Indecision

[harrybond]

I have been admitted into 2 Master's programs in chemistry, one at Rutgers and the other at The George Washington University. I heard better feedback about the program at Rutgers. The research topics at Rutgers match better with my interests and the research there has a greater impact overall on the field than that conducted at GW. Moreover, in regards of the program ranking, Rutgers leads significantly. However, GW has offered me a fellowship which can make the cost of education there cheaper, albeit not significantly cheaper than at Rutgers. Will this fellowship have a positive impact on my resume and on my application to a funded PhD program in the future? What criteria would one consider most when choosing a master's program?

Thank you in advance.

[emmm]

From what you've described, Rutgers seems like a better overall fit for you (and your preferred school). Given those considerations, unless the fellowship is highly prestigious (if it is just awarded by the school, it probably isn't) or covers the majority of your costs, it seems perhaps not valuable enough to turn down Rutgers. But only you can decide what is best. For PhD applications, you will need great LORs from people whose opinions are respected by the admissions committees at the programs you apply to. You are more likely to get great letters if you are able to do work that interests you and that fits in with your goals. And being able to work with researchers who are respected and making an impact on your field of interest is only going to help you in the long run. So, I think it sounds as though you'd be giving up a lot....you'd have to be sure what you're getting in return is worth it (to me, NO incurred debt WOULD potentially be a fair trade-off).

[avflinsch]

I would agree with @emmm above - RU looks like a better fit from what you described. While the fellowship at GWU may have some impact on a future PhD application, I think RU's higher ranking and name recognition may have a greater overall impact. You also didn't specify which subfield of chemistry, but I think that RU may have better interdepartmental connections with related sub disciplines.

One additional thing to consider - have you visited either campus? You will be spending a considerable amount of time there, and it would really suck if you did not like being stuck in an environment that you did not like. I am assuming that you are talking about RU - New Brunswick (and not Newark or Camden), chem would be on the New Brunswick Busch campus (actually in Piscataway). It is a pretty nice campus, and has easy access to downtown New Brunswick (small city) on the RU bus system, and you can easily get to NYC from downtown New Brunswick via NJ Transit. That being said, GWU is pretty nice for a urban setting, and it is an easy walk to most of the things to do in DC.

Disclaimer - I am biased towards Rutgers - I am a fulltime employee there, I finished my undergrad there, I am currently 2/3 of the way thru my masters there, and plan to apply to a PhD program there for Fall 2017.

 

[drivingthoughts]

@harrybond The comments offered above are quite good. Here are a couple of more considerations: I ruled out GWU and another DC based school (PhD in another field) due to the Cost of Living v. Stipend. So while it may appear to be slightly cheaper than Rutgers due to the fellowship, it probably isn't if you look at the whole financial picture. I also want to second what @emmm says about recommendations - if RU is a better fit for you, you're more likely to get good recommendations out of your professors, and in my opinion, having solid recommendations outweighs prestigious fellowship. 

Either way, good luck & both schools are good (again, I don't know about your field, so ymmv on that). DC is a fun, but crime-riddled place - there is lots to do but some of the more affordable neighborhoods really suck. The same can probably be said of Jersey, but at RU you're an hour(ish) of public transit from NYC, so that's a nice bonus.

[harrybond]

Thank you all for your input.

@avflinsch The field I applied to is Chemical Biology and it's in New Brunswick. There is a good number of research topics in this field that match my interests, which is very important to me. Also I don't know much about the place there, the housing rentals, the cost of living etc... Perhaps you could shed some light on these, I would very much appreciate that. I'm planning on visiting the campus in July to have an idea about the place.

Thank you all again.

[avflinsch]

 I don't know much about the grad housing situation in the area, I am a very non-traditional student (finished my undergrad when I was 52), and own a house about 35 miles from the campus. My daughter lived in the undergrad housing on the Cook/Douglass campus and loved it there. Her first year as a grad student she lived at home and commuted with me, but she is trying to get a grad apartment for the fall on either the Busch campus or the Cook campus. She said the apartments were fairly nice.

The grad apartments on the Busch campus are near my office, they look pretty good from the outside, but I have never been inside any of them. The undergrad dorms my daughter was in were cramped, but clean.

 

 

Edited June 3, 2016 by avflinsch
typos

[harrybond]

Update: I received a TA position offer from GW. With this offer, coupled with the fellowship, the cost of attending GW will become significantly less than at Rutgers. This has put me in a more difficult situation right now to choose between the 2 programs. Also, I don't really know if being a TA is a good idea, I'm worried that the work pertaining to teaching will be overwhelming and could distract me from my studies. After all, I'm joining grad school to learn first. I would appreciate any advice.

[rising_star]

I would go with GW, especially given the difference in funding. Whether or not teaching is a "distraction" from your studies will be largely up to you (how much time you spend on it, how you approach it, etc.). I like to think of teaching as another way to learn (or relearn) the material.

[fuzzylogician]

13 hours ago, harrybond said:

Update: I received a TA position offer from GW. With this offer, coupled with the fellowship, the cost of attending GW will become significantly less than at Rutgers. This has put me in a more difficult situation right now to choose between the 2 programs. Also, I don't really know if being a TA is a good idea, I'm worried that the work pertaining to teaching will be overwhelming and could distract me from my studies. After all, I'm joining grad school to learn first. I would appreciate any advice.

TAing while studying is something a lot of people can successfully navigate and I am sure you could too. Yes, it would obviously distract from your studies (you won't be able to devote 100% of your time to your studies if you also teach), but it's worth it to avoid serious debt, in my opinion. Have you tried reaching out to Rutgers to see if there is any way they can match the funding or offer you a TAship? I would try that, but if they can't do anything, the large difference in potential debt would probably make me choose GW, if I were you. The questions of ranking and overall impact on the field are less important in my opinion (especially for a masters), so it comes down to whether GW can reasonably support your interests and help you prepare for applying for a PhD. Have you tried looking at their past placement record? That could give you a good indication of whether their students usually find their way to funded PhD positions or not. Since that is the ultimate goal, that should be the driving factor. If GW students (specifically, those who worked with your potential advisor) went on to strong PhD programs that you might be interested in joining, that would settle the question, I think. 

[TakeruK]

In addition to what the others above said, many fully funded PhD programs are funded by your TA work (maybe not every single year, but perhaps some of the time). I would say that in general, the money you make TAing (i.e. either to reduce program costs in your case or to contribute to a fully funded program) is worth the time it takes away from your studies. 

[harrybond]

3 hours ago, fuzzylogician said:

The questions of ranking and overall impact on the field are less important in my opinion (especially for a masters), so it comes down to whether GW can reasonably support your interests and help you prepare for applying for a PhD. 

That's an interesting response. Almost every past graduate student I met were very interested in knowing which program had a higher ranking before asking about anything else. From your experience, do you know of stories where students attended a relatively weaker program for their Masters and succeeded in joining well regarded PhD programs later on? I think joining a respected program for your Masters may lower the risk of failing to get admitted into very good PhD programs. I can see that most past GW Master's students stuck with GW for their PhDs as well, and from what I am able to see, these are not highly regarded programs in the field.

[fuzzylogician]

1 hour ago, harrybond said:

That's an interesting response. Almost every past graduate student I met were very interested in knowing which program had a higher ranking before asking about anything else. From your experience, do you know of stories where students attended a relatively weaker program for their Masters and succeeded in joining well regarded PhD programs later on? I think joining a respected program for your Masters may lower the risk of failing to get admitted into very good PhD programs. I can see that most past GW Master's students stuck with GW for their PhDs as well, and from what I am able to see, these are not highly regarded programs in the field.

You know, this may be one of those times where differences between fields might matter.  I don't know what field you're in so it's a bit hard to say. In mine, because there are enough schools that don't offer a linguistics BA in the first place, you see a good number of people from less known schools (and with degrees in related fields but not necessarily linguistics) accepted to the top schools in the field and doing quite well. There are also lots of international students, usually from schools that you will not have heard of. What matters most is prior research experience and LORs (plus the SOP and writing sample, and of course exams, to some extent). I don't think the pedigree of your undergraduate or Masters degree is usually discussed as a major factor on its own; it comes in through these other factors I mentioned -- schools with better programs will better train their students and offer them more resources, and the letter writers will be better known and usually better trusted than someone you've never heard of.

You seem to imply that GW is not a "respected" program in your field. I don't exactly know what that means. At the end of the day, it's all about your research and whether you can convince a school that they are a good place for you to be for a PhD. If you have reason to think that GW can't give you the training you need then perhaps you shouldn't attend it, but then I'm a bit confused about why you applied there in the first place. Again, I think it's important to get a good sense of where students from GW (and Rutgers) tend to go for their PhDs, concentrating specifically on what students of your potential advisor(s) do, and I'd also advise you to talk to Rutgers about potential funding opportunities. 

[TakeruK]

I think you have to ask yourself: what is the goal of attending this masters program and what are your eventual career goals?

If you are following the so-called "traditional" academic route, then I don't think the ranking of your Masters program should matter very much. It's pretty common (from my experience in STEM fields, but no experience in chemistry particularly) for PhD students to come from all sorts of undergrad and Masters programs. Honestly, as a Masters student, you are not there long enough and you don't do enough research for the ranking to make much of a difference. If you are following the "traditional" route, then your main goal from the Masters program should be to get into a PhD program, and in order to do that, you just need to demonstrate potential for research excellence and a strong foundation. The PhD program ranking will matter more for later career options.

So, with the new TA offer from George Washington U, I don't think the increased rank from Rutgers is worth the extra costs you will incur, in my opinion. But maybe someone in chemistry knows enough about those two programs in particular to comment? 

Finally, it would be a good idea to check out where Rutgers and George Washington University graduates go after their Masters. Similarly, you can look up the CVs of PhD students at the schools you'd want to go to for your PhD and see what types of schools they did their Masters in (or undergrad degrees in)

[juilletmercredi]

^This. I think a lot of students consider the rank because it's a common misconception that you have to go to a top-ranked MS program to go to a top-ranked PhD program. But in most fields, it's not really true - the institution at which you get your MA/MS doesn't really matter as much as what you do there.