Very true. According to http://www.cgsnet.org/us-graduate-schools-report-slight-growth-new-students-fall-2012about 461,000 graduate students enrolled in 2012. Assuming that enrollment rate is fairly constant through the years and knowing the following stats:
- About 40% of grad students are "national" students and hence eligible. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/07/12/new-report-shows-dependence-us-graduate-programs-foreign-students
- Around 50% of us are enrolled in STEM fields (see cgsnet link above)
- 3 "generations" of us are applying (Entering students, 1st year and 2nd year) (let us use 2.5 considering there may be some fallout)
We come to an estimate of 230,500 eligible students....
of which only we 16,000 applied
Hence from the total pool of eligible students only about 7% of us applied......
....all of a sudden 12% looks a lot better than a 0.8% chance no?
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