Prestigious Masters Programs

[agalaapple]

It appears that I will not be accepted into a PhD program for the Fall 2014.

 

I am curious about pursuing a Masters degree in molecular or cellular biology for the Fall 2015. Do any prestigious Masters (M.S., etc.) programs exist? I am aware that one can earn a Masters "for free" by dropping out of a PhD program after passing orals or making it to the end of the second/third year, but not only is it difficult to be admitted into a good PhD program, it is also looked-down upon to go into a PhD program knowing that you only want a Masters degree.

[aba1984]

The way I made my decisions is by looking at the Peterson's guide. If you go to Google books and type Peterson's graduate programs biomedical (or some keywords like that), they have yearly books where they list all the MS and PhD programs in the biomedical sciences. They tell you how many applicants there, how many are admitted, whether they favor internationals or minorities, deadlines, what funding you get, acceptance rates %, etc. Not sure how accurate it is, but it's a pretty impressive collection, and you save time because you don't have to click around multiple websites.