I'm prospective PhD student/ my areas is about media and politics. The thing is I got 2 offers from 2 universities in UK. One is a very good/well known/ good ranking university but they offered me a MA degree, saying that I dont have enough background so they just want me to take another MA and after that I need to re-apply for their PhD which I dont know if they'll accept me or not. ( Ive already got an MA) The other university is kinda new/ranking abt 70 from 100/ research quality is quite low and they offer me a PhD. For me I really want to go straight to PhD but name of the university also counts for me. I need to make a decision soon for my visa application which takes almost a month to complete. Do you think I shd take another MA (is it necessary? but there's no guarantee for PhD) or shd i go straight to PhD (I'm afraid it'll turn out I dont have firm grounds in my area) Please help!!

Is there the chance of upgrading from the MA to the PhD at the end? I know you can potentially from the MPhil to the PhD but I don't know if the same is true of MA's. If it is though you might be able to do the MA as your first year of the PhD and then upgrade. Perhaps that's what they're suggesting with the re-applying for the PhD?

As for University the name and general reputation is always a bonus, and some people put a lot of emphasis on it. However at PhD level the rep of the university doesn't have a massive impact, I don't think so anyway. It doesn't matter whether you're at Oxbridge or a new institution, the rep isn't going to effect the work and research you put it and it's originality.

You can't usually go automatically from an MA to a PhD as one is taught and the other is research. For PhD what is as important (if not more so) is who your supervisors / examiners were - most of the people I know with PhDs ask other people who supervised them or who examined them rather than where they went. Not sure if this helps.

Definately go for a good supervisor, someone who is well known, respected and will get you through this. The chances are that if you do an MA with the supervisor you want then moving on to PhD afterwards provided you do well is pretty much a certainty. The thing is that a PhD is such a long slog, such hard work and the supervisor is so central to the whole thing that going for the quick option could be a disaster - you must make sure that your chosen uni has someone who is experienced in your field and in the area you're wanting to study or you're going to be miserable.
Obviously we don't know which unis your considering but if a good one is suggesting that they feel that you simply don't yet have the background to tackle the PhD in your chosen area then I'd be concerned if another uni said yeh, come now - are they just after fees and completions? Its not the uni as such (although there are some we'd all shout NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO at lol) but who you're working with. My supervisor quite literally wrote the books in my area, he's THE expert in the field, as such there is nothing that he can't guide me on, no question I can ask him where he can't give me good advice and is involved fully in my work and extremely supportive. I'm not at one of the top few (although we're top 10) but I wouldn't want to be in any other uni as I couldn't have that level of guidance and help - that's the difference a good supervisor makes - not to mention you say their name and others will help you out too. Think supervisor, not so much location :-)

Thank you all :) that helps much :):):):):)