MPhil/MSt at Oxford

As far as I know you can apply for as many postgraduate courses as you like even at the same institution (provided you can deal with the paperwork ) so if I was to apply for both the MPhil and Mst in Modern History at Oxford, would it be a problem that I'd submit the same research idea for my dissertation?
Who can say, all I wanted to know is what you might think, would that be a good idea or definitely not?

There would be absolutely NO POINT. Seriously. If you want a research preparation masters you apply for the MSt. If you want a final degree - bear in mind it's two years long - you do the MPhil. You simply do not apply for both. It's a demonstration you aren't serious. You'll most likely be asked - did you make a mistake?

You want to pay £50 for them to ask...?

No no, sorry, thanks very much for that reply.

If I recall correctly you once said that the MSts are nothing but cash cows?
The MPhil is more substantial and the dissertation is longer certainly and I suppose I'd rather go for that. But doing a Phd after the MPhil is not impossible though, is it? (You said final?)

MSts are effectively cash cows but they're a necessary evil for funding purposes. The MPhil is by no means a barrier to a PhD but it is a 2 year degree and has the substantial thesis. It's often done by Americans who merely want the 'Oxford' experience.

You can do either route, but if the PhD is what you want - the MSt is your best bet.

I see. I haven't really thought as far ahead I have to admit, although I know I should have.

But even the MSt is a free-standing degree, isn't it?

Incidentally, with the cost factored in, wasn't it the one or the other (the MPhil if my memory serves me well) that you are more likely to get the course funded?

Oh and another thing, there is no equivalent for the Oxford one year MSt at Cambridge?

It is free standing aye but isn't your normal degree name so people might get confused ... just as a warning.

Erm, it'd be the MSt at Oxford that you'll have more chance of getting funded. The MPhil isn't a research preparation masters as such.

But MPhils cost you more because they last longer? Why would someone opt for the Mphil instead of the MSt then if both are sort of master's degrees, free standing and one lasts a year earlier and if you so decide can even open the route to the phd anyway?

Yep, I did the MSt in Linguistics at Oxford and went down the same train of thought as you: the MPhil students on my course (curiously, many of them were home students) attended the same classes, took the same exams, and had a dissertation of the same length as those of us on the MSt, so I never did understand why you might spend double the money getting what is effectively the same qualification.

The general 1 year Masters degree at Cam is called an MPhil.

The Cam MSt is the part time equivalent of the MPhil, taken over two years.

it is the mphil, not the mst, which leads to dphil. at ox, if you do an mphil and are accepted for dphil, the dphil takes you only 2 years because the second (final) year of mphil counts as your first year of dphil. many people doing mphil in modern european history (and countless other subjects) do this.

i know a number of history peeps that initially were doing the mst, decided they liked the research/writing, and so switched to mphil, with a view to doing dphil after.

Funny you guys should mention that the MSt is the typical way to the PhD, because the linguistics faculty states the opposite in their handbook.