flycatcher

Thank you both very much! I'm indeed looking at some of the top American schools such as Stanford, Caltech, Columbia, Harvard, etc. Although these top schools do offer master programs in the biological sciences, they are often more book-based rather than the wet-bench laboratory research that I'm looking for. For example, they offer masters in disciplines such as biotechnology, bioinformatics, or genetic counselling, whereas I want to do basic science research in fields such as biochem, molecular bio, immuno, etc. so47 thanks for the info. That was indeed some of the rumours I heard. If there is someone familiar with the medical sciences, I would really appreciate some insight on how MS is regarded in this field.

Hi, I'm a Canadian and I'm unfamiliar with the american graduate school system. I'm considering doing a graduate degree in basic science research in the biomedical field (e.g. molecular bio, biochemistry, immunology, microbiology, cancer biology, etc) at an American university. I was planning on doing a master program, but after research I noticed that most american universities only offer Ph.D programs in these field, not master programs. Instead, you have to commit to the PhD program and MS is granted in the process of getting the PhD, but not by itself. Since then, I heard rumours that MS are only granted if you fail the Ph.D qualitifications, and therefore are not well-regarded degrees in US. I know this is not the case in most humanities fields, but can someone familiar with the medical sciences confirm this for me? This is all very new to me because in Canada masters are given out as their own proper degree. I'm new to the forum so I apologize if i'm posting in the wrong place. If you could direct me somewhere I can find the answer I would really appreciate it.