KAUST vs Other Options

Graduate School
1

<p>Hello everyone! </p>

<p>I have been ‘lurking’ on these forums for a while, and thought that it might be a good idea to get some input regard the decision I have to make. </p>

<p>Essentially, I did an internship over the summer at a research institute here and I was offerred a paid one-year Master’s or a potential PhD.</p>

<p>I have applied to a variety of different other PhD and Masters program since then, some of which I got interviews etc, but after the smoke cleared I was only accepted to one Masters program at KAUST – the new graduate school in Saudi Arabia.</p>

<p>I am not sure if there is a clear ‘right’ choice:</p>

<p>The 1-year Masters would be on one topic without rotations, so I would already be ‘delving’ into one topic and I don’t know if I really want to do that yet. However, the lab is one of the best in the field. But I am not extremely fond of the place, or extremely fond of the topic (I really enjoyed the summer internship, but there are so many other topics I am interested in). </p>

<p>KAUST offers a flexible Masters with both a taught and research component, but my concern with KAUST is the ‘legitimacy’ of the place… can I get a high-quality education in such a new institute, can I set myself up well for a PhD at a high-ranking institution after a year? I don’t know how concerned I should be with the orgins of other students attending (i.e. how many from good/great uni’s in the West?) also, one other concern is that the degree would be 1.5 years, rather than a one-year degree and would leave me with a ‘down-time’ before I start another program. The masters at KAUST would be fully funded, which is a big plus, but it does worry me that it is just a means of ‘bribing’ students… </p>

<p>I don’t have a clear future planned out for me, but I am considering going into the biotech business side of things, so I’d like to do a Phd afterwards see how it goes after that. </p>

<p>I’ll include my stats if it helps.</p>

<p>Current Undergrad: Biology at a top 5 uni in the UK.
GRE: Q: 800 Vocab: 670 Writing and 4.5
I am on a 1st ( approx 3.8 - 4.0 in USA )</p>

<p>I know this is my decision to make, but I would really appreciate any input, or questions that I should be asking myself.</p>

2

<p>While KAUST has a lot of money if you look at it it is not considered a good school. Its funny you should mention it considered a friend of mine at MIT who works at advising there basically told me his advisor actively discourages students from going there or applying. From what I understand (I don’t do engineering but have plenty of friends that do) KAUST will not set you up for a good program in the states.</p>

3

<p>Fair enough. I do have a good amount of hesitation because the fact the place is so new, hasn’t had the chance to estabilish itself to prove whether or not it will be a high-caliber place…</p>