I started this website primer in 2007 and it has received over 250,000 hits. Given the wide interest, I decided to publish my ideas. You can read my publication, where I discuss the 11 strategies that will help you get into graduate school.
Walters, E.L. 2018. Eleven strategies for getting into graduate school in ecology & evolutionary biology. Ideas in Ecology and Evolution 11:78-83.
***Please note that I speak about GRE requirements in my published article. Since that piece was published, many schools no longer require the GRE. Please check to see if the school you are interested in has also removed the GRE requirement.***
One of the items that I did not include in the published version of the manuscript was my take on a Masters degree vs a PhD. Here are my thoughts.
MS vs PhD
Graduate degrees in North America come in two forms: Master of Science (MS / MSc) and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD). If you want to teach at a 2-year college, go into government, work for a consulting firm, or be a professional biologist then you most likely would be interested in a Masters degree. These are typically 3-year degrees with 2 to 3 field seasons of research. If you want to go on in academia and become a professor or work in a higher level research position then you should be pursuing a PhD. Some schools don’t offer a choice – they only grant PhDs and only issue MS degrees as a consolation prize when a student isn’t cut out for the PhD (often referred to as the “terminal Masters”). Other schools, especially wildlife programs, offer MS and PhD degrees. Some people, like myself, choose to embark on an MS to begin with. It gives you a chance to experience graduate school and learn more about the field without having to commit to 5–7 years of PhD research. You can cut your teeth so to speak and figure out what you’d like to do for a PhD once you are finished with the MS. Others, typically those that have only done PhDs, will argue that you shouldn’t waste time on an MS if you ultimately want a PhD. These people go directly from undergrad into a PhD program and work very hard to get themselves up to speed to the level where they can start developing a dissertation topic. It’s been my experience that very few undergrads are prepared to come up with novel ideas immediately after completing undergraduate degrees. It takes a number of years to catch up with the literature and become familiar with what research has been conducted, what ideas are novel, and determining a future research direction. Masters degrees put much less emphasis on the level of research questions as do PhD degrees.
Good luck – I hope my strategies can help you get into graduate school! Send me a note if you have any comments, suggestions, or success stories.