Where should I go for graduate school?

Then as BLMA implies he lays waste to the competition, becomes the best student they've ever had and positions himself perfectly for a leap up to PhD time.

Go with program B. This looks like an easy decision to me. You can always switch to another school if you want to pursue a Ph.D.

Going to Grad School=Classic
Paying for Grad School=DUD

So yeah totally go with B.

Greater course choice in addition to being valuable for the obvious reasons suggests more and broader faculty. But I know nothing of grad school, so I will withdraw here.

By the way, what do you want this MA/PhD for? What are you going to do with it when you get it?

Greater course choice in addition to being valuable for the obvious reasons suggests more and broader faculty

Not always, but in this case, yes. School B has fewer faculty in my area of interest, but there are still several faculty who would have the expertise to supervise anything I'd want to do for an M.A.

Who cares about the course choices? First and foremost, you'll be there to produce a thesis, not take courses. And the commute -- you're not really going to factor a 25-minute difference in commuting times into your career decisions, are you?

I'm not sure if things are different elsewhere, but in Canada we have coursework M.A. degrees where you don't even do a thesis. I haven't decided yet whether I would do coursework or a thesis, but the point is that course selection can matter here. And no, the commute isn't going to make the difference, especially because neither involves driving.

Going to Grad School=Classic
Paying for Grad School=DUD

Agreed. But both places are offering enough money that I won't go into debt for grad school. School B is offering enough extra that I'd be able to pay off my undergrad debts though, which would be nice.

By the way, what do you want this MA/PhD for? What are you going to do with it when you get it?

At the moment I'm essentially still in love with what I'm studying and I just want to study more and study what I know in greater detail. More long term, though, I have a few options in mind, but nothing out of the ordinary: academia, working for the government, NGO work, writing. Typical liberal-arts phd stuff.

I don't want to throw cold water here but.. well, idealism can be sort of a trap. but hell, if school B is paying you and giving you enough to live on & pay down undergrad debt, that's OK. Also Canada's system may be a lot less fucked up than ours in the US & is considerably less expensive..

You're right, a PhD isn't going to help much outside academia, but an MA would help me get jobs in government/ngo/etc. So I'm definitely doing an MA - the question is where.

That said, your advice is very valuable and worth remembering. We'll need to have that conversation again in a couple of years, when I'm deciding whether or not to do a PhD!

And like darla said, idealism can be dangerous. "Typical liberal arts Ph.D. stuff" doesn't really mean anything. With a course-based Masters, you can essentially fast-track your way to an M.A. (compared to the 3yr slog through a thesis) and get those NGO positions even without a Ph.D. It's definitely something to consider.

I should have qualified this with a "maybe"

that's true, NTBT, and I'm not just going to blindly wander into a PhD with no plan for the future, but how does that affect my MA decision? Both of the schools I'm considering have coursework options, and both schools have thesis options.

For instance, a Ph.D. program might not care whether you did a course-based or thesis-based degree (xpost in contrary to what jbr just said -- it depends on the program). If so, why spend the extra time on a thesis? In that case, I'd be mainly concerned with finishing my MA quickly and getting paid while doing it. And future employers (even in academia) *definitely* won't care which courses you took in grad school, with the possible exception of future Ph.D. supervisors who might be more comfortable working with you if you have already studied X.

If I go to school A, I can do an MRP as research experience to show on a PhD and still be done in one year (although, I'll be applying for the phd in february so they wouldn't even see the MRP, so would it matter?). If I go to school B, I'll have to either do coursework (one year) or a thesis (probably longer than one year).

The PhD programs I've looked into don't require a thesis, they just say that you need a writing sample (usually 30-40 pages), and it helps if it's related to the subject you want to research. So if I'm able to write a research paper at school B for a reading course or something, would that suffice? Most of the schools around here actually discourage writing a thesis, so it seems that it wouldn't be a necessity. Any Canadians around to confirm/deny?

xpost - NTBT just partially answered my question - "a program might not care whether you did a course-based or thesis-based degree"

I would say go with the option that gives the excellent funding. You're making choice that will provide you with some benefit whatever you decide.

except for maybe you? perhaps jackl is considering school A because it has courses he wants to take that B doesn't? is regarding school as about learning something interesting (and general) a very undergrad perspective?

(Plus, I've got this neurotic thing where I don't say clearly what I actually want in case it doesn't happen and I thereby reduce my need to worry about the future. Sort of an annoying irrational passive/dreamer thing. But that's another whole thread...)

xpost: gabbneb OTM - it matters to me - School A has a good course selection, and School B has fewer courses - but I think that school B still has plenty of courses I'd find interesting.

I wouldn't say it's an undergrad perspective -- lots of undergrads will take courses they don't care about if they think it'll boost their GPA's, for instance. But it is a somewhat idealized perspective (to repeat the phraseology used earlier). Yeah, it's nice to have a great course selection, but grad school is a career choice. Undergrads can take the courses they want and put off the career decisions until after they've graduated. You can't do that with grad school. You have to give a higher priority to funding, research oppurtunities, and school prestige over course selection/availiability. With a real job, it's nice to have a big office but it's far more important to consider salary, the company's reputation, and the people you have to work with. Ten years down the line, nobody's going to care how about big your office was.

Anyone have experience with or know a lot about (modern and contemporary) art history programs. I'm in Canada but am thinking about applying to the States and perhaps England.

Though I'm in the go to the best school that will take me mindset, I've also been told to apply to people not programs, but I don't exactly have go-to figures I know I want to work under or anything like that.

I had not-stellar University grades. 6 years on and I want to do an MA/PhD in Economics/Economic History. I'm shit out of luck, aren't I?

Also the computer I had all my papers on was destroyed and the physical papers themselves were lost to time. Also 3 letters of recommendation from a place I haven't been in that many years. I should just flip burgers, right?

you would have beter luck studying economic history in a history dept at this point i think

one of my friends is a loud scottish guy who just gets into annoying conversations at parties--did shit all in montreal for the past three years and is now doing a history masters thing, with like paid ta-ship. total idiot.

I got my history degree at a loud scottish university.

dude

do u have math prereqs for econ grad school?

well i took calculus I and II at an American University about 12 years ago but i figured i could redo those if needed.

ya if you spent a year acing math courses you could have a good shot at an econ grad program. the ones you want are real analysis, multivariable calculus, liner algebra, prob & stats, differential equations