Has anyone gone right into a PhD program after college?

[Jeafl]

My daughter will be graduating in May with a degree in Psychology and wants to go right into a PhD program instead of going for her Master's.

Her primary reason for this is financial. If she goes for her master's she will have to pay for it. If she goes into the PhD program the school often picks up the tuition as well as pays her for research.

Any opinions or experiences you want to share?

 

[rie'smom]

My niece has done this. She was accepted into a program at FL State. There was a rigorous entry procedure because they only take a few students.

 

[AlleyKat]

My daughter will be graduating in May with a degree in Psychology and wants to go right into a PhD program instead of going for her Master's.

Her primary reason for this is financial. If she goes for her master's she will have to pay for it. If she goes into the PhD program the school often picks up the tuition as well as pays her for research.

Any opinions or experiences you want to share?

I never knew obtaining a PhD without completing a Master's degree was an option.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

My daughter will be graduating in May with a degree in Psychology and wants to go right into a PhD program instead of going for her Master's.

Her primary reason for this is financial. If she goes for her master's she will have to pay for it. If she goes into the PhD program the school often picks up the tuition as well as pays her for research.

Any opinions or experiences you want to share?

Heck if she can get accepted into it then I do not see a reason to not go for it.

I also did not know about skipping a Master's for a PHD, however may be that is degree specific.

 

[johnsontrio]

Generally it's about a 5 year program and they earn both. My niece is finishing her 4th year at UM and figuring out to which programs she wants to apply. She is spending 5-6 hours a day studying for her GRE. The combination of the strength of her transcripts, the GRE score and her personal letters of recommendations from professors she has worked with are the keys to an acceptance. There are a lot of students chasing not many positions.

My niece wanted to apply to Psych programs for Industrial-Organizational Psychology. She visited several schools with IO programs this summer prior to her trip to Korea with Harvard for Cultural Anthropology. She has spent every summer visiting other countries since 5th grade and has been to France, Greece, Japan, Finland, among others. She has at the last hour decided that she wants to apply to Cultural Anthropology Ph.D. programs. She is scrambling to get the information to decide between programs but it is a much better fit for her and in the long run she will be much happier.

Which program is your daughter interested in? If it is IO, my sister could probably give you more information about the various programs than you ever care to hear. I would be glad to ask her for you, if you're interested.

 

[DawnM]

I WISH I had done this!

I started working right out of college and ended up working and getting an MA. By the time I applied to a PhD program and was accepted I found out I was pregnant with baby #1 and there was just no way I could do it, so I didn't.

Dawn

 

[Jeafl]

Generally it's about a 5 year program and they earn both. My niece is finishing her 4th year at UM and figuring out to which programs she wants to apply. She is spending 5-6 hours a day studying for her GRE. The combination of the strength of her transcripts, the GRE score and her personal letters of recommendations from professors she has worked with are the keys to an acceptance. There are a lot of students chasing not many positions.

My niece wanted to apply to Psych programs for Industrial-Organizational Psychology. She visited several schools with IO programs this summer prior to her trip to Korea with Harvard for Cultural Anthropology. She has spent every summer visiting other countries since 5th grade and has been to France, Greece, Japan, Finland, among others. She has at the last hour decided that she wants to apply to Cultural Anthropology Ph.D. programs. She is scrambling to get the information to decide between programs but it is a much better fit for her and in the long run she will be much happier.

Which program is your daughter interested in? If it is IO, my sister could probably give you more information about the various programs than you ever care to hear. I would be glad to ask her for you, if you're interested.

My daughter has been studying for the GRE all summer too. She bought at least 5 different prep books and the vocabulary cards.

I don't think she is interested in I-O, more along the lines of child psychology. She is extremely interested in the program at the U of WI-Madison and has been in touch with the head of the psychology dept. there to discuss his research.

She has had straight A's all through college, with the exception of one A-, so I think she has the grades. What is worrying her though is that she is not doing as well on the GRE practice tests as she would like.

I do know that she has outstanding letters of recommendation from her professors. She has won 3 different scholarships over the years from the psychology department and has a very good relationship with all of the professors. It's just the GRE thing that is worrying her. I think she is getting a little too freaked out by it. Maybe she just needs to relax.

 

[disfan07]

At my school, the Psychology graduate program is a Masters/PhD 5-6 year program. You cannot go in with the intention of JUST getting your Masters but you also cannot just get your PhD. But, if you get your Masters and dont finish your PhD, they cant take your Masters degree away. But, you have to finish your Masters adn PhD within 6 years. If you dont, you are released form the program and you have to reapply.

I am going to be applying for this program when I finish undergrad. in 2 years. I never knew it was an option to only get your PhD.

 

[dejr_8]

Heck if she can get accepted into it then I do not see a reason to not go for it.

I also did not know about skipping a Master's for a PHD, however may be that is degree specific.

When you enter a phd program some schools will award you a masters degree upon passing the qualifying exam, passing your dissertation proposal exam or some similar type milestone. Other phd direct programs only award a masters degree when they ask you to leave the program (I.e. you sorta flunked out).

I got my MS degree at one school and then moved to another to obtain a PhD. Fortunately, in science and engineering programs you get funding for both degree programs.

 

[jsmith]

my son went directly from undergraduate to a Phd program-he is currently in his 3rd year of this program at the university of michigan-completed his masters in physics-and a periferal masters in economics last may and should complete his Phd in physics in June of 2012. He did not "skp" doing his masters program-he just entered a program where there is one admissions process for both the masters and Phd programs rather than applying to a Masters program and then to a seperate Phd program.

 

[yoopermom]

My DC did this with a masters/phd combo at Madison in genetics.

Terri

 

[Jeafl]

My DC did this with a masters/phd combo at Madison in genetics.

Terri

Did they like Madison? Was it really difficult to get in? My daughter's boyfriend is looking at that exact program. He wants to go into genetics as well.

 

[badcramps]

I entered a PhD program in the humanities straight from undergrad. It was a 6 year program (though typically time to completion was 5-10 years) and as others said it was set up so that you'd complete all requirements for the MA along the way (though the MA was only conferred on you if you requested it.)

The going wisdom about going straight into a PhD program vs. doing an MA first (at least in my field) was that one should do an MA only if one didn't major in the field as an undergrad, or one had crappy preparation, or the school/professors weren't "known" so that you wee re unlikely to be admitted into a top PhD program. There are very, very few MA programs in the field that do offer decent funding to grad students, but most just require a ton of loans. And at least in my PhD program, having an MA typically didn't save people any time off the program. The minimum time to degree was still 5 years, and most people with MAs still took 6. So essentially, unless one is using the MA to better one's chances of getting into a top PhD program or as a way of getting preparation in the field one didn't get as an undergrad, it's basically a waste of 2 years and a lot of money to do the MA (and if you do only the MA and don't go on on to the PhD there are almost no employment opportunities it opens up except adjuncting and being a professor at some community colleges.)

Of course, all of the above advice might be completely different in a different field. I suspect an MA in psychology is probably more useful than an MA in the humanities. So there might be more to be said for doing an MA in psychology.

In terms of going immediately from undergrad to a PhD program at ~22 years old, I did that as well though my wife waited 2 or 3 years in between. It happened that my wife didn't finish out the program and then in her late 20s had to begin the process of switching careers which has taken quite some time to figure out what she wanted to do, get some job experience, and get another degree in that field. So just because of her experience (and the fact that it's very common for people to leave PhD programs without finishing), I tend to think it's better to start early and then if you leave the program after 3 years you're 25 and need to start over....that's much different than being 32 and having to start over! Of course there are plenty of grad students in my program who took time off between undergrad and PhD program and are in the early 30s, married, and having kids. I suppose it's possible all of those responsibilities could make them more disciplined and more likely to finish. For me though I couldn't deal with having a kid in grad school given the uncertainty about a future job and the low pay, so I am glad I still have a number good reproductive years ahead of me now that I am done with the PhD and am beginning a career with real pay and eventually hopefully some job security.