your career goals.
✅ Articulate why YOU are the person to do this research. Your CV is a narrative about your preparation for a research career. How have your experiences prepared you to do the research that you have suggested? What skills do you have (and what evidence is there of those skills)? How did you get interested in it?
Ineffective personal statements focus on what the PhD and school can do for you (”I have always wanted a PhD and it is the next logical step in my career”). Focus instead on what you bring to the school.
🚫 Don’t just list all the topics and faculty from a research group. That’s too general, and we can’t tell what you want to do. Make sure you think through what you want to study - if you get in, you’ll dedicate years of your life to this!
My colleague, Raina Brands, added “And do not email faculty members pronouncing your excellent fit for their research interests when there is literally zero overlap between their areas of focus and your research proposal!” And I agree: If you email the same proposal to everyone in a department, that will probably hurt you. On average, the people who mass email proposals that don’t fit anyone in the department anyway (e.g., Leadership in SMEs in Specific Country/Industry: A Study)
🚫 If you are looking for training for a teaching career or to “continue your education,” we are not the programme for you. Our programme is focused on providing training for academic research careers. That’s not a value judgement - other paths are great and, if that’s what you want, you should pursue it! But applications that suggest you are expecting something different than what we can deliver are unlikely to be successful.
If you are craving more advice, check out these posts:
(Legal Disclaimer: These are my opinions only; they are not the official positions of UCL or UCL School of Management.)
UCL School of Management is recruiting new students for our MRes/PhD Programme in Management, which includes Organisations & Innovation (aka Organisational Behaviour), Strategy & Entrepreneurship, Operations & Technology, Marketing & Analytics. The MRes/PhD in Financial Economics is also recruiting, but is a separate programme with different requirements. But I am not in charge of it.
All research groups offer a unique education and research experience to a small number of highly motivated students, with the intent of preparing them for scholarly careers at the highest level.
We prioritize fit with the research interests of faculty. Successful applicants will articulate research interests closely aligned with those of research faculty members.
1️⃣ If you want to be a research-oriented academic in management (i.e., tenure-track professor), you should apply. We have an excellent track record of preparing our graduates for these positions. 92% of our PhD graduates were placed in tenure-track positions within three years of graduation (a few took post-docs first), including faculty positions at Imperial College London, IE Business School, National University of Singapore, George Mason, and University of Maryland.
2️⃣ Our positions are all fully funded. All admitted students receive a full-tuition scholarship and a tax-free stipend of £26,000. There is no separate scholarship application because all admitted students receive this scholarship and stipend.
3️⃣ Submit your application by 1st December 2025. That’s when we’ll begin making admission decisions. Although UCL has a “late submission window” that is open until 27th March 2026, we rarely have places still available after the initial deadline. So apply early!
Applications are composed of university transcripts, test scores (GRE/GMAT for all; English Language for some), recommendations, and a personal statement. All of these provide different kinds of information about what you want to study and your potential to do it well.
In your application, you are building a case. It’s like a legal case, except what you are trying to convince us is that (a) you want to study something interesting, important, and impactful, (b) you have identified specific faculty members in our department who have shared interests with you, such that you can work with them on projects of mutual interest, (c) you have the motivation and skills to pull it off.
Q: Can I skip the MRes?
No. Our programme has a 1-year MRes + 4-year PhD structure. It does not matter if you already have an MRes or even another PhD - the only way into the PhD programme is through our MRes.
Honestly, skipping the MRes isn’t in your interests — if you think it is, you are probably not seeking the kind of academic career that we are offering training for. Those seeking to be competitive on the academic job market generally benefit from longer funded programmes, not shorter. So it is a good thing that we offer five years of funding (contingent on good academic progress). You can always graduate early if you are in a hurry (although this, too, is likely a bad plan).
Q: What if I don’t have research experience?
A: For our programme, an applicant with no research experience would need to have outstanding indicators of academic performance (grades, test scores) and an extremely compelling personal statement that strongly overlaps with the research interests of our faculty. (BTW, that was me)
Q: How do I get research experience?
A: Usually, meaningful research experience comes from predoctoral fellowships and research assistant positions. Here’s a list of opportunities. However, these opportunities are often difficult to secure. Professors you have worked with in the past who are in your desired area of specialization would probably be better able to advise you on where you might find opportunities to get your feet wet.
Some applicants cite their undergraduate or masters thesis as research experience. Thesis research, however, is a noisy signal, as most programmes do not provide enough time or support to do high-quality research.
Q: How important is work experience?
Work experience is helpful to the extent it informs your research interests and overall profile. If you have experience that gives you a unique perspective on your area of interest, that can be very helpful (in fact, that was largely the basis of my PhD application - I also had zero research experience and, of course, no publications). But if there isn’t a clear connection, it doesn’t matter that much - we accept students with and without substantial work experience.
Q: How do I get funding?
A: Our programme provides full funding to all admitted students. In many fields, applying for funding is a central part of the application process. In my own field of management, top programmes are usually fully funded (i.e., all admitted students receive full scholarships and stipends).
Controversial take: If you want to have a career as a research academic, I would advise you to apply only to fully funded programs. I have found that PhD programs where students pay to receive their degrees seldom lead to tenure-track jobs.
PhDs are a LOT of work, and the rewards go to only a handful at the end. I would not advise any family or friend to get a PhD that they have to pay for. The world is flooded with underemployed PhDs who, individually, probably would have been better off spending 3-6 years working on something else. Chances are that YOU are one of the people who would be better off not pursuing a PhD (in terms of well-being and money).
Q: Do I need a Master’s Degree?
A: Not for our programme, no. To prepare for our programme, the best thing you can do is to begin reading research in your area of interest and developing your ideas. Some Master’s degrees may be helpful if they provide the opportunity to gain research experience; others may not be relevant.
Q: Do faculty read or make decisions based on unsolicited emails?
A: I try to structure the process so that emails to individual faculty are discouraged. I receive far too many to read them all. All of our decisions are made as a research group where we vet all applications with all the same materials in a committee. It isn’t a fair process to look at different materials from each candidate and have individual faculty make decisions. So, for our school, I would discourage you (and everyone) from mass emails.
Some prospective applicants seem to expect that faculty will provide feedback on their research proposals. We do that for admitted students, but not for applicants. Unfortunately, there simply isn’t enough time to do this for everyone and it isn’t fair to do it for some and not others.
Q: Can I use AI in my application? How should I reference the use of AI?
A: I think we are all figuring out where that line is. I think it is good practice to footnote/credit AI if it has written some of the text. But using Grammarly or other programmes to identify and correct only errors in usage doesn’t warrant mention.
You should definitely write the first draft without AI. Moreover, I don’t think its good practice to put your first draft in, ask an LLM to improve it, and then simply use the LLMs updates. If you used AI to write a first draft, you aren’t doing yourself any favors. Your ability to think of something that AI couldn’t is a big part of the job as a researcher!
Q: Can I get a waiver from taking the GRE/GMAT?
A: No. That wouldn’t be fair to everyone else.
Q: What is your minimum GRE/GMAT Score?
There is no minimum for GRE/GMAT scores. Full information on the requirements can be found here. And, fwiw, asking me a question where the answer is on our web site isn’t a great start to a research career. So asking me, “What are the requirements?” leads me to suspect that maybe doing research isn’t your forte?
That’s enough superciliousness from me for one day. But I hope this helps someone (and, I’ve had a lot of people tell me it is, in fact, helpful).
If you have other questions, put them in the comments below! And go buy/review my new book, “The Collective Edge: Unlocking the Secret Power of Groups.”
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