Is PhD admission in USA fair or not?

[mmpp]

I have a M.Sc. degree in Industrial Engineering from Sharif University of Technology, the most
prestigious university in Iran with GPA 3.95 out of 4.My PhD application has been denied to many universities such as Georgia Tech,Purdue,NCSU,..

I think the PhD admission is not very fair in USA?

What is your opinion?

Please share your ideas, opinion with me and other applicant.

[Eigen]

All you mention is your GPA, which is probably the least important part of your application. 

 

Was your statement of purpose good? Did you discuss research that fit in with groups in the department?

 

You have an MS, do you have any publications? International conference presentations?

 

How many years of research experience? Most people with an MS in the US will have somewhere between 4-6 years of research experience, with several independent projects (see publications, above). 

 

How were your letters of recommendation? Are your writers well known in the US or world research communities? Were they able to say you were a strong and independent researcher?

[niven2]

As it occurs to me, it may have nothing to do with your nationality, nor with your alma mater.

 

Actually, students from Sharif can be very successful in admission polls. It is well-known that they are the finest product of one of the most selective academic systems around the world. Experienced professors are also used to see how well those last perform in qualifying exams, and how productive some of them can be. As a result, you can find former Sharif students in most of the best universities of the world (e.g. MIT, Stanford, McGill, ...) and even more in some specific places such as Virginia, Florida, Australia and Canada. You could even find more of them in States if you were considering the non-negligible part of them who get admits but do not manage to get visa afterward.

 

Hence, I would rather first rise the question of the intrinsic potential of competitivity of your file, and then put it in perspective with the files of other students from your alma mater that were accepted in the places you target. Coming from a great school with great academic results is good, but if some students in the very same situation than you can claim they were first authors of journal papers, international conference papers, or even book chapters (it does happen), and can provide strong letters of recommendation (as in the terms described by Cup o' Joe), it is crystal clear that they'll be more competitive. Plus, are your Qualitative and Analytical Writing GRE scores OK (they do not need to be great)?

Edited April 3, 2013 by niven2

[mmpp]

Thank you very much for your reply.

 

I have more than 6 years of research experience.

My GRE v:400 Q:700 AW:2.5

I know that Sharif University is very reputable university and when I communicated with professors, they appreciated my CV vey much .So I am very confused now with my admission results.

Please note that I applied very late  and near the deadline.Would it be possible it decreased my chance?

[Arcanen]

"My GRE v:400 Q:700 AW:2.5"

 

This is why. A great GRE score won't come close to guaranteeing admissions, but a poor score will cause you to be rejected. You would have been automatically rejected from everywhere on the basis of these scores (by administrative staff, not faculty) before anyone who knows your university had a chance to read your application. I'll use Georgia Tech as an example (since the information below is easily available on their website).

 

Your verbal score is in the 28th percentile, so you did better than 28% of applicants. The verbal isn't very important for industrial engineering, but this score would be seen as very concerning. The average Georgia Tech percentile for the PhD program is the 73rd percentile (so the average successful applicant does better than 73% of all applicants).

 

Your quant score is in the 64th percentile, so you did better than 64% of applicants. This isn't close to what you'll need to get into a decent engineering PhD program. The average Georgia Tech percentile for the PhD program is the 94th percentile (so the average successful applicant does better than 94% of all applicants).

 

Your AW score is in the 6th percentile, so you did better than 6% of applicants. This would be extremely concerning for admissions. Considering the huge number of applicants who have English a second language, to only do better than 6% of applicants indicates one thing to admissions committees; that you can't speak English. Of course, your posts show that your English is passable, so it is hard to say why this happened.The average Georgia Tech percentile for the PhD program is the 49th percentile.

 

So none of your scores in any category are close to being good enough. Your verbal and AW indicate (to adcoms, not me!) that you can't speak English, and your quant score just isn't sufficient either.

 

The bigger issue though? You clearly didn't do much investigation into the programs you were applying to before you submitted. You list your scores in the old format (rather than the newer format out of 170 for verbal and quant), and so you must have taken your GRE quite some time ago. This means you should have a great deal of time to investigate each of the programs you applied to and to discover that your GRE scores were way below the average successful applicant in all three sections (as I said, the GRE score information is generally available on each programs website). You should have then had plenty of time to study to improve your scores (because the GRE absolutely can be trained for) drastically in order to align with your GPA and research experience.

 

Whether or not the PhD admission process is fair in general, your rejection is. That you are in any way surprised at your rejections means you didn't give the admissions process enough time or attention, and rejecting such a candidate is definitely fair.

 

But all is not lost, you can study for the GRE and improve your scores. With ScoreSelect, you don't need to send your current scores and so they need not ever work against you again. Since you clearly took the GRE some time ago, you might find that your scores will have increased naturally if your English has improved in that time (in all three sections, since a lack of understanding questions in the quant section could be a reason for your poor score there).

 

Good luck!, and next time, make sure you read absolutely everything about what is expected of successful applicants at the programs you applied to.

[niven2]

I also think your GRE scores are low. However, I would not go as far as Arcanen and say that you necessarily need to reach the average scores of the school you consider, at least, not for Verbal. I confess I would not have applied to such schools as you mentioned with a lower score than 500-770-3.5 (now worth 153-161-3.5), that I subjectively see as a bare threshold for foreigners in engineering. As Arcanen wrote, while GRE scores can not grant you admissions, they surely can turn you down.

[MikKar]

My 0.02€ on this matter,

 

mmpp, I agree with niven2 and Arcanen, your GRE scores are probably getting you eliminated before your application even reaches the faculty members. A GRE score of 170-170-6.0 will never guarantee an admission, but anything below 145 (in the new format) is an application-killer. I dare say that foreigners should have at least 153 if they are aiming at top Universities (I am one myself, and I got 155, which is hardly setting the world alight, I don't understand how people get 165+ on the Verbal part).

 

My personal opinion regarding the reason for your rejections would be mainly on your Statement of Purpose and possibly your letters of recommendation. Getting your Statement of Purpose right is critically crucial, because that's the one part where you are fully in control and you want to give your very best in it. It is also the place where you can convince an admissions panel that you are the right candidate and why it is so. The "why" comes by investigating the Program itself, the Faculty members, their approach to research, etc. It requires a lot of work and is not as easy as it looks. You will find very valuable advice about how to write SOPs in this forum (for which I am grateful because it really makes a lot of sense).

 

I won't comment on the fairness of admission panels in American Universities. Honestly : I don't know, I haven't been in one so I definitely have no idea on how they work. What I will say, though, is that the admission process in itself is pretty fickle and there is always a degree of luck/randomness somewhere along the line. There is nothing we can do about that though.

[Ezzy]

Certainly there's wiggle room on verbal scores (and that section strikes me as very difficult to study for), but you're an engineer: there's absolutely no excuse for a math score below the 90th percentile (and even that is pushing it). Practice, practice, practice.

 

Regardless, this process is generally something of a crapshoot. It's entirely possible that you could be qualified for four schools, apply to all of them, and get into none. That's just how it goes. I wouldn't call it unfair, though.

[tarrman]

It's definitely more competitive among international applicants in science and engineering simply because there are typically many more internationals applying. Consequently you need to perform really well to beat out other competition, while domestic applicants may be able to get in a little more easily since competition isn't as tough. I can see how this could be interpreted as "unfair".

 

Just to reiterate what everyone else is saying here, the GRE is one of the first thing reviewers look at in the application process. Those with really low scores are rejected without even considering other sections of the application, and it is likely that is what happened with you. They do this to process applications more quickly. To give an example, Georgia Tech ECE states on their website "... if your scores are very low (ie., below 400V, 700Q, and 3.5AW, under the old grading system, and under the new grading system 146V, 155Q), your application will be declined." I'm guessing the programs you applied to have similar or even higher standards.

[Arcanen]

Certainly there's wiggle room on verbal scores (and that section strikes me as very difficult to study for), but you're an engineer: there's absolutely no excuse for a math score below the 90th percentile (and even that is pushing it). Practice, practice, practice.

 

Absolutely there is wiggle room, which is why even for top programs the averages for AW are around the 50th percentile and verbal the 70th percentile. This IS the wiggle room in action, as you wouldn't really associate 50th and 70th percentile scores in general with some of the best universities in the world. This is a far cry from 6th percentile and 28th percentile respectively; The OPs verbal and AW scores are least as problematic as the quant, and should not be ignored in favor of it. Since the OP did well in undergrad, it's quite likely that his poor quant score was also because of poor English, and improving his English over the next year is likely the most reasonable way to improve scores in all sections.

 

 

 

However, I would not go as far as Arcanen and say that you necessarily need to reach the average scores of the school you consider,

 

I'm not saying that either; they are averages, of course there are people above that average and more importantly, below it. But there is a big difference between applying to a school with scores ten percentage points below their average for one section and applying with 30-50 percentage points below for every section. But the averages give you an idea of the ballpark you have to be in. The OP is playing ball on the moon.

[33andathirdRPM]

I'm restating what I did in the other thread, but for IE/OR a 700 QR score is a red flag.

[mmpp]

Thank you very much every one.

I should clarify about this issue. I appreciate your help again.

 I do not blame the admission system. We do not live in Utopia(where everything is perfect). I know there are a large pool of candidate and decision making is very hard. I mean only there are some weaknesses in admission system.  However it has many advantages. I think  if an applicant have a feedback about its application it will be very better and applicant can know about the reasons of rejection.

Many people and  even faculty said that high GPA from a reputed university Can compensate for low GPA and there are many criteria  for admission such as GPA,GRE,recommndation letter, SOP, Publication, They consider all of these criteria for decision making. I had the minimum GRE for most of universities I applied.

The reason of my low GRE was family problem and I had only 2 weeks to prepare for this exam.

[Arcanen]

Many people and  even faculty said that high GPA from a reputed university Can compensate for low GRE

 

Unfortunately, even faculty (especially faculty from other countries) don't often have a good idea of what is expected to get into schools in other countries (unless they themselves got their degrees there or worked there at some point). Even faculty who did study in the US may no longer understand the way things work if they did their study some time ago; the PhD glut means that US admissions are more competitive than they used to be.

 

The GRE is one of the least important things about your application. But when someone says a high GPA can compensate for a low GRE, the word low is very much relative. A quant score in the 88th percentile is "low" for engineering programs.

 

 

 

 many criteria  for admission such as GPA,GRE,recommndation letter, SOP, Publication, They consider all of these criteria for decision making.

 

I strongly doubt your recommendations, statement of purpose or publication record were ever read. All these things come into making final decisions, but you have to realise that an enormous amount of people apply for these programs. Adcoms don't have the time (or inclination, at least) to read through all this stuff for hundreds of applicants, and so there will generally be some culling on the basis of GPA, GRE etc by administrative staff. This initial culling might not be particularly harsh (e.g. they might leave people in with GPAs>3.5 and GREs over, say, the 75th percentile), but you wouldn't have made it past this stage.

 

Unfortunately it seems like a lot of your issues may have come from listening to faculty at your university who really don't have an idea of what is expected instead of doing your own research. That you are surprised at your results is indicative of this. 

 

 

 

 I had the minimum GRE for most of universities I applied.

 

Being cynical, I would note that schools make a lot of money from applications. You might meet some "minimum", but I imagine it's incredibly rare for someone at the minimum to be admitted. Averages are a much more reliable indicator of where you should be around. You have to realise that these programs are extremely competitive. People with higher GPAs than yours from universities more well known than yours, with more research experience and extremely strong GREs are rejected all the time.

 

 

 

The reason of my low GRE was family problem and I had only 2 weeks to prepare for this exam.

 

You reported in the old score format. This likely means you took the GRE a considerable amount of time ago and should have had adequate time to retake it. 

Edited April 5, 2013 by Arcanen