Igotnothin

All right at least we know what the point of contention is. I disagree that international/domestic status is a "credential" similar to GPA or GRE. I realize that international applicants are held to a much higher standard than domestics for many graduate programs. But in my view there is a big difference between being held to a higher standard, and being automatically disqualified without review because 12 "good enough" domestic applicants are available. No matter how much weight you give to residency, you cannot conclude that a domestic applicant is "better" than an international applicant without looking at the international applicant's credentials.

So discarding international applications without review is perfectly ethical as long as the decision to discard them is made after they are received. Brilliant.

True, the marginal probability of A is not 1, and the marginal probability of C is not 0. But whether A occurs or not has nothing to do with the merits of a particular international applicant. The conditional probability tells us that in some years, the probability of an international student getting accepted is 0, because stage 1 fills up all available spots. In that scenario the applicant has paid $130 in exchange for no evaluation and zero probability of acceptance. I see that as unfair.

A = event that all spots are filled by domestic students in stage 1 in a given year. B = event that international applications are evaluated in a given year. C = event that at least one international student is accepted in a given year. P(B|A) = 0 P(C|A) = 0

Sigh. I'm not arguing that in this particular case Justin123 did not get a fair shot. I'm arguing about the general scenario where a school uses a 2-stage evaluation whereby in some years the international apps aren't even reviewed. They pay $130 for an automatic rejection. So the secret to getting into grad school is sending e-mails saying "I want to join your department." Learn something new every day!

Let's not overcomplicate things here. At some point, UW decided that it was worthwhile financially/logistically to include students from other countries in their applicant pool. As a result, international students spend time and money preparing an application for UW. They owe it to these students to spend 5 minutes evaluating their credentials. Which means reading beyond the line that says China or India or Canada on it.

Wisconsin has every right to decide that it is not worth the extra cost to admit international students, and simply stop accepting applications from international students. But that's not what they are doing. They are letting international students apply, accepting $100 per application, and rejecting without review (in some years). That is very clearly unethical. Obviously admissions committees can't perfectly predict which students are going to be the most successful. But prior grades, awards, and accomplishments are correlated with likelihood of future productivity. And a key part of assessing an applicant's prior accomplishments is opening their application.

1. Yes, in any given year, it is very likely that there is at least 1 international applicant that is clearly more qualified than at least one of the 12 domestics that are good enough. Very very likely. 2. Yes this applicant may very well go to Wisconsin. Depends on how the program at Wisconsin is ranked, and whether the applicant was also overlooked/robbed by other programs he or she applied to. 3. If it is not worth the resources, then don't accept international applications. Don't accept them and pocket the $100 without review. 4. If Wisconsin can already recruit fantastic students, then presumably it IS prestigious enough that (2) applies and an outstanding international applicant may very well enroll if accepted. 5. How much time do you really need to spend with each application to get a decent idea of the person's credentials? 5 minutes? Check GPA and GRE, major, school, list of publications (probably none), read three short letters, and scan a 1-page personal statement. $100 for 5 minutes corresponds to $1200 per hour. Any other brain busters?

I think implicitly you're assuming that above some threshold all prospective students are pretty much equal. If we can fill our class with domestic students that are qualified enough, why bother with international students? Well, because there is still a gradient in talent and credentials among those people who are deemed "good enough" to accept. There may very well be outstanding applicants from other countries who would accomplish more in your program, and do more for your program, than the 12 domestics who are "good enough."

haha nope. In my view UW is doing a shady and unethical thing and I have no problem discussing it in a public forum. I doubt anybody from the UW adcom will ever see this but I hope they do. And I have absolutely no connection to the school or department - I am not "out to get" UW.

And how do you determine whether international applicants "really are" better than your best domestic applicants if you don't review them?

I guess I'm not talking about a specific case that is likely to come up, I'm more looking at the hypothetical scenario. In this case the OP's e-mail exchange with a person from the department suggested that some years all of the spots fill up with domestics, and international applications are therefore not even reviewed. Some members here expressed the opinion that if this happened to them, and they found out about it, they would not have a problem with it. I was surprised by that as I view a rejection without review as a very unfair event.

All right I am no longer going to address the issue of whether discarding an application after seeing that it is from an international student constitutes an evaluation.

Fair point, but once you start accepting applications (and application fees) from international students, I think it's hard to justify a rejection without review.

But for this year's applicant, it doesn't matter whether international applicants were reviewed in previous years, it matters whether they are reviewed this year. In a year where domestics fill all seats in "phase 1" of the review process, the probability of acceptance for international applicants is zero.

"Best" is a relative term. To get the best 10 applicants out of a pool of 200, you would have to in some way determine that those 10 are "better" than the other 190. I am not sure how you would do this without evaluating all 200.

I have to say I strongly disagree with the idea of going through life with the attitude "Sometimes things aren't fair." Is that how you react whenever somebody takes advantage of you? When somebody takes $130 from you without anything in return? Charging $130 for no *meaningful* review is not a win-win. It's a shitty way to squeeze money from people. Think how frustrating it would be if all schools did what UW does. An international applicant might apply to 10 schools and literally not get reviewed anywhere. That's not a win for the applicant.

My point is that sorting the applications into a "domestic" and "international" stack and throwing away the international ones does not constitute a meaningful review. I have no problem with GPA or GRE filters. I have a problem with a school charging somebody $130 despite the fact that they have zero probability of acceptance (in years where domestics fill all available spots). Not only is it unfair to the student, but I think it's bad for the department. They're willing to fill their seats with domestics without considering that a few of the international applicants could be head and shoulders more qualified than the domestics. If I was in the adcom's shoes I would be more inclined to go after the best of the best, as opposed to finding 12 "good enough" domestic applicants. Congrats to GeoDUDE for spending a total of 6 hours on grad school applications. One solid afternoon of work?

So you gather information on the department and decide to apply. You spend 5-10 hours filling out the application, writing essays, etc. You have 3 professors submit letters on your behalf. You pay $30 for GRE scores and $100 for the app fee. Three months later, you (somehow) find out that you were rejected without any review. You have no issue with it? That's just how the cookie crumbles? That's not how I would react.

And the most pointless post of the year goes to...

You see no problem with a school accepting $100 and not opening your envelope? I'd love to see how you react if that happened to you.

Could be they thought you were over-qualified and would go somewhere else anyway. That can happen.

I think doing really good work at a program outside of the top 3 or top 5 can be a great source of pride. If you work with a "chip on your shoulder," you might very well end up outperforming the average student at a top 3. That's basically what I try to do in my program, which is somewhere in the 5-10 rank for my field.

I like to play hockey but I don't wear ice skates to conferences.