Are the PhD admit given to International student on decline?

[ankurshah]

Hello Everyone, 

 

I was a fellow PhD applicant. An international applicant with a master's degree from US but currently residing in my home country. I has applied to around 8 uni for PhD program in chemical and/or materials engineering. Out of the 8 based on my personal experience, quality of program and quality of the past admit, i was confident of securing 2-3 admits. To my surprise, this did not happen and i got rejected from all the 8 institute. I assume it must be either my SOP or LOR(and if this is the case, i wont get an admit ever!!!).

 

But having talked to fellow applicants from home and foreign land, there seem to be a notion that the number of PhD admits given out this year has reduced substantially. For Instance, Rutgers materials dept had only 8 open slot compared to 14 last year. UWashington-Seattle's at minimum 20 slots(number is from a student over there) has reduced to 11. apart slot reduction, does age factor does come into play?. I am 27 yrs old/young guy. over the last few years, i have seen the pattern of admitting students directly from bachelors there by reducing the average age of the class to around 22-23. I do not know if the age can be a big impact but the pattern of lowering age averages of incoming class suggests so.

 

Well, all in all, this might just be figment of my imagination. As getting 8 reject, i might me looking for answer where it might not exist. Do feel free weigh in on above notion. It might help others, well at-least me when i start making 2nd round of application. Just hoping my LOR were sting and my SOP was crap

[ConGrUenCy]

You had research experience and publications from your master's?

[efh0888]

There could be any number of reasons for the rejections. As you mentioned, even with a stellar GPA and high GRE scores, a poorly written SOP and/or weak letters could really hurt. Assuming academic qualification (i.e. appropriate background, good GPA, & good GRE scores), seemingly the most important thing to do for gaining admission is to convince the schools that you you are (i) capable of conducting high quality research and (ii) interested in the same topics that their faculty are interested in, i.e. having a good research fit with at least 1 faculty member. Part (i) is usually done by having relevant research experience and getting a professor with whom you did research to write you a LOR. Then, of course, (ii) is done primarily through the SOP.

 

Honestly, I doubt age had anything to do with it. Maybe if you were in your 30's...

Edited May 1, 2013 by efh0888

[phmhjh85]

All the reasons you mentioned might be true. Yet I think you cannot base your PhD admitability -making this word up - on your past experience with masters . From what I understand phd has a lot to do with research fit first, then comes background, experience, publications....and finally the numbers factor in (GPA, GRE,..) I am also an international applicant and got into 3 top ranked masters programs in a professional degree , ( 4.0 gpa both undergrad and master, 325 gre, 117 toefl, respectable grant, excellent LOR & SOP if I may say so ) Yet I know for sure that my chances at a PhD at similar schools are currently very weak, because I lack the research experience that many of my fellow american applicants would have , even if they are just out of undergrad and generally speaking phds have much more limited slots -regardless of the sequester-making them much more competitive particularly for internationals Not saying that it is the same in your case, but I believe there is a difference that you might want to consider while preparing to improve your chances. Best of luck next cycle.

[tip3r]

I think you made a mistake assuming your past admissions experience was a good base for how you should fare this time around. I made the same exact mistake as you did. Luckily I got admitted to two places out of the 10 I applied to, they were the last two.

 

Honestly, I think that having already gotten an MS degree hurts your chances of getting into a PhD program. The professors risk much less by taking recent B.S. graduates. They can keep the student much longer, and if the student doesn't turn out to be good, or if funding the student becomes difficult the student can easily change their program of study to an M.S. program and graduate where as things would get a little ugly for someone who already had an M.S.

 

I applied directly for PhD when I got my B.S. degree. I started my undergrad on the wrong foot and failed two math courses which is a bad sign for an engineering student. I bounced back and had excellent grades for the rest of my undergrad and I even got some research experience and a conference presentation out. But the two failed math courses were on my transcripts for all adcoms to see. I got several admits from prestigious universities offering me full funding. I ended up going to a lower ranked school for M.S. due to family matters thinking that after my M.S. I will get into even better schools. Alas, even the schools who had admitted me last time would not give me an offer this time around...

 

P.S. I was also an international applicant. However I see that undergrad students from my B.S. institute are still being admitted to first rated institutes. However, I admit that I think that something has changed since last year. Last year students from my institute got way better results...