Hello, I am a Canadian student currently about to enter fourth year at the University of Toronto. I specialize in East Asian Studies and minor in Religious Studies. I currently have a Cumulative GPA of 3.77 (4 is max), and I’m aiming to get above 3.8 by the end of fourth year. I speak native English, Mandarin, and Taiwanese. As well as conversational Japanese.
I’m basically seeking advice for graduate school admissions. My plan is to go straight into a PhD program in East Asia Studies and skip Masters. Universities I am planning to apply to for a PhD include US Ivy League (Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Princeton, etc) and also Oxford and Cambridge. To this end, I want to know if my plan is realisitic or not, and how I can improve my odds if they aren’t. Or would I basically need to go into a Masters before I have even a decent chance of getting into a PhD program at these institutions?
Also, I would appreciate any information regarding how the pay is for PhD programs at the aforementioned universities. Do you get an paid decently for being a TA on top of the living stipend, and what about scholarships, are they difficult to secure? Tuition is usually waived right?
Thank you!
@TainanBoy
I am more familiar with the science tracks, but my D just finished her masters at Stanford in East Asian Studies, so I am a bit familiar with the environment. To be clear, she only was after a masters, not even considering a Ph.D. At this point.
But I think the days of requiring a masters before a Ph.D. are over. The main things to getting into any of these top programs are your overall GPA (and I think yours is good, not great for this area but U of T is highly respected), your GPA in your major, your GRE score (pretty much ignoring the math unless your specialty will require a lot of stats, which sounds unlikely), and recommendations. So if you do well on the GRE and have a good relationship with at least one current prof in your major, you should have good odds in my estimation.
As far as money, again less familiar with these kinds of departments but generally tuition is waived and you are paid enough to get a decent apartment (might need to take on a roommate to afford a nice place unless you can supplement) and eat. Not much left for entertainment, usually. But again, there are ways to stretch it. Besides one or more roommates, you can almost always find a free food opportunity on campus. A department function, a university celebration of some kind, etc. it is amazing how far it can go with some effort and ingenuity.
Best of luck.
The way funding at top PhD programs work is that if you are accepted, you are typically given a full funding package - tuition and fees waiver, health insurance, and a standard living stipend. In return, you teach and act as a research assistant (where appropriate). Typically, you do not get paid extra on top of your stipend for being a TA; that is expected of you as a doctoral student. The only time that would happen is if you got a special fellowship either awarded by the university or externally. The university fellowships are usually very competitive, since every incoming doctoral student across the university competes for them. External fellowships are even more competitive, and you have to apply for those separately. (In fact, ironically fellowships with no teaching often pay more than teaching assistantships.)
In the humanities, the living stipend is is usually in the $20-30K range per year, tending more towards the middle of this range. At Columbia, the standard 9-month stipend is now $26,286 (see [here](http://gsas.columbia.edu/content/stipend-and-monthly-checks)). I can’t find Harvard’s overall rates quickly, but Harvard’s SEAS pays PhD students $2,936 which is about $26,434 for 9 months (keep in mind that STEM stipends are often a bit higher than humanities stipends at many schools). Princeton’s stipend rates vary from $26,450 to $30,500 depending on the source of your funding ([here](https://gradschool.princeton.edu/node/1012)). Stanford’s stipends range from $26,658 to $29,178 ([url=<a href=“http://gap.stanford.edu/RATAsalary.html%5Dhere%5B/url”>http://gap.stanford.edu/RATAsalary.html]here[/url]. Also keep in mind that your money will go further in Princeton/Plainsboro than it will in Boston or Palo Alto, and will go even less far in New York.
As for your plans - do you have any research/scholarship experience? A senior thesis, an independent study, assisting a professor with their research and scholarship, something like that? I’m less familiar with the humanities but I do know that PhD programs there usually expect competitive applicants to have some research experience and some evidence of independent research like a thesis or independent study (that you can then use as a writing sample when you apply). MANY successful applicants in the humanities have an MA first. You may be able to go straight through - it’s not unheard of - but if you don’t currently have much research experience, I would imagine you might need an MA first.
I tried (ok, briefly, but still) to find a way to say this without being snarky, but I failed. So, here it is:
You have given no information other than that you speak 3 relevant languages and you have a good GPA. You have given no info on your research interests or career goals. And, apparently Google doesn’t work on your computer, because it appears that you haven’t even done the most basic of looks at the websites of the colleges you are interested in- if you had you would already know that it is exceptionally rare for Harvard to take somebody into their EA PhD program w/out a Masters, that the EA studies program at Stanford is a Masters and the PhDs are in one specific Asian language, and that at Princeton you can do the PhD through the East Asia, History, Comp Lit and other departments- depending your research interests - and you get your MA on your way to the PhD.
In essence, all you have given us is that you want to do a PhD at a super-famous school. At the PhD level, it’s about the specific program and specific professors, not the brand name of the university. They are seriously NOT interchangeable. So go do some homework on what you want from your PhD. Do a little basic online research (pro tip: getting a PhD is all about doing research, so consider it practice). You will find funding info there while you are at it. When you have specific questions, come on back.
I think the point about skipping the masters is partly based off of coming from Canada - I think there it is the norm to first get the masters and then go on for the PhD (splitting it up a bit more like the European system).
I also concur on wondering about your selection of schools; you seem to be focused on general perception of prestige (only focusing on Ivy and Oxbridge) rather than what might be the best places for your specific field and research interest.