Droping down from a PhD to get an MA

[souracademic]

I am just looking for some advice from the internet world about this. I am a direct track PhD first year student at Auburn University and am starting to realize that the school might not be the best fit for me. I was considering dropping down to just finish my MA here. I am in a fully funded program (I TA and the program is set up so it's not very time consuming) with great professors, I just feel like none of them fit my interests very well. I applied straight from undergrad and don't think I realized what I was getting myself into, plus Auburn was the only school that gave me a fully funded deal, so I came down here. Does anyone have advice on what schools I could get into with an MA from Auburn. I was really hoping for Emory, USC, WashU, NYU, Georgia State in Atlanta as my back up. Is this a terrible idea in general or what? Any advice given would be greatly appreciated.

[Sparky]

My understanding is that switching to another program after an MA (i.e. applying all over again, but with an MA--there don't seem to be separate "transfer" admissions) is rarer in the humanities than sciences, but is not out of the question.

The first thing you will want to do is talk to your advisor, or the dept's grad director, and let her know your concerns. I would not be surprised if the school makes an effort to accomodate you rather than squeezing you out, so to speak. It would probably be a good idea to take them up on this offer, b/c leaving to go to another school can be awkward. What happens if you don't get in anywhere? Because you can't keep this a secret--given that you are leaving a PhD program mid-course, you will need your letters of recommendation to come from Auburn.

And while it may be a case that your interests have shifted radically--like, you are now certain you want to study modern Europe whereas every professor at Auburn specializes in early modern Asian history, in which case yeah, apply afresh--keep in mind that your research does not have to, and probably *should* not, match even your advisor's too closely. You don't want to be an academic clone, after all. (

)

As far as admissions chances go--it doesn't seem to matter so much where you come from, except in the case of having LORs from a really superstar prof. It will come down largely to your SOP, writing sample, and the letters. I have no way of knowing for sure, but my guess is that the SOP would be extremely critical in your case, b/c you would have to make a good case why, even though you were sure Auburn was the right place (you accepted their offer => you were sure, whether or not this is actually the case) for you and now realize you are wrong, you know that you aren't wrong this time, i.e. that you won't flake out and leave.

On the plus side, likely your writing has improved. Your writing sample will probably be held to higher standards, but I happen to think a previous MA is often an advantage--especially in the case of language study, if that is relevant to your subfield.

Take all of this advice with several tablespoons of salt, however.

Edited November 1, 2010 by Sparky

[StrangeLight]

it's actually fairly common to move on from a PhD program once you fulfill the MA requirements and go somewhere else. and usually that move is made because the student's interests change (or are finally defined) and there's another school that would be an ideal place to do the new work.

talk to your advisor and your DGS next semester (save it for now or it'll sound like first semester jitters) about possibly moving on for the PhD because you really want to study X at Y school. they will try to talk you into sticking around, especially if you're a good student, but they won't sabotage you if you ultimately decide you really want to go somewhere else.

to make this shift, though, your research interests need to be pretty clear. not only should you (by the fall of next year, when you apply to schools) have a research topic in mind, you should probably also already have your research question. since formulating my own dissertation research question, it's become really clear to me that there are really only 4 schools (and 1 of them is a different field!) where it would make sense to do this project, and i'm already at one of them. my point is, once you figure out your question, it'll be easy to say to auburn "i can't really do this project here, but going to either Y or Z school would just make more sense." if you can build a case for it that way, they'll likely go out of their way to help you get into those schools. if you just say, "well, i want to work on 19th century france," then they'll probably put more energy into convincing you to stay.

also, two cents and grain of salt, etc.