Do schools prefer PhD candidates with work experience or one who come straight?

[chaitealatte]

I am finishing my Master next May and still can't decide if I want to work or I will apply to PhD for Fall 2014.

 

My post-grad plan was working in the industry of my interest for an year, polish my profile (GRE, SOP, and such) while working and then apply to PhD for Fall 2015 with 1 year work experience.

 

A friend of mine who is currently a PhD candidate told me that professors prefer students who come straight from Master, because they are "easy to train." 

 

So yes, I am confused. please enlighten me!

[juilletmercredi]

There's no one answer to that question; it varies from program to program and school to school.  There are some professors (I would guess mostly old-school professors, from back when it was much more common for people to go straight from undergrad to grad school) who do prefer people who come straight from undergrad as they perceive them as more trainable (and, in the case of some, more exploitable).  There are others who prefer students with some experience that they can bring into the lab.  And that will also vary across department as well.  Some departments welcome many or even most of their PhD students with some work experience outside of academia.

 

Also field comes into play, as well.  FWIW, I've looked at the possibility of teaching marketing at business schools, so I've perused the profiles of some marketing faculty members.  Almost all of them had some marketing work experience outside of their academic ones.  I think it won't hinder you at all in marketing.  My field (public health) is like that too - work experience is welcomed.  Almost everyone in my cohort had at least a year of work experience; the one outlier was me.

 

You probably won't get hurt if you decide to take a year off.