The Costs of Early-career Disciplinary Pivots: Evidence from Ph.D. Admissions
This reveals substantial costs for early-career researchers pivoting disciplines, potentially constraining innovation in research communities, and is incremental as it extends prior work on established researchers.
The study investigated the impact of disciplinary pivoting at the doctoral admissions stage, finding that pivoters are 1.3 percentage points less likely to be admitted and 12.9 percentage points less likely to graduate, with no superior publication performance.
Scientific innovation often comes from researchers who pivot across disciplines. However, prior work found that established researchers face productivity penalties when pivoting. Here, we investigate the consequences of pivoting at the beginning of a research career -- doctoral admissions -- when the benefits of importing new ideas might outweigh the switching costs. Using applications to all PhD programs at a large research-intensive university between 2013-2023, we find that pivoters (those applying to programs outside their prior disciplinary training) have lower GPAs and standardized test scores than non-pivoters. Yet even conditional on these predictors of admission, pivoters are 1.3 percentage points less likely to be admitted. Examining applicants who applied to multiple programs in the same admissions cycle provides suggestive evidence that the admissions pivot penalty is causal. This penalty is significantly smaller for applicants who secure a recommendation from someone within the target discipline. Among those admitted and enrolled, pivoters are 12.9 percentage points less likely to graduate and do not show superior publication performance on average or at the tail. Our results reveal the substantial costs of disciplinary pivoting even at the outset of research careers, which constrain the flow of new ideas into research communities.