I'm just curious why out of 42 schools, you feel WSU was probably one of his only choices. I'm guessing criminology PhDs are not overly sought after? JMHO
Here's my rationale (all of these factors taken together create a very small number of choices one would have for a PhD program IMO and based on my experiences):
1) There are 42 criminology programs in the US according to US News & World Report; that does not mean all 42 have PhD programs. It's highly likely some of them only offer undergrad and/or master's degrees.
2) Depending on the size of the academic department, I would guesstimate that most departments with PhD programs probably have somewhere between 4-8 faculty who are able to serve as PhD supervisors, and most of those will not be accepting new students every academic year. For example, in my program (again, a different field, but also in the social sciences), we have 8 full-time faculty who are able to supervise PhD students and we have about 24 PhD students total who are currently enrolled. Of our 8 faculty who are eligible to supervise, only 2 of them currently have any capacity to take on new students in the next academic year. I cannot over-state how competitive it is to even be considered for a PhD program as an applicant. I receive at least 1 email per week from a prospective PhD student who wants me to supervise them. Some of them look like they'd be great students and their research interests are well aligned with mine. I don't have capacity, so I can't take them on. That means over the course of the year, I turn away at least 52 potential students. PhD supervisors typically get to be picky about which students they want to work with. PhD students aren't a significant income source for universities (unlike cash cow undergrad and some master's programs), so there is no reason to admit PhD students unless you truly want to work with them and have the time to devote to it. The student-supervisor relationship is a very close one and is a time-consuming part of the supervisor's workload, so as a supervisor you want to make sure you are taking on students who show promise and who don't seem as though they will be high-maintenance. I would guess BK had several phone/video calls and/or an in-person interview with his supervisor before he was admitted to the WSU PhD program.
3) Another thing that needs to be stressed is how imperative it is that the PhD student plans to complete their dissertation on a topic that is very closely related to the supervisor's area of expertise. It can be quite difficult to find a supervisor with the same or similar research interest as you (if you're the prospective student). For example, I'll use an example from Business. Let's say a student wants to do a PhD focused on marketing. It's not enough just to say, "I'm interested in marketing" - what sub-discipline of marketing? Let's say it's consumer behavior. That's still not granular enough. Behavior of social media users when consuming posts containing user-generated branding. Okay, that's getting granular enough. I have not looked at what BK's proposed dissertation topic was or who his supervisor was (and that's all been taken off the WSU website), but if we looked at them side-by-side, my guess is that his specific topic and his supervisor's expertise would be closely aligned.
4) PhD studentships (funding) are difficult to come by. When I was doing my PhD, my university only had 4 funded positions (and usually about 10-12 PhD students). Everyone else had to self-fund or take out student loans. My discipline is pretty comparable to the number of criminology programs in the US. Two years ago we had
one funded position available for a PhD student at my university and 62 people applied. Only one person out of those 62 received the studentship, and the other 61 were not accepted into the PhD program. Out of the 24ish PhD students we currently have, only 4 of those are fully funded by the university. Hopefully this gives a sense of the competitiveness of funding. For BK to find a funded position with a supervisor who presumably had the same niche research interests as him, and who had the capacity to take on a new student must have been fairly difficult.
5) Criminology is not my area, but from what I've read it seems to be a fast-growing academic field. I can't link to the NYTimes since it's behind a paywall and that is not allowed on this forum, but a recent article published there, which was related to this case, said there were over 11,000 criminology degrees awarded by US universities in the 2020/21 academic year (it didn't break it down by undergrad/grad degrees). If the field is growing overall, I assume this means the demand for criminology PhD placements is increasing also.
I know this is a lengthy answer and apologize for the level of detail I've included in some areas, but I hope that when you look at all of those factors combined, it provides context/rationale for why I believe it would have been difficult for BK to get a PhD placement. Based on my own experience in academia for the past 15 years (18 if you count the PhD years), I would guess he probably had no more than 2 offers/acceptances from PhD programs. MOO