Importance of PhD grade for future career in physics research?

Question

I recently obtained my PhD in physics from one of the Max Planck Institutes in Germany. Unfortunately, I only barely passed with a "rite" grade (the lowest passing grade here in Germany). This is despite my supervisor (and head examiner) going through my thesis with me during the writing process and giving me corrections and advice along the way which I duly implemented. Before handing the thesis in, my supervisor remarked that this was a very good thesis and will likely obtain a good mark.

However, I was told in the exam that both my thesis and oral exam had been graded poorly, even though my presentation was on time and was aimed well (according to my colleagues, director of the institute and day-to-day supervisor who was also in the room). I could not answer some questions in the oral exam simply because they were outside of my field, for example I was asked about stellar formation and ion drives despite me being an experimental physicist working on MBE (molecular-beam epitaxy) crystal growth. To add insult to injury, my supervisor said he was disappointed in me and that I should have done better, despite his previous comments.

It is also worth noting that my supervisor and I did not have the best relationship: he once said that a mistake I had made in an APS talk would "destroy my career in science" and that when I began to suffer from severe mental health problems from the stress of my thesis and a close family bereavement, he refused to let me take time off, forcing me to get a doctors note for me to take time off.

I am currently in a new postdoc position at a reputable research institution in Germany, and my new supervisors have both said that the grade does not matter since I have the position and what matters now is my publication list. But I have seen conflicting things online regarding this. What is your opinion? In your experience, does this matter at all? I would particularly like to hear from scientists.

Thank you in advance.

(P.S. It is also worth noting that I received no corrections to my thesis, which I have been told is very unusual)

(P.P.S Just to respond to some of the questions or comments given in prior answers. I am English so my original intention was to return to the UK and look for a research position, I am not interested in a Professorship. My university shows the grade on the doctoral certificate so there is no real way of hiding this at all. I have tried contacting my supervisor to ask for his logic regarding the grade he awarded me but I have so far heard nothing back.)

Answer 1

Not sure about Europe, but in the US or Canada no one will ever know about your grade -- and no one will be interested to know it. The quality (and, let us face it, the quanity) of your papers will really matter, as well as the rank of the journals where you publish. And, of course, reference letters. Also your visibility at high-profile professional conferences. These are the only relevant parameters for any hiring committee. I suspect, in Europe it will be the same.

In short, just forget about that negative experience, and move on.

Answer 2

For an academic career in Germany, this is a big deal.

Having received a rite for your doctorate is going to be a huge blow for your chances to ever be appointed to a professorship in Germany. Picking you over someone with summa cum laude would just open up the selection committee to all kinds of appeals.

As many of the other answers have pointed out, this is probably not too much of an issue abroad. However, there is always a chance of someone in the committee knowing that German doctorates have grades, and those ought to be either summa cum laude or magna cum laude. I'd certainly consider a rite a dark orange flag in a job application, and I am not at a German institution.

Answer 3

Following up on the comment stream, I doubt that you have anything to worry about. A doctorate is a (near) terminal degree (yes, I know about habilitation in Germany) and having it is usually enough.

The general assumption (by most folks) is that your faculty was happy enough with you to grant the degree and they were the ones best qualified to make the decision.

The reputation of your advisor and your university has some small repetitional value early on, but grades, even for a dissertation, much less.

After that, as your supervisor says, it is up to what you do (publications and such) after you finish.

It isn't impossible that it would have a negative effect if known but not universally and also, not likely to be known. Not widely known, anyway. Relax.

Answer 4

I consider most of the existing answers to be a bit short-sighted:

Yes, most other countries do not have grades on PhDs (and not ask for them either) and even in some hiring processes in Germany, you might get around revealing your PhD grade. But in those hiring processes, there will be something that replaces the PhD grade, because at the end of the day, people want to have something more than your interview performance to base their hiring decision on. In many systems, what replaces the PhD grade are reference letters, and a typical reference would be your PhD advisor. If your PhD advisor contributed to giving you a rite on your PhD¹, he will likely not give you stellar references either.

Now, you can rely on other references and other demonstrations of your skill like your publication record. But having to do that is an extra challenge and could eventually be what tips the scales in favour of another candidate. So, having a bad PhD grade or bad relationship to your PhD advisor, respectively, does have an influence on your career.

That being said, you already took the most difficult hurdle in such circumstances, namely getting your first postdoc position. (As you mentioned, this position was granted to you before your PhD defense, so this doesn’t necessarily reflect the importance of your PhD grade.) Your postdoc supervisor(s) are of course alternative sources of reference letters.

As already mentioned in some answers, German hiring processes are different and might require you to have a good PhD grade by law (see this answer of mine for details). For example, I almost certainly wouldn’t have gotten my current position with a rite PhD, even with everything else being equal. I also interviewed for many positions for which a rite would have clearly disqualified me.

Finally, let me note that rite is almost absurdly bad. This grade is very rarely given, not only due to grade inflation but also because the respective people usually drop out of their PhDs. It also usually reflects poorly on the advisor because it suggests they did not properly train you, etc. This can actually work in your advantage: For example, if I received an application from you with a rite PhD, I would assume it as likely that your supervisor/committee made a mistake as that your grade was actually deserved. The odds are even better if you have a decent publication record or anything else demonstrating that you have the skills a PhD grade should reflect. I would probably try to contact your supervisor and if he doesn’t give a solid explanation for your grade (which is not that easy), I wouldn’t give much on it.

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¹ It is worth checking your PhD examination rules on how the grade is determined. For example, in most rules I know, the supervisor’s is responsible for half the grade, but yours might differ.

Answer 5

Answer: It won't matter in most countries

My PhD (which was in a similar field to yours) was from the UK and afterwards I worked at universities in Japan, Singapore, USA, and Canada (plus I did long research visits in other countries), and yet I've never heard of a PhD thesis having a "grade".

Therefore, if you apply for a research position in any one of those countries (and likely many others!), it is very unlikely that you would be asked for your thesis "grade", and what will matter the most is your list of publications, your reference letters, your research proposal (for cases in which it is required), and perhaps your relationship to the person making the decision (for example if you're applying to work as a post-doctoral researcher that is supervised by someone that loves interacting with you at conferences).

Comments: On some of what you said

"However, I was told in the exam that both my thesis and oral exam had been graded poorly, even though my presentation was on time and was aimed well"

The fact that your presentation was "on time" does not shield you from getting a bad grade.

"It is also worth noting that I received no corrections to my thesis, which I have been told is very unusual)."

You are right. It is very unusual for a thesis to pass without any suggested (or required) corrections. However, if they asked you to make corrections, they would have to (at least in principle) look at your thesis another time to verify that they have been made in a satisfactory way, and since you "did not have the best relationship" with your supervisor, and the examiners didn't seem to like your thesis as much as you had hoped, it is possible that they all wanted for the entire ordeal to end sooner rather than later.

Answer 6

It won't have any impact on your career

So first I should say congratulations on finding a postdoc, and this is the reason I say it won't have any impact on your career. I should also say, I've been living in Germany for the past few years doing a post-doc and this is the first time I heard that there are grades for PhDs here.

The role of the PhD is to teach you how to do research and to make you a world renown expert of a very specific sub-field of your discipline. The role of the post-doc is to let you develop your brand of research, get a wider sense of what is going on in your field, build your academic network, and to check you didn't just "get lucky" regarding your successes in your PhD. Given that you have a position already the most likely (though I would still judge it as unlikely) point where a "rite" grade would impact your career has already passed. Now people will be looking at your papers to assess if your expertise is what they want to hire, and checking that you can be productive in multiple research groups.

Regarding grants, I doubt they'd be able to judge you on having a "rite" grade, mainly because it would be discriminatory and the grading for investigators tend to be about papers published, which journals they were published in, and students/postdocs supervised (when reaching an appropriate level). Keep in mind that if you and me put in for the same grant I could have just barely passed my PhD and because my PhD was ungraded they can't apply the same standard to me as they would be applying to you if they struck a mark off you for this "rite" grade. Since I believe Germany is unusual in grading PhDs, how other countries do this will dominate the importance of the grade, in-fact you could probably just leave the grade off unless the grant application document specifically says that grades must be included if given.

Answer 7

It might depend on the country, but outside of Germany I can't see this making a difference for most countries (possible exception being other German-speaking countries).

I'm fairly certain from my experience of studying and working mostly in the UK that no-one will know about your grade if you apply for a job in the UK. I'm not sure they would even understand the meaning if you tell them about the grade.

If applying for academic jobs in non-German-speaking countries I would just say you got your PhD on your CV and leave it at that unless anyone asks for more information.

Your rite grade might disqualify you from continuing further in the German academic environment, however, but I assume you already knew that.

Answer 8

This grade might appear on your graduate school transcript and therefore might be seen by a hiring committee that asks for such a transcript. However, outside of Germany, it's probably unlikely to have much of an impact and may not noticed or understood.

In applying for faculty jobs in the US and Canada, I have been asked for graduate school transcripts (and, a few times, undergraduate transcripts). Usually, the postings that ask for these transcripts are for teaching-focused positions, but not always (I was asked for them for a few research-focused positions as well).

I have no idea what a German grad school transcript would look like or if it would include this grade. A grade for the PhD defense, even if present on the transcript, might be ignored by hiring committee members from outside the German system because they wouldn't understand it (especially if it is untranslated) or because they wouldn't expect to see it (if such a grade doesn't exist in their academic culture). Unless the committee had someone trained in the German system who knew what to look for, a hiring committee in the US (or many other places) would probably not bother to try to understand what the "rite" on your German transcript meant.

In any case, I'm not sure how much these hiring committees care about any graduate school grades, even the ones who ask for graduate school transcripts. Presumably it's considered together with a lot of other documents and might only have an impact if it's a very teaching-focused position, there are other red flags in the application, or there are two candidates of exceptionally similar competitiveness for the position.

Answer 9

The thesis grade has 0 importance, period. Nobody will ask you about it. Really: nobody cares about this, and I don’t recall this ever being a topic of conversation.

I can’t recall my grade and I’m not even sure I got one. I’ve been on PhD examination committees and I can’t remember ever formally assigning a grade. This hasn’t stop me, any colleague, anyone I’ve supervised or anyone whom I’ve examined of continuing in physics.

What matters is what you did, as witnessed by your publication record and your letters of reference.