[bumby]

>It probably needs to be Bachelors -> Real world experience -> Masters -> Real World Experience -> Ph.D.

This was my path and my experience largely mirrored your sisters. I came to my program with a decade+ of industry work and I think that was invaluable to understanding the context of what problems are of interest. When I eventually matriculated to a position that valued PhDs, I now had a pretty concrete handle on what problems were enough of a stretch to be useful to a thesis, but not so far away as to be unrealistic. I also had a way to fund my studies without the burden of teaching and while making better pay. The younger cohort I worked with seemed to struggle because they often lacked a grounding in understanding real and feasible problems. So they were left bouncing between one half-baked idea to the next. That's what a lot of research is, of course, but it also left many to be either dropped or leave the program willingly.

I think you're right that we do a disservice to treat the bachelors >> masters >> PhD as a template to follow. There's lots of ways to skin the proverbial cat.