UCLA PhD or Harvard MA?

[hqqrory]

Hi all, I am currently hesitating between couple options i have in hand.

My field is Japanese history with an emphasis on the social minority groups in early meiji years. I currently hold two PhD offers from Madison and UCLA. two rejections from Princeton and WUSTL. I was told by both Harvard and Yale that they could not offer me a spot this year so they asked me whether I am willing to be considered for their master programs. I do not know whether I will be admitted into those two programs so far, but I am pretty positive I guess...

I just graduated from college last semester and I am only 21. I am wondering if I should do a master first? However, UCLA is ranked in the 4th place for East Asian history...

I hope you guys can give me some suggestions! Thanks!

[stillalivetui]

UCLA. UCLA. UCLA.

[KLZ]

UCLA.

[TMP]

Take the UCLA offer.  Admissions to PhD programs are difficult and it varies from year to year (says someone who has gone through 3 cycles for transnational history).  If you turn down UCLA, Harvard, and Madison and then go to Yale, chances are going to be random 2 years from now whether or not you will get into those places again.

The acceptable reason to back out on this PhD opportunity is to take a break from school or need to be more financially stable (i.e. pay down more of student loans or have some savings in the bank) or to take care of family.

[rising_star]

Wait, you would seriously turn down a funded PhD offer for a master's program (which may not even come with funding)? Not in your field but that is absolutely nuts if what you really want is to do a PhD. 

[Neist]

I'm going to sound like an echo, but...

UCLA.

[insidethesun]

Go to UCLA and never look back.

[COGSCI]

U C L A 

U C L A

 

[hqqrory]

9 hours ago, rising_star said:

Wait, you would seriously turn down a funded PhD offer for a master's program (which may not even come with funding)? Not in your field but that is absolutely nuts if what you really want is to do a PhD. 

I am just wondering about ucla's placement. The one question i have is that does harvard or yale definitely place their graduates better than schools like ucla? I think i might have a chance to get into harvard or yale's phd program if i work my ass off during master.

[TMP]

54 minutes ago, hqqrory said:

I am just wondering about ucla's placement. The one question i have is that does harvard or yale definitely place their graduates better than schools like ucla? I think i might have a chance to get into harvard or yale's phd program if i work my ass off during master.

Don't count on Harvard and Yale to take you on for the PhD.  If they don't give you a guaranteed spot WITH FUNDING, you will be treated just like every other aspiring PhD applicant.  UCLA has a solid name and there are resources all over for helping you stay on path toward a job though jobs are never guaranteed.  There is always a chance that your Yale/Harvard adviser will find more suitable student match than you and (regrettably) reject you.

Lesson #1 for Academia: Nothing is ever guaranteed without writing.

Lesson #2 for Academia: Rankings for Top 10 programs are basically fixed.  Top 10 is top 10.

[hqqrory]

2 minutes ago, TMP said:

Don't count on Harvard and Yale to take you on for the PhD.  If they don't give you a guaranteed spot WITH FUNDING, you will be treated just like every other aspiring PhD applicant.  UCLA has a solid name and there are resources all over for helping you stay on path toward a job though jobs are never guaranteed.  There is always a chance that your Yale/Harvard adviser will find more suitable student match than you and (regrettably) reject you.

Lesson #1 for Academia: Nothing is ever guaranteed without writing.

Lesson #2 for Academia: Rankings for Top 10 programs are basically fixed.  Top 10 is top 10.

Yeah...although my POI at Yale said there are tuition fellowship for some students in the master program. UCLA offered me a (ridiculously) generous funding with 30k for 9 school months and 7k per summer for four years. TBH Harvard has always been my dreamschool and thats probably why Im still hesistating btw the two. Thank you though!

[rising_star]

3 hours ago, hqqrory said:

I am just wondering about ucla's placement. The one question i have is that does harvard or yale definitely place their graduates better than schools like ucla? I think i might have a chance to get into harvard or yale's phd program if i work my ass off during master.

1) As @TMP has already said, nothing in academia is guaranteed. Going to Harvard or Yale for a master's does NOT mean you will be admitted with funding to their PhD program. If it did, they would've made you a conditional admit to the PhD pending the completion of the MA. They didn't, which means that two years from now, you'll be applying for a limited number of slots like everyone else who wants to go there.

2) If you're going to be comparing placement fairly based on the offers you have now, then you should compare the PhD program placement of the MA programs at Harvard and Yale to the PhD graduate placement record of UCLA. In addition, focus not just on the general UCLA placement record but also that of your POI and key committee members (that is, UCLA's placement in African history is less relevant if you're a Soviet historian than the placement of your POI).* 

3) If you do a master's, you're going to have to work your ass off either way to get into a better set of PhD programs than you already have. That means language training, presenting at conferences, ideally publishing, etc. You may also need to improve your GRE scores to be competitive. And, keep in mind that you'll be applying again after one full year into a two year program, which means a busy second year where you're applying (and hopefully visiting programs) on top of finishing your coursework and writing a master's thesis. It's a lot of work and something which you could largely avoid by going to a good PhD program now.

*A caveat regarding placement is key here. Knowing where someone's graduates end up is helpful but, doesn't always give you the full picture since you don't know what those PhD alums wanted for themselves. So, if you're looking down on someone's placement record based on the type of job, you may want to do some digging because some people are really happy to be at a SLAC whereas others believe it's R1 or bust. It also gives you zero insight into other factors affecting people's life choices (e.g., a sick relative which places geographic restrictions on your search, a special needs child who you decide to stay at home with, or a spouse whose job requires staying put). This isn't to say it's not worth looking into, btw. It's just that placement record is never the full story and I've grown increasingly bothered by the assumption around this site that it is the end-all, be-all. 

[knp]

Here's a thought experiment that might help: let's say that at Harvard right now, there are three East Asianist faculty, named A, B, and C. At UCLA right now there are three East Asianist faculty, named X, Y, and Z. If you switched the departments—such that X, Y, and Z now work at Harvard, and A, B, and C, now work at UCLA—would you still desperately want to go to Harvard instead of UCLA? For undergrad, the Harvard experience is quite different than the UCLA one. At the PhD level, though, the institutions matter far less than the people you're working with. Is there somebody in particular you're fanatic about working with at Harvard? Or is it just the Harvard name? Because let me tell you, the former should be the most important factor in your choice, while the latter should matter very little.

PS It sounds like you got an extra special fellowship at UCLA, too? Extra fellowships at top-5 universities in a field come around once in a blue moon—most don't award such fellowships at all; mine offered ~5 such fellowships for graduate students across every department in the university, so each department could expect one student to win that fellowship about once every ten years—so that is an additional strong reason to choose UCLA now.

[Chiqui74]

6 hours ago, hqqrory said:

Yeah...although my POI at Yale said there are tuition fellowship for some students in the master program. UCLA offered me a (ridiculously) generous funding with 30k for 9 school months and 7k per summer for four years. TBH Harvard has always been my dreamschool and thats probably why Im still hesistating btw the two. Thank you though!

That is pretty incredible funding.  Even my excellent funding and extra fellowships in NYC does not get to 37k a year, and I imagine LA is not quite as expensive to live in.  You'd be crazy to turn down this UCLA offer for an unfunded MA even at Harvard if your ultimate goal is a PhD.  Even with an MA, you still have to go through the PhD much in the same way as someone straight from undergrad; you maybe able to transfer a few credits but not two complete years, which means you'll still be in the same position two years from now as you are in right now, possibly worse if you don't get another offer like this one. 

Edited February 21, 2016 by Chiqui74

[hqqrory]

3 hours ago, knp said:

3 hours ago, knp said:

Here's a thought experiment that might help: let's say that at Harvard right now, there are three East Asianist faculty, named A, B, and C. At UCLA right now there are three East Asianist faculty, named X, Y, and Z. If you switched the departments—such that X, Y, and Z now work at Harvard, and A, B, and C, now work at UCLA—would you still desperately want to go to Harvard instead of UCLA? For undergrad, the Harvard experience is quite different than the UCLA one. At the PhD level, though, the institutions matter far less than the people you're working with. Is there somebody in particular you're fanatic about working with at Harvard? Or is it just the Harvard name? Because let me tell you, the former should be the most important factor in your choice, while the latter should matter very little.

PS It sounds like you got an extra special fellowship at UCLA, too? Extra fellowships at top-5 universities in a field come around once in a blue moon—most don't award such fellowships at all; mine offered ~5 such fellowships for graduate students across every department in the university, so each department could expect one student to win that fellowship about once every ten years—so that is an additional strong reason to choose UCLA now.

Thank you so much for the advice! Actually there is one professor at Harvard that I really would like to work with; but it does not mean the two professors at UCLA are not great. It is more about the approach; they were both trained at UChicago and I am not a huge fan of critical theory. I will ask them about how much freedom I have relatively in exploring my topic. Thanks again!

[hqqrory]

And thank you everybody for your advice!

[L13]

It seems you should be asking yourself two questions, not one.

First, do you take up UCLA's funded PhD offer, which you're not in love with, or do you pass on it in hopes that you'll get into a program you like more at a later point?

Second, if you choose to re-apply to grad school later, do you get a (very likely unfunded) master's degree at Harvard or Yale first or not?

Honestly, I think the answer to the second question is more obvious than the answer to the first. I would advise you against getting an unfunded master's under any circumstances. I also want to warn you against assuming an unfunded terminal master's degree from a given school would boost your chances of acceptance to the PhD at the same school.

As for the first question, I think that's the one you need to think long and hard about. You need to weigh the potential utility of going to a school you like better than UCLA against the utility of going to UCLA, and decide if the difference is worth the risk of never getting an offer better than the one you'd give up.

I think that even for a strong applicant, which I'm sure you are, the chance lightning will strike twice (i.e., the likelihood of acceptance to a programme as good as UCLA) is not very good. You just can't assume it will happen, considering how competitive graduate admissions are.

I also think that you don't sound like you have a very good reason to be wary of going to UCLA, which indicates that going to a school you like more, e.g. Harvard, wouldn't confer some massive added benefit.

Therefore, I don't think holding out for a different PhD acceptance at a later date would be worth turning down UCLA and going through the application process again.

tl;dr: Go to UCLA.

Edited February 22, 2016 by L13

[ashiepoo72]

I know everyone is hammering home that you should go to UCLA for a variety of reasons--the ridiculous funding, the prestige of the program (it can compete with Harvard...UCLA is a top 10 program, so the fact that this is even a debate boggles my mind), etc. I did an unfunded MA and, while I don't regret it, I wouldn't recommend anyone do the same. And I did it because I had no other option. I would've taken a funded PhD offer in a heartbeat.

I'm just going to ask something I have wondered since I joined this forum about 2 years ago whenever something like this comes up: why did you apply to UCLA in the first place? Why apply to a program toward which you are obviously ambivalent? Maybe you need to consider what about UCLA caught your attention and made you decide to throw down the money for the application fee.

to all future applicants: when you're applying, consider each program individually and ask yourself--will I be happy here if it's my only acceptance? If the answer is yes, apply. If it's not, don't waste your money and time.

Edited February 22, 2016 by ashiepoo72

[hqqrory]

24 minutes ago, ashiepoo72 said:

I know everyone is hammering home that you should go to UCLA for a variety of reasons--the ridiculous funding, the prestige of the program (it can compete with Harvard...UCLA is a top 10 program, so the fact that this is even a debate boggles my mind), etc. I did an unfunded MA and, while I don't regret it, I wouldn't recommend anyone do the same. And I did it because I had no other option. I would've taken a funded PhD offer in a heartbeat.

I'm just going to ask something I have wondered since I joined this forum about 2 years ago whenever something like this comes up: why did you apply to UCLA in the first place? Why apply to a program toward which you are obviously ambivalent? Maybe you need to consider what about UCLA caught your attention and made you decide to throw down the money for the application fee.

to all future applicants: when you're applying, consider each program individually and ask yourself--will I be happy here if it's my only acceptance? If the answer is yes, apply. If it's not, don't waste your money and time.

I applied to 8 programs. UCLA was the third strongest among them- according to the east asian history ranking by U.S News.

I did not randomly apply to UCLA and a bunch of other schools- I applied because one professors there actually works on something I am really interested in. But Harvard was a better fit- if I want to continue working on the thing I am working on now, Harvard would be the best choice because my topic is too narrow and nobody really works on it except that harvard prof.

[rising_star]

1 hour ago, hqqrory said:

But Harvard was a better fit- if I want to continue working on the thing I am working on now, Harvard would be the best choice because my topic is too narrow and nobody really works on it except that harvard prof.

If your topic is really so narrow that only one prof is working on it, then finding an academic position is going to be extremely difficult. Working with people who aren't in your exact area may also force you to become a more well-rounded scholar, which could make you more competitive for fellowships, grants, and jobs in the future. In addition, I just want to point out that your interests may shift during your PhD such that the perfect fit scholar now is less of a fit later.

[archersline]

Here is my take -- 

Both schools are excellent and will open doors for you on the job market. That being said, I think at the end of the day Harvard vs. UCLA is a bit of a wash in the eyes of a search committee. It will come down to how engaging, passionate, and clear you are with your teaching and research goals. Harvard and UCLA can only do so much for you as an historian. 

[knp]

I mean, I would support you if you decide to chuck it all and choose neither. (Japan does fund such nice teaching-abroad options.) Even without the cushy English-teaching job, I Was Not Ready For Graduate School until this cycle—I ended up taking three years off to make sure I was absolutely certain I was ready. If I'd applied during my senior year and gotten into a program I wasn't thrilled about (possible), that would have been a horrible and wrenching dilemma. I don't know what I would have done. So I'm sympathetic: many people, like me, aren't ready to make such a long commitment without a bit of a break in between to think about it. The UCLA offer is fantastic and probably won't come around again...but if you're not ready, you're not ready. So finding something else to do should be on the table! That said, given the information and options we know about, there is no question to which "take an unfunded MA degree at Harvard" is the correct answer.

Have you gotten your official rejection from the Harvard PhD yet? You might try reaching out to that professor you like, although I'd be careful with your wording and approach, because I bet that he'd actually encourage you to take the UCLA PhD offer, too.

[pudewen]

I'm a PhD student at Harvard in East Asian history (Chinese, but I did a field with DLH, who I assume is your POI, plus he's on my dissertation committee). So, look, I know how good a fit DLH would be for your described research interests, and I definitely understand why you'd prefer to work with him than with any of the Japanese historians at UCLA. And I think I share your opinions about the Chicago, HH-derived approaches to history, so I get why you're worried about working with the UCLA faculty. And I get Harvard's other advantages - particularly having more faculty and students in your field, which really helps create a vibrant and productive intellectual environment. That all said, I still think that all the advice you've gotten here is spot on. This isn't a choice between a slightly more generous offer at UCLA and a worse one at Harvard, it's not a choice between starting a PhD now at UCLA and starting one in two years at Harvard, and unless Harvard offers you funding for the Master's (which is probably unlikely, though I guess you could wait to find out), it isn't even a choice between a PhD program at UCLA and spending two years in Harvard's RSEA program debt-free before reapplying to PhD programs (probably with a substantially improved chance of getting in to Harvard if you do well there). In all those cases, I think that choosing Harvard would make a lot of sense.

But if it's a choice between a fully(and seemingly excellently) funded PhD offer at UCLA, and a Master's program at Harvard that will require you to take on a bunch of debt, with no real guarantee that you'd even have better options in two years, it's really no question. Go to UCLA, don't look back. Unless you really think that the UCLA faculty won't support your research approaches (though I rather suspect that they'll turn out to be pretty flexible; I mean, unless you were really misleading in your application, they're probably already well-aware that their theoretical approaches are different from yours). In which case, you should not start grad school at all, rather than pay out the nose for Harvard (taking on debt in humanities grad school is a BAD idea). As knp said, in that case you could go teach in Japan for a couple years and improve your language skills, then reapply.

I think, though, that given that given that you applied to UCLA, you must think it is a program that you'd want to attend, at least if you didn't have other options. So, in that case, recognize that an unfunded MA is not another option. Getting in to an MA program, even at Harvard, is way easier than getting in to the UCLA PhD program; it's not some sign that you could do better than UCLA (not that I even buy that, generally speaking, Harvard is "better" than UCLA for getting a PhD in history, even if it might be for your particular interests and approaches). So go to UCLA, do great work there, and take advantage of the tremendous amount of support that they're offering you.

[hqqrory]

4 hours ago, pudewen said:

I'm a PhD student at Harvard in East Asian history (Chinese, but I did a field with DLH, who I assume is your POI, plus he's on my dissertation committee). So, look, I know how good a fit DLH would be for your described research interests, and I definitely understand why you'd prefer to work with him than with any of the Japanese historians at UCLA. And I think I share your opinions about the Chicago, HH-derived approaches to history, so I get why you're worried about working with the UCLA faculty. And I get Harvard's other advantages - particularly having more faculty and students in your field, which really helps create a vibrant and productive intellectual environment. That all said, I still think that all the advice you've gotten here is spot on. This isn't a choice between a slightly more generous offer at UCLA and a worse one at Harvard, it's not a choice between starting a PhD now at UCLA and starting one in two years at Harvard, and unless Harvard offers you funding for the Master's (which is probably unlikely, though I guess you could wait to find out), it isn't even a choice between a PhD program at UCLA and spending two years in Harvard's RSEA program debt-free before reapplying to PhD programs (probably with a substantially improved chance of getting in to Harvard if you do well there). In all those cases, I think that choosing Harvard would make a lot of sense.

But if it's a choice between a fully(and seemingly excellently) funded PhD offer at UCLA, and a Master's program at Harvard that will require you to take on a bunch of debt, with no real guarantee that you'd even have better options in two years, it's really no question. Go to UCLA, don't look back. Unless you really think that the UCLA faculty won't support your research approaches (though I rather suspect that they'll turn out to be pretty flexible; I mean, unless you were really misleading in your application, they're probably already well-aware that their theoretical approaches are different from yours). In which case, you should not start grad school at all, rather than pay out the nose for Harvard (taking on debt in humanities grad school is a BAD idea). As knp said, in that case you could go teach in Japan for a couple years and improve your language skills, then reapply.

I think, though, that given that given that you applied to UCLA, you must think it is a program that you'd want to attend, at least if you didn't have other options. So, in that case, recognize that an unfunded MA is not another option. Getting in to an MA program, even at Harvard, is way easier than getting in to the UCLA PhD program; it's not some sign that you could do better than UCLA (not that I even buy that, generally speaking, Harvard is "better" than UCLA for getting a PhD in history, even if it might be for your particular interests and approaches). So go to UCLA, do great work there, and take advantage of the tremendous amount of support that they're offering you.

Thank you so much for your advice! Yes, my POI was DLH. 

I have not heard back from Harvard about funding offer yet. But it is quite out of my consideration at this time, especially after all the advices given here.

[AP]

23 hours ago, hqqrory said:

Yeah...although my POI at Yale said there are tuition fellowship for some students in the master program. UCLA offered me a (ridiculously) generous funding with 30k for 9 school months and 7k per summer for four years. TBH Harvard has always been my dreamschool and thats probably why Im still hesistating btw the two. Thank you though!

What!!!!???? UCLA!!!!!! UCLA!!!! 

I echo everything posted. EVERYTHING.