My son earned a dual Physics/Math undergraduate degree at a liberal arts college (800 math GRE, fairly good grades, undergrad research), and has applied to many of the top engineering grad schools for admission into their PhD programs. So far, however, he’s only been accepted into the Masters program (at Michigan and U of Washington). It would be full-pay for the Masters, no opportunity to receive money for being a TA. He’s wondering if this is common for non-engineering undergraduate students, to only be accepted into the Masters program, how hard it will be to transfer into the PhD program later on, pros and cons of “just” getting a Masters, and anything else he should consider. Thanks for any advice.
It is not surprising that your son is being asked to take the MS route at those schools because he will have to take a number of deficiency courses. He should not count on being able to transfer into the Ph.D. program at the same university. He might have better odds applying to a different school for a Ph.D. after the M.S. Alternatively, he could work for a year then apply to programs at less selective schools where they might be willing to take a non-Engineering major into their Ph.D. program or to programs where the highest degree awarded is a M.S. and they might have funding for him.
Getting a M.S. could be good for getting a job in the engineering field but he might be able to do that with his physics degree already.
I think U Michigan is accepting a lot of non-master’s students into their master’s programs. Many who were accepted into PhD programs already have their master’s degrees. Fwiw…