How important is a school's reputation for an MA program?

[vityaz]

I applied to three Master's programs and have so far been accepted to one. The school that I was accepted to doesn't have the greatest reputation, and is certainly not a top or probably even mid-tier school in Canada. That being said, they are offering a ton of funding including a research fellowship under a Professor that I would love to work with. The program perfectly fits my interests, but I'm having second thoughts due to its reputation. I looked through LinkedIn to find out what grads of the program are up to now, and of the 12 or so I found, 1/4 are not doing much of anything (although to be fair they are recent grads), 1/4 are working outside of academia, 1/4 are doing something related to history but not at a high paying job, and 1/4 continued on to a PhD at higher-tier schools. The one person I found that worked under the Professor I'm interested in is currently doing a PhD at a fairly prestigious school doing exactly what I want to do.

 

So, my question is how important is a school's reputation for a Master's program? There's a decent chance I'll get accepted to a school with a better reputation but it'd probably be a worse fit and almost assuredly be less funding. Will going to this school hurt my chances of going on to a PhD, or will I get out of it what I put in?

[Zephyr99]

Go to that school. Reputation for an MA program isn't very important. PhD is a different story

[awells27]

I just got funding at UCLA for ancient Jewish History and did my MA at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA (where?).  I did my bachelors at Kent State University in Ohio.  The strength of my app, beyond divine intervention, was 3 professors who had published extensively writing my LORs, understanding of ancient languages, writing sample, SOP and high GPA.  MA reputation is overrated.  Your SOP, when applying for PHDs, must show a good knowledge of your POI and other faculty members, as well as a focus that matches their research interests.  Your writing sample should demonstrate a command of the primary sources, secondary literature, and languages required for your branch of history.  Take the MA that allows you to grow in your field.  There should hopefully be two professors in your MA program, however, who have published enough to write you good LORs.      

[czesc]

Go to that school. Reputation for an MA program isn't very important. PhD is a different story

 

This is conventional wisdom around here and generally speaking it seems to be true (just look at bios of recently graduated PhDs or current grad students to see the array of random MAs they've done). That said, there are some dud MA programs compared to others, and I've known people who have been told by faculty at those MAs that they were better off going somewhere with better feeder potential.

[spellbanisher]

I'm currently in my final year of an MA program at CSU Sacramento. I don't think it really has a reputation for anything. It is just a middling state school(don't get me wrong, I've loved it here and the professors are great). I don't think any of the PHD programs are considered the very elite, although they are in the top quartile of rankings. Anyways, I've been accepted at UC Davis, and last year one of the students from our program was accepted into Yale, and I don't think she was the first. One of my professors noted that a student he wrote a letter of rec for got into Cornell, and he himself went to a middling state university for an MA program and got into Cornell.

[kyjin]

Go for it. My MA institution was not well known, but I received a full-funding package and got to work with my dream advisor who is a big name in my field. In the end it didn't matter- fellow member of my cohort and myself both received multiple offers for PhDs at well-known institutions after graduating. If it's the professor you want to work with (and even better, funding!) then I'd go for it. 

[tenguru]

Hi guys,

 

Hope you are still monitoring this thread. I am still waiting on a couple PhD programs to get back to me, but I did get into Stanford for an MA in East Asian Studies. I understand that it is possible to get into a top tier program with a MA from a lesser school, but let me ask this: Would an MA from a great school not help more when trying to get into a Hist PhD program(assuming that the interdisciplinary focus is history and the thesis is historical)?

[awells27]

Hi guys,

 

Hope you are still monitoring this thread. I am still waiting on a couple PhD programs to get back to me, but I did get into Stanford for an MA in East Asian Studies. I understand that it is possible to get into a top tier program with a MA from a lesser school, but let me ask this: Would an MA from a great school not help more when trying to get into a Hist PhD program(assuming that the interdisciplinary focus is history and the thesis is historical)?

Depends on the department.  But having talked to several faculty, assuming grades and GRE are in order, the SOP fit is solid, and the writing sample is solid, it would come down to your your faculty advisors at the less prestigious MA school.  If they  are well known, respected, and widely published  in their field, their recommendation letters carry a lot of weight.  Also, consider language prep.  The student who demonstrates better language proficiency in the primary sources from their historical period is at an advantage, regardless of the school.  

[tenguru]

Many thanks, awells27.

 

I am still waiting on one more school, but already have so many factors running around my head. I will be contacting both the Graduate advisers and the faculty I am interested in and then start weighing pros and cons.

 

I am sure I will have more questions to post in a week or so.

 

Thanks to all for the help!