Placement in prestigious research institutions for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) PhD recipients is generally considered to be optimal. Yet some doctoral recipients are not interested in intensive research careers and instead seek alternative careers, outside but also within academe (for example teaching positions in Liberal Arts Schools). Recent attention to non-academic pathways has expanded our understanding of alternative PhD careers. However, career preferences and placements are also nuanced along the academic pathway. Existing research on academic careers (mostly research-centric) has found that certain factors have a significant impact on the prestige of both the institutional placement and the salary of PhD recipients. We understand less, however, about the functioning of career preferences and related placements outside of the top academic research institutions. Our work builds on prior studies of academic career placement to explore the impact that prestige of PhD-granting institution, advisor involvement, and cultural capital have on the extent to which STEM PhDs are placed in their preferred academic institution types. What determines whether an individual with a preference for research oriented institutions works at a Research Extensive university? Or whether an individual with a preference for teaching works at a Liberal Arts college? Using survey data from a nationally representative sample of faculty in biology, biochemistry, civil engineering and mathematics at four different Carnegie Classified institution types (Research Extensive, Research Intensive, Master’s I & II, and Liberal Arts Colleges), we examine the relative weight of different individual and institutional characteristics on institutional type placement. We find that doctoral institutional prestige plays a significant role in matching individuals with their preferred institutional type, but that advisor involvement only has an impact on those with a preference 440 plosone PLoS ONE PLoS One PLOS PMC5426638 5426638 5426638 28493914 10.1371/journal.pone.0176977 Take me where I want to go: Institutional prestige, advisor sponsorship, and academic career placement preferences Pinheiro Diogo L 1 Melkers Julia 2 * Newton Sunni 3 Rosenbloom Joshua L Editor 4 1 Department of Sociology, Savannah State University, Savannah, GA, United States of America 2 School of Public Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, United States of America 3 Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics and Computing (CEISMC), Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, United States of America 4 Iowa State University, UNITED STATES Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Abstract Placement in prestigious research institutions for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) PhD recipients is generally considered to be optimal. Yet some doctoral recipients are not interested in intensive research careers and instead seek alternative careers, outside but also within academe (for example teaching positions in Liberal Arts Schools). Recent attention to non-academic pathways has expanded our understanding of alternative PhD careers. However, career preferences and placements are also nuanced along the academic pathway. We find that doctoral institutional prestige plays a significant role in matching individuals with their preferred institutional type, but that advisor involvement only has an impact on those with a preference for research oriented institutions. Gender effects are also observed, particularly in the role of the advisor in affecting preferred career placement. status released display-pdf yes is-olf no is-manuscript no is-preprint no is-journal-matter no is-scanned no is-retracted no Received 2016 Apr 23; Accepted 2017 Apr 20; Collection date 2017. Introduction The traditional pathways for PhD scientists and engineers have expanded considerably, and accordingly, individual’s career preferences have become more varied. Recent attention has been paid to the preparation and support of PhD recipients in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) for non-academic careers, given growing interests and opportunities in government and industry, coupled with evidence of a growing PhD workforce without a corresponding growth in academic jobs [ 1 – 3 ]. More importantly, their research also found that these effects were independent of any pre-employment productivity, and that pre-employment productivity had no significant impact on a candidate’s position within the “prestige hierarchy.” Similar results have been found for faculty hires in mathematics, chemistry, biology, physics, sociology, and several other disciplines [ 12 , 15 , 39 , 40 ]. In fact, some scholars argue that this relationship is the single largest determining factor in a graduate student’s overall experience and persistence in a PhD program [ 42 – 44 ]. Observing how the role of one’s PhD advisor shapes an individual’s perceptions of a certain career path, and may impact their career preferences [ 45 ]. Further, student-reported quality of relationship with advisor has been shown to be a significant predictor of reported preference for a faculty position at a research university [ 1 , 46 ]. Since these are marginal effects, the results of interaction terms are already shown in terms of their joint impact and significance (see supplemental materials for tables with relative risk ratios and separate terms for each of the variables that affect the interaction, plus interaction terms). For the interaction between doctoral prestige and preferences and the interaction between advisor sponsorship and preferences, the marginal effects are presented for respondents based on whether their initial academic career placement was research or teaching focused. The primary data collection for this project involved the implementation of an extensive survey of STEM