<p>So long story short, I have a lot of general elective credit from AP, as well as physics 1 and calc 1 from that. I expect to place out of a chem or two and physics 2 most likely. So, I figure I can graduate a year early if I take an extra course here or there. Financial aid seriously screwed me, which is my motivation for that. Don't get me wrong, I love learning and loooooove the idea of being with a bunch of other MITers, I'd stay forever if it weren't for you know, other life goals and such. I definitely plan on going to grad school. Assuming financial aid doesn't change their mind and that I can get into a good grad school on fewer years than "normal" of undergrad, should I? Is it too much to assume I could get into a good (and by good, I mean great, of course. These <em>are</em> MIT standards) school with one year fewer? Please don't take my asking about early graduation as a disrespect to the Institvte or anything like that.</p>
<p>What are you thinking of majoring in? (That is to say, for what field and degree would you be applying for graduate school?)</p>
<p>For master’s programs (mostly engineering), it will be fine to have graduated early, especially because odds are you’ll be doing your master’s at MIT – it’s the most common graduate school destination of MIT alums. For PhD programs (mostly science), it’s not a great thing, because they care most strongly about your research experience and professor recommendations, and it’s tough to get as much experience in three years as most people take four years to get.</p>
<p>So in the sciences, the best path might be to graduate in three years, then continue working as a research technician (perhaps with your UROP lab) for a fourth year, then apply to PhD programs.</p>
<p>Of course, I should warn you that most people who are able to graduate early don’t, because they don’t want to leave. They manage to convince their parents that the fourth year is necessary. So just be prepared for that.</p>
<p>I’m thinking about major in physics and or nuclear engineering. I would definitely like to end up at MIT for grad school (or at least, based on what little I know about grad schools, MIT is tied for the top of that list). I imagine a PhD is necessary for things I’d like to do (professor, researcher type things). </p>
<p>Can you tell me more about the research tech type path for a fourth year? Does that cost me anything? Does it pay me enough for living expenses or leave enough time for a job (even if the job is not in the field eg waiting tables) that would? Would it make up for the lack of connections with profs because of not having that fourth year? It seems like a very good path.</p>
<p>I can only imagine I will not want to leave after three years (or just about any number of years). However, my parents are only paying for two years and after that I’m paying for ~90% with loans and work, so convincing them is not in the picture.</p>
<p>Research tech jobs pay about as much as graduate school in the field pays. In biology, techs and graduate students make around $30k a year – plenty of money, even in a city like Boston. I think physics grad students tend to have slightly lower stipends than biology (and so techs likely make less money, too), but stipends/tech salaries in these fields are definitely enough to live on. I’ve never heard of a tech having to take another job to make ends meet.</p>
<p>You might consider sending a PM to pebbles (Lulu from the blogs) – she’s doing tech stuff this year in physics before applying to graduate school, so she’ll know more than I do about job availability and salaries.</p>
<p>It’s still tough to have great letters after spending three years as an undergrad and one as a tech, but if you know that’s the plan going in, you can focus on developing relationships to get good letters from the beginning. Your letters should be from professors who can discuss your potential as a researcher, so they can be from professors who’ve supervised you in a UROP or professors who have seen your intellectual work in a class.</p>
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<p>To this day, it still baffles me why bio jobs pay so low, while bio grad stipends pay so (relatively) high, such that the two are practically equivalent. Contrast that with, say, engineering, where the jobs pay far more than do the grad stipends, often times by 3 or even 4x.</p>
<p>Well, stipends are high because they’re heavily subsidized by NIH – NIH pays $20,976 per year for each biology PhD student on a training grant (which basically everybody is), so a program in Boston like Harvard or MIT is only coughing up about $8000 for each student’s stipend.</p>
<p>I can’t answer why starting salaries are so low, other than that perhaps it’s to make it more attractive to go back to grad school, further education being necessary for advancement in biology, but not so much in engineering.</p>
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<p>Why is it tougher to get letters on 3 years undergrad + 1 year tech than on 4 years undergrad? Seems to me a year of just researching would actually help? (But of course I’m just speculating and you seem to actually know a good bit here)</p>
<p>The year of research absolutely helps, and I don’t mean to imply that it doesn’t.</p>
<p>I’m just thinking about the mechanics of getting good letters, which will vary according to how you actually proceed, and if you want to graduate early, you have to think carefully about these logistics in advance. Say you UROP in one lab as an undergrad, and continue in that lab as a tech for a year. That’s only one letter – you would have to have two letters from professors whom you have impressed in class, which would likely be more difficult if you only have three years to take classes (depending on how quickly you mature into an independent, creatively-thinking scientist). So a better strategy might be to UROP in one lab and tech in another, which would net you two letters about your research abilities. </p>
<p>Overall, it’s better to have more letters from professors who have seen your research abilities firsthand, but you don’t really want to lab-hop if you can help it. Getting letters from professors you had in class is often less than ideal, because grad school admissions committees are interested in your ability to do research, and not as much in your ability to do well in class per se.</p>
<p>The only other way graduating early can hurt you is that a PhD is something of an endurance test, and a major consideration when admitting students for grad school is whether the student will want to/be able to stick with a tough research project for 5+ years. So maturity is a big consideration, and people applying straight out of undergrad (and particularly people graduating early) have to prove that they know exactly why they’re applying. This is something you can address in your application, but it’s good to be aware that it’s an issue that exists.</p>
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I will be graduating in three years, and getting plenty of research experience & three great recommendations was anything but difficult. When you plan to graduate in three years, you’re not taking different classes from the four-year students – you’re just taking them earlier in your college career, so why would a three-year student have less access to professors? If anything, the three-year track impressed my recommenders. One of them only did three years himself, so he was especially gung-ho about it.</p>
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Unless you’re not completely set on going to grad school yet, I’ve heard pretty universally that this is not a good idea anymore. Grad schools liked seeing dedication to research through a tech position back in the 90s (and earlier), but nowadays not so much. Given the time it takes to complete a PhD has increased drastically from the olden days, too, I think the consensus is that starting sooner is better. All the techs I know are working as techs precisely because they are NOT sure whether grad school is for them.</p>
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I disagree, both from my experience interviewing at top PhD programs across the country and from the perspective of professors in my program.</p>
<p>It’s a disadvantage in biology, although not a crippling one, to apply straight out of undergrad. My entering PhD class was about half students straight from undergrad and half people who had taken time off, mostly to do tech work. A significant percentage of people who go on to PhD programs in biology do not come straight from undergrad.</p>
<p>From the perspective of the program, it makes sense to accept people who are mature and committed to finishing a PhD. Looking at the students in my program, students who come straight from undergrad are less likely to have decided on a specific research area, and are more likely to rotate through more labs or to change labs after prelims – although they are younger when they start their degrees, their time to degree is greater than students who take time off. And FWIW, time to degree is decreasing across the board – my program and others are taking conscious steps to reduce average time to degree from 6 years to 5.5.</p>
<p>Grad school is a marathon, not a sprint. There’s no inherent advantage, and quite a few inherent disadvantages, to trying to get through your training as quickly as possible.</p>
<p>Anyway, my point with regard to the OP was not that finishing in three years is impossible, or a kiss of death, but that it requires planning ahead. I don’t think that’s terribly controversial.</p>
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Who said anything about “quickly”? It’s about “sooner.”</p>
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Aside from those who worked as techs because they weren’t sure of their intentions immediately after college, the rest were probably not informed that grad school straight after undergrad is the best route now for the obviously PhD-dedicated. That is the “perspective of professors in my program,” too. I honestly cannot envision how most techs, with the kinds of tasks they are asked to perform, would have engendered any additional “PhD virtue” over direct undergrads than perhaps some extra patience. Nor would they be that much more decided on their research goals, unless they lab-hopped or chose to be a tech in a field that ultimately did turn out to be the one that really, REALLY excited them.</p>
<p>I am going to have to agree with Mollie here. Grad school (in physics or in bio) is all about output and quality of work, no one is going to give you points for getting in early or being young. Might as well wait until you’re more ready to take advantage of the opportunity. Believe it or not, even at the ripe age of 22, plans will change, doubts will surface, and a little bit of extra maturity can go a long way in securing some long term happiness (this is of course, what my 29 year old physics grad student friend tells me- who went straight to grad school from undergrad, did 3 unhappy years, took 2 years off, then switched into theory and has had 3 happy years and is now graduating with his PhD, and yes, he graduated college at 20).</p>
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I still strongly disagree with this premise, which is not to say I think there is a “best” route.</p>
<p>Obviously, a person who goes the tech route should do so in a lab that allows them to have an independent project, and in a lab that does work they find interesting – in short, they should treat the year(s) as a tech as an extended graduate school rotation. In addition, they should try to pick up all the techniques and skills they can, the merit of doing which, I hope, is obvious. (Importantly, though, the students who came to my program after a year or two of tech work did not uniformly have these opportunities. They still got into my program. Overall, the students who did tech work come from weaker schools and with less impressive accomplishments than the students who came straight from undergrad, indicating that, yes, tech work has some sort of “PhD virtue” to it.)</p>
<p>And quickly, sooner, whatever. There’s no advantage to rushing your training period, particularly because hurrying at one stage can significantly set you back at another.</p>
<p>Would there be a disadvantage to applying after three years and going if I got in, and teching for a year then reapplying if I didn’t?</p>
<p>No problem, but you almost certainly wouldn’t need to go that far – your professors will be able to tell you where you stand relative to other applicants, saving you the time and effort if your app isn’t strong enough after three years.</p>
<p>Another option is to take a semester off somewhere in the middle. I did that. I took the spring of my junior year off for an extended spring-summer internship and graduated with my class (in 7 semesters). I also used some of that time off to catch up on a bunch of research. This might be a good option if your concerns are purely financial.</p>
<p>Also, financial aid awards can change dramatically over 4 years. My freshman and sophomore years were financially difficult. Then MIT changed their financial aid policy, and I paid almost nothing for my junior and senior years.</p>