"Nothing succeeds like success": Doctoral Education and Cumulative Advantage

Research on doctoral education has grown over the last 25 years, with interests in socialization, time to degree, attrition, and supervisor relations. This research aims to shift the focus on how cumulative advantage (i.e., the Matthew Effect) operates in doctoral education. This qualitative study of fifteen doctoral students revealed that earning competitive scholarships in doctoral study possessed value due to their scarcity and exclusivity, and to the conventions that operate in doctoral study which imbue specific activities with value. Also, students who attained these scholarships were afforded additional opportunities that further enriched their studies. Implications focused on the how inequality impacts the socialization of doctoral students.