Master's vs. PhD

[Bästli]

Hi everyone,

I'm an international student from Europe. New to this forum, I have been analyzing the results page over and over, trying to calculate my odds. (I know this is useless, but hey, what else should I do now? Work on my master's thesis?)

I have already been rejected at MIT (applied for EECS PhD). At Stanford, I applied for a second master's degree. (I am currently finishing my first.) Generally speaking, the percentage of admits for master's degrees seems to be much higher than for PhD degrees, based on the results page. Probably I have discovered hot water again, and is this universally known? This also made me wonder, what reasons could they have for refusing someone access to a master's degree? (You are just making them money.) Apart from being obviously unfit, that is... Any ideas?

Furthermore, does anyone know the specifics of Stanford's applied physics program? Are decisions for the master's applicants made later usually? On the results page, I saw someone making the comment "All decisions have been made, all acceptances emailed last week. No hope in waiting any longer." I refuse to believe this! But I am also too much of a coward to mail them. Everyone that asks for their application status seems to be rejected.

Thanks for your ideas!

P.S.: Waiting sucks.

Edited February 26, 2011 by Bästli

[surprisecake]

Heh, I don't have any helpful thoughts, but I too share your irrational fear that mailing schools to ask about your app status will somehow precipitate a rejection

Good luck with your wait.

[rainbowworrier]

I too share your irrational fear that mailing schools to ask about your app status will somehow precipitate a rejection

me too! I'll call grad admissions offices and make generic inquiries, without identifying myself. I will also call the secretaries of the departments I applied to (on borrowed cell phones with different area codes of course) and make generic inquiries about decision timelines.

[newms]

Well in some situations Master's programs can be harder to get into than PhD programs. Look at Minnesota's statistics for Computer Science - http://www.grad.umn.edu/data/stats/ad/1019600.html#apc they tend to admit a higher percentage to PhD than to MS. That's probably because they tend to get many more Master's applicants that PhD applicants. This may be different for other fields though, since I'd imagine that Computer Science gets a lot of MS applicants who want to go into industry afterwards.

[psi456]

I think typically Phd is harder than masters is harder than bachelors to get in with a few exceptions.

[Ashlett]

I always thought it was going to be harder to get into Masters. But after 3 (possibly 6) rejections from PhD programs and watching the forums, I'm going to go with it is much harder to get into PhD programs. However, the harder part still is funding. I think it may be easier to get into a Masters than PhD, but it's harder to get funding from Masters.

[ZeChocMoose]

In general, it is easier to get into a Master's. There are obviously some exceptions to this across departments and fields, but it is a safe bet to say that you'll have better odds getting accepted into a master's program compared to a PhD program. Some of the reasons are there are more slots for master's students, the program is shorter (more turn over of students), and departments typically do not fund this degree. Also there tends to be more master's programs in general because they are a money maker for universities and there is industry demand.

[Bästli]

Thanks for the replies! I feel a bit more confident now.

Indeed, getting funding for a Master's degree may be more difficult. In fact, I have another question about that. In my home country, I recently (end of January) received a fellowship for study in the US. In my application, I mentioned this, but at the time I didn't know yet whether I was going to get it.

This fellowship is quite selective, and covers nearly all my expenses for the master's degree I plan to take (but to which I have yet to be admitted).

Now my question is: should I try to notify the admissions committee that I got this fellowship? Does it matter to them how I pay for my studies? I'm still reluctant to contact them in any way, but if it can help my chances of getting in...

I feel stupid for not telling them right away, maybe they already made the decision, and the fellowship could have changed their minds.

Thanks again!

[Eigen]

I'll also note that there seems to be a discrepancy between fields. I think in the STEM fields, if the program has a PhD program, a terminal MS is harder to get into. Talking to my professors, most think that MS students are there for such a short period of time, that they almost aren't worth the time to train- basically, they take a lot of classes, spend 1-3 semesters in the lab, and then leave. Even though they aren't funded, they just aren't viewed as so beneficial to the department as PhD students.

Also note that in the lab-based STEM fields (I see you're in applied physics) while they don't have to fund MS students, they *do* have to fund your lab space (which is limited) as well as all of your supplies- which often way outweighs the cost of the funding of the grad student over the period you're there.

Just some thoughts.

As to telling them about the fellowship: definitely! Adding that you've recently received funding could only help, imo.