This thread really demonstrates why I love gradcafe. It was like a race to see who could help first! Such a helpful group here. Wish I could attend a doctoral program with all of you! =D
It's totally fair. It's no fun for you or for the DGS/adcomm, but it's absolutely fair to write and ask.
Here's the thing to keep in mind: asking why you weren't admitted is a lot like asking why a football team didn't win a game. Announcers fill the air with a lot of nonsense—"The other team really came to play," for example (who doesn't???). But the upshot is, in the end, they just didn't score as many points. By the same token, if you weren't admitted, ultimately, it's because you just didn't score as many points.
That, of course, is not what anyone wants to hear. It's the kind of thing that can cripple your sense of self-worth and do lasting damage to your psyche. So there are a couple of things that you must keep in mind if asking this sort of question:
1. The fact that you were applying in the first place means that you're in the big leagues. Do not ever forget this. Denver just got its a** handed to it by Seattle in the Super Bowl—but Denver is a really good team. By the same token, there are a lot of really good applicants in a given year. Most good programs get about twice as many qualified applicants as there are slots.
2. The "game" probably isn't scored the way you think it is. To you, acceptance or rejection is a referendum on you as a human being. To us, it's as much about us as it is about you. Is this someone whose interests we can realistically accommodate? Is this someone whose strengths play well to our strengths? If not, I don't really care about the 90+% GREs and 4.0 GPA. It would be a disservice to bring this person here.
So yes, ask. And don't be surprised if the answer is a bit hard to take. But try hard to figure out what value you can get out of it and how you can use that information to get where you want to be—and always keep it in perspective.
