PhD acceptance prospects

[Chiqui74]

I have already been admitted to the MA program at my undergrad institution for this Fall semester, but I deferred until Fall 2013. My plan all along was to get a PhD eventually and now I'm thinking about applying to PhD programs for Fall 2013, but I'm a bit concerned about my academic history. Here's the short version:

After I left the military, I went to a two year college because my high school GPA was pretty crappy. At that college, I graduated with a 3.8 and as a member of the Honor Society. I got into both four-year universities for which applied; one was the University of Miami's Neuroscience Program and the other was the Biomedical Engineering program at the school I end up attending. I did horribly in my first semester, turned out that engineering just was not for me. My GPA after this semester was something like 1.2. I switched to history, which was/is my real passion and the rest is, as they say, history. I got all As and two Bs (only one in a history course) in every course I took after that and graduated with an overall GPA of 3.47. My history GPA is 3.88 and my upper division GPA is 3.90. I have strong letters of recommendation and a strong writing sample.

I have not taken the GRE, I didn't need it for the MA program to which I applied, but I am terrified of taking it. I am only really worried about the quant portion; I'm worried I'm going to do horribly and that, when combined with my GPA and that horrible semester, it will crush my chances of getting into a good program.

So, with what I've told you, should I just do the MA to which I've been accepted before applying to PhD programs or do I have a good chance of going directly into a good PhD program?

TiA!

[TMP]

FWIW, staying on for your MA would be worthwhile. You'll have your professors helping you make the transition to graduate level work. You might be able to transfer credits into a direct PhD program. Also, since this MA is only one more year, it's probably cheaper this route than to not do it and apply to PhD and MA programs and find out that you may need the MA after all and would have to spend extra $$$ for that second year.

Also, more and more PhD programs are looking to take on MA students rather than BA for financial and bureaucratic reasons. Out of my current cohort, about less than 7 people came only with a BA out of 19 people. And the MA students, including myself, couldn't be more happier that we did our MAs first!

[thedig13]

I'm going to parrot what TMP said. An MA program is a valuable opportunity to get a general "feel" for graduate school before jumping into a longer-term PhD program; it'll give you a chance to refine your interests, develop your academic expertise, and build a more complete understanding of what you need to do to succeed in a PhD program.

Can you give us more details about your geographic region of interest, your time period, and your foreign language abilities? That might give us a more complete picture of your competitiveness as an applicant.

[New England Nat]

The other thing to know about MA programs as a stepping stone to PhD programs is that many of the top PhD programs in the country aren't taking that many students right out of undergrad anymore. It makes more sense for them financially to take students with masters degrees who have a better sense of what they want to do, are less likely to burn out, and often already have a project in hand.

[Riotbeard]

If you have to pay for your MA, it would't hurt to spend a couple hundred dollars applying of PhD programs, because if you got funded directly into a PhD program it would save you a lot of cash.

[uhohlemonster]

I know that in my cohort, only 3 out of 20 or so of us came with just BAs. So ya know, the MA can't hurt.

[Chiqui74]

Thanks everyone! I am interested in Early American history and particularly in food history. I have native fluency in Spanish (written, spoken, and read). I would have to pay for my MA, unless I found a full time job at the university, in which case they'd pay tuition. I currently work at the university part time.