You Don't Have to Wait for a Calmer Year to Start Your Doctorate

You have been meaning to look into it for three years now. Maybe five. Every fall and spring you tell yourself next year will be the calmer one — fewer vacancies to fill, a lighter budget season, a board that is not mid-transition — and then next year shows up looking exactly like this one. The doctorate stays on the to-do list.

The problem was never whether you are capable of doctoral work. You are already doing it. You read research to define your school’s mission and programming. You interpret data under time pressure. You write, present, and persuade for a living. The problem is that most doctoral programs were not built for someone whose calendar belongs to a building.

The obstacle is the calendar, not the ambition

The completion numbers tell the story. Fewer than half of all students who start a doctoral program finish one. That is not a comment on their intelligence. It is what happens when a program assumes a student who can be on campus midweek, meet an advisor during business hours, and disappear into a dissertation for a year.

Our programs, designed for practicing school leaders, structure around that failure point instead of ignoring it. At Russell Sage College, you are assigned an advisor the day you enter, and a meaningful portion of the dissertation gets done during coursework rather than after it. Their students average better than 85% on-time completion, and their most recent cohort finished at 100%. Saint Peter’s University builds in monthly in-person dissertation seminars for the same reason.

Your research can be the problem already on your desk

The word “dissertation” makes many administrators imagine years of abstract theory disconnected from their work. Applied doctoral programs invert that. Your research question comes from your district: chronic absenteeism in your middle school, teacher retention in hard-to-staff subjects, whether your MTSS rollout is actually reaching the students it was designed for.

The dissertation stops being work stacked on top of your job and becomes a rigorous version of work you were going to do anyway — with a methodology, a committee, and findings your district can use. Graduates of the Russell Sage program have presented their research at national and international conferences and moved into superintendencies, including in Denver and in New York City. Nearly half of the NYC superintendents have come through a CITE Partner program.

Two paths, and the numbers behind them

CITE partners with two accredited institutions on doctorates for working school leaders. They are built differently, and the right one depends mostly on your credentials and your union membership.

The Sage program is shorter and cheaper for a specific reason: at 46 credits, it gives you credit for the SBL you already hold. If you are a CSA or SAANYS member with your SBL, that is roughly $18,000 less than the $60,000-plus charged by comparable weekend hybrid programs.

Saint Peter’s is open more broadly. There is no union requirement, and “educational leadership position” is defined generously — department chairs, lead teachers, instructional coaches, and deans all qualify alongside assistant principals and principals. Saint Peter’s also offers an Ed.D. in higher education leadership, a Ph.D. for those aiming at professorships or research careers, and an ABD completion program if you stalled out in a dissertation somewhere else years ago.

What the credential opens

Be clear-eyed about why you want this. For many administrators, the doctorate is what makes them a serious candidate in a superintendent search, where a terminal degree is an unwritten expectation. It also opens college-level teaching and consulting — which matters more than people expect when they start thinking about what comes after retirement.

And there is the plainer reason: it is the intellectual work you have wanted to do since you left the classroom, and you are tired of postponing it. That is a good enough reason on its own.

Start with a conversation

You do not have to commit to anything to find out whether this is realistic. Both programs run open houses, and both will talk through your specific situation before you apply. You can reach either at 877-922-2483 Jennifer@citeprogram.com or Tom@citeprograms.com 

If you are a CSA or SAANYS member with your SBL, start at citesage.com. If you are outside those organizations, or you are in a leadership role and heading toward district administration, start at citesaintpeters.com.