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<p>Actually, I have never heard of a doctoral candidate who, as you put it, ‘fell off the dissertation bandwagon’ who then pursued an unspecified master’s. While they might exist, my sense is that they are extremely rare. Most PhD students who are unable to complete the PhD will almost certainly at least have been able to complete the requirements for a specified master’s within their department. Generally speaking, if you’re admitted to a MIT PhD program, then you’re one of the most motivated and talented graduate students in the world for that particular discipline, and so completing a specified (consolation) master’s degree within that discipline should not present a serious hurdle. </p>
<p>Nor is the unspecified master’s program something that most students would ‘apply’ to directly. Many unspecified master’s students actually were admitted to specified master’s programs and then perhaps lost interest in that specification somewhere along the way. Perhaps only a handful would actually state in their application from the very beginning that they intend to pursue an unspecified master’s.</p>
<p>But actually, at least from what I’ve seen, by far the most common reason that somebody will pursue an unspecified master’s is that they are already pursuing a (specified) graduate degree in one department, and want to pursue a second graduate degree in another department, but without having to fulfill all of the coursework requirements to obtain a degree with specification in that second department. This sometimes happens with, say, Sloan MBA students who want to pick up an additional MS (actually an “SM” in MIT parlance) as well, but don’t want to concentrate their additional coursework to the extent necessary to earn an SM with specification. So they’ll take an SM without specification, hence graduating with dual master’s (MBA + SM). </p>
<p>To be clear, I am not trying to imply that the unspecified master’s at MIT is particularly commonplace. It is not. Nevertheless, it’s a nice option to have, and some students take advantage of it.</p>