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So I recently graduated with a BS in biology and minor in chemistry from a top US institution. I'm headed to Imperial College London for a Masters of Research in Chemical Biology with the intention of returning to the US for a PhD in a similar field.

I'm worried that my ICL degree, however, won't hold up well in PhD applications, either because of lack of name recognition or the fact that it's from an overseas institution. I ultimately chose Imperial because they have one of the few labs working in the field I'm interested in, as well as to show that I can be successful in a graduate school environment (read: compensating for my 3.37 GPA). The UK MRes degree is well structured and suited to my interests in that it consists of 80% research (plus they're only a year long), but now I'm starting to think that I'm making a mistake.

Does anyone have any insight on this type of situation? Not sure what to do.

Posted (edited)

Imperial is one of the very top universities in the U.K., and there are plenty of people who don't get any MA before going on to PhD programs.  Shouldn't be a problem-- just do well and get a good recommendation.

If you go to Quora.com, one of the more active contributors on science grad schools did his master's at Imperial before moving to MIT.  See what advice he can give about making good use of your time there.

Edited by Concordia
Posted
3 hours ago, Concordia said:

Imperial is one of the very top universities in the U.K., and there are plenty of people who don't get any MA before going on to PhD programs.  Shouldn't be a problem-- just do well and get a good recommendation.

If you go to Quora.com, one of the more active contributors on science grad schools did his master's at Imperial before moving to MIT.  See what advice he can give about making good use of your time there.

Thanks so much! Do you happen to know this contributor's name on Quora?

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