Choosing between MA offers

[philosopuppy]

Hi everyone,

I hope I'm not making too many threads ?? but I figure lots of people are in my position or will be in the future, so any advice collected here will be of benefit to others.

So, I've received a few funded MA offers. Generally the advice is, "go where there's money", so now that there is more than one place with money, I'm struggling with how to choose. Should money be the overriding factor, or are there finer points worth considering?

Particularly, I'm interested to know what people think about the placement records of the tippy-top MAs. Are they all basically the same? I combed through the data, and it seems like -- for instance -- UWM has a much better placement rate than NIU or GSU for the cluster of very-prestigious northeastern Ivies, NYU, Oxford, etc. But that when you look at places like the UC schools or CUNY, NIU seems to have far and away the better placement rate. Is an analysis of this detail really worth anything? I worry that maybe the data set is too limited, & reflects students' interests & choices as much as the strengths of the school.

Thank you all again for your help (and I promise this is it!) ❤️

[nxr9]

Personally, because of the general crazy amounts of chance and randomness factored into getting into a PGR top ten, I don’t think any one factor should be taken too dispositively. I’m not sure banking on any specific MA as having a better pipeline to the top ten in general is the best way make the decision (of course, I could be wrong about that).

Anyway, I’d suggest focusing on 1) placement in highly ranked schools in your subfield (one can infer that the specialists at the PhD level know and respect the MA profs who mentor the applicants they accept); 2) overall placement at PGR 50 schools (the larger the set, the less likely chance or randomness plays a role); 3) historical placement at specific schools you’re interested in (if every year for the last ten years, NIU places at least one person at NYU, and NYU is your top choice, that might be salient - but you’ll also probably want to look in what it was that distinguishes those NIU students accepted from those who weren’t). 

Edited March 9, 2019 by nxr9

[mithrandir8]

I don't really know all that much about the underlying data, but given that the placement data isn't particularly reliable for the reasons discussed above, I would be highly tempted just to pick the place where I thought I would have the best fit and do the best work.

By trying to control for the impact that just the school has on placement, you might be neglecting the possibility that what makes the difference between a student at either place having a really good shot at getting into a good school is how well they were able to work with the folks there on developing a good writing sample.

[Eternity]

Hi, did you accept at UWM?

[philosopuppy]

2 hours ago, Eternity said:

Hi, did you accept at UWM?

Not yet -- I'm kind of between them and NIU right now...

And thank you @mithrandir8 and @nxr9, that's kind of the direction I was leaning, so it's good to have some affirmation!

Edited March 9, 2019 by philosopuppy

[hector549]

21 hours ago, philosopuppy said:

Hi everyone,

I hope I'm not making too many threads ?? but I figure lots of people are in my position or will be in the future, so any advice collected here will be of benefit to others.

So, I've received a few funded MA offers. Generally the advice is, "go where there's money", so now that there is more than one place with money, I'm struggling with how to choose. Should money be the overriding factor, or are there finer points worth considering?

Particularly, I'm interested to know what people think about the placement records of the tippy-top MAs. Are they all basically the same? I combed through the data, and it seems like -- for instance -- UWM has a much better placement rate than NIU or GSU for the cluster of very-prestigious northeastern Ivies, NYU, Oxford, etc. But that when you look at places like the UC schools or CUNY, NIU seems to have far and away the better placement rate. Is an analysis of this detail really worth anything? I worry that maybe the data set is too limited, & reflects students' interests & choices as much as the strengths of the school.

Thank you all again for your help (and I promise this is it!) ❤️

I had a similar quandary when I had to choose between MAs. Here's my advice:

If you didn't get funding at NIU, forget it and go with one of the other two. As far as funding goes, I do think that NIU (if they've offered it to you) and UWM have an edge. GSU's first-year funding is pretty paltry, even for an MA, and their fees are steep.

While placement can vary a bit as you mentioned between GSU, NIU, and UWM, I wouldn't worry about who is placing at which clusters of schools, and rather look at overall placement. All three are pretty similar in that they have very good placement. However, it might be that NIU and UWM have slightly better placements than GSU, just because GSU has a slightly larger contingent of students who leave philosophy or go to unranked programs. However, this could be explainable in terms of the fact that more GSU students go to continental schools which aren't on the rankings, and that their cohort-sizes are larger, so I'm not certain about this. Just something to think about.

As far as fit is concerned, for an MA, I think it's probably your least important consideration. I'm not suggesting you shouldn't think about it at all, but your interests are likely to change. Rather, think in broad terms about what you're interested in--if you want to explore more history of philosophy, for example, choose UWM or GSU, since NIU isn't very strong for history. If you are inclined towards philosophy of science/metaphysics, go to UWM or NIU. If you're really interested in political philosophy, go to GSU.

Also, think about teaching and thesis requirements. GSU has a more serious thesis requirement, and it's my understanding that students often take three years to graduate. They also have very light duties for the first year, but pretty heavy teaching duties for the second year. UWM has a light thesis requirement, and (I believe) NIU doesn't have one at all.

 

Edited March 9, 2019 by hector549

[DoodleBob]

Hi! — Obligatory mention of: as soon as you know which school you will definitely not be accepting, drop them a line and let them know. You’ll spread rainbows over others on the waitlist. 

Good luck and easy thinking! 

[philosopuppy]

On 3/9/2019 at 3:03 PM, hector549 said:

I wouldn't worry about who is placing at which clusters of schools, and rather look at overall placement.

Okay, sounds like a plan. Thank you for the advice! I was just a little worried because it was so striking - UWM has gotten a good handful of people into schools that NIU has gotten no one into. But from what people have suggested on this thread I suppose it just comes down to how insanely difficult it is to get into any of those places.

[Duns Eith]

12 hours ago, philosopuppy said:

Okay, sounds like a plan. Thank you for the advice! I was just a little worried because it was so striking - UWM has gotten a good handful of people into schools that NIU has gotten no one into. But from what people have suggested on this thread I suppose it just comes down to how insanely difficult it is to get into any of those places.

Are you able to compare apples to apples on this point?

Like, do both programs post not just a list of schools, but rather stats? like how many who finished the MA applied for PhDs in philosophy, and of those who applied were given offers, and of those who were given offers how many of them were highly ranked.

For example, I think it can be quite telling if about half of the MA students don't apply to PhDs, but almost all who do apply get placed into a well-ranked funded PhD. Or, for another example, if almost all apply to PhD programs, but only a simple majority get placed into a wide range of ranked PhDs.

[philosopuppy]

Yes - both programs list each student by the title of their sample, along with the offer they accepted. At the bottom of the table for each year they list the other schools that admitted their students that year. So there's a good amount of data, & at least NIU, GSU, and UWM can be compared this way.

[Eternity]

As far as ethics is considered, which is stronger, NIU or UWM？