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Applying to US grad schools after European masters degree.

Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2012 5:17 am
by Physix
I have noticed that many people from my home country has gone to US grad school after their masters although most people in US go to grad school right after bachelors. So can these students who have already done their bachelors skip some first year classes or have they just wasted one or two years of their lives?

Also Im wondering, is it easier to get into top tier grad school after masters degree? Atleast you have more time to do research before application but is there any other advances compared to bacherlos degree applicant when applying? What selection committee usually think about people who apply with masters instead of bachelors?

Re: Applying to US grad schools after European masters degree.

Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2012 9:39 am
by TakeruK
I applied to US grad schools with a Canadian Masters (2 years) and a Canadian Bachelors (4-5 years). At schools I applied to, the amount of waived credits ranged from zero (i.e. nothing is recognized) to "no minor requirement", which was 3-4 courses. In Canada, a MSc is a pre-req for a BSc (I finished 4 (13 week) courses in my MSc, if I had stayed at the same school for PhD, I would only need 3 more years and 3 more courses). So I think our masters is like yours. But in terms of time, doing a MSc elsewhere usually means those years are not "counted" towards a PhD in the US.

However, I don't think the years are completely wasted. I definitely think I got into a better school than if I had applied directly from BSc. The extra two years gained me a lot more research experience and more importantly, time to publish my BSc thesis work! I also think I will be more prepared to tackle grad school life with 2 years of experience already. And when I was finishing my BSc, I wasn't 100% sure if I wanted to do grad school even, so committing 5-6 years in another country didn't seem like a good idea. 2 years MSc first gave me time to decide and be more focused now that I am starting a PhD.

I should note that although I went with a school that didn't give any credit for my MSc, the course requirement is 10-12 (10 week) courses. The other school that offered 3-4 courses off actually required something like 16 (12-week) courses! Anyways, it will be weird for me this year to take more than 1 course at a time in grad school -- I'm used to a system where research is the priority from day one!

Re: Applying to US grad schools after European masters degree.

Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2012 5:48 am
by Andromeda
It also depends on the university in the sense that many (well, mine did where I did my M.S.) allow you to take the qualifying exam upon entrance and if you pass it then you're exempt from those classes and don't have to take the first year ones all over again. So if you pass then great, you can start working in a lab straightaway! If not, then yes you ahve to take all the courses etc again.

Re: Applying to US grad schools after European masters degree.

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 9:19 am
by Minovsky
I've been researching German schools and I've noticed that their semesters typically run Oct-Mar, Apr-Sep. So if you go to school in Germany you might not receive your MSc until after a typical US school year would start.