Admission Committee Notes

[The Realist]

I've posted here before with my thoughts about choosing graduate school. Seeing how so many of you are in the middle of this supremely stressful time, agonizing over admissions and deciding where to go, I thought that I would let you all have some insight into what the process looks like from the perspective of an admissions committee member. I do this for three reasons. First, some of you could use the distraction. Second, many of you are facing the prospect of asking "why was I denied at school X" and should know how difficult this process is. Third, this is the first time that I've served on an admissions committee and I frankly was surprised at how hard this was, so now that it's all over I want to record my own thoughts.

Some background: I am an associate prof at a large department that is somewhere in the 20-40 range. We're good, not great, and we place our students fairly well. We admit an average sized class for schools at our rank. We have somewhere between 30 and 40 times as many complete applications as we have spots in our program. Another 50-75 every year are incomplete (missing GRE scores, something like that). We do not hold it against you if you are missing one of your letters of recommendation, but if you are missing more than one your files goes into the incomplete pile and is not reviewed.

From there, the process works like this. Every candidate who submits a complete application is given an anonymous number. We then do an initial pass through the applications to eliminate students who are simply unqualified based on test scores. The bar for this is very, very low, but if you cannot score at least a 100 on your TOEFL and a 500 on each of your GRE sections you are eliminated at the very beginning. This doesn't cut a lot of people, but it does have the benefit of eliminating students whose English or basic math skills are not up to snuff.

From there, the files are divided randomly into piles, which are divided up across the members of the admissions committee without regard to subfield or anything like that. Each file is read carefully by a committee member and assigned a numerical score from 1-10. Anyone who receives a "1" at this stage is automatically forwarded to the final round.

The remaining files that receive a 2-10 ranking are then given to another member of the search committee, who re-reads them and rescores them. Any file that receives a "1" in this second stage is automatically forwarded to the final round.

The remaining files from this stage (meaning that they received "2" or lower on both initial reviews) are then divided up based on subfield and given to the member of the admissions committee who represents that subfield. That committee member then ranks the files a final time. Any student that receives a "1" or a "2" at this penultimate stage makes it to the final round, regardless of the earlier scores from the first two reviews.

The point of doing it this way is to ensure that we give every student a fair shake. Each student receives a close read from three separate faculty members, each of whom can advance a student to the final round.

We end up with around four times as many files in final round as we have available spots. Each committee member then ranks these students, and we have a big meeting where we decide who to admit and to waitlist out of this group. We then bring our proposal to the subfield representatives who are *not* on the search committee, and they have the ability to lobby for different choices from the final round (although they tend not to do this). From there, the department votes on the proposed list of admits and waitlisters.

***********

So that is how the process works in terms of procedures. I suppose that all of you are probably wondering how we decide who gets one of the 1s. The answer is that it is supremely difficult to do this. We make mistakes, I am sure of it. Our goal is to find people--and this is important, so read carefully--who can successfully complete our program and secure a tenure-track job. That is the outcome that we are trying to achieve; we are not trying to admit the smartest, the most unique, or even the most interesting students (although we do want these people too!). It's possible that other departments that care less about placement are more interested in just admitting smart people, and I bet that for schools like Harvard and Princeton, that's probably true. But for us, we want students who will succeed.

The challenge is that it is really difficult for us to tell what kind of applicant will be able to do this. We know that you will have to be bright, you will have to be creative, and you will have to be highly motivated. But trust me, anyone who has gone through a PhD can tell you, it's not like anything you've ever done before. Unless you already have a PhD, there's nothing that you could write in your application that will convince us that without a doubt you've got the chops. We have to make a bet based on imperfect information (and in fact, we probably are facing a game of incomplete information too, at least about your own objectives). It takes a special kind of person to do this, and I'm not certain how much we learn from pedigree, letters, grades, and test scores, but that's what we have.

What I can say for sure is that even if we only based our decision on pedigree, letters, grades, and test scores, that wouldn't be enough to whittle down our choices to a manageable number. We are dealing with a massive oversupply of qualified candidates. In my first round alone, at least 20 students were Ivy League grads with 3.7+ GPAs, 700+/700+ GREs, and glowing letters. We could have populated an incoming class with these alone, yet each other admissions committee member probably had the same number of people with similar backgrounds. Then you dig deeper and you realize the number of people with incredible life experiences, great grades, great letters, and all the rest, but from other schools. Or they have great writing samples that make it clear that they know what a political science PhD is all about, even if they don't have the very best grades. Or you get a student who has worked two jobs to pay for an education at a regional state university, someone whose drive and motivation clearly signals his/her ability to bring a project to completion even if s/he does not have the best pedigree. Or someone who's at the top of her class at a top-rank Indian university. I could go on. There are simply too many of these people for us to admit all of them.

So what does it come down to? At the end of the day, it's seemingly minor things like "fit," or "interest," or "promise." Most of these are beyond your control as applicant. If you don't seem to have a good idea of what graduate school is all about--many applicants, unfortunately, do not--you don't make it. If you make a big deal about how you want to work with Professor X, and Professor X is considering a move to a different department, we don't accept you. If your writing sample doesn't show that you can express yourself clearly, there is little hope for your application. If your application emphasizes grade/scores/letters/pedigree, but doesn't convince us that you have what it takes to succeed in the PhD, you're not going to be admitted. If you've gone straight through from undergrad, without the sort of life experiences that convince us that you know why you want to go to get an advanced degree, the bar is a lot higher (but not insurmountable). And these are very fine distinctions, and again, we definitely make mistakes.

There are two things that you should take away from this. The first is that, at least this year, admission to my department (admittedly, not the best one) was fiercely competitive. Unbelievably so. I have never served on an admissions committee before (my department only allows tenured professors to be on this committee) but I get the impression that it's gotten much harder since I got my PhD. The second is that you should not sweat it if you don't make into the departments of your dreams. I'd say that at least 80% of the total applicants in our pool this year were plausible candidates for admission, meaning that I would have been happy to admit them. We end up making a lot of hard choices based on imperfect signals of future professional performance, and to reiterate once more, we definitely make mistakes. Nothing makes me more frustrated than when we admit a dud (it happens). I am always happy to see a student who didn't make it into our department succeed somewhere else.

Best of luck to you all.

[encephalization]

I am not in political science but I found this very interesting.

Thank you for taking the time.

[Bukharan]

This is brilliant. Thank you so much for this insight!

[DrPepper-olic]

A much appreciated read! I needed that.

[gsasso]

That was quite helpful, thanks.

Do you have any advice on how to improve an application if someone isn't in school anymore? I'm finishing up my MPP this year, and am already preparing myself for a possible 0/10 this year.

Edited February 16, 2011 by gsasso

[Zahar Berkut]

This needs to get copied and stickied to some general forum. Thank you!

[wtncffts]

A wonderfully informative post. It certainly puts a lot of speculation to bed, though it doesn't really ease any anxieties I have; if anything, it confirms them.

If you're able to reply to this, can I ask why political science departments, in general, don't do interviews? Or some other method of gathering more information or 'psychological' testing? I presume that when you speak about students who will complete the program and get jobs, that is largely a psychological measure. You want to know which students might have tendencies towards 'flaking out' when the going gets tough, being ambitious but not overconfident, etc. Perhaps an interview or some sort of questionnaire tailored to 'measure' such attributes would contribute to the process. I don't say all applicants should have to take the MMPI, but it's a thought.

[Count de Monet]

Thank you for the information. It is much appreciated.

However, I guess I'm sort of left at a bit of a loss with part of what you've told us. Looking for someone who will complete the PhD and get a job seems to imply a few things: 1) the person has the pure smarts to be able to complete all the classes primary and secondary fields with at least a B+/A- average, 2) The person has the study habits and is able to handle the pressure in order to complete 2 comprehensive/major field exams, 3) the person has the ability to produce enough papers that are of such a quality to be published, 4) the person has the public speaking ability to make both classroom and conference presentations, and 4) the person has the ability to, essentially, write a book (his/her dissertation).

I guess GPA and GRE scores would be an indicator of the person's ability to do things 1 and 2. A writing sample would help to figured out #3. However, and I'm going to echo wtncffts' question, it seems that if you interviewed the application you could get a much better feel for their personality and their speaking abilities. I know you've said it's an inexact science, but recommendations, personal statements and a resume can only shed so much light on a candidate's ability to be a teacher which is an important part of being a graduate student and then becoming a professor. There are certain skills, qualifications, and abilities that are necessary in order to get a teaching positions like public speaking ability, giving presentations, personal confidence, patience, etc that can't be captured in written material.

There is ultimately no indicator of a person's ability to write a dissertation, unless someone has already written one, but perhaps a personal interview, or a phone interview, could make the inexact science a little bit less inexact.

[Langoustine]

Wow, this is really informative, whenever I see people complain about adcomms now I'll think of this...Again, thanks for taking the time to explain the process to everyone, it is greatly appreciated!

[Medievalmaniac]

Wow, that's depressing...I scored 89th percentile on the English section of my GRE, received a perfect 6 on the writing section, and received an 82nd percentile on the subject test. I had a 4.0 GPA at the Master's level, and have multiple publications at academic presses including Brill and Routledge, alongside five years of conference activity and thirteen years of teaching at the high school and college level, and the writing sample I submitted is currently under peer review for a major journal in my field...and you are telling me that all of that means crap, because my Math GRE was a 480, thirteen years out of school.

If that is really the case, I sure wish that when I emailed to ask about that score prior to submitting my applications and fees, someone had told me "Don't bother, you won't make it past the first round because of your Math GRE score." But, I was definitely told that it would not keep me out of the running because of the rest of my application.

[wtncffts]

Wow, that's depressing...I scored 89th percentile on the English section of my GRE, received a perfect 6 on the writing section, and received an 82nd percentile on the subject test. I had a 4.0 GPA at the Master's level, and have multiple publications at academic presses including Brill and Routledge, alongside five years of conference activity and thirteen years of teaching at the high school and college level, and the writing sample I submitted is currently under peer review for a major journal in my field...and you are telling me that all of that means crap, because my Math GRE was a 480, thirteen years out of school.

If that is really the case, I sure wish that when I emailed to ask about that score prior to submitting my applications and fees, someone had told me "Don't bother, you won't make it past the first round because of your Math GRE score." But, I was definitely told that it would not keep me out of the running because of the rest of my application.

Well, I suppose it does vary by department and school, but I do agree that if they have a hardline, categorical rule about cutting at <500, they really should say so upfront. The only reason I can think of to not do so is to charge application fees to those who the department knows have no chance. That's unfair, but not surprising.

[wannabee]

Wow, that's depressing...I scored 89th percentile on the English section of my GRE, received a perfect 6 on the writing section, and received an 82nd percentile on the subject test. I had a 4.0 GPA at the Master's level, and have multiple publications at academic presses including Brill and Routledge, alongside five years of conference activity and thirteen years of teaching at the high school and college level, and the writing sample I submitted is currently under peer review for a major journal in my field...and you are telling me that all of that means crap, because my Math GRE was a 480, thirteen years out of school.

If that is really the case, I sure wish that when I emailed to ask about that score prior to submitting my applications and fees, someone had told me "Don't bother, you won't make it past the first round because of your Math GRE score." But, I was definitely told that it would not keep me out of the running because of the rest of my application.

I do not think the procedures for a Poli Sci or Govt department would be the same for English and Medieval Studies. The quant score is much more important in Poli Sci than for humanities disciplines.

[oasis]

I can't speak for other departments, but we don't do interviews because we simply do not have the time. I agree that interviews would definitely add some information that cannot be captured in written format. Given unlimited resources, that's what we'd do. But we just cannot accommodate the number of interviews we'd have to do, even if we only did them on the final round.

I think that there are some other political science departments that do interviews during the admissions weekend, but they tend to be smaller and wealthier than ours. Regardless, it's a fine idea and something that we'd do in a perfect world, but as you'll learn, political science is all about making hard choices under constraints.

One of the things that helped me greatly was reading the results profiles threads to get a sense of what a competitive applicant looks like. Could you give an example of a profile that future applicants can try to match and have a reasonable chance of success?

[oasis]

Also, do you have anything more to say about what you wrote in 08 at ? That is, have your views changed or are they still the same?

[Concentration]

Realist, what program are you at.

[adaptations]

Wow, that's depressing...I scored 89th percentile on the English section of my GRE, received a perfect 6 on the writing section, and received an 82nd percentile on the subject test. I had a 4.0 GPA at the Master's level, and have multiple publications at academic presses including Brill and Routledge, alongside five years of conference activity and thirteen years of teaching at the high school and college level, and the writing sample I submitted is currently under peer review for a major journal in my field...and you are telling me that all of that means crap, because my Math GRE was a 480, thirteen years out of school.

Medievalmaniac - As others have pointed out, this is likely to differ a great deal across fields. I can't imagine that there is much math in English/Medieval Studies (correct me if I'm wrong). On the other hand, it is important in political science to be able to interpret a wide range of quantitative and formal models (even if not using them yourself). Thus, it is much more understandable that there would be a minimum cut off.

Edited February 17, 2011 by adaptations

[GopherGrad]

Thanks, Realist. That was a lot to type, but I think the responses show you it was worth it.

The post is immediately sobering. It's easy to focus on the sheer number of well-qualified candidates and despair. How will someone ever find you in the pack? How can you distinguish yourself? Is it all just luck of the draw in terms of interest?

But notice this and put the anguish in perspective:

The Realist posts from a program among the top 40 in the country, which draws 30 to 40 times as many applications as they have spots. In other words, if applicants to RealistU represents the entire Top 40 schools and those schools all admit similar numbers, everyone that applies to RealistU gets into a Top 40 school.

Obviously that's not the case, but there IS significant overlap. For a student with the qualifications to make a final round at RealistU, the chances of admission at some great program is actually very high. Part of the game (for most of us) is to put up with more rejections than acceptances as programs like RealistU's sort out the great candidates (you) that fit into their programs.

[Zahar Berkut]

Sorry if that's disappointing, but I really, really believe that "comparing stats" is likely to be the least useful way to diagnose a "problem" with your application.

Not to encourage wild speculation on your behalf, but are you willing to comment on how prevalent this view is among admissions committees?

And thank you again for your candid discussion.

[ElanMorin]

I have a question for The Realist. How did the department generally react to people with very low undergraduate GPAs but solid applications otherwise. Specifically, applicants who had done poorly in undergrad but then later did well in an MA program. I've read on some departments sites that they won't consider anyone with less than a 3.0 UGPA, but its not clear how that's affected by MA grades. Was there anyone with that profile that you admitted, and if so what convinced you to let them in?

I'm looking to apply for Fall 2012 (finishing terminal MA this year) but am concerned about my application getting "weeded out" due to low undergrad grades without the rest of my application being looked at, similar to the way you described applications with low GRE scores getting removed automatically.

[etornfelt]

Does anyone have any ideas or thoughts about how much this applies to Masters programs? I'm applying to the M.Ed EPM at HGSE and my ungrad GPA is below a 3.0. I got a 3.75 in my first Masters program and my SOP and LOR's are strong. I'm just nervous that I may have been cut in the pre-screening which is really depressing since I do think my resume shows a strong committment to education and what I want to do long term.

Any thoughts or comments would be helpful as I wait this thing out...

[foosh]

I had well under a 2.7 and got into two top-25 schools straight out of undergrad. Never underestimate your statement of purpose, writing samples, and choosing good recommenders.

Edited February 18, 2011 by foosh

[Polly_Sigh]

Thanks for this insight. It is much appreciated.

One question I've wondered about is why do most applications ask what other programs an applicant is applying to? Is this info used during the process at all? Would applying to programs that have very different styles and focus lessen an applicant's credibility? Or is this simply a "market research" question for admissions?

[Polly_Sigh]

this raises another question related ot my last post. there is clearly overlap in the applicant pools for many schools, especially the top programs. is there ever communication between admissions committees across universities in ordere to minimize overlap of acceptances of top applicants? that may be far-fetched, but have wondered if that ever happens....

Thanks, Realist. That was a lot to type, but I think the responses show you it was worth it.

The post is immediately sobering. It's easy to focus on the sheer number of well-qualified candidates and despair. How will someone ever find you in the pack? How can you distinguish yourself? Is it all just luck of the draw in terms of interest?

But notice this and put the anguish in perspective:

The Realist posts from a program among the top 40 in the country, which draws 30 to 40 times as many applications as they have spots. In other words, if applicants to RealistU represents the entire Top 40 schools and those schools all admit similar numbers, everyone that applies to RealistU gets into a Top 40 school.

Obviously that's not the case, but there IS significant overlap. For a student with the qualifications to make a final round at RealistU, the chances of admission at some great program is actually very high. Part of the game (for most of us) is to put up with more rejections than acceptances as programs like RealistU's sort out the great candidates (you) that fit into their programs.

[Penelope Higgins]

Never. Top schools want to compete for the top applicants.

this raises another question related ot my last post. there is clearly overlap in the applicant pools for many schools, especially the top programs. is there ever communication between admissions committees across universities in ordere to minimize overlap of acceptances of top applicants? that may be far-fetched, but have wondered if that ever happens....

[oasis]

I don't think that this is a productive exercise, for a couple of reasons. One, there's no single profile that you should try to emulate because there are multiple paths to admission. Two, I think that the obsession with test scores and the name of the undergraduate institution have just encouraged applicants to focus on these things, because they are the easiest to compare across individuals, whereas letters and statements of purpose and writing samples are more revealing than test scores and pedigree. (Not to mention, the difference between, say, a 690 math GRE and a 730 math GRE is essentially meaningless. The only really revealing bits of information are a perfect or near perfect score and a really really low one.)

Instead, you should always try to make your application better. In this game, your dominant strategy is to improve every piece of the entire package. If you don't get admitted to your choice program, there are any number of reasons why, none of which are knowable to you, which means that your job is to improve every component of the package that you can manipulate.

Sorry if that's disappointing, but I really, really believe that "comparing stats" is likely to be the least useful way to diagnose a "problem" with your application.

Certainly, I totally agree about how idiosyncratic and individual-specific this process is (and should be), but for some given applicant, knowing whether his/her profile merits a reasonable chance of success, can mean saving a few thousand dollars of application fees and months of wasted effort into the app process as well as heartbreak.

I guess what I'm asking is, what does the median admit at your program look like. Knowing full well that the stats on paper do not fully capture their unique qualities.