2nd Masters a postive or negative for admission/funding?

[craf78]

Well I currently hold an MA in international studies and have applied for a MPPA and MA (political science). I have a CGPA of 3.7 (undergraduate) and 3.8 (grad) and excellent recommendations. I'm also currently working as a research officer in a policy research institute. Got my applications in 3 schools. Working with this policy place has widened my interests considerably but I also don't want to withdraw from my prior interests especially one that I did my thesis on. Guess you can call it "undecided" on precisely which way my research should be headed. Where I work now, I do not have much control over my research focus ...it is decided by the organisation. So I thought another MA would, aside of deepening my knowledge in PolSci, which I need very much because my undergraduate was in a non-political science area (Tourism), I thought it will also provide me the opportunity to figure things out especially in relation to my newly-found interests. I definitely don't want to get into PhD and half way into it, realise I should have been writing on something else. Another MA certainly will give me a room to reconsider stuff while getting yet another degree. Taking all things into consideration, do you think my current MA is a plus or minus to admission and funding opportunities. I just can't see how it could be negative, though! What do you think?

[SpectacledDaruma]

No reason a current MA would be anything but a plus, unless the school somehow interprets a second MA application as being indecisive...

Still, it seems that there are cheaper ways to get your PoliSci fix. Talk with more public policy oriented people at your work place, or look at some open course war syllabi and read the books. I guess, unless the cost doesn't matter to you. Personally, I can't imagine the burden of two masters degrees and their loans. I'd be eating Alpo for years.

[frankdux]

i already have a masters in math education. i want to go back for a ph.d. in applied math (with a masters along the way) with the goal of being a professor. so i'd like to think that my first masters is closely enough related to the programs i am applying to so that they would see it as a positive. as if my first masters opened up my eyes to an even bigger possibility i've discovered for myself. my only concern is if they see that as me not really being sure what i want to do with my life.

if i was trying to get into a ph.d. program in something completely unrelated, like say psychology or religious studies or something, then i think my first masters would probably count against me as making me look uncertain.

[craf78]

learned the hard way that a second MA is more of a negative than positive. I got rejected in the two programs where I applied for second MA. Plus I think the admission committee members thought MA international studies and MA Political Science are not that different and would be waste of their resources admitting me. Yep. So I got rejected; only got admitted to an MPPA program which is definitely different from political science even though related to a large extent.

I guess I should just move straight ahead into a PhD program. On hindsight, it was really stupid applying for the MA Pol Sci programs. But hey, that is life. You make mistakes, you learn and move on.