Re: odds of transfer, you should consider that not all MS students wish to transfer to the PhD. Anecdotally, everyone I know who wanted to transfer to PhD (as you said, 1-2 students of a small cohort) managed to do so. Of course, I could have missed people who wanted to transfer but did not get in. I'm sure there's issues of selection too, in that better students are more interested in doing PhDs. But just something to consider.
