Definitely his advisor and teacher he has done research with will give him the best advice. (is he currently a sophmore or junior?)
The best part of applying for a doctorate is parents were bystanders and son and his advisors made all the decisions and moves. They helped him craft the list of schools to appy to and how many to apply to. Listen, be a sounding board, but the big decisions will be worked out by your son and his professors
My son got his masters with his UG degree and applyed to PHD programs. Even taking higher level graduate courses, he took some same/similar for his PHD program. He wanted to have a good foundation and take beginning courses to meet professers and get a feel for different areas. (Similar to decisions about whether to use AP credit to pass out of intro courses)
He did feel having to do a defense of his Master’s thesis was a useful exercise. While nowhere near as rigourous as a phd defense, it did give him a small taste of what it was like. He said it was a good experience (once it was done) to have to get up, present, and defend in front of his professors.
@Python20 He is currently only a 1st semester sophomore by attendance, but he has jr standing. Your description is pretty much exactly what he described when he talked about completing his masters as an UG. All of the bonuses you listed are ones that he recognizes. I’m not sure why he suddenly started thinking about graduating early unless it was from when he registered for spring classes. I am assuming DegreeWorks shows him close to being finished and the thought of 3 more semesters vs. 5 started bouncing around his head. Up until the phone call this morning he had been saying that he wasn’t going to graduate early.
Lots of good advice here. I would just add that he could look into a REU for the summer of 2016. if has not done so yet , since he will still have one year left (if he pursues the 4 year plan). If his current university has many grad courses, he should take that for the 4th year and build up his research credentials. Please do not apply to grad schools to “test the waters”. He needs to put his best foot forward, and I think a fourth year would help him immensely in crafting a very competitive application.
One very important thing to note -are his current professors involved actively in research? Is it possible for him to attend any local physics society conferences or national ones? That’s the best way to get a lot of info in a relatively short period of time.
DS went through physics Ph.D. Application process. I would suggest staying for 4 years. One more point that has not been mentioned. Good Physics PhD programs will require a physics GRE. While not necessarily very difficult, this does require quite a bit of preparation in order to perform well. And top programs will require that he do well.Only offered in April, October and November. One more data point to take into consideration.
As an aside, the number of locations where the subject GREs seems more limited. D2 and I were looking at it recently. Transportation to the site can be a hassle. He will have to take the regular GRE and the Physics GRE.
I agree 100% with consulting with his professors who know the situation far better than we do. I would be very surprised if it hurt him in any way to stay if he’s having a good time there and still has things to learn from professors there.
I’ve known far more people who chose to stay the fourth year and get the Masters than those who scurried off to grad school early, but I don’t know whether their reasons make sense for your kid.
Ditto on his discussion with his academic advisor. He needs to spend some time plotting out courses he can take as an undergrad Instead of the minimum required for a major. Technically my son could have had the BS/BA in math after 3 years but he would not have had as many math (or other) classes- he did several grad level math courses as an undergrad. His U didn’t do the add courses get a masters- I’m sure doing the grad school level courses in physics will enhance your son’s knowledge base regardless of the extra degree opportunity. Three years means rushing with the GREs (and based on a lesser knowledge base), fewer classes in math and physics, likely not as competitive for the best grad programs in his field.
College is an education, not just going for a degree in a field. I would hope he takes electives beyond those required to meet breadth requirements. Doing a fourth year could round him out as well as better prepare him for a more elite grad program. He should definitely look for physics and math REU’s- both since they can be highly competitive and he may get one but not necessarily in physics.
I also think the extra year to firm up his future plans is a good idea. Grad level courses as an undergrad either make grad school a bit easier to start or he could possibly test out of some courses. It also gives him time to take courses he won’t in grad school. Adding more math, art history, music, foreign languages, philosophy and so many other areas he may not have time for with only three years. Those AP credits are not the same as studying a subject as a college student.
Now is the time for your son to look ahead long term. I hope he opts for more education, ie using four college undergrad years to have a well rounded education.
Another thought…my daughter had many credits from HS and did elect to graduate early (after 2.5 years)…she went on to grad school but was very young (not 21). It worked out for her, but another year of maturity and age may not be a bad thing.
It seems like a cool opportunity for your DS and @blossom has a point have him consult with his advisor they might be the better ones to give him advices for this
Er…the vast majority of PhD programs in physics are fully funded. If OP’s son gets accepted, 9 times out of 10 he will be offered funding to that program. There aren’t many if any reputable PhD programs in physics that don’t fund the students they accept (meaning tuition and fees coverage + a stipend).
Also, I would disagree with that last sentence. When I constructed my list of programs, I did it myself. There were some suggestions from the advisors closest to me about programs that might suit my interests or goals. But university faculty generally don’t curate lists of PhD programs and they certainly don’t tell seniors where to apply. They often make suggestions. Regardless, whether or not the OP decided to toss in a couple of applications in their senior year would most likely have zero bearing on how the current faculty, deans, and graduate students see them wrt mentoring and research. In fact, I was going to recommend that strategy myself.
I don’t think anyone was advocating dashing off an application now. They were saying OP’s son can try to apply to a few top programs in their third year when they are 9 months away from finishing and see what programs they get into, presumably with the support of their faculty advisors via recommendation letters. If they’re good enough they will get into some top programs with funding. If not, then they have the extra year to do the physics MS, get some more research experience, and/or beef up the application in other ways. I don’t think a master’s in physics will negatively impact his applying to PhD programs at all. He may not be able to transfer all of his graduate credits - in other words, getting the MS won’t necessarily shave off much, if any, time during the PhD program. But that’s not the point of it in your son’s case; the point is to enhance attractiveness to programs.
I was going to move this into the Graduate School forum but it looks like you’re getting more responses here than you would there. Nonetheless, I’m going to mention @xraymancs, who is a professor of physics at IIT and has been for some time, and who posts there a lot. If he doesn’t come in here, you may want to PM him. He gives excellent advice.
All due respect- I know a recent PhD in physics who did not get funding- graduated from a relatively obscure program- and had now concluded that he will be teaching science in a private school as his “plan A”. Nothing wrong with that- the world needs science teachers. But not what he envisioned for himself when he started, and NOT what he thought his outcome would be when his department told him that he would not be getting the full-on support he would need. And not what his parents expected as they have helped him financially through the process (plus a boatload of loans).
9 out of 10? So what do you think happens to the 10% who throw caution to the wind??? And disregarding faculty opinions/suggestions on the top ranked programs is foolhardy. It’s not like undergrad; the programs are NOT interchangeable.
DS just went through the physics phd application process last year. His process for this was to spend a lot of time investigating physics phd programs that had current research going on in his area of interest. After he had a list, he spoke with with a number of professors at his U and asked for their opinions about his list. He also spoke to his research mentors and got good advice from them too. Just because it looks good on their web site, doesn’t mean that it is a great program. The people working in physics are your S’s best bet for good info on which specific programs are good.
My DS did a lot of research. He got a research job the summer after high and continued that for 4 years off and on. He also did 2 REUs during the summers. He did research at his undergrad U also. 4 very different fields of research. My understanding is that his acceptances were largely based on that research experience and also letters of recommendation that were from his research mentors.
Finally, particle physics is one of the hardest areas to get into. Tons of people applying. So the more research experience and good letters of recommendation the better.
Seems like his mistake was to attend a PhD program without funding. Shouldn’t PhD program admission without funding be treated equivalent to a rejection?
Funding of graduate students is much more complicated than “admitted without funding”. I wouldn’t make such a harsh judgment - in fact, the odds are very high the situation has more subtleties than this.
I think that the most important experiences for your son to have are 1) research participation as an undergrad during the regular year, and in a research program during the summer, ideally leading to co-authorship of one or more publications, 2) graduate-level courses in physics (which it may be possible to take as an undergraduate), and 3) more math, regardless of his current level of mathematics (even if this means more graduate-level courses in math). It would probably be beneficial to stay at the undergrad institution for a fourth year, to accomplish these things.
Meeting the requirements for an undergraduate degree, with a high GPA and good GRE scores, will not necessarily get a student into the top programs in particle physics. As others have recommended, the best thing is for your son to talk with his academic advisor and other faculty members.
I think that getting a Master’s is an essentially neutral accomplishment. Although Harvard and a number of other schools have 4-year combined BS (or BA)/MS programs, the Master’s is not needed to apply to grad school…
What is beneficial: To enter the Ph.D. program as an exceptionally well-qualified student. The faculty of the Ph.D. department won’t be thinking in general about whether the student graduated in three years or four, or whether he has a Master’s or not. They will just be looking at his skills and knowledge at the point of entry. This matters more than you might suspect, because beyond being admitted to the grad school he wants to attend, there is also the question of being accepted by the particular research group (faculty member’s group) that he wants to join.
Thank you, @juillet , for chipping in and for speaking my mind.
I stopped posting in this thread because there are many posters who are ignorant about PhD admissions process but accuse others of “giving terrible advice.” I didn’t want to sound as if I wanted to argue.
I am no expert, and am myself ignorant. But I’ve learned a lot through the process my D just went through not too long ago, almost the same situation as that of the OP’s son. It worked out really well (yes, she did graduate in 3 years and is now in a top-5 PhD program - of course fully funded).
Thanks again for everyone’s input. I have sent ds this link and sent him info I received in PMs. We are looking forward to seeing him over Thanksgiving and will talk to him about all of the pros and cons that everyone has shared (with the goal of just getting him to think about all aspects.)
OP, how old is your son? Some programs may not want a very young graduate entering as a PhD candidate. If he’s young, I would stick around for the fourth year and maximize opportunities for graduate coursework, research, etc.
This varies greatly by individual department, field, and time period. For instance, an engineering department at a top 15 program where a cousin got his PhD actually preferred admitting younger candidates over older candidates while he attended from the late '80s till mid-'90s.
However, other departments may not care either way or prefer older candidates with some industry/post-college research experience and this could change over time.