ghanada

If I am interpreting your story correctly, I think you did something very different from what the OP is asking. It sounds like you applied and attended a Masters program, and then after completing that you were accepted into the PhD program. However, for your PhD you applied to your Masters school as well as others and ended up going elsewhere. This is exactly what I have done as well. This is very common and is perfectly acceptable. The OP is asking whether or not it is ok to apply directly to a PhD program (without a Masters first), attend said PhD program, and then quit after 1-2 years to leave with a Masters. Then re-apply to new PhD programs. The key here is that this route intentionally deceives the PhD school because there was never an intent to actually get a PhD, just leave with a free Masters. Then apply to new PhD school because having the Masters will help to get into better PhD programs. @ hungryhungryhippo - I actually have heard similar things you mentioned that were said by profs, but usually in the context of a legitimate concern about funding problems or research fit. Like I said, it is one thing if say you enter a PhD program and then your adviser bails out, or your adviser loses their funding for you. These things happen fairly often and it is ABSOLUTELY acceptable and understandable to transfer to a new PhD program. That is very different than intentionally deceiving your PhD program, adviser, etc. just to get a free Masters so that you can beef up your resume to get into an even better PhD program. I don't know, I am probably a bit biased since I didn't have a strong resume out of undergrad, so I worked my *ss off researching, publishing, taking on debt to get a Masters, and then after like 5 years my app was finally ready to be competitive and now I am going to a top 10 PhD program. I think you should just really work on preparing the best application possible, even if it means taking some time working and taking more classes, and then apply to a whole bunch of good programs. Only apply to places that really excite you because if you apply to "safety" schools and don't actually want to go there than there is a good chance you will put yourself into this dilemma later. Also, for PhDs, rank is not everything. Research fit is probably 90% of your decision. Try not to worry about name, reputation, rank, etc. for PhDs, you will drive yourself crazy with that stuff.

I am not currently in psychology, but I did my undergrad in pyschobio and worked in psych research lab. I think you need to do some more research yourself and find programs you are interested in and then read about their graduate admissions requirements. Schools are very good about saying exactly what majors/courses they expect their applicants to have. For example, it took me about 10 seconds to get this from Stanford's website: "We accept students with undergraduate or Masters Degrees. An undergraduate degree in Psychology is not required. Applicants from other backgrounds are admitted. All applicants should have the knowledge equivalent to an undergraduate degree in Psychology, as they will be expected to go straight into graduate level coursework. Applications are accepted for Autumn Quarter entry only." so I think that pretty much sums it up, you should have a similar background to someone with an undergrad degree in psych. If you haven't taken any psych classes, I think you will have a hard time getting into PhD programs. Now whether or not you need "science" classes really depends on what type of psychology research you want to do. If you want to do neuropsych, than yes, you should probably have a strong science background. Consider the fact that you will be competing for VERY competitive programs with applicants that have an undergrad in psych, research in psych, publications in psych, maybe a Masters in psych, etc. So if you are trying to get into top programs, you might have a lot of work to do to be competitive. I am not discouraging you at all, especially since I switched from psych undergrad to a Masters in electrical engineering and now a PhD in biomedical engineering. However, I had to work VERY hard and it took me 6 years from undergrad to get into a new field. If you are passionate about switching fields, realize it may take some extra time, but you can do it and it will be worth it.

This gets asked all the time on these boards, you should check out past topics. My personal feelings, along with the consensus on these forums, is that this is generally a bad thing to do. You will definitely burn bridges and make things complicated for yourself. Do you think your adviser at the 1st university would really write you a strong LOR for the 2nd university? How would you explain yourself in your SOP for the 2nd application? You are clearly going to have to show you enrolled into a PhD program and then quit. How excited do you think the 2nd school will be about taking someone on who has already done that once? I have come across this question from lots of people, and I understand if circumstances come up that make it so you can't finish the PhD at a school. There are understandable hardships and sometimes things don't work out. But to intentionally go into a school wanting a free Masters with the hopes of going to a better PhD school seems unethical to me and I question a person's integrity that does this.

I had nearly identical scores, except my verbal was 161. I am going to University of Michigan - Ann Arbor in the fall for a BME PhD so your scores are probably high enough for top 10 schools. That being said, last fall before I turned my apps in and I was talking to a POI at UMich, she told me my quant. was a little low since it was just below their average. My old format score was 770 and apparently UMich's average is 780. I didn't think this was a deal breaker, but I think top eng schools consider anything below 800 to be slightly weak. So in hindsight I would have retaken the GREs again. I am skeptical that those 30 extra points were the difference between a rejection and acceptance, but if you are applying to top places you might as well make your app as absolutely strong as possible. Make sure you keep your Masters GPA up. Since your undergrad GPA is so low you will need a fantastic Masters GPA combined with near perfect Quant GRE scores to be competitive in top eng PhD schools. I was in a similar situation as you and had a terrible undergrad GPA (<3.0), but had a 3.8 Masters GPA so that helped a bit. However, I will warn you that grad schools will not discount your undergrad completely and you will probably get lots of rejections regardless of how well you do in your Masters. This is what I was told by admissions people regarding my own app. So apply to lots of places and really strengthen your app during your Masters, but realize that for top tier schools it can nearly be impossible to overcome a bad undergrad GPA. Good luck!

jah, Besides your cumulative gpa, you have some great stats. You also sound very well rounded and have some great research experience that will help. However, with that said, there really is no way to tell with top tier schools. I have heard of people with 4.0 GPAs, research experience, publications, patents, good letter of recs, etc getting rejected from middle tier schools. Everyone always says this but it is so true that it depends on who else is applying, your adviser fit, etc. There are wayyyy too many variables to say what the "chances are" of getting to school X, Y, and Z. This year seemed like a particularly rough year with record number of applicants. So apply to all those schools and some others not in the top tier as well. Consider University of Michigan as well because that is where I will be going this fall and I was thoroughly impressed with the program.

@child of 2 I agree with @spore that doing poorly in undergrad had nothing to do with my major. I was originally computer science and only cared about passing classes since the job market was so good and GPA really didn't matter. At the end of my undergrad I decided to do pre-med, but it was too late to salvage my GPA. I then worked in a neuroscience research lab full time for 3 years, got 2 first author publications, 10+ secondary authors pubs, and some great letter of recs. I knew I wanted to do a PhD in engineering but the requirements are too strict to get into without an engineering background so I did a Masters first, did well, and will now continue onto doing my PhD. Switching fields is very doable, but takes some time, really hard work, and a strong passion.

I guess I didn't think getting an RA position was that tough, but again I was at UCLA and it seemed like there were billions of psych labs looking for people. I understand your desire for getting a Masters, but I still think a good RA job in a productive lab is invaluable. As an RA, I was able to work about 4-6 hours/day with patients running cognitive tests and neuroimaging, be a project coordinator on a study, manage the entire database, run all the stats and analyses, contribute to papers, train and manage other RAs and undergrads, etc. In 3 years of full time work I probably had 2,000+ hours of clinical experience, 10+ secondary author pubs, and 2 first author posters at international conferences. I gained a billion times more practical research experience doing all that than the last 3 years I have spent doing my Masters since then. It also gave me numerous letters of recs from well known clinical psych advisers that could speak in detail about my value as a researcher. Since PhD programs primarily care about how successful of a researcher you will be, having a strong research background is priceless. I had a 2.57 undergrad GPA, but will be attending a top 10 engineering PhD this fall, and the reason for that was because I got recruited specifically by a PI for the work I did when I was an RA. I have been both an RA and a Masters student and I can honestly say that the RA work was way more useful than the Masters. The only reason I am doing a Masters is to catch up in engineering coursework to be eligible for an engineering PhD and raise my GPA. Otherwise, working as an RA would have most definitely opened doors for me to get into psych PhDs if I had chosen to go that route.

I graduate from undergrad in 2006 with a 2.6 GPA in psychobiology. I will be graduating this year with a Masters in electrical engineering with a 3.8 GPA. I was accepted for a biomedical engineering PhD at Columbia this fall, but turned them down for a better fit and higher ranked school. So yes, you can get into ivy leagues and beyond. HOWEVER, I must say that I applied to 18 PhD schools (all top 25) and received only 3 acceptances so it wasn't easy and I consider myself extremely lucky to have gotten any acceptances at all. I heard from admissions faculty that my undergrad GPA was a road block and was a reason for not gaining acceptance. Now I only had a 5 year gap between my undergrad and last fall when I applied to PhDs so that could be why it was still a factor, it might be since you are so far removed from undergrad that they won't care, especially if you can explain it and all your past experiences well in your personal statement. Also, if you are going for a Masters, you schools will be more lenient on GPA. With your background and experiences, I would imagine you shouldn't have a hard time getting into a top MEng program--but I wouldn't expect it to be funded. If you like the "research option" and are even remotely considering a PhD, I highly recommend you get an M.S. instead of MEng. MS carries just as much (if not more) weight in industry as MEng, plus it carries weight in academia while MEng doesn't. Buy a GRE book, study some flashcards for vocab, and take a few practice tests. It isn't a hard test if you can do basic algebra/geometry. Regarding math/calc skills, it really depends on your field. If you are doing anything like electrical or mechanical engineering, than yes, you will be doing advanced math A LOT...especially differential equations, linear algebra, vector calculus, etc. If your field is less computational like systems engineering than no, you won't have to use those concepts as much.

May I ask why you don't just become an RA in a psych research lab instead of paying for an expensive Masters? I am doing engineering now, but I did my undergrad in psychobio and worked in a clinical/neuropsych research lab for about 5 years. All my bosses were Clinical Psychologists and my fellow labmates were all trying to get into Clinical Psych PhDs. Out of the 20 or so clinical psychologists or aspiring clinical psychologists I met throughout that time, not ONE person had a Masters or was interested in getting a Masters first. And lots of people that come out of my lab doing psych research and that published papers had no problems getting into good clinical psych PhD programs. As you said yourself, psych research is the key to gaining admission to a good PhD program. Think about it, if you were on the admissions committee, would you rather take a Masters student with some psych classes and a little bit of general research, or rather a full-time researcher in a specific field that has published papers, presented at conferences, worked in clinical settings, etc? I know this isn't what you were asking, but just thought I would throw out other options. Why pay for a Masters when you can get just as good or even better experience actually doing psych research and getting paid at the same time? I know I am not personally in clinical psych myself, but that has been my experience. And for what it's worth I was doing all this research at UCLA, which I think is supposed to be a good clinical psych school.

oh nice! I did my undergrad at UCLA, but I got rejected from a BME PhD there (a little bitter). Doing a "classical" engineering field for my Masters at BU was the best advice and smartest move I made. I did EE at BU so if you go that route and want advice about the department, classes, profs, etc. let me know.

So are you saying $140k total debt for 2 years? If it is just $70k total, than I would think that is a fairly average debt for a Masters. But if it is $140k total than that is extremely high and would seem pretty risky! I personally have around $70k in loans total for my 2 years Masters, but I am going to be doing a PhD in engineering and expect to make around $100k salary when I finish so $70k debt is about $800/month for 10 years and seems justifiable. However, I would be hard pressed to justify $140k debt unless your son is looking for jobs that will be $150k+ salary. $140k debt is in line with people that are doing med/law/business school, which all have high payouts in the end. Do you know what types salaries the jobs your son would want are? Was he offered any funding at any of the schools that he was accepted to? The best advice for grad school is "follow the money".

So did you end up getting any bioeng masters acceptances?? You don't need to worry about stuff like financial aid, loans, ID cards, registration, etc for the fall yet. ID cards are easy, you just get it made and pick it up whenever you get to campus before classes start. If you receive financial aid then that stuff will automatically be applied to your account once you enroll for classes and get billed. You don't have to register for the fall right now, that can be done over the summer, and yes you will need a code, most likely from your adviser.

You make some great points. Would you mind saying which area you particularly live in? Since I have to sign a lease sight unseen, all the review of apartment complexes I see online are so mixed and hard to get a straightforward opinion.

Any other thoughts on places to live? What do people think of living in Ypsilanti and driving in? I am an engineer so my lab will be in North Campus but I will have to take classes in Central. I know parking for students in Central is impossible, but how is it parking on North Campus and then just taking the shuttle to Central for classes?

Any other thoughts on places to live? What do people think of living in Ypsilanti and driving in? I am an engineer so my lab will be in North Campus but I will have to take classes in Central. I know parking for students in Central is impossible, but how is it parking on North Campus and then just taking the shuttle to Central for classes?

ok anon1, it is time for some tough love. I feel like you are really missing the main point about doing a PhD. I tried to emphasize this in my earlier post about RESEARCH FIT. It sounds like you are trying to make this decision based on rank, reputation, city living, family life, childhood dreams, etc. I don't understand how in this entire thread you haven't mentioned a single thing about the PIs you would work with and the work you would be doing (besides a broad field). It took you 8 posts to even mention what field you are in. Myself and many others have said the same thing over and over in this thread--the most important thing is research fit and your PI. You haven't responded at all about this very important piece. You will be closely involved in 1 lab everyday for the next 5+ years. It is kinda funny (but true), that many people describe their relationship to their mentor like a marriage. You see them everyday for hours, argue over ideas, have to work and write together, have long meetings, bet upset with each other, etc. You will probably see your adviser (or others related to your work) for more hours a week than your fiance. How is this not your MAIN consideration? You aren't choosing between a top 10 program and a top 100. They are all more or less the same academically, ranking, reputation, etc. Stop thinking about that stuff and start focusing on your relationship to your potential adviser and the future work you would do in each lab. Moreso than anything else, that will be the hugest part in your overall happiness at the school you pick.

This is a pretty bias statement. I lived in Cali myself for 26 years and I don't think it is as simple as saying SD is nicer than LA. It REALLY depends what types of things you are into. I lived in LA (or near UCLA) for about 8 years and I think there is a lot to offer. Obviously if you are into nightlife, restaurants, clubs, bars, etc. than LA beats SD, I don't think that is debatable. All my undergrad friends at UCSD got so bored at SD because the lack of these options. SD is also a very conservative city. If you are into sports, SD and LA are more or less the same and probably provide the same opportunities. For instance, I love surfing and snowboarding. Surfing is better in SD, but I was by no means unhappy with surfing in LA. Snowboarding is also better/closer in LA than SD, plus Mammoth (a top resort in the country) is much closer for LA than SD. There are also lots of hiking spots around the hills of LA as well. You can easily get to a Dodgers/Angels game, Lakers/Clippers game, etc. LA also gives you lots of easy access to other cool places within a reasonable drive. Las Vegas is only 4 hours away, Yosemite is about 3 hours, Santa Barbara is 2 hours, and San Francisco is 5 hours. If you want culture, there are tons of museums (LACMA, Getty, MOCA, Norton Simon, etc), lots of concerts, lots of jazz bars, Griffith Observatory, cool artsy neighborhoods like Venice, Silverlake, Abbot Kinney, downtown Culver City, etc. There are tons of ethnic neighborhoods (Japantown, Koreatown, Chinatown, Little Ethiopia) where you can experience lots of different people and get some of the best authentic foods for cheap. Now I agree that if you are just comparing downtown LA to downtown SD as a city than SD is nicer. But that completely disregards all of the cool areas around UCLA--Venice Beach, Santa Monica, Silverlake, Manhattan/Hermosa/Redondo Beach, Pasadena, Topanga Canyons, Huntington Beach, and the list goes on forever. Don't get me wrong, I love SD and hope to goto SD for my future post-doc or professorship and I could see myself settling down there. But I would be hard pressed to say in a blanket statement that SD is nicer than LA.

DSP is an extremely broad field. It really depends on what you plan to do with DSP. For instance, I have my Masters in EE and I focused on signal processing. I will be doing my PhD in biomedical engineering this fall because I like to apply DSP to neuroimaging, which has lots of opportunities. Since you are interested in DSP as an engineer (as opposed to a mathematician), you would be learning DSP for specific applications. Spend some time figuring out exactly how you see yourself using DSP and I am sure there are plenty of jobs out there.

Have you thought about biomedical engineering at all? You could easily find research that combines your interests in computational biology and applied math modeling. There are LOTS of people looking for grad students with strong computational skills and a knowledge of biology in BME. I personally have an EE background, but will be doing a BME PhD and I specialize in bioelectrics, neuroimaging, and signal processing applied to robotics/prosthetics. BME is extremely interdepartmental and could easily fit all your interests toward a unifying goal.

I'm heading to UMich in the fall too! I will be doing a PhD in biomedical engineering. I'm also apartment hunting, unfortunately I don't live near UMich and will have to just sign a lease sight unseen. I am surprised there aren't more people with input regarding UMich...it is such a huge grad school!

I think it depends on your background, your desired degree, and the schools you are hoping for. After completing all the Masters classes in EE I can definitely say there is NO WAY I would have done well without core engineering classes. Just having calculus, physics, diff eq, etc would not have been enough to get me through advanced technical courses. So I can see why many Masters programs would be hesitant in accepting students without any engineering experience. Now, if you are exceptional and maybe studied these things on your own, got work experience in these fields, or something similar I can see you making a decent case. And I would assume you might have a shot if you try for lower ranked programs that aren't as competitive. But besides all that, I would think at minimum you should have above a 3.5 gpa and above a 750 quant. GRE score to get into an engineering Masters. I think I have even heard of places that if you are a standout applicant and make a good case, you could come get accepted to a Masters and just spend a semester or 2 fulfilling any deficiencies.

where do you want to do your PhD and in what field? I know for the U.S. "biotech" is not really a department, but more of an area within a department. So if you want to stay in the U.S. to do a PhD in biochem, then it really seems like UPenn makes the most sense.

Message me your e-mail address and then I will pass it along to my friends that have done this situation are or currently doing it.

hmmm that's a good question. Teaching fellowships are definitely near 0% (those are almost exclusively for PhDs). There are TA opportunities and lab assistant jobs available (especially lab TAs for ek127), but those are usually paid on an hourly rate and are not going to cover tuition. RA fellowships are more possible. If I had to make a wild guess I would say maybe 5-10% of LEAPers have gotten them. BUT that number is low because most LEAPers don't TRY to get them. When I first started, like 80-90% of LEAPers were about 70% funded so none of us have really had to worry about working during school. Most of us have crammed in classes to get out as quickly as possible. My entire time at BU I took 4 classes every semester and 2 during the summer. Now, the most common situation (besides full-time students) is that a lot of LEAPers get part-time jobs while taking classes. And quite a large number of people have found industry jobs that give them great experience and connections and also tend to offer full-time positions once graduated. So if you work part-time I would imagine that could cover part-time tuition, but you would still need extra sources of income to cover living expenses. And then an even smaller number of people work full-time and take 1 or 2 classes on the side.

Yep, that is exactly correct. What BU does is they set a budget for you, around like $2000/month for living and however much you need for tuition. You are allowed to take out loans up to that full amount. Some of it might be government subsidized, but most will be through like Direct Loans or another lender.