pianoguy

Arcanen, What I meant by reapplying was to postpone grad school entirely and to re-apply next year. In the meantime I'd be working for a company, as I said in my original post. I would never consider transferring once I commit myself to a university.

Grad school admissions this year has been a humbling experience for me. Out of the 8 schools that I applied to, I've been accepted into 1 (UIUC), rejected by 6, and waitlisted by 1 (CalTech). Yesterday, I finally received a reply from CalTech; I was denied admission. I received my UIUC offer in mid-Jan, so for the past 3 months I've received nothing but rejection letters; a tremendously bittersweet experience for me. That said, I'm very glad to have been accepted into UIUC and I am most likely going to accept the offer this week. The program that I've been admitted to is Materials Science PhD, fully funded. At this point, I can't help but entertain the possibility of re-applying for these schools for the Fall 2014 admission season. I also wonder if I'm the only one who contemplated this, even just as an idea. Though it's unlikely that I'll actually go through with this, I'm curious to hear your opinions on this (i.e. when can this possibly be a good idea?). My rationales: 1. I will likely have several publications out by the next admissions season (this season, I had none) 2. I received a job offer working for a nanotech startup company, so I'll be gaining valuable work and research experience in the meantime 3. My GRE scores will be much better because I will actually have a chance to study for it this time around (I was terribly busy with school and research all of last year) 4. UIUC is a good research fit for me, but so are other universities on my list, and I think I would enjoy my PhD experience better in a larger and warmer city. 5. My SOP will be a more mature reflection of what I want to in research; my SOP for this season was broadly written and unfocused A few details: 1. The schools I've been rejected from are MIT, Harvard, Stanford, CalTech, UCSB, UC Berkeley, and Northwestern 2. My GRE scores were Quant/Verbal/Essay: 163/157/4.5 3. My GPA is around 88/100, top 5% of my class I'd be interested in hearing what you guys have to say on this issue. For example, are my rationales justified? EDIT: To clarify, what I mean by "reapply" is to postpone grad school entirely until Fall 2014.