My Ph.D Acceptance was Rescinded

[Dean]

Thought I should share my story for a little sympathy if nothing else. Applied to 10 sociology Ph.D programs. Received an unofficial email acceptance from UC-Riverside saying "Congratulations!" and that the admissions committee had recommended me for admission and were working on my financial package. Two weeks later (on 2/23/11), I heard from the same person at Riverside saying that upon further review, the committee had decided to rescind its recommendation for admission. The email said that although my GRE was high, my undergrad GPA was "ineligible" and my law school GPA was "justifiable," whatever that means. (I'll be graduating law school this May).

Has anyone heard of other Ph.D acceptances, official or unofficial, being rescinded? If my undergrad GPA was ineligible for some reason (granted, it's from 2001-05 when I was not the most serious student), why would they have accepted me in the first place? Seems very unprofessional to basically tell people they're admitted and then do a complete 180 and take it all back a short time later. I'm still not over the sheer shock of that email.

Edited February 24, 2011 by Dean

[emmm]

Very sorry to hear what happened to you. I agree that this does not sound like very professional behavior on the part of the program.

[giveitago]

I can totally understand how you feel!

This is totally crazy! I wonder if it's more than unprofessional!

Even so,I would say,don't feel so bad,after all--it could be even worse for you to get in and work with people like that!

Hope you are better

[Count de Monet]

Riverside is a ****-hole anyways. Go elsewhere to a better program and a better city!

[Argonaute]

I am sorry to hear about your situation, that was indeed very unprofessional on their part. Hope you get into a better program. Hang in there...

[wannabee]

"Justifiable" and "Ineligible"? I do not even know what those words mean, given the context in which they were being used. Did they include any explanation? If not, I would write and calmly ask for clarification. Surely they owe you at least that much.

If I was a student who had an acceptance at this school, I would seriously wonder if I would even want to go there. GPA is such an open and shut thing. How could this happen if the committee takes its work seriously?

[SuperPiePie]

Wow... that's just low... I'm sorry for you, but you are too good for that place anyways if they treat their applicants like that.

[beanbagchairs]

That's awful. I'm sorry to hear that. I would enter a formal complaint against the graduate school.

Hang in there!

[jaxzwolf]

That does indeed sound unprofessional. The unfortunate thing about the admissions process, though (okay, there are many unfortunate things) is that unofficial acceptances are just that-- 'unofficial.' Even if a professor/department likes your application and decides you would be a good fit for their program, you application package still must be sent to the graduate school for final review. It seems a little cruel that the graduate school would turn you down even when the department wanted you... That must be terrible.

I would also consider sending them a polite-as-possible note asking for clarification of some of the terms they used in their explanation about rescinding the offer.

[jprufrock]

I assume they used correct language--thus "ineligible" in this context means something bureaucratic in that it doesn't meet some University-wide standard for admission. "Justifiable" sounds like a weak attempt to say, "Though we can't admit you, your high grades in law school were justifiable because they clearly reflect your intelligence and wit in ways that your undergraduate GPA does not."

Unfortunately, they could have said this much more tactfully with more encouragement, etc etc

I'm really sorry for your rescinded acceptance--even the programs we'd love to join are bound by arbitrary cut-offs out of their control.

Edited February 24, 2011 by jprufrock

[Eigen]

My guess is the departmental committee liked your app, recommended you for acceptance, and the graduate school shot you down due to not meeting some school-wide GPA requirement.

Any acceptance from a department is only unofficial, since it still has to be approved by administration- and while they aren't usually shot down, they can be.

[aucinema]

That is a horrible situation and I am truly sorry. I've never really thought that notifying applicants of "unofficial" acceptances was good practice anyway, just for this reason. I know it's very rare that a grad school shoots down a department decision, but still, it can happen. And when it does, it's 10 times worse then a rejection from the get-go. Not to mention, I can't believe they waited 2 weeks to inform you that they were rescinding your acceptance.

I wish I had some advice for you, but I don't. If I were you though, I would probably e-mail the graduate school for further explanation.

[Dean]

I spoke with the professor in charge of the committee today, and he basically said they liked me, but that my undergrad GPA was below the Graduate Division minimum. So they were going to have to write some letters to justify my acceptance, and no one on the committee felt strongly enough to go to that trouble. Seems like you could at least write a letter after you've told someone you're already working on their financial package! And don't these programs all say how they look at applicants wholistically? Can my grades from 8-10 years ago really ouweigh that I'll have a JD, am an executive editor of our school's law journal, had a high GRE (according to this same professor) and have high school teaching experience? Let's hope they learned from this mess not to notify anyone in the future until it's set in stone.

[space-cat]

I spoke with the professor in charge of the committee today, and he basically said they liked me, but that my undergrad GPA was below the Graduate Division minimum. So they were going to have to write some letters to justify my acceptance, and no one on the committee felt strongly enough to go to that trouble. Seems like you could at least write a letter after you've told someone you're already working on their financial package! And don't these programs all say how they look at applicants wholistically? Can my grades from 8-10 years ago really ouweigh that I'll have a JD, am an executive editor of our school's law journal, had a high GRE (according to this same professor) and have high school teaching experience? Let's hope they learned from this mess not to notify anyone in the future until it's set in stone.

Ouch. I'm so sorry you're put in this position. From what I now know about departmental politics, I'd hazard a guess that you had at least one person really fighting for you, but unfortunately they couldn't win over the majority (or overwhelming majority, depending on how many letters would have been required). Regardless of the circumstances, though, their actions were incredibly irresponsible (I have a really hard time believing no one in the whole committee would think to check the GPA benchmark before admitting you). On the other hand, as others have said, at least you're finding out now that this program doesn't stick up for its students...

Best of luck for your other schools!!

[ZeeMore21]

This is just crazy to me. It makes no sense that they liked your application, yet wouldn't even attempt to write a letter. Was that out of laziness? Seems as though all they had to do was to come up with a couple letters on your behalf and there would have been no problem. This seems suspicious.

[Strangefox]

I spoke with the professor in charge of the committee today, and he basically said they liked me, but that my undergrad GPA was below the Graduate Division minimum. So they were going to have to write some letters to justify my acceptance, and no one on the committee felt strongly enough to go to that trouble. Seems like you could at least write a letter after you've told someone you're already working on their financial package! And don't these programs all say how they look at applicants wholistically? Can my grades from 8-10 years ago really ouweigh that I'll have a JD, am an executive editor of our school's law journal, had a high GRE (according to this same professor) and have high school teaching experience? Let's hope they learned from this mess not to notify anyone in the future until it's set in stone.

Terrible and crazy

Other posters are right, you are to good for this place, you would not want to work with these people anyway.

Good luck with other applications!

[Eigen]

This is just crazy to me. It makes no sense that they liked your application, yet wouldn't even attempt to write a letter. Was that out of laziness? Seems as though all they had to do was to come up with a couple letters on your behalf and there would have been no problem. This seems suspicious.

This depends on the school. Some administrators require the expension of a fair amount of "political capital" to get exceptions for students at the college/school level.

I think another problem has to do with the huge amount of really qualified applicants that people are seeing apply this year- in other years you might have really stood out, whereas it seems Adcomms this year are saying it's more of a toss up between the top 20-40 candidates.And depending on the administration, if the letters required would have needed to show that this exception was far and away more qualified than their other applicants, it might have been hard to convince enough of the committee to do so, instead of going to what might have been a higher choice for them individually.

As was said, it may have been a single professor that was really pushing for you, and when it came down to requesting exceptions they just weren't able to sway the rest of the committee.

Edited February 25, 2011 by Eigen

[qbtacoma]

Now my hands are all itchy for my official acceptance letter.

[wtncffts]

This depends on the school. Some administrators require the expension of a fair amount of "political capital" to get exceptions for students at the college/school level.

I think another problem has to do with the huge amount of really qualified applicants that people are seeing apply this year- in other years you might have really stood out, whereas it seems Adcomms this year are saying it's more of a toss up between the top 20-40 candidates.And depending on the administration, if the letters required would have needed to show that this exception was far and away more qualified than their other applicants, it might have been hard to convince enough of the committee to do so, instead of going to what might have been a higher choice for them individually.

As was said, it may have been a single professor that was really pushing for you, and when it came down to requesting exceptions they just weren't able to sway the rest of the committee.

Certainly true, but in this case, they really shouldn't have e-mailed an acceptance, albeit unofficial, to the OP, and, moreover, informed him that they were 'working on the financial package'. From the description, it wasn't an individual prof speaking on his own behalf, but expressing "the judgment of the committee", so to speak. There's no way this is anything other than incompetence.

[Eigen]

Certainly true, but in this case, they really shouldn't have e-mailed an acceptance, albeit unofficial, to the OP, and, moreover, informed him that they were 'working on the financial package'. From the description, it wasn't an individual prof speaking on his own behalf, but expressing "the judgment of the committee", so to speak. There's no way this is anything other than incompetence.

I never said it was an individual prof speaking on his own behalf... I said it was an individual prof who was pushing for his acceptance (and got it). But then when it came time for the committee to have to (as a whole) request exceptions, the prof pushing for his acceptance could not convince the rest of the committee to request an exception- although he was able to push for the initial acceptance. Hence the committee (as a whole) deciding not to fight the administration in this particular case. It could also be a case of funding cuts limiting (after the initial e-mail) the number of grad students they could take in this season.

Just a thought.

People tend to view adcoms (or search committees, depending on what stage you're at) as the "enemy barring you from your career path", when really they'd like to accept as many grad students (or new professors) as they can, and are usually fighting the administration for as many acceptances as they can get.

You got an unofficial acceptance from the department, but something happened down the road from the department that forced them to rescind the offer. At least that's how I read it.

I think you'll find this happens even more on the job market than it does for grad school acceptances. Unofficial offers (or even official offers) for jobs get revoked all the time.

Edited February 25, 2011 by Eigen

[Bukharan]

I am so sorry to hear this.

I don't agree with Eigen. Job market is not a helpful or fair comparison. Ph.D. offers are not normally rescinded after they are offered. What happened was unprofessional and definitely fault of the department.

[Eigen]

I am so sorry to hear this.

I don't agree with Eigen. Job market is not a helpful or fair comparison. Ph.D. offers are not normally rescinded after they are offered. What happened was unprofessional and definitely fault of the department.

How is it not a helpful or fair comparison? A PhD offer is quite close to a job offer- you are being compensated for services provided, either research or teaching.

And how common offers being rescinded are is debatable. There are a nice selection of cases where offers have been rescinded on this very board.

I feel for the OP, and I think it's quite sad it happened, but I would not consider this unprofessional, nor do I think it is likely the fault of the department.

Edited February 25, 2011 by Eigen

[ZeeMore21]

I still believe it is unprofessional for the university to have sent out the unofficial acceptance in the first place and inform the candidate that a financial package is in the works. I would think that those on the committee would have a heart and not play with someone's emotions. Politics and job market aside.

[Eigen]

I still believe it is unprofessional for the university to have sent out the unofficial acceptance in the first place and inform the candidate that a financial package is in the works. I would think that those on the committee would have a heart and not play with someone's emotions. Politics and job market aside.

If they fully believed that the student would be accepted downstream and were working on a financial package, how were they not acting in good faith? They were trying to let the student know that they were pushing their application forward as soon as they could (and as you can judge by so many of the posts here, lots of students are desperate for feedback on their applications), and then ran into a road block that for some reason they could not get around.

Something happening between the unofficial acceptance and the official acceptance that required rescinding the offer does not mean that the adcom didn't fully believe the initial offer was good. I doubt they would have sent it out if they thought there was much of a chance it would get bounced back by the administration.

Personally, I liked getting unoffical acceptances- they let me have a clue of what was going on with my application, and what the adcom thought of it. I would have been frustrated if they had been pulled, but I realized when I got them that they were unofficial and as such, not final- ie, they might not materialize into an official offer. That's kinda the definition of an unofficial offer.

Edited February 25, 2011 by Eigen

[ZeeMore21]

If they fully believed that the student would be accepted downstream and were working on a financial package, how were they not acting in good faith? They were trying to let the student know that they were pushing their application forward as soon as they could (and as you can judge by so many of the posts here, lots of students are desperate for feedback on their applications), and then ran into a road block that for some reason they could not get around.

Something happening between the unofficial acceptance and the official acceptance that required rescinding the offer does not mean that the adcom didn't fully believe the initial offer was good. I doubt they would have sent it out if they thought there was much of a chance it would get bounced back by the administration.

I see where you are coming from Eigen, but the department was well aware that there was a GPA cut-off and they were taking a big risk. I don't see why they couldn't have discussed Dean's application with the school dean just to get a head's up before taking it any further. It seems as though it was pretty black and white.