<p>Quick question about graduate college admissions. If I went to a school like Iowa State University and got into their BS/MS program that would allow me to get a masters in five years without having to pay for that extra year, would it help me in applying for a PhD program with a masters done already? Is it bad to switch graduate programs from getting a masters from one college and a PhD from another?</p>
<p>P.S. This is all for Biochemistry.</p>
<p>Lots of people do an MS at one place and PhD at another. Especially in cases like yours. Don’t worry about this.</p>
<p>For biochemistry, a master’s will be nice, and may help you gain admission to a PhD program, but it will probably not actually change the amount of time it takes you to get a PhD.</p>
<p>Biology PhD programs generally do not award a master’s degree, so having a master’s when you begin is not necessary, nor is getting a master’s along the way.</p>
<p>But when you go for a Bio PhD, don’t you do course work that is similar to a masters? By doing this, I thought this would probably save me an extra year since I could go straight to researching the PhD.</p>
<p>Typically people who come in with a master’s degree are not exempted from course requirements. It’s possible that if you stay at your undergrad school for your PhD, the credit could be applied toward your PhD, but credits for graduate school almost never transfer to another institution.</p>
<p>In another field where there are master’s programs and separate PhD programs, this might work, but in biology/biomedical sciences there are few master’s programs, and the idea of a PhD program separate from coursework is pretty rare.</p>
<p>All of my friends that came in with a MS to our PhD program had to repeat the course requirements. I think one or two were able to get maybe 2-3 of the 15 classes we had to take waived.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that a lot of students with a BS will have already been taking grad classes as an undergrad, so by doing your MS you’d just be taking the same class a bunch are doing anyway, just without the piece of paper at the end.</p>
<p>Oh. Well, thanks for the information.</p>