<p>I notice that some students go right from their Bachelors into a PhD program. How does a student know if he should apply for a PhD program rather than a Masters?</p>
<p>Would a particular GPA and GRE score indicate this route?</p>
<p>would the fact that the student took a few 400 classes that were also 500 level classes indicate this?</p>
<p>What? </p>
<p>Sorry if this is a dumb question....just have no idea.</p>
<p>P.S. In this case, the student will need a PhD for his profession.</p>
<p>The GPA and GRE scores aren’t particularly relevant to this decision. In most academic disciplines, a person is likely to complete a Master’s degree before earning a Ph.D.</p>
<p>If the master’s degree is a useful credential for getting a good job, the conservative thing to do is to complete the masters. That way, in case something unforseen happens, you have the master’s degree.</p>
<p>The masters/doctoral thing is field-specific.</p>
<p>Going from a bachelor’s degree straight to a Ph.D program is normal in the sciences.</p>
<p>For social science, humanities and related fields, most programs require Ph.D students to have first completed a master’s degree.</p>
<p>So, it really depends on what discipline your child is interested in.</p>
<p>Edit: This is where a lot of the misconception comes in about funded master’s programs - a lot of people say “oh, only Ph.D students get funding.” Again, generally true in the sciences but not for many other disciplines.</p>
<p>In some fields - most commonly the research intensive science majors (e.g. Chemistry, Biology, Physics or even Computer Science) - some PhD programs accept students with a bachelor degree directly. The students are supposed to commit 4-6 years (or longer) in the program and some do and some don’t need to get the Master’s degree as a prerequisite for the PhD program. As a matter of fact, for these programs it is sometimes desirable that applicants apply for the PhD program instead of the Master’s program as the professors need students to keep on longer term research projects. Also, in some cases, Master’s degree is offered to students who are deemed not suitable for the PhD program after they have been in the program for extended period of time.</p>
<p>Many university departments don’t have master’s programs, only BA/BS and PhD… In some humanities departments, a master’s is a kind of a consolation prize for graduate students who, the department decides, shouldn’t go on to a PhD.</p>
<p>There are three (maybe two) reasons why students may decide to apply for Master’s degrees in a field where a PhD is the normal terminal degree. </p>
<p>(1) Notwithstanding the availability of a PhD, the Master’s degree has meaning in an employment market. The student does not want to commit to the time and process necessary to get a PhD, but will have much better job prospects with a Master’s. (Note: This situation may be a little bit like fairies. Whether or not I believe they exist, I don’t know that I have seen one. But I haven’t looked much, either.)</p>
<p>(2) The student’s interests have changed, and he or she needs additional coursework and certification to get an entry-level job in the field now targeted. This is really a slightly different version of #1, except it applies to students who want to change fields, so the MA functions like an alternative BA/BS.</p>
<p>(3) The student intends to get a PhD eventually, but does not believe that he or she will have a strong application now – not enough course work or research, not strong enough relationships with faculty who would be good recommenders, not enough substantial written work. Maybe the student has his or her eye on top programs, but needs to show what he or she can do in a strong academic environment, and didn’t have that in college. The Master’s program functions as a sorting mechanism to determine which of these students really has the talent and drive to go the distance in a full PhD program. In many cases, students who are applying to PhD programs will also apply to a few Master’s programs as a backup, since it is much easier to get into them (but in that case they are rarely fully funded). In some cases, PhD programs may require students to enter as Master’s students and prove their ability/work ethic before being admitted to the PhD program.</p>
<p>It is much easier to get accepted into Masters program than into PhD - partly because PhD is expected to be funded, and Masters isn’t.
Many high schools (and even middle schools) require Masters degree from the teachers.
Masters degree in clinical psychology will allow one to practice (but if one is looking for a research career in psych, PhD is necessary)
Masters in CS may boost career opportunities, and PhD will never be necessary for a computer scientist outside of academia.</p>
<p>I would also say that it’s not a GRE/GPA question, exactly, although GPA in the target field is certainly a factor. Say someone wants to get a PhD in Economics, but struggled in his early Economics courses in college, and the penny really didn’t drop until late in his undergraduate career. Going into a Master’s program lets him establish a record of success with challenging material that he wouldn’t otherwise have, and lets him convince his teachers that he has what it takes and they ought to promote him to their colleagues. </p>
<p>It’s not usually a big deal if a student didn’t do well in nonrelated courses. Anthropology departments probably don’t care if an applicant got a C in Organic Chemistry. Lots of the Anthropology profs got Cs in Organic Chemistry when they were college sophomores. They don’t see it as a character flaw.</p>
<p>As far as I can tell (hearsay), GRE doesn’t matter that much. Programs in quantitative fields may want to see a decently strong (or better) Quantitative score, and programs in nonquant fields may be (a) impressed by a great Verbal score (the Verbal curve is very different from the Quant curve – lots of people get Quant 800s, but the top 1% of Verbal scores falls somewhere around 730, so a very high Verbal score is actually rare), or (b) suspicious of a low Verbal score.</p>
<p>I think many PhD programs in sciences require GRE “subject tests”, and most will have a cutoff score (bellow which you pretty much will not be considered, even if they don’t say so directly).</p>
<p>At some PhD programs, they “give” you a master’s when you pass your qualifying exams a couple of years in. If you fail, they “give” you the master’s and send you packing.</p>
<p>“It is much easier to get accepted into Masters program than into PhD - partly because PhD is expected to be funded, and Masters isn’t.”</p>
<p>Again, this is simply not correct as a blanket statement. Many, many humanities/social sciences MA/MS programs fund their students.</p>
<p>In fields where an master’s degree is a general prerequisite for admission to a doctoral program, you will generally find that master’s students are funded.</p>
<p>In engineering, one can generally get admitted directly into a PhD program with a BS. A master’s is typically granted along the way. </p>
<p>There are a couple of significant advantages of going directly in to a PhD program. There are generally better funding options, research and teaching assistantships, available to PhD students and not masters students. Also, it is faster to get the PhD completed if one starts in a PhD program right away, especially if a masters program is done at a different University.</p>
<p>At dh’s med school they do look at GRE scores as well as MCATs for the MD/Phd candidates. I agree that in the sciences. In the programs dh has been involved with you get your Master’s after the qualifying exam. As others have said in some states (like NY) a Masters in a subject is useful if you want to teach in high school. I haven’t heard of cases of flunking the qualifying exam and getting a masters, but I do know at least one person who was pushed out of Caltech with a masters.</p>
<p>I am confused by polarscribe’s insistence that Master’s are funded. My understanding is that when a student has been admitted to a PhD program, the portion of the program that constitutes the Master’s curriculum (roughly the first two years) are generally funded. But if a student is admitted to a Master’s program only, or to a Master’s program without automatic progression to a PhD, very few students are fully funded, although partial funding is often provided on a case-by-case basis. Most of the Master’s-only programs I have seen are profit centers for their universities.</p>
<p>As I have said, that is generally true for “hard science” fields of study. But it is not true for most social science and humanities fields. There are many doctoral programs in those disciplines that won’t even accept students who haven’t first completed a separate masters’ degree.</p>
<p>Funding is generally not guaranteed with admission as it usually is for Ph.D programs, but it is, nonetheless, available.</p>
<p>Consider that there are many, many universities which don’t even offer doctoral studies in a given field, but still need graduate assistants for the giant undergraduate lecture classes. Guess who gets those assistantships?</p>
<p>Academia is not a giant monolith and different disciplines have different practices.</p>