Advice-Globally ranked top 50 MA Comp Lit or top 400 MA Creative Writing? UK

Graduate School
1

Posting this for feedback from others. My daughter is a BA Humanities major and, for the past 3 years, has been travelling abroad worldwide, doing workaways and volunteering while supporting herself through online editing, copywriting, and the odd writing job here and there, as well as some TEFL teaching, she has CELTA certification. Last year she began an MA in Germany (major fiasco with US banking regs; that’s another story), but it ended with her ending the program prematurely.

She has since applied to several UK schools, all of which has 1-yr Master’s programs. She has narrowed the choices down and is in a quandry. Can you help advise with Pros and Cons?

1. .Top 400 globally ranked school--she would come out with an MA in Education and Creative Writing. Some opportunity for hands-on application. She enjoys teaching and creative writing (obviously) and has been writing creatively since a chlld. Program is in London so plenty of opportunities there. Cons: cost of living in London very high.

2. Top 50 globally ranked school with name prestige--MA Comparative Lit. Not much hands-on experience, as the program is a lot of theory and academic writing, which is her forte. Also there is considerable networking due to the elite status; it can be a who-you-know type of place, and she is a very articulate, well-dressed, and vibrant young woman, so she will have no problem climbing the social ladder, so to speak, to promote herself. Outside of London so she should save herself about $4,000 USD or so.

She used to be picky about her end goals; now, she wants a job. She would prefer editing, writing, working for an NGO, doing promotional work, teaching in a private school or a foreign school in the Middle East (she spent time in Istanbul and would return there in a heartbeat) or SE Asia.

Looking for input on making this difficult decision.

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Global rankings are tricky things, since they’re often based on factors that are related to doctoral degrees and faculty (research, grant funding, etc.) rather than educational quality of the didactic programs.

However, I did take a quick look at the THE and QS world university rankings, and regardless about how I and others might feel about the methodology used, there IS a difference in the name recognition and prestige of the universities at those two tiers. In the 40-50 range (taken from both lists), we’re talking about universities like UW-Madison, UIUC, UCSD, Carnegie Mellon, and McGill in North America, and the University of Tokyo, Australian National University, the London School of Economics, and the University of New South Wales outside of it. Those are all well-respected universities with national renown within their own countries and are generally well-regarded by employers outside of them.

The 350-400 range includes places like Drexel, Hofstra, Iowa State, Temple, RPI, the University of York, Stony Brook, the University of Utah, UConn and Colorado State in North America, and lots of international universities I am far less familiar with outside of North America (a few that I do recognize are James Cook University (Australia), the University of Witwatersrand (South Africa), the American University in Cairo, an the University of East Anglia (UK)). These are generally well-regarded universities within their home countries, although not as much as the first group. However, they are probably less well-known outside of their home countries - I doubt that many in the Middle East are familiar with Hofstra or Colorado State, and most Americans are probably not familiar with the University of Witwatersrand and East Anglia.

When job hunting internationally, the recognizability of one’s graduate university can matter a great deal - especially in parts of the world where the prestige of your university is the primary determinant of what kind of job you can get. So your daughter has to figure out whether the parts of the world she wants to work in are those kinds of regions, and in that case it may make sense to go to the better-ranked one outside of London. That has the additional bonus of being less expensive, so why not?

However, one thing I did notice is that the rankings are done across all fields and that some of the programs in specific areas at the 350-400 universities may be better than some of the programs at top ones. For example, I noticed the University of Iowa is in the 350-400 range, but they have an excellent and top-ranked creative writing MFA program. Similarly, Tulane is in that range as well, but in one of my original fields (public health), Tulane would be a much better choice than many schools that are ranked in the top 50. So field matters, too - probably the most within the country or region that the university is located in, but still important to note.

My gut is telling me that the prestige and connectedness of the top-ranked school will probably serve her better if she wants to work internationally, and that it’s probably easier to find ways to get applied experience in the field at choice #2 than it is to find ways into the upper echelons of networking at choice #1. But I’ll add the caveat that my entire educational and working background is in the United States, so I am basing my judgment entirely on having friends and acquaintances who were educated and/or have worked abroad.