MRes? MSc? MPhil? WTF?

1. From what I've read, graduate studies for both Master's and Ph.D. fit under the umbrella term of "postgraduate"; is this correct? Yes that's true 2. What is the typical graduate study track in the UK? In Canada, students generally complete a Bachelor's, then a Master's, then a Ph.D.; is this similar to what is typically done in the UK? I wanted to check, because I heard that in the US, students typically do not get the intermediary Master's. Some have masters, some don't. I work in a research lab with PhD students from across the globe (no Canadians though!). Some came straight from undergraduate, and some did masters. If you know what you want to do, and are qualified, and feel like you have the requisite breadth, go for it. I didn't (after my BSc in cognitive science, I did a taught masters in Philosophy, before switching tack and entering AI for my PhD). 3. Assuming that I need a Master's degree, which of the following is the most appropriate for continuing to a Ph.D: MRes, MSc, and MPhil? What is the distinction between them? Are some of these degrees perceived to be more prestigious than others? In my institution, MRes is 100% research - no taught component; MSc will be 60-70% taught with the rest being a research project; MPhil is basically only awarded to people who've been doing a PhD but not made the standard. (It's like a failed PhD - you've spent 3-4 years researching so you've got something, but even with an extra year you're not going to get it up to PhD level, so they award you an MPhil). 4. I did pretty well on both the general and subject GRE, scoring 750 or higher on all sections. If possible, I would like to include this information somewhere on my application as the graduating average from my Bachelor's was okay, but not great (A-). Is this a good idea? If so, where would I be able to include such information? I am guessing that UK schools don't generally care about GRE scores. PG Admissions tutors will be interested in anything that shows that you are a) Able to speak good English b) Have research potential c) Able to fund yourself They deal with people from all over the world, so if you're going to include this sort of information don't assume that people know what a GRE is! Bonus. If you have recommendations for good cognitive science programs or some general tips for a Canadian expat in the UK, please send them my way! Do you want to be Cognitive with a Psych, Neuro or AI bent? (It's probably easier to get funding for the latter.) If you have your own project in mind, approach someone in the field who you'd like to work with. If you don't have a project in mind, check out http://www.jobs.ac.uk/jobtype/student/, who currently have 596 vacancies for PhD studentships. Some scholarships are only available to Europeans, as col_pogo says above, but don't let that put you off applying. We've got a couple of people from outside of Europe on those scholarships in our group - they were the best applicants, so the department pays the difference between EU & International fees (which is the main difference between EU and International scholarships).

2. What is the typical graduate study track in the UK? In Canada, students generally complete a Bachelor's, then a Master's, then a Ph.D.; is this similar to what is typically done in the UK? I wanted to check, because I heard that in the US, students typically do not get the intermediary Master's. 3. Assuming that I need a Master's degree, which of the following is the most appropriate for continuing to a Ph.D: MRes, MSc, and MPhil? What is the distinction between them? Are some of these degrees perceived to be more prestigious than others? This will depend on your subject, your department, and your university. The Classics department at my undergraduate university (UK), for example, recommends an MPhil -> DPhil route for people doing Ancient History, and a MSt -> DPhil route for Language & Literature. In that instance, neither Master's is more prestigious than the other, it's just the preference of the people running the graduate programmes. I would recommend contacting the departments to which you plan to apply to find what programmes they recommend for you.

4. I did pretty well on both the general and subject GRE,[...] If possible, I would like to include this information somewhere on my application[...] Is this a good idea? If so, where would I be able to include such information? I am guessing that UK schools don't generally care about GRE scores. Some time ago I was talking to the girl who processes international masters degree applications in my department. Not only are there differing qualifications worldwide, but also different institutions have different academic standards. Essentially the section of the application form for 'existing qualifications' is fairly free-form - there are boxes labelled 'name of qualification', 'name of course', 'name of institution', 'date of graduation', etc and you can type whatever you want into those boxes. When the girl gets your form she looks at what you've entered, and anything she doesn't recognise she can refer to the university's central bureaucracy, who have people whose job it is to check into unknown qualifications and institutions, and determine how good the qualifications are. Judging from how often GREs come up in Ask MeFi I gather they are very common in the US and standard across the country. So even if the girl processing your application hasn't seen the qualification, the university bureaucrats whose job it is to know these things almost certainly will have. Of course, some masters degrees run at a profit for the institution, so accepting you and failing you if you aren't capable, is just as good as refusing you admission on the grounds of your inability.

Do you want to be Cognitive with a Psych, Neuro or AI bent? (It's probably easier to get funding for the latter.) My background is primarily in just the regular psych stuff. I'd like to get into more computational things in the future, but am not sure of how, exactly. Thanks so much for the answers, everyone!