Table 1. Faculty rating of student at exit.

1. Ability to handle classwork needed for your PhD program

2. Drive and determination

3. Creativity and imagination in terms of experimental design and interpretation

4. Technical ability

5. Keeping up with the literature

6. Output–translating observations into a presentable paper

7. Ability to write creatively

8. Leadership in the lab and department

9. Trajectory

10. Overall assessment as a productive scientist

Faculty mentors were asked to score student upon PhD completion using a scale of 1–5 as follows

1-outstanding; 2-excellent; 3-good; 4-fair; 5-poor. The faculty rating is the sum of the scores for 10 questions.