Doctoral Training Centres (New UK PhD Scheme) vs US PhDs

[elpalomo]

I've lurked around this forum for a rather long time. It's certainly US-centric, but I was wondering whether someone has heard about the Doctoral Training Centres. Unlike regular 3-year PhD UK programmes, these centres require students to carry out rotation labs, take classes and whatnot, just like a regular doctorate in the States. They are still shorter, however: we are talking about 4 years. 

Are these kind of programmes well/better regarded in the USA? 

In particular, I've heard about people being rejected from graduate departments like MIT Biological Engineering, Stanford Bioengineering at MASTERS LEVEL!, Harvard SEAS and yet promptly accepted by Imperial College, Cambridge or Oxford (Synthetic Biology/Bioengineering).

Does this mean that these top UK programmes are second tier?! Or are they well regarded?

[pterosaur]

Just ran across this now, so I'm not sure if you'll see it, OP. In the US, I don't think there's a big difference in the way that a PhD from a typical UK program would be perceived compared to one through a CDT. First, because most people in the US wouldn't know the difference or know what a CDT is. It seems like a lot of the CDTs are essentially taking the more American approach of combining the masters and PhD and putting them into one program. (The 4 vs 5 years then comes mostly from the fact that the UK does 1 year masters compared to the more typical 2 years in the US.) I can't speak to these anecdotes, but in general PhDs from Oxford, Cambridge, and Imperial would be very well regarded in the US. Given my knowledge of the CDT program, I might see it as a tiny boost over the regular UK PhD because there would be a more structured/consistent background knowledge I could expect out of those completing the program, but it likely wouldn't be a determining factor in anything.

I'm from the US, did an MRes at Imperial,\ and am now at Harvard SEAS for my PhD. For what it's worth, I got into everywhere I applied in the US but was summarily rejected from an Oxford CDT program without even getting to the interview stage (they interview nearly 70% of the applicants...).

[tpx]

Late as well, but I'm going to largely echo what pterosaur says. But take this post with a grain of salt, as my knowledge of US-style PhDs comes only from forums like this one.

These CDT / DTP PhD's are really not much different from traditional UK PhDs when compared to American ones. They are still completed in 3-4 years, rather than 5+, and there is no requirement for students to teach undergraduate classes as they are fully funded. As far as I can see, these are two of the three biggest differences between UK and US, and they are still the case with DTPs.

The main way they come closer to a US-style PhD is in lab rotations, but these are one year at the most, whereas in a US PhD, one year seems to be the minimum. There's quite a lot of variation between programs though (I think for the NERC London DTP you decide on your main project by Christmas of the first year, whereas in the SouthWest BBSRC DTP you do two 6-month rotations), so some are not really very similar to US-style rotations. I don't think that even some of the integrated masters programmes are all that different from traditional PhDs. For examplet, for the Imperial MRes+PhD adverts I've seen, candidates are picked for the specific, advertised PhD project and therefore spend the whole MRes doing a prelininary project with the same supervisor. So it still doesn't offer the lab rotations or broad learning that seems typical of American PhDs. You don't even need to do coursework or exams during some MRes Masters.

Finally, there's going to be little comprehensive data on how well these programmes are received in the US because of how recent they are. I think there are only two (possibly three) graduated cohorts so far.

Edited December 27, 2016 by tpx