anthroboy2010

I wonder just how important one's GPA really is in the admissions process. I stick by the "generally need a 3.5" standard, but I question how much field-work/research can overcompensate for a lower GPA. At the end of the day, PhD admissions committees look for the potential to succeed in a graduate program. One's GPA is probably the easiest way to look for academic success. However, I wonder how the writing of an honor's thesis and over three years of field-experience can augment the detriment of a lower-ended GPA (and by "lower-ended" i mean, a GPA between a 3.0 and a 3.5). Let's not forget with much of socio-cultural anthropology, research is based on language work and field projects. It is my hunch that a 3.4 doesn't look bad when the person comes coupled with relevant field experience or a 3.35 with fluency in the language one seeks to do research in. Also, I wonder how much school "name" comes into play here. Does a 3.4 look as bad if you went to Harvard vs. Local State University? I supposed, like everything else in the process, that your numbers/experience are only relevant to your own application. In other words, you may be fresh out of college with a 3.9 and perfect GRE scores, but without stand-out letters of rec and a fantastic statement of purpose, something tells me, you probably will not get an offer. However, in applying to the same school, you had a Fulbright, wrote an honor's thesis, worked for a couple years more in the area you seek to focus on, but you had a 3.4 in college, all of a sudden you're a more competitive applicant than the 3.9 right out of college. Does that make sense? Any one agree with me? My sole point: statistical averages don't do much to tell you whether you're going to get in or not. anthroboy2010.blogspot.com

Great posting thread. At the end of the day, we all know what's being said is true: "the numbers matter, but they are not the only thing that count." I am wary of whether these averages are suggestive of our own likelihood of being accepted though. I've always been told that the GRE scores matter more for University fellowships than they do for admissions (then again, that could only be true for the schools that I asked AND the department told me that they offer funding that is not given by the graduate school). Considering at most places you have to be "accepted" by both the Graduate School and the Department, I would venture to guess that it varies at most Universities who (graduate school or department) places what (a lot or a little) emphasis on the GPA or GRE. You can already imagine the combo's: Duke Graduate School likes high numbers, Anthropology doesn't care; Berkeley graduate division has a 1200 threshold, Political Science has a much higher expectation. I look at the issue of averages with a grad school admissions "fact-rumor" i've always been told: "1200 on the GRE is the general cutoff." While I'm not into averages, I think it's safe to say that anything substantially below that one might want to reconsider taking the exam again. As far as GPA is concerned, sure a 3.5 seems to be a general expectation, but you can't do anything about changing your GPA if you're out of school. The solution: apply anyways with tons of field experience or enroll in a masters program and knock it out of the park. Again, just my two cents.

Yea, i apologize for the snippy tone i might have written with in the last posting. My issue was more dealing with the fact that people (including myself) want indicators to see if we "have a chance of getting in," when in fact PhD admissions is so much NOT about the numbers. At the end of the day, a strong applicant with good connections will get in over the student with perfect numbers. I wish PhD admissions processes we are easy to predict as law school or, to a lesser extent, business school. I guess the thing I keep telling myself is that applying to graduate school is NOTHING like applying to undergraduate (or professional) degree programs.

where did you get this information? considering that most programs do not release this information, I find those numbers highly suspicious.

Check out Duke, Chicago, Northwestern, and UC-Irvine.

I just thought I would toss my hat into the mix and keep you all posted on my results. I'm going all out and applying to way more places than I should. As listed below, I applied for 13 programs, including: Berkeley (JSP); Stanford (Anthro); USC (POIR) UC-Irvine (Anthro); UCLA (Anthro); Princeton (Anthro) Yale (Anthro); NYU (Anthro); Columbia (Anthro) Chicago (Anthro); Cornell (Anthro); Duke (Anthro) Harvard (Anthro) I've called each school and have been confirmed as "Complete" at all of them. I'll let ya'll know if I hear anything. Also, you can read my blog postings while we're in limbo. Yea, I'm not normally lame enough to blog, but I have to funnel all this nervous energy into somewhere. anthroboy2010 . blogspot . com