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MPhil as standalone qualification

I have declined a PhD at a university and have been offered one year's fully-funded postgrad study instead, culminating in receipt of an MPhil.

This Uni is not like Oxbridge and thus the MPhil is not normally offered as a standalone - it's the entry route for a PhD.

I'm wondering, if I accept the MPhil on the understanding that I will leave at the end and go on elsewhere to do a PhD, will it count against me in later applications and look like a 'failed PhD'? Even though it was never intended as a PhD.

It might seem like a strange position to be in, but I left it too late to apply to the uni at which I would like to do a PhD and therefore will have a spare year before I eventually start one. I have just completed an MSc at this uni in biochemistry.

A major attraction of the MPhil (apart from having some income) is that I believe that it will give me time to study maths part time and (hopefully) get an A-level, or at least an AS, which is something I would really like to do before a PhD.
Original post by WillJA
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You can always put the word 'standalone' somewhere in your CV to clarify the degree, or explain it in a covering letter. I don't think employers think of an MPhil as a failed PhD nearly as much as folks on TSR seem to, the nomenclature for Masters degrees in the UK holding little or no consistent pattern or internal logic. Even if it was a failed PhD, it is still a Masters qualification, so it holds that value. But if it is standalone, it is a simple matter to explain it in future applications, even to academic application readers.
Reply 2
Avatar for Zefiros
Zefiros
10
I think that if you manage to graduate with a MPhil in a year rather than the normal three for a PhD, it will be clear enough that it was not a failed PhD. Threeportdrift has some good suggestions on how to avoid possible confusion. I don't know what field you are in, but wouldn't you rather get a year of working experience than another Masters degree?
Reply 3
Avatar for WillJA
WillJA
OP
I plan to stay in academia rather than work in industry, really.

So my planned path is PhD -> PostDoc -> Whatever next.

However, I suppose that one year's work experience wouldn't be such a bad idea.

It's just that I am very keen to do this maths A-level and I think that working in a lab is probably the environment most amenable to doing part time study because you spend so many hours sitting around waiting for things to finish.

I'm in science - a subset of biochem/molecular biology

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