Is It Harder to Be Admitted to Top Universities with a MS Degree

[tmpz000999]

Hello, 

I was admitted to EE MS/ Ph.D. program (Systems track, information theory, system control etc. ) of a good university. However, I would prefer to quit after finishing MS degree, and apply to MIT & Stanford's Ph.D. I talked to my professor, and my professor told me that it will be harder to get admitted with a master degree. Also, I was told that it is impossible to be admitted by MIT after finishing masters. I think it might be because MIT prefers to admitted students from undergrad so that they could cultivate students from the beginning to the end. However, I would still like to ask if my chance would be really small to get admitted with a master degree? Does it worth a try? 

Thank you so much for your time!

[fuzzylogician]

It seems to me that one way of going about answering this question is doing some legwork: go on the relevant department's website and look at their People page. Most departments will list their graduate students, and many of those students will have websites. Go on the students' websites and look at their CVs; do their educations show a separate MA/MS prior to the PhD program? If not (or rarely), your answer is that likely your chances of admission with an MS aren't great. If there are plenty such students, then the information you got is inaccurate. 

[DiscoTech]

On 4/25/2018 at 4:55 PM, tmpz000999 said:

Hello, 

I was admitted to EE MS/ Ph.D. program (Systems track, information theory, system control etc. ) of a good university. However, I would prefer to quit after finishing MS degree, and apply to MIT & Stanford's Ph.D. I talked to my professor, and my professor told me that it will be harder to get admitted with a master degree. Also, I was told that it is impossible to be admitted by MIT after finishing masters. I think it might be because MIT prefers to admitted students from undergrad so that they could cultivate students from the beginning to the end. However, I would still like to ask if my chance would be really small to get admitted with a master degree? Does it worth a try? 

Thank you so much for your time!

This is not true - (https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholas-harris-7114b233/). The question is whether your work at your MS institution will be of a sufficient caliber to make the MITs and Stanfords think their initial assessment of you was incorrect. Being a perfectly good MS student at a good school isn't enough to change that assessment.

[tmpz000999]

On 5/1/2018 at 7:36 AM, DiscoTech said:

This is not true - (https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholas-harris-7114b233/). The question is whether your work at your MS institution will be of a sufficient caliber to make the MITs and Stanfords think their initial assessment of you was incorrect. Being a perfectly good MS student at a good school isn't enough to change that assessment.

Thank you so much for your answer! I also checked the MIT website, and get the same conclusion with you. I felt a little bit upset when I heard the news, but now I know I can still keep MIT as my dream school

[Man_About_Town]

Yes, it is harder to get into most PhD programs with a Master's degree or other doctorate (MD) completed prior to starting your PhD. This is not because of anything having to do with the "science of science", but is because of the "business of science".  Graduate students with a prior graduate degree or professional degree are not eligible for most NSF fellowships and many other fellowships, thus accepting you as a student into his/her lab would potentially create a more difficult funding situation for the PI.