How to you gauge the feasibility of getting accepted?

[English2013:)]

So, in undergrad you could buy one of those books with stats on schools and have a pretty good idea as to if you'd get in to a school or not. I am having a REALLY hard time telling if my GPA and GRE (haven't taken it yet) will be sufficient at certain schools for PhD acceptance. I know that a lot has to do with the other components of an application, but how do I get an idea based on GPA and GRE? I have contacted a few schools individually, but that is time consuming. How can I tell without emailing every school? I already have an MA and my GPA was a 3.77, but my undergrad was a 3.2 (didn't care about school then). I haven't taken the GRE yet. I am super intimidated by some of the more prestigious schools or even the big names, but I don't want to sell myself short, either. How can I gauge?

[Physwimic]

A lot of program websites will post stats (ie average GRE scores, occasionally GPA), however, this is, from my experience, rare. And as you said, other things are taken into consideration than numbers. I think the best way to get a feeling is talk with one of your LOR writers. They normally have a really good feeling for what schools you have a chance at and which ones you don't. I talked with 2 of my LORs about schools, and gave them a preliminary list. They both told me I would get into at least one of the programs I was applying to, and they were right. One of my LORs actually called which program I would end up at.

[Stately Plump]

The short answer is that you don't gauge.

They aren't going to take students with the highest GPA or GRE scores; they are taking students who they feel are best going to complement the strengths of their program; they are taking students who will fill out the "needs" of past/future cohorts; they are taking students who will "get along" with professors/students; they are taking students who they feel have the best chance of landing a tenure-track job at the end if it, which in turn helps the reputation of their program. These students don't always have the best "numbers".

Sometimes, it's something as simple as, "here's a male student interested in women's studies, which we don't have," or "this student mentioned such-and-such theorist in her writing sample, and I like such-and-such theorist." I promise, there is no formula to figure out where you may or may not get in.

Last application season (correct me if I'm wrong), someone on here got into one school: Columbia. She (he?) was rejected from all others, which, needless to say, were ranked far lower than Columbia. Figure that one out.

All you can do is submit the strongest application you can produce, pray to the old gods and the new, and wait.

(<--- sunglasses to hide PTSD from last year's app season)

Edited June 28, 2012 by Stately Plump

[TakeruK]

I agree that applicants are not accepted purely on numbers -- there is no formula that computes your scores with some weighting, your research interests, etc. and spits out a number! Also, it's not always the best "on paper" candidates that get in. Lots of other reasons, such as fit / needing to fill a certain gap etc. that makes a difference. Still, you can probably ask your LOR writers or advisors to get a sense of whether to apply to, say, top 10, top 20, top 50 etc. schools.

My advice would be to apply to a large range of schools being sure to include schools both above and below where you think you can get in based on the guidance above. This way, you won't feel like you've sold yourself short nor will you risk overestimating your abilities, as much.

[bfat]

What Stately Plump said. Yes.

But... for a moment, can we just fantasize about how much less exhausting this whole process would be if there were easy quantitative guages?

[claire56]

I'm thinking it's kind of jerky for them not to post minimum scores they require. It's like they just want people to spend money applying to their school even if it's pointless (but the applicant doesn't know that)?

[TakeruK]

I think they don't post minimum scores to keep their options open -- for example, they don't want a situation where they say "you need 500/800" (on the old scale) as the minimum but end up with a candidate that scored 480 but is a great fit otherwise and has a good reason for scoring so low. Sure, they can post minimums that are really low to make sure they get everyone but then it won't be very useful to us (it would be very different from the competitive minimum!)

Since the departments are the ones that set the minimums, and the ones that have to do the work of considering applications while its the school that collects the fee, I don't think the departments purposely avoids providing information to attract more students.

What is jerky though is not providing all the information in one place, or not updating information! Sometimes on the main admissions requirements page, it would just say "GRE required" and then if you dig through the FAQ, you learn the minimum is 500 (or whatever). Or sometimes the department admissions page will say one thing but the school-wide Faculty/School of Graduate Studies will have a conflicting criteria (often due to one or more parties not updating their pages).

[Stately Plump]

I got a negative 300 on the subject test--at LEAST 100 points below the "minimum," had there been one--but was still accepted.

I guarantee that my subject test score was lower than many applicants who were not accepted. And I'm sure that my scores were lower than the "average" of what they normally take. And yes, the programs to which I was accepted required the subject test

I echo what was said about applying to a range of programs. Pick a few top 20s, a few top 40s, a few top 60s, a few top 80s, etc. See where you come out.

This quote used to be in someone's signature, and I think it's great advice: "Every program is somebody's dream program."

[claire56]

I think they don't post minimum scores to keep their options open -- for example, they don't want a situation where they say "you need 500/800" (on the old scale) as the minimum but end up with a candidate that scored 480 but is a great fit otherwise and has a good reason for scoring so low. Sure, they can post minimums that are really low to make sure they get everyone but then it won't be very useful to us (it would be very different from the competitive minimum!)

Since the departments are the ones that set the minimums, and the ones that have to do the work of considering applications while its the school that collects the fee, I don't think the departments purposely avoids providing information to attract more students.

What is jerky though is not providing all the information in one place, or not updating information! Sometimes on the main admissions requirements page, it would just say "GRE required" and then if you dig through the FAQ, you learn the minimum is 500 (or whatever). Or sometimes the department admissions page will say one thing but the school-wide Faculty/School of Graduate Studies will have a conflicting criteria (often due to one or more parties not updating their pages).

To that (your first two paragraphs), I would say this: I still think that's being a bit jerky of them. Given the surfeit of applicants and how only a tiny percentage get in, and how it's so well known that there are way more qualified applicants than they can let in, they know good and darn well that they'll always have more than enough to choose from even if their number of applications is cut in half or by a third. They don't need every single possible one, much less 200 extra ones that fall below their minimum and never get seen anyway, in order to make sure they don't miss that "off chance" 460-scoring student who's "a great fit." I say, announce your 600 minimum, get all your great fits from that bunch. There are more than enough great fits therein.

The student who knows his/her scores aren't generally good enough for that school can apply to schools where he/she has a better chance and increase his/her chances of acceptance!

(By the way, not being hostile toward you, but to the schools.)

And to your last paragraph: yes, I agree. You would think English Dept. websites would be very explicit and understand the importance of clear communication. If nothing else, you would think that they would want to save themselves all the email "clarification questions" that no doubt come in to them because things aren't clear on the website.

Edited June 29, 2012 by claire56

[TakeruK]

To that (your first two paragraphs), I would say this: I still think that's being a bit jerky of them. Given the surfeit of applicants and how only a tiny percentage get in, and how it's so well known that there are way more qualified applicants than they can let in, they know good and darn well that they'll always have more than enough to choose from even if their number of applications is cut in half or by a third. They don't need every single possible one, much less 200 extra ones that fall below their minimum and never get seen anyway, in order to make sure they don't miss that "off chance" 460-scoring student who's "a great fit." I say, announce your 600 minimum, get all your great fits from that bunch. There are more than enough great fits therein.

The student who knows his/her scores aren't generally good enough for that school can apply to schools where he/she has a better chance and increase his/her chances of acceptance!

(By the way, not being hostile toward you, but to the schools.)

And to your last paragraph: yes, I agree. You would think English Dept. websites would be very explicit and understand the importance of clear communication. If nothing else, you would think that they would want to save themselves all the email "clarification questions" that no doubt come in to them because things aren't clear on the website.

I guess I was used to the number of applications being lower in my field -- astronomy tends to have around ~150 applicants for ~10 spots, which is probably one of the higher numbers -- the program (option) I got into only had 33 applicants (and 8 spots). But you're right, if they are getting hundreds of applicants, posting a GRE minimum to allow applicants to self-select would be the right thing to do for everyone's benefit!

For the sciences, which values clear quantitative measures (oh, the number of times I had comments like "what do you mean by 'the trials were repeated many times' -- be explicit!" on my lab reports), it's also ironic that all the admissions pages use similar vague words /adjectives to describe the candidate they are looking for, and without numbers! I mean, I understand that the process has to be holistic (which is a good thing for me anyways) but it's just funny I guess -- well maybe funny for me since my application season is now over Good luck on yours!

[English2013:)]

Stately Plump, when you say to apply to some schools in the top 20s, 40s, and 80s, what rankings are you referencing? These?

http://graduate-school.phds.org/rankings/english/rank/__M_____________________________________________________________U

[Phil Sparrow]

This is a common complaint among applicants every year. It's not productive to get all worked up about it, however. Just try to call or email the graduate coordinator to get the information you (think you) need.

In mild defense of departments who don't make "minimum scores" clear: as a previous poster suggested, most programs do not have minimums. They'll have a ballpark, but if your other application materials--especially the writing sample--are very strong, the ballpark won't even matter. Or in other cases, the graduate school might have a minimum score requirement, but the department won't, meaning that the department has to be willing and able to get the graduate school to make an exception if an applicant's scores fall below the minimum (this is why sometimes you'll see information on the graduate school website but not the department website). Sometimes the department can prevail, and sometimes not. But the department won't want to foreclose on the possibility of considering and recruiting great candidates who aren't great test takers.

Finally, most English departments in the US are in total and complete financial and existential crisis. Even the ones that are well off (like mine) have NO extra money lying around to do things like majorly overhaul the website to appease a few applicants who may or may not ever get in, let alone attend, the program. Our department administrators are shockingly overworked, and they, again, have better support, financial and otherwise, than many or most other programs out there. Not having you think they are "jerky" because a single piece of information is less than fully clear on the website is very, very low on the list of priorities.

I'm not trying to be jerky myself, though undoubtedly this next bit will sound that way: applying to grad school is terrible. Being in grad school is often terrible. You either suck it up because you love it despite the stupid shit you have to put up with, or you find another career. There is a lot of idiotic, opaque, bureaucratic crap you have to put up with in academia, and questions about GRE scores are the smallest, most insignificant of them all, so if this makes you completely freak out, you may want to rethink spending all that money on applications.

To that (your first two paragraphs), I would say this: I still think that's being a bit jerky of them. Given the surfeit of applicants and how only a tiny percentage get in, and how it's so well known that there are way more qualified applicants than they can let in, they know good and darn well that they'll always have more than enough to choose from even if their number of applications is cut in half or by a third. They don't need every single possible one, much less 200 extra ones that fall below their minimum and never get seen anyway, in order to make sure they don't miss that "off chance" 460-scoring student who's "a great fit." I say, announce your 600 minimum, get all your great fits from that bunch. There are more than enough great fits therein.

The student who knows his/her scores aren't generally good enough for that school can apply to schools where he/she has a better chance and increase his/her chances of acceptance!

(By the way, not being hostile toward you, but to the schools.)

And to your last paragraph: yes, I agree. You would think English Dept. websites would be very explicit and understand the importance of clear communication. If nothing else, you would think that they would want to save themselves all the email "clarification questions" that no doubt come in to them because things aren't clear on the website.

Edited June 29, 2012 by Phil Sparrow

[claire56]

This is a common complaint among applicants every year. It's not productive to get all worked up about it, however. Just try to call or email the graduate coordinator to get the information you (think you) need.

In mild defense of departments who don't make "minimum scores" clear: as a previous poster suggested, most programs do not have minimums. They'll have a ballpark, but if your other application materials--especially the writing sample--are very strong, the ballpark won't even matter. Or in other cases, the graduate school might have a minimum score requirement, but the department won't, meaning that the department has to be willing and able to get the graduate school to make an exception if an applicant's scores fall below the minimum (this is why sometimes you'll see information on the graduate school website but not the department website). Sometimes the department can prevail, and sometimes not. But the department won't want to foreclose on the possibility of considering and recruiting great candidates who aren't great test takers.

Finally, most English departments in the US are in total and complete financial and existential crisis. Even the ones that are well off (like mine) have NO extra money lying around to do things like majorly overhaul the website to appease a few applicants who may or may not ever get in, let alone attend, the program. Our department administrators are shockingly overworked, and they, again, have better support, financial and otherwise, than many or most other programs out there. Not having you think they are "jerky" because a single piece of information is less than fully clear on the website is very, very low on the list of priorities.

I'm not trying to be jerky myself, though undoubtedly this next bit will sound that way: applying to grad school is terrible. Being in grad school is often terrible. You either suck it up because you love it despite the stupid shit you have to put up with, or you find another career. There is a lot of idiotic, opaque, bureaucratic crap you have to put up with in academia, and questions about GRE scores are the smallest, most insignificant of them all, so if this makes you completely freak out, you may want to rethink spending all that money on applications.

Oh my goodness, no one's getting worked up about anything. I'm not sitting around seething about how "jerky" they are because of absent information on a website. Just gave an agreement to someone who mentioned something about it. But what I said stands. Clear, explicit information on a website isn't a lot to ask, and keep in mind that I said doing so (having everything as explicit as possible) saves THEM (the overworked people) time answering emails that want information clarified.

And you say "not to sound jerky" but then proceed to say "but maybe you should re-think spending money on applications if this is all too much for you." You're being jerky. Snarky, at least. We're on a website; we're allowed to vent. It happens I'm a very organized person and don't, myself, have any trouble doing applications even for schools that are a bit of a challenge as far as providing info to applicants. I'd venture to say it's administratively easier for me than most. I can still complain about things, as a matter of principle, if I want to.

Edited June 29, 2012 by claire56

[claire56]

To Phil Sparrow:

And you talk about "overhauling a website" as if what's being talked about is videos, graphics, and a whole new design that would be more pleasing to my and other applicants' precious eyes. What's being referred to is adding a few more bullet points of plain text information to what's already in place. Hardly an "overhaul of a website."

And also "sucking it up because you love it despite the stupid shit" is the default. You don't need to remind people to do so. It's not as if that's news to people. This place is for freaking out with others and grumbling a little, in addition to other things. So I say...stop with YOUR jerky attitude. I may have been complaining, but I'm not being jerky to fellow applicants (for whom this is a place); I'm talking about educational institutions whose employees and administrators, as you've noted, are way too busy to read this and who I am in no way actually offending, given their absence from Grad School Cafe.

Edited June 29, 2012 by claire56

[English2013:)]

Well, Phil, it looks like you're already doing a great job with contributing to the "opaque, bureaucratic crap" in academia. I really don't need any counseling about how strenuous and difficult PhD programs can be. Got that from my profs at least once a week. They have actually been really honest and genuine. I'm sorry you've had a bad experience and have consequently resorted to trying to make people feel bad on gradcafe.com.

Others, thanks for the info about GREs. I appreciate it. It sounds like I should just put forth 100%, be confident in my work, and see what happens!

[Stately Plump]

Stately Plump, when you say to apply to some schools in the top 20s, 40s, and 80s, what rankings are you referencing? These?

http://graduate-scho...______________U

I was actually referring more to the U.S. News rankings (found here). Don't take these things too seriously; in the final analysis, they really don't matter all that much. But I do think they are helpful, at least as a preliminary tool to try to sort out some potential schools.

It is really easy to get caught up in rankings; please resist this temptation.

Also remember that just about every program is getting about 300 applicants; maybe some are "only" getting 150, but when there are only 8-15 spots, that is wildly competitive. Harvard's undergrad acceptance rate is (I believe) about 8%; most PhD programs in Literature accept about 5% or less. So getting a spot in a PhD program is essentially more difficult than getting into Harvard. I don't say that to scare people, but to point out the insignificance of the rankings. Even schools with "low" rankings are exceptional programs, and getting accepted is a phenomenal accomplishment.

Not trying to scare people. But do be prepared to wear your "I'm not scared (but really I'm scared shitless)" sunglasses, featured here --->

[TakeruK]

This is a common complaint among applicants every year. It's not productive to get all worked up about it, however. Just try to call or email the graduate coordinator to get the information you (think you) need.

I'm not trying to be jerky myself, though undoubtedly this next bit will sound that way: applying to grad school is terrible. Being in grad school is often terrible. You either suck it up because you love it despite the stupid shit you have to put up with, or you find another career. There is a lot of idiotic, opaque, bureaucratic crap you have to put up with in academia, and questions about GRE scores are the smallest, most insignificant of them all, so if this makes you completely freak out, you may want to rethink spending all that money on applications.

As was said after this post, everyone knows that grad school will be full of challenges. What matters is our ability to cope with the challenges, conquer them, and move on. I didn't see the posts in this thread as saying that the posters can't handle the communication problem. A common method of coping with challenges (one that I find work very well for me), is to discuss it with others in a similar situation and find support in one another. Usually I learn about a viewpoint I might not have considered before, but probably won't change my overall view. After the venting/complaining is done, we sigh, suck it up, and deal with the challenge. No one is saying they are going to give up because of this.

For example, everyone loves to complain about air travel -- tight seats, bad service, delays, lost luggage etc. Most of the complainers are still going to fly again, even the same airlines that give them problems before. Or, does your cohort/department have weekly/monthly pub nights where everyone gets together, have some drinks, gripe about their courses/research/equipment/etc. It's just a coping mechanism. And gradcafe is great for students in all stages of grad school to cope with grad schools' challenges.

[claire56]

Also remember that just about every program is getting about 300 applicants; maybe some are "only" getting 150, but when there are only 8-15 spots, that is wildly competitive. Harvard's undergrad acceptance rate is (I believe) about 8%; most PhD programs in Literature accept about 5% or less. So getting a spot in a PhD program is essentially more difficult than getting into Harvard. I don't say that to scare people, but to point out the insignificance of the rankings. Even schools with "low" rankings are exceptional programs, and getting accepted is a phenomenal accomplishment.

About that whole "only 8-15" spots or "only 5-10" spots out of 200 or 300 applicants. Isn't that less daunting than it seems, though? I mean, don't they actually have to accept more than that 8-15 or 5-10 because they want that many students who'll attend. I think they have to make more offers initially because not all students to whom they offer acceptances are going to choose their school, right? (I'm really not sure about this; I'm asking everyone...). I would think they have to "accept" about 20 and waitlist a few more beyond that, and just see who accepts. (Or maybe those 20 initial offers *is*....only 5-8%...yeah I guess that makes sense...)

Also, I agree about the rankings. I'm being very much not a rankings snob. (I'm actually more picky about location and size of school; I don't want to attend some really tiny school with only 11,000 students; I'm very used to and like big universities of 30,000 or more students). I'm applying to some schools that are in the 80s, 90s, and 100s as far as ranking. My own M.A. school was in the 80s, and I thought it was great / challenging. I can't imagine that the others 80s schools are any different, or the 90s or 100s ones are much different either. One of my friends from my M.A. program is attending a PhD program right now that ranked 125. I think he got into two other schools besides that. But the guy's pretty smart, and as far as I'm concerned, if that school is good enough for him, 100s-ranking schools are probably good enough for me too.

I think my current list is something like this:

20

41

52

52

63

87

87

87

94

105

110

as far as rank....

Edited June 30, 2012 by claire56

[TakeruK]

About that whole "only 8-15" spots or "only 5-10" spots out of 200 or 300 applicants. Isn't that less daunting than it seems, though? I mean, don't they actually have to accept more than that 8-15 or 5-10 because they want that many students who'll attend. I think they have to make more offers initially because not all students to whom they offer acceptances are going to choose their school, right? (I'm really not sure about this; I'm asking everyone...). I would think they have to "accept" about 20 and waitlist a few more beyond that, and just see who accepts. (Or maybe those 20 initial offers *is*....only 5-8%...yeah I guess that makes sense...)

This might be science-dependent, but from talking to profs at my schools and the profs at visiting schools, on average, a department expects between 25-30% of their offers actually attending. So if they are looking for 10 spots, they might *eventually* make up to 40 offers. I say *eventually* because what will most likely happen is they will make ~20-30 offers on a first wave and invite these people to visit, etc. After these people make their decisions -- some might reject the school right away, some will visit first, then second and maybe third waves of offers will come.

The number of offers made depends on the ranking of the school -- not many people will turn down a top 10 school for example, however, the best students will probably get multiple top 10 school offers so that might balance things out. Also, if the previous year was smaller/bigger than normal, then their first wave of offers might be bigger/smaller than normal etc.

As for rankings -- the danger with these massive rankings list is that they not always super accurate but more importantly, they don't always consider your subfield properly. For example, I study Planetary Science, which is sometimes its own department, sometimes part of Astronomy, sometimes part of Earth Sciences, and what I really do is in between Astronomy and Planetary Science. I can't compare rankings between two different lists. And, more importantly, your advisor's reputation will probably take you much further than the school's. Right now I'm at a Canadian school that is unknown to most people even in Canada (outside of Ontario) but I'm working with one of the best people in my field (in my opinion ).

You should get opinions about your future advisors from current mentors, if possible. Having a recognized advisor is the same as having an established member of the community vouch for you in the exclusive academia club! This is pretty useful until you are able to establish yourself independently -- for example, for the first few conferences, having a well known advisor will likely help your abstract get selected for an oral presentation since people might not be familiar with your work otherwise.

Just to provide another point to think about -- I don't consider myself a ranking snob (but maybe I'm not judging myself fairly) but when I applied, I mostly targeted high ranking schools. I did this in a small part because of the "prestige" since I want to settle down in my hometown more than I want to be in academia. So it would be better if I could go to a school ranked higher than the ones in my hometown. Also, if I don't end up in research, the brand power of the school name will help me get non-research jobs, I think.

But I targeted high ranking schools mostly because they tend to have more money which means more chances of me, an international student that requires full funding, to get accepted. Indeed, I got in a few high ranking private school programs, but was rejected by lower ranked public programs too! In Canada, for my MSc, I didn't have to worry about funding issues so I went to the best project/supervisor and didn't have to worry about rank High ranking schools also tend to have other things I was looking for such as a big city (or close to one). These factors were important to me because my wife and I made our decision with equal weight to academic factors and personal/quality of life factors

[Two Espressos]

About that whole "only 8-15" spots or "only 5-10" spots out of 200 or 300 applicants. Isn't that less daunting than it seems, though? I mean, don't they actually have to accept more than that 8-15 or 5-10 because they want that many students who'll attend. I think they have to make more offers initially because not all students to whom they offer acceptances are going to choose their school, right? (I'm really not sure about this; I'm asking everyone...). I would think they have to "accept" about 20 and waitlist a few more beyond that, and just see who accepts. (Or maybe those 20 initial offers *is*....only 5-8%...yeah I guess that makes sense...)

Also, I agree about the rankings. I'm being very much not a rankings snob. (I'm actually more picky about location and size of school; I don't want to attend some really tiny school with only 11,000 students; I'm very used to and like big universities of 30,000 or more students). I'm applying to some schools that are in the 80s, 90s, and 100s as far as ranking. My own M.A. school was in the 80s, and I thought it was great / challenging. I can't imagine that the others 80s schools are any different, or the 90s or 100s ones are much different either. One of my friends from my M.A. program is attending a PhD program right now that ranked 125. I think he got into two other schools besides that. But the guy's pretty smart, and as far as I'm concerned, if that school is good enough for him, 100s-ranking schools are probably good enough for me too.

I think my current list is something like this:

20

41

52

52

63

87

87

87

94

105

110

as far as rank....

I wouldn't ignore ranking entirely. There is a tendency in many fields to be obsessive-compulsive as regards "prestige," and that's to be avoided, but it seems like many people in the humanities have an opposite problem: ignoring rankings altogether. There's oftentimes good reason for some lower-ranked schools to be lower-ranked; for example, a lowly-ranked Ph.D.-granting institution near me has a reputation for being a total joke as regards academics. Ph.D.'s from there only seem to get jobs at local schools.

Personally, I'm not venturing outside the top 50, but that's just me.

[claire56]

I wouldn't ignore ranking entirely. There is a tendency in many fields to be obsessive-compulsive as regards "prestige," and that's to be avoided, but it seems like many people in the humanities have an opposite problem: ignoring rankings altogether. There's oftentimes good reason for some lower-ranked schools to be lower-ranked; for example, a lowly-ranked Ph.D.-granting institution near me has a reputation for being a total joke as regards academics. Ph.D.'s from there only seem to get jobs at local schools.

Personally, I'm not venturing outside the top 50, but that's just me.

I hear you. And I don't doubt it. But I am also not recommending my course of action to others. People should do what's right for them and what aligns with their career goals. I'm not necessarily looking for a university teaching job afterwards. It'd be nice, I guess, but it's not my main goal. So many people with PhDs don't get a university teaching job anyway, even if they went to a highly-ranked school, so I'm not making it a priority to go to a highly ranked school.

All that being said, I'd rather go to one of the more highly-ranked schools. Just allowing myself to consider others as well. I'd go to a school that was in the 100s if it were the only one I got into and I felt it was worth it. (I also made sure the schools that I was willing to include in my list that were more lower-ranked schools were in cities I'd really like to live in, so there's a built in trade-off).

[claire56]

Just to provide another point to think about -- I don't consider myself a ranking snob (but maybe I'm not judging myself fairly) but when I applied, I mostly targeted high ranking schools. I did this in a small part because of the "prestige" since I want to settle down in my hometown more than I want to be in academia. So it would be better if I could go to a school ranked higher than the ones in my hometown. Also, if I don't end up in research, the brand power of the school name will help me get non-research jobs, I think.

But I targeted high ranking schools mostly because they tend to have more money which means more chances of me, an international student that requires full funding, to get accepted. Indeed, I got in a few high ranking private school programs, but was rejected by lower ranked public programs too! In Canada, for my MSc, I didn't have to worry about funding issues so I went to the best project/supervisor and didn't have to worry about rank High ranking schools also tend to have other things I was looking for such as a big city (or close to one). These factors were important to me because my wife and I made our decision with equal weight to academic factors and personal/quality of life factors

Thanks for your response about the # of offers made and how they do it in "waves." All makes sense.

Yeah, I hear you on all your reasons for targeting high-ranking schools. Makes sense, and I didn't mean to offend anybody by referring to "being a ranking snob." It was just a phrase I used. I think people should aim high if they want to and if they have reasons for it. I just am not doing so completely because 1) well, I just don't think I have a chance at top 30 schools, 2) I think I DO have a chance at some middling schools in the 40-60 range, and an even better one in the 60s, 70s, and 80s 3) some of my classmates in my M.A. program told me they got into no schools at all or only into the one where we did our M.A.s. And our school was ranked 87. So...I'm no better than my classmates. There's no reason for me to believe I could do much better than they did. But you never know.

Anyway, one of my friends, a really smart girl, applied to all Ivy League English PhD programs; she considered U.T.- Austin her "low end" choice; she got into no programs. She's smart, but I thought she was kinda crazy to apply to all Ivy League, and to consider UT-Austin "low end."

I'm big on living in a major metropolitan area too. That factors into my choices. If it's not a major metropolitan area, it has to be a rather cool college town. But I'd rather the major metropolitan area thing.

Edited July 1, 2012 by claire56

[ktwho]

Hi Claire56,

What are your goals after you finish a PhD?

[Stately Plump]

This might be science-dependent, but from talking to profs at my schools and the profs at visiting schools, on average, a department expects between 25-30% of their offers actually attending. So if they are looking for 10 spots, they might *eventually* make up to 40 offers. I say *eventually* because what will most likely happen is they will make ~20-30 offers on a first wave and invite these people to visit, etc. After these people make their decisions -- some might reject the school right away, some will visit first, then second and maybe third waves of offers will come.

This may be true, but one of the problems facing many departments in the humanities is an *extreme* lack of funding. They literally cannot afford to make offers to 20-30 people initially, even if they "know" only 5-10 of those 20-30 will eventually accept.

Departments also differ. I'm pretty sure some schools accept more than they can fund fully. Others will only accept students to whom they can offer full funding; in this case, they will probably only make 10-ish offers, wait-list others, and then accept off the wait-list as their initial offers decline.

The worst thing they could do would be to extend 20 offers, guarantee full funding, have 20 people accept, and then tell 8-10 of them they won't receive funding.

I wouldn't ignore ranking entirely. There is a tendency in many fields to be obsessive-compulsive as regards "prestige," and that's to be avoided, but it seems like many people in the humanities have an opposite problem: ignoring rankings altogether. There's oftentimes good reason for some lower-ranked schools to be lower-ranked; for example, a lowly-ranked Ph.D.-granting institution near me has a reputation for being a total joke as regards academics. Ph.D.'s from there only seem to get jobs at local schools.

Personally, I'm not venturing outside the top 50, but that's just me.

Please do be careful about rankings. Don't ignore them completely, but don't place too much value on them either. Is there really a difference between a school ranked 45 and one ranked 55? Or even 45 and 65? Of course, most students want to/will attend the most prestigious program they can, but with how competitive these programs are, it would be silly to think that really fantastic work isn't being done in schools outside the "top 50."

Also, it will vary from field to field. I know Notre Dame, for example, is ranked in the 40s by US News, but is in the top 10 for Medieval studies.

I mentioned this in an earlier post, but there was a student last year who was accepted to one program, which is ranked in the top 5. Obviously, all the other programs--from which she was rejected--were not ranked higher. So did those lower-ranked programs accept "better" students, and the top 5 school take what was left? Of course not! It just happened to work out that way. There is zero "scholarly" or "professional" explanation for that. It just happened.

Please don't take this the wrong way. I'm not trying to offend anyone. I just want to point out that the system is more arbitrary than many people would like, and sometimes the very best students end up programs ranked lower than they thought they would have liked.

Remember: every program is somebody's dream program.

Edited July 1, 2012 by Stately Plump

[claire56]

Hi Claire56,

What are your goals after you finish a PhD?

Well, despite what I said above, university teaching isn't ruled out. While I was doing my M.A., I had some friends who were in the PhD program at our school. Our school was ranked 87, and some of them have gotten university teaching jobs. I can think of three who did. So, I don't think it's impossible to get a university teaching job even if one's PhD program wasn't Top 50.

That said, I"m not counting on getting a university teaching job. I'm an adjunct at a community college right now (have been for three years), so maybe I'll just keep teaching community college (will probably be easier to get full time if I have a PhD) and just be a higher-status community college teacher because I have my PhD!.

Also, as I work on my new writing sample and do so much reading on a certain type of theory and criticism, I've realized how much I may well be into research and writing. I don't know what's going to happen, but I really hope my research abilities and general enjoyment of research will flourish in a PhD program, and that even if I'm not employed with a university, I could research and write in some other capacity.