Masters Programs: Pros and Cons

[kaiphi]

Lately I've been hearing/reading a lot of discussion about whether one needs a Master's degree in order to pursue a full-fledged doctoral program.

Eventually I'd like to earn my PhD in Comparative Literature, but the advice I've gotten from professors at my current uni and my dream uni has been conflicting.

I'm very interested in Black American modernism and francophone Afro-Caribbean literature (alongside some cultural theory and political philosophy), but my university doesn't offer many courses in this vein seeing as our course catalog always has ~one type of class~ every semester. (One Shakespeare, one medieval, one black literature sometimes, one American literature, etc etc). So despite a couple of independent study opportunities I'm taking advantage of, I feel unprepared to even write a Statement of Purpose for summer research opportunities at this point. 

Plus, my GPA still isn't great. I have a year left and won't be applying until the year after, but my freshman and sophomore years really muddied things up.

The director of graduate study at my dream PhD program advised that I get a Master's in my prospective field first, so I'll feel more prepared when the time comes to apply to their program. Another professor at my current uni said a Master's is a great stepping stone to see if I want to pursue the full program. However, another professor said it best to apply for a PhD straight away in order to qualify for the full funding, and I don't intend on going to grad school at all if it's going to put me deeper into debt.

What are the pros and cons here? I'm leaning towards the Master's at the moment.

[Dr. Old Bill]

Just my two cents, but in 2014, I applied to nothing but Ph.D. programs. I was already well into my thirties, and only had a B.A., but figured I was mature enough and dedicated enough (etc. etc.) to be in a Ph.D. program. I didn't wind up getting into a Ph.D. program, but at least I was able to get a Master's with full funding and tuition remission...and now that I'm going through the cycle again, I feel ten times better than two years ago. I still think I could have succeeded in a Ph.D. program, but the M.A. has allowed my focus to both deepen and broaden, if that makes any sense, and has given me a far better handle on the tenor of academic conversations. It goes without saying that I "know more" than I did two years ago, but doing graduate study at the Master's level goes even farther than that. I have no idea if that will translate into better fortunes when it comes to my Ph.D. applications in this cycle, but even though I've carried a very small sliver of bitterness about still being at the M.A. level, I truly can't deny that it has made me a much better (more rounded and more aware) scholar.

As to your main question, what I hear through the grapevine is that Ph.D. programs are tending toward preferring candidates with M.A.s. Places like Penn State still prefer to admit their Ph.D. candidates from the bachelor's level, but there's just so much less risk when you admit someone who has demonstrably performed well at the graduate level. YMMV as always -- a great candidate with only a B.A. will usually get scooped up by a Ph.D. program -- but the trend seems to be moving in a more B.A. -> M.A. -> Ph.D. direction.

[Warelin]

I think @Wyatt's Terps did a great job at mentioning the benefits. Originally, I thought I was interested in Early Modern. While I still retain my interest, I realize that I much prefer the later period of the early modern period. However, I feel there are certain periods I overlooked that I would rather have a much better understanding of. I'm also thinking that Modern Drama, Poetics, Gender Studies, Rhetoric and Composition, African-American Literature and LGBT Studies are things I'd be interested in studying more intensely.

[whodathunk]

13 hours ago, Wyatt's Terps said:

As to your main question, what I hear through the grapevine is that Ph.D. programs are tending toward preferring candidates with M.A.s. Places like Penn State still prefer to admit their Ph.D. candidates from the bachelor's level, but there's just so much less risk when you admit someone who has demonstrably performed well at the graduate level. YMMV as always -- a great candidate with only a B.A. will usually get scooped up by a Ph.D. program -- but the trend seems to be moving in a more B.A. -> M.A. -> Ph.D. direction.

While I'm sure you actually heard this and I'm not saying it's categorically false, I might stop short of taking anecdotal evidence as evidence of a broad trend, just because it's fallacious and a bit dangerous (seriously, no one stalking these forums has this kind of info). Applicants do read these forums, see things like that, and get psyched out, ultimately for nothing--me included--I can't tell you how many times 'insider advice' I read on Gradcafe 6 months ago turned out to be blatantly, comically false when I asked professors about it--on the subject of everything from SOPs to BA vs. MA to subject tests. On this particular subject, I actually hear how the opposite of this is true quite frequently, but I've only ever spoken to professors at top 10 programs. It might be true elsewhere too, though. Can't say! And honestly, that's my only point--that much of this forum is built on hearsay, anecdotes, and casual advice, and posters don't emphasize that quite often enough & instead phrase posts as the relation of true insider knowledge.

Really, the only evidentiary support of a shift toward preferring MA students would be a stated preference from a committee, or maybe the demographic makeup of the program. E.g. if 70% of people came in with a masters, there's probably a preference for them, but it's still the case that at places like Harvard, they explicitly state that most people don't come in with MAs. If a student with a BA and an MA are equal in all but the degree, I see no reason why the MA student would be preferred. I've also never heard of a PhD program that dissuaded someone from applying because they didn't have an MA. You're absolutely right that an MA can aid someone in preparing a strong application--stronger than the one they would have submitted with only a BA--but it doesn't necessarily then logically follow that all MA students are more prepared than BA students. 

[Warelin]

17 minutes ago, whodathunk said:

While I'm sure you actually heard this and I'm not saying it's categorically false, I might stop short of taking anecdotal evidence as evidence of a broad trend, just because it's fallacious and a bit dangerous (seriously, no one stalking these forums has this kind of info). Applicants do read these forums, see things like that, and get psyched out, ultimately for nothing--me included--I can't tell you how many times 'insider advice' I read on Gradcafe 6 months ago turned out to be blatantly, comically false when I asked professors about it--on the subject of everything from SOPs to BA vs. MA to subject tests. On this particular subject, I actually hear how the opposite of this is true quite frequently, but I've only ever spoken to professors at top 10 programs. It might be true elsewhere too, though. Can't say! And honestly, that's my only point--that much of this forum is built on hearsay, anecdotes, and casual advice, and posters don't emphasize that quite often enough & instead phrase posts as the relation of true insider knowledge.

Really, the only evidentiary support of a shift toward preferring MA students would be a stated preference from a committee, or maybe the demographic makeup of the program. E.g. if 70% of people came in with a masters, there's probably a preference for them, but it's still the case that at places like Harvard, they explicitly state that most people don't come in with MAs. If a student with a BA and an MA are equal in all but the degree, I see no reason why the MA student would be preferred. I've also never heard of a PhD program that dissuaded someone from applying because they didn't have an MA. You're absolutely right that an MA can aid someone in preparing a strong application--stronger than the one they would have submitted with only a BA--but it doesn't necessarily then logically follow that all MA students are more prepared than BA students. 

Penn State has admitted this before:
" In terms of admission, you have heard correctly. We usually admit 1, no more than 2 people per year directly into the PhD program."

Illinois also admits to it:
"Because we have many strong applicants, we admit only one out of seven or so to our graduate programs. We offer admission to approximately 40 students per year applying to the M.A. in Literature program and to approximately 5-10 students in three other programs: the Ph.D. in Literature, and the M.A. and Ph.D. in Writing Studies. We admit 6 M.F.A. candidates a year (3 in fiction, 3 in poetry). Our non-literature tracks typically have smaller applicant pools. Half or more of all admitted students accept our offers, with 20-30 new students usually entering each year. Most of our Ph.D. students have received their M.A.s at Illinois."

And some programs do require a Master's to be admitted:
Kentucky requires a Master's as does Michigan State,  Purdue, and UNM. If I recall correctly, Georgia can only give you a funded TA position during your first year of the PHD program if you have a Master's degree because of how their state laws work.

[whodathunk]

On 11/24/2016 at 11:19 AM, Warelin said:

Penn State has admitted this before:
" In terms of admission, you have heard correctly. We usually admit 1, no more than 2 people per year directly into the PhD program."

Illinois also admits to it:
"Because we have many strong applicants, we admit only one out of seven or so to our graduate programs. We offer admission to approximately 40 students per year applying to the M.A. in Literature program and to approximately 5-10 students in three other programs: the Ph.D. in Literature, and the M.A. and Ph.D. in Writing Studies. We admit 6 M.F.A. candidates a year (3 in fiction, 3 in poetry). Our non-literature tracks typically have smaller applicant pools. Half or more of all admitted students accept our offers, with 20-30 new students usually entering each year. Most of our Ph.D. students have received their M.A.s at Illinois."

And some programs do require a Master's to be admitted:
Kentucky requires a Master's as does Michigan State,  Purdue, and UNM. If I recall correctly, Georgia can only give you a funded TA position during your first year of the PHD program if you have a Master's degree because of how their state laws work.

I've never considered applying to any of those, but that's all fine of course--a department's stated preference is different from hearsay is all my post was saying.

[kaiphi]

Hi there,

Thank you all! I've decided that gaining an MA as a stepping stone into academia as well as an opportunity to focus solely on scholarly work.

That being said, does anyone know of a database for funded Master's programs? I don't want to go into deeper debt after undergrad.

AOI: Black American Literature, Francophone Literature, Afro-Caribbean Literature (Négritude), Postcolonial Studies, Cosmopolitan Literature, Postmodernism (Minimalism, Magical Realism), Aesthetics, French Philosophy, Sartre, Stuart Hall, Camus, Foucault, Fanon, Thiong'o, C.L.R. James. (20th-Century, ad infinitum)

Edited November 28, 2016 by kaiphi

[Ramus]

9 hours ago, kaiphi said:

Hi there,

Thank you all! I've decided that gaining an MA as a stepping stone into academia as well as an opportunity to focus solely on scholarly work.

That being said, does anyone know of a database for funded Master's programs? I don't want to go into deeper debt after undergrad.

AOI: Black American Literature, Francophone Literature, Afro-Caribbean Literature (Négritude), Postcolonial Studies, Cosmopolitan Literature, Postmodernism (Minimalism, Magical Realism), Aesthetics, French Philosophy, Sartre, Stuart Hall, Camus, Foucault, Fanon, Thiong'o, C.L.R. James. (20th-Century, ad infinitum)

If you search this forum's back topics, you'll come across several lists of funded MA programs (your question gets asked several times a year). Some of the programs listed may have since adjusted their funding, though, so be sure to verify their current funding on their department pages. 

[Yanaka]

@kaiphi Would you mind sharing any info you might have?