Phd in America

mercer wrote: »

i want to do a Phd because I have a diploma and soon a degree so its a natural progression. i lived in america before and want to go back.

hmm ok, i'll look into masters programmes too, I just thought it would make more sense going into a Phd.

Sorry, that might have read more harshly than I meant it to.

Depending on what you want to do long-term, it may not necessarily be a natural progression. I've noticed that in Europe, a lot of people have PhDs to do jobs that in the US a lot of people do with a masters or a professional degree. Since a lot of PhD programs in Europe are 3 years, and a professional masters in the US can take between 1-3 years, this makes sense...so whether you do one or the other may depend on where you want to end up in the long-term.

To be honest, I wouldn't really recommend that anyone go straight from undergrad into a PhD program. I think it's better to get some work experience, and to get a better sense of what interests you in the long term, and what degree you actually need to get there (but if you are 28 and have worked already, then this may not be as much of an issue). I know a lot of people who start PhD programs because they like school, but I'd argue that liking school is necessary, but not sufficient. Again, I'm not trying to harsh on you personally, but I'm definitely at the point in my program (year 4) where people are really having problems figuring out what their research agenda is, or what they are even doing in the program, and it's particularly painful for those students who have never done anything else but school (and summer internships)...but at this point they are too deep into the process. Whereas if they had done a masters, they would have figured this out 3 years ago without all of the blood, sweat and tears.

kickoutthejams wrote: »

I had a visiting lecturer over from UC Berkely who offered to write me a reference should I ever decide to go for the American PHD route, so chatted to him about it a fair bit. Keep in mind this is for history rather than your area of interest.

Basically, he said the letters of reccomendation are by far the most important.
His advice clashed with what Southsiderosie said. GREs are a strange one and a great one will not necessarily help you and a poor one will not necessarily hurt you. They often have a minimum level but GREs are much less important than things such as your subject interest, GPA equivalent and especially the letters of reccomendation. This could be completely different for the area you have planned though.

Most universities offer generous funding programs but you'd want to go for private universities as they tend to have more generous funding. The amount is usually decent but a student in my university is off in New York and finding the stipend tough to live on given the cost of living. Make sure to check for how long the funding lasts as it can be crucial.

Most universities don't seem to require masters (they are picked up en route) but competition to get on is fairly fierce.

The university itself isn't as important as the lecturer itself; I was told to pick a professor to study under who is an expert in my specific field rather than the reputation of the university/city itself.

I agree that recommendations are important, but from what I've seen, departments won't even look at them if you do not meet minimum GRE requirements. This is particularly true for departments that receive a lot of applications (which is why I am surprised someone from Berkeley would say that, since they are HUGE). And it's quite hard for admissions committees to compare GPAs across institutions without being familiar with their grading policies, or the reputations of their departments; a B from one school may be more impressive than an A- from another, but they would have to know the departments well in order to make that call. As a international student, it might be useful to find out if there are other Trinity students who have gone to the US to study a similar field; departments seem to do "chain" admissions from feeder schools abroad, because they have a sense of what to expect (for example, in my department we had a lot of Japanese from University of Tokyo...and Germans from Cambridge, for some reason). It's also why I'd recommend doing a masters first: you could get a recommendation from inside the system, from an institution that may be a "feeder" school for a PhD program.

One thing I would say about picking a professor rather than a department is that junior faculty have a tendency to leave. Senior faculty also occasionally switch departments. So if there is someone you are particularly interested in working with, be sure to ask the department about their policies should advisors leave. Usually senior tenured faculty that switch departments are allowed to bring their students with them, but you should definitely check, as it can totally screw up people's committees when faculty take new positions on the other side of the country. When I applied, I mentioned two people that I wanted to work with...and when I got there, one was on leave, and he's since switched jobs (I applied to another department where one person I wanted to work with had actually left for Yale, but it hadn't been officially announced yet, and the other prof was dying...also not announced. Unfortunately this is not uncommon). I'd argue that the reputation of the advisor matters more for those going into academia, but the reputation of the department or school may matter more for those going into industry (though this may depend on your field). Plus, the school matters in terms of resources, etc; private schools with large endowments may have more campus resources in terms of research centers, funding opportunities, etc.

Don't mean to deluge you with info so I'll stop...I guess I am just at a point in my program where I am re-thinking a lot of the decisions I've made over the last few years, so this is a timely subject!