Spinoff: Rejected from PhD, accepted to MA - thoughts/experiences?

[losemygrip]

Would I be right in saying that a MA from Williams would be better in this respect than an MA from the IFA?

Yes, unquestionably, without a doubt. An MA from Williams is career gold. In all respects.

[asdf123]

chiming in to say that Williamstown is small, intense, but chock full of museums, art historians and curators who provide more art openings/talks/lectures/symposia/colloquia etc. than you could ever hope to attend. so if you're willing to give up city life for two years (though people frequently travel to NYC/Boston on the weekends) it's probably the best place in the world to be doing art history. and if you're a contemporary-art type person, check out mass moca's website to get a feel for the types of events that go on there.

[hellokitty]

Dear Jilly11,

I did my MA History at a dirt-cheap university that basically charged about $1000 per course. With my part-time-work, I managed to keep paying for the ten required MA courses as well as the monthly interest payments on my massive undergraduate (and in forbearance for perhaps eternity, LOL) debt. Living under the care of family has obviously allowed me to pay for my MA.

In an ideal world, an MA would come to you for free---but as the other people of this discussion thread have noted, the MA usually does not. I will say that I really, really enjoyed my MA History program, which really sharpened my interests and provided a great counter-weight (like a 4.0 History GPA) to my 3.63 undergraduate History GPA. I have no doubt that the MA improved my academic resume---and it certainly had a role in getting me into my present doctoral (albeit not PhD) program in history---and on a doctoral fellowship! I do not need to say that the MA also gave me a lot of fans among the History Department faculty who will continue to take care of my academic hopes and dreams in the future (i.e. through recommendations).

If you need to pay for an MA, please consider going to the cheapest alternative possible. I honestly do not consider the name/reputation of the college very important. In any event, cash-strapped people do not have the luxury of considering big-name (and therefore big-price) colleges. I hope this helps!

[runaway]

If you need to pay for an MA, please consider going to the cheapest alternative possible. I honestly do not consider the name/reputation of the college very important.

I would be very cautious about this.

Perhaps when it comes to graduate school, it is possible to get a place based upon your own merits and the proof of your work contained in a writing sample, etc, and the name of your school has less impact. But as we've all seen on this board, it can take multiple cycles to get into a PhD program. So it's also worth considering that Williams would open a lot of career doors and that, even if it meant incurring debt, it would give you the resume to obtain a job that would be sufficient to grapple with your debt. Looking at a degree as an investment, a name like Williams is a pretty safe one to invest in.

A funded MA over an unfunded is one thing, but cheaper is not always better.

Plus, Williamstown is awesome. I'd probably never go to class and just spend my days wandering the Sol LeWitt retrospective and contemplating the museum's ongoing relationship with industrial space.

[contiguous]

Adding to the love for Williams and Williamstown. I visited when looking at undergraduate schools and although the town is tiny, North Adams with Mass MOCA was amazing (this was around the time of Christoph Buchel's "Training Ground exhibit debacle). I decided not to attend for undergrad, but I've been checking the mail daily with fingers crossed for a MA admit.

[Shelley Burian]

I am also moving out of my lurker cage as well. I am a student who was accepted at a fully funded PhD program in a very good school for my sub-field with only a BA. I applied last year (to an MA and a PhD) and was only admitted to the MA with no funding. I thought it through, deferred my admission at the MA school for one year and tried again. Many of these things are luck and timing; if I had applied to the same school/person the first time I probably would not have gotten in simply because she was not ready to take more students. I have spent the year in doing two internships, one at a "name brand" museum which was pretty boring but gave me another collections database to add to my C.V. and at a smaller historical society at which I am now the curator in all but title with full responsibility for the collection. I completely rewrote my writing sample and refined the language that I do know (I was actually admitted with the professor knowing full well that I did not know the language which will be the most practical for my field so take some of the language stuff with a grain of salt, it depends on the prof/school). My advice is to thoroughly think through your situation and decide what's best FOR YOU. Everyone's financial situation is different, and the sub-field you are entering may also dictate some of what you need to improve on. Best of luck to you!

[Lady Gray]

This is a little late, but to add my 2 cents: I have been told throughout my application process that having an MA is not at all an advantage when applying for a PhD - quite the opposite. Such candidates often need to justify why they went for a terminal masters, since this is indeed considered a less serious path. In all of academia, there is a real stigma against paying for graduate school, regardless of whether you can afford it. Serious students are supposed to be funded.

[JosephineB]

This is a little late, but to add my 2 cents: I have been told throughout my application process that having an MA is not at all an advantage when applying for a PhD - quite the opposite. Such candidates often need to justify why they went for a terminal masters, since this is indeed considered a less serious path. In all of academia, there is a real stigma against paying for graduate school, regardless of whether you can afford it. Serious students are supposed to be funded.

This is all around pretty lame advice.

There are plenty of reasons to get an MA that improve students' chances of PhD acceptance - cultivate a longer writing sample, teaching experience, language acquisition, conference experience, building contacts - I could go on. This all sounds far from unserious, no?

Also, fully funded MAs do exist and are given to "serious" students attending MA programs.

[losemygrip]

But it's true that a lot of schools don't respect the MA. They do sort of feel that if you were any good, you'd have been in a PhD program to begin with. Case in point: my acquaintance who had a perfectly good MA from a top state institution was only given one semester's credit when starting on a PhD at Harvard.

[artmuse]

But it's true that a lot of schools don't respect the MA. They do sort of feel that if you were any good, you'd have been in a PhD program to begin with. Case in point: my acquaintance who had a perfectly good MA from a top state institution was only given one semester's credit when starting on a PhD at Harvard.

That is just how Harvard and most of the top programs operate. They want you to get take classes, get to know the professors, and integrate into the program before starting a dissertation. The fact that your friend had that MA is probably why they got into Harvard in the first place. Not just because they have the degree, but because of the many reasons Josephine mentioned above that drive students to get a terminal MA before applying to PhD programs.

While an MA is not a necessity to get into a great program, I wouldn't call it a weakness in any way. The type of scholarship you are producing when you graduate from a good MA program is often more appealing to admissions committees than work done by many undergraduates who just haven't had the time to develop their interests or writing styles. Of course there are exceptions to this but I wouldn't discourage anyone from getting a terminal MA if they can get funding and feel that they aren't prepared for PhD programs yet.