Admission Offers Scrutinized

[Contate]

I have heard that top programs negotiate the candidates they offer admission to. In essence, if one student applied to several top programs and school X says that they really want a given candidate, then the other schools agree to reject or waitlist that candidate provided that X agrees not to admit other candidates which schools Y and Z might be interested in. Occasionally, many schools really want a given candidate and they all go ahead and admit him/her, but most times one student does not really get admitted to many top programs. According to what I have heard, this happens particularly among programs where the faculty at each school are good friends and usually talk extensively about the process as it unfolds. For schools that worry a lot about ranking, it actually makes a difference how many of the admitted students accept their offers.

What do you think about this? Is it plausible? Is it true?

[NewEnglandNat]

I've heard about it in Religious Studies from a professor who participated in it. But that's a much smaller field than History. I find it incredibly implausable in history. There are too many "top programs" and for such a conspiracy to work it would require schools to go share vast lists of applicant pools in the middle of the semester when the adcoms are quite busy. I think in such a circumstance what would be more likely to happen is Professor at School X tells their friend Professor at School Y that they are very interested in a particular candidate and School Y decides to take a second look at the application.

When the process (the religious studies one) was described to me at a cocktail party the lawyer standing next to me said that it was likely breaking a number of laws.

[StrangeLight]

i do know that professors from different schools will talk to each other about prospective candidates, but as far as i know, this is only between friends. i have never heard of any systematic sort of negotiation process for students between schools. it actually sounds like far too much work given the number of applications, and there's already enough bickering within the departments over how many africanists or americanists they're going to take on, never mind between schools. also, if this was the case (negotiating between schools), then these "top programs" would be able to offer admission all around the same time. but as we see every year, some top programs give out offers of admission as early as the first week of february and others wait until the very end of february or the first week of march.

if anything, this sounds like an ivory tower myth of years' past, where students at "top 10" programs try to rationalize their rejection from other top 10 and "lower ranked" programs.

[Rustin]

I agree with the rest- this just does not happen. From speaking to the professors at my undergraduate institution, as well as where I've been admitted, there is some informal banter between friends and past colleagues that occurs and is natural. It isn't a bartering or negotiation process, just a normal checking out by people who may have went to graduate school together, worked together, or present at similar conferences regularly. There isn't a smoky room where 10 or 15 people get and decide which school gets who. The wide variety of acceptances and rejects has more to do with the incredible number of applications and limited spots. If a school takes 8 people and waitlists 4, the 13 person gets the same rejection letter as the 600th person.

I'd also disagree with the OP's assertion that yield (the percentage that accept an offer of admissions) matters at all for rankings. It does in the formula for ranking undergraduate institutions for some surveys but not at all in graduate school rankings. The graduate US News & World Report rankings are based upon surveying of department chairs and the government rankings do not include yield as a factor.

[Riotbeard]

I would guess that to whatever degree this happens it is between friends and very informal not a academic conspiracy. I have never heard of it, other than on these forums to be honest, from any prof I have ever worked with.

[TMP]

I don't believe in this AT ALL. It has never worked out for me based on my own experience. That's just the imagination and paranoia running wild. Heck, I'm like.. 90% sure that my adviser's too wrapped up in her own affairs to be checking in with her frineds at schools I've applied to.

Also, it's the damned internal politics that would make this conspiracy a total myth. Professors can't promise their friends that they'll admit a certain student because they can't control their own departmental politics, as StrangeLight pointed out.

[neuropsychosocial]

Someone admitted to me once that he/she had done this sort of thing, but it was very limited. Two friends had worked with the same advisor, had very similar research interests, and ended up with tenure-track positions (starting in the same year) at two of the top four programs in their discipline. Basically, any student who applied to work with one also applied to work with the other. They had a handshake agreement that they would alternate who got to "pursue" the very top student who applied to work with them - until they each got tenure, then it was game-on for both. The professor said that the two friends still talked about their prospective students every year, but without the agreement to "split the talent." The professor, who was not in my discipline, said that she/he was a little embarrassed about it, but they were young at the time and worried about the similarity in their interests, competing for grad students, and getting tenure.

Does it happen? Probably occasionally, mostly among friends who trained together (hence very similar interests), but not as often as we might like to think that it happens. Likewise, some schools probably do occasionally reject applicants who seem overqualified, but that too probably happens less than we might like to think that it does. Don't worry, Warm Weather U, I know you rejected me because of my GPA, not because University of Frozen Tundra wanted me more!