Acceptance rates

[Kitkat]

What do people think a good acceptance rate for putting a school into either a "dream" school as opposed to a "safety" school? I am looking at both recent and when I can, when they are offered, long term acceptance rates (those from 5 year averages). What do people see as a better chance into the school acceptance rate to the less likely to get into.

Thanks!

[waddle]

What do people think a good acceptance rate for putting a school into either a "dream" school as opposed to a "safety" school? I am looking at both recent and when I can, when they are offered, long term acceptance rates (those from 5 year averages). What do people see as a better chance into the school acceptance rate to the less likely to get into.

Thanks!

I don't quite understand where you're going with the last sentence there. But I don't think acceptance rates (which obviously reflect only populations of applicants) are applicable to any one particular applicant (i.e. you), especially since geoscience programs are so small. The numbers won't tell you as much about the programs as a qualitative description will (e.g. talking with people).

And Kitkat, since you have a year left before you apply, don't sell yourself short by deciding already what your "safety" school is. Just focus on boosting your credentials; the rest of us can only wish we'd figured out what we'd wanted to do as early as you did.

waddle

P.S. Just as an answer to your question, I'm thinking <15% would be highly competitive, >30% would be not very competitive (for what I know of your credentials from your posts, at least)

Edited November 5, 2010 by waddle

[newms]

I guess it really depends on the field. In some fields there may be 200 applicants competing for 1 or 2 spots at the very top universities. In others, the very top universities take maybe 5% or even 10% of applicants. If a program has an acceptance rate of around 30% or even 25%, then I would consider that a place where a well qualified applicant *should* be able to get into (its still a crapshoot as they may not have faculty to advise you or funding available). Ultimately, if you have a choice, you don't want to go to a school (everything else being equal) that has a very high acceptance rate - it may not enhance your career prospects much (of course this is a generalization and there may be exceptions). Remember also that universities often admit several times the number of applicants they have places for, expecting that most will go to another uni. So a top school that has 20 spaces might admit 60 or 80 people.

[Kitkat]

I guess it really depends on the field. In some fields there may be 200 applicants competing for 1 or 2 spots at the very top universities. In others, the very top universities take maybe 5% or even 10% of applicants. If a program has an acceptance rate of around 30% or even 25%, then I would consider that a place where a well qualified applicant *should* be able to get into (its still a crapshoot as they may not have faculty to advise you or funding available). Ultimately, if you have a choice, you don't want to go to a school (everything else being equal) that has a very high acceptance rate - it may not enhance your career prospects much (of course this is a generalization and there may be exceptions). Remember also that universities often admit several times the number of applicants they have places for, expecting that most will go to another uni. So a top school that has 20 spaces might admit 60 or 80 people.

It's just that lately I have been looking at a lot of them for even the really competitive schools. One of the lowest is 22% acceptance rate from U Chicago. They also say that they can go from 10% one year to 35% another year, and the 22% that they have is an average of the past 5 years. Columbia seems to have one around 20%. And they also seem to have low numbers of people applying to all the programs that I am looking at. At the high end seems to be 150 people applying to these programs(but I have only seen that at U Texas- Austin and they seem to also have a much larger program compared to the others), but most seem to have more around ~70-80 people applying each year, or less. And most of these places seem to accept more like 20 students a year(of course, not expecting all of them to attend).

Edited November 6, 2010 by Kitkat

[newms]

It's just that lately I have been looking at a lot of them for even the really competitive schools. One of the lowest is 22% acceptance rate from U Chicago. They also say that they can go from 10% one year to 35% another year, and the 22% that they have is an average of the past 5 years. Columbia seems to have one around 20%. And they also seem to have low numbers of people applying to all the programs that I am looking at. At the high end seems to be 150 people applying to these programs(but I have only seen that at U Texas- Austin and they seem to also have a much larger program compared to the others), but most seem to have more around ~70-80 people applying each year, or less. And most of these places seem to accept more like 20 students a year(of course, not expecting all of them to attend).

I guess it really depends on the field. Most top schools in my field will get almost 1,000 applications and the very top ones like MIT will get over 2,000 applications Edited November 6, 2010 by newms

[Kitkat]

But I don't think acceptance rates (which obviously reflect only populations of applicants) are applicable to any one particular applicant (i.e. you), especially since geoscience programs are so small. The numbers won't tell you as much about the programs as a qualitative description will (e.g. talking with people).

And Kitkat, since you have a year left before you apply, don't sell yourself short by deciding already what your "safety" school is. Just focus on boosting your credentials; the rest of us can only wish we'd figured out what we'd wanted to do as early as you did.

P.S. Just as an answer to your question, I'm thinking <15% would be highly competitive, >30% would be not very competitive (for what I know of your credentials from your posts, at least)

I guess it really depends on the field. Most top schools in my field will get almost 1,000 applications and the very top ones like MIT will get over 2,000 applications

As waddle said before, geosciences is a small field.

To waddle, I still plan on trying to get my credentials up anyway. And I plan to talk to a lot of people in the departments that I am looking at. But for example, with UChicago, since they can vary so much in acceptance rate from 10-35% from year to year, and I am assuming other programs might vary this much as well, and just not letting it be so obvious, is it something to not look at so much? I am starting to wondering what I would need to do to get into these programs, and what the chances are (Wish I could be psychic). As for "safety" schools, they are just the ones that I have lower on my list, that I might also just have a better chance of getting into.

[waddle]

To waddle, I still plan on trying to get my credentials up anyway. And I plan to talk to a lot of people in the departments that I am looking at. But for example, with UChicago, since they can vary so much in acceptance rate from 10-35% from year to year, and I am assuming other programs might vary this much as well, and just not letting it be so obvious, is it something to not look at so much? I am starting to wondering what I would need to do to get into these programs, and what the chances are (Wish I could be psychic). As for "safety" schools, they are just the ones that I have lower on my list, that I might also just have a better chance of getting into.

I wish I could be psychic too, Kitkat. But I'm probably more lost than you are right now in regards to admissions and whatnot. But I'm pretty sure the percentages are the least significant of all the numbers. For example, UCLA's geochemistry PhD program has a yearly average (over the previous 5 years, or so they say) of 3 acceptances (out of 11 applications). I'm almost positive the three students accepted (on average) had already established good connections with their potential advisor prior to applying. I don't know anything about U. Chicago's earth sciences programs, but I'm assuming most schools have a cohort of <30 new students per year, so connections really do matter in the geosciences. (Alas, I have none.) This stands in contrast to the life sciences, where umbrella programs and rotations are common, and in which a grad student decides who their advisor will be (out of the 200 or so faculty participating in these umbrella programs) after a year of rotations. So what I'm trying to get at is that you probably won't have any "safety" schools unless you already have contacts at the graduate program you consider to be a safety. Since nobody knows who I or my advisor are, I really don't have any safety schools this application season.

[riceandbeans]

I'm guessing the application process in geosciences is much like other small science fields (ie, ecology), where you aren't so much applying to a program as to a specific adviser. In which case, the program acceptance rate is irrelevant. What will determine whether or not you get accepted is how much funding your potential adviser has that year, how many other students are applying to work in his/her lab, and how much he/she thinks you are awesome. Even in programs where the school funds all the grad students, which faculty members get to take students varies from year to year. Thus, a "safety" school will be one where you are the only student applying to work with an adviser who has funding for a student, which isn't really something you can predict ahead of the application season during which you are applying.