Starting over...

[stereopticons]

So I didn't get accepted in to any of the schools I applied to for the 2012-2013 academic year. I had a couple of interviews. I am going to apply again in the fall (oh joy.) and I have a few questions for those of you who may have been through this process more than once.

-Do I scrap my entire list from last year and start over? I applied to 10 places that I thought were a pretty good range of "prestige", but were probably a little top heavy.

-Do I also scrap my personal statement from last year? Are people going to remember reading it if I submit a similar one?

-How does it look if I apply to the same places again? Do people frown on this? Does it show determination and perseverance?

-How does the whole emailing the POI thing work, since I feel like I just emailed them. Do I send another email saying "hey, me again, are you taking students again this year?"

This was actually my second time through the process, but there were two years between when I applied the first time and this year, and I applied to a lot of different schools. I also didn't get any interviews the first time around.

So, any advice you guys may have about starting the application process over again would be greatly appreciated.

[3point14]

Hi, I applied twice. Personally, I just started all over with new schools, new SoP, etc. I did consider re-applying to the one school I had been waitlisted at. In the end, I just felt like the programs I had originally applied to and I didn't have enough common research interests. I don't think it's bad to apply to the same schools (especially those at which you had an interview) particularly if you do something to improve your application between now and next fall (retake GRE if needed, get more research experience, etc). Since you definitely should do things to improve your application, this will probably change your SoP a little as well. Good luck!

[lucere]

As the person above said, your SoP will change as a reflection of what you do during the time off. My thoughts about multiple applications to the same school are that you should definitely do it if your interests/future research closely match people at those particular schools. However, to dip lower on the prestige pool without sacrificing your interests, you can do some detective work by checking up on your current POI's collaborators and former students. Most fields, there are good people at top schools and then similarly good people at mid/lower-tier schools who are just as involved in the line of work, but for whatever reason didn't have as much luck (or even this is sometimes a two-body problem, where they deliberately choose to be at a lesser name school for its location) when they were on the job market.