How many get in?

[philstudent1991]

How many competitive applicants are there each year? I figure there are roughly 50 PGR schools in the US, plus a couple in the UK (Oxford, Cambridge, etc.) and Canada (Toronto, McGill, etc.), plus a couple schools that aren't ranked but have strong specialty areas (Vanderbilt, Emory, etc.), plus the top MA programs (Tufts, Georgia State, Houston, etc.). So let's say there are 70-75ish programs that top applicants might be looking at. The number of applicants each one takes varies widely (Georgia State somewhere like 22, U Chicago 10, Yale 5, etc.), but perhaps we can say that the average program of the sort we are considering takes 4-6 each year (if anyone has contrary information, by all means share). Given these rudimentary calculations, that means that between 280-450 spots exist each year in competitive programs (quite helpful range lol).

 

The first thing to do is to get a more accurate number of total spots. All I've done is make a very uninformed guess. But the real question for me is, how many applicants are there to fill those spots? Yale received 300 apps for 5 spots, but I have no doubt that a vast, vast, vast majority of those applicants applied all throughout the PGR as well. Perhaps the 300 applicants applying at the top 10 schools are roughly the same group of students, and therefore roughly 50 get picked by top schools then maybe lower tier schools pick up more of them and then we get into the 300s, 400s, 500s?, etc. I really have no idea. Any thoughts on how large the TOTAL APPLICANT POOL for competitive positions is? Or, any idea how many TOTAL SPOTS AVAILABLE there are in competitive (70-75 schools I mentioned) programs?

 

I know you guys are out there creepin on this forum, so please chime in!!!

Edited July 20, 2013 by philstudent1991

[maxhgns]

It's impossible to know, but the total applicant pool is probably in the thousands (somewhere between one and two, I think). For one thing, there are 75 ranked PGR programs, another 12 that get a mention but are unranked, the unranked/unmentioned notables you mention, and dozens of MA programs across the US, Canada, and the UK. Although some schools do get a lot of overlap (i.e. the ones with 200-300+ applicants, like most of US T10), most don't get nearly as much overlap as you might think. A large number of people who post at WGI, for example, apply to the US T10 and then scatter their applications around. Huge numbers of people apply to unranked programs and maybe one or two ranked ones. Tons more apply for MAs, many not even attempting PhD applications yet. Things are further complicated by the fact (if it is one--it seems like a reasonable conjecture, anyway) that most UK/Canadian/Australasian programs don't attract quite as many US applicants as US programs do UK/Canadian/Australasian applicants, and that many applicants in those countries aren't interested in applying out-of-country.

 

Even if your global odds were something like 1/2, however, your real odds are much, much poorer. In reality, you're competing against 200-300 other people for fiveish spots (or ten-fifteen if we count waitlists). A great many applicants do not make it in on their first go. Many never make it in at all.

 

It's also worth pointing out that the vast majority of applicants you're facing off against are "competitive," and every bit as good as you even if they didn't apply to the US T10 (or didn't get in while you did). It's an immensely complicated process precisely because there are so many factors and so many applicants. And once you're on the job market, everything gets way, way worse and way, way more competitive. There, you're facing off against hundreds of supremely qualified people for a single spot.

 

Consequently, I think the only safe conclusion is that your odds--no matter your stats--are not very good. You can mitigate that to an extent, however, by applying both broadly and selectively: don't just send an application to the US/International T20; instead, find 10-20 schools which are very good fits. Admissions committees notice fit, and when you're facing off against hundreds of others, you desperately want to get noticed.

[philstudent1991]

I agree with everything you pointed out, especially that one's odds are not good no matter who they are and where they apply. I also acknowledge that many applicants apply to unranked schools. In the program I am in, there are 3 or 4 of us applying to grad school, only one of whom (me) seems to have PGR aspirations.

 

In any case, however, it seems that if the top ten schools all had the same applicants, they would for the most part all pick the same people. This means that despite the subjective element, there is nonetheless a very objective element to the process. This means that there could, in theory, be a ranking of applicants, 1-2,000. What I want to know is of course where I fall in that range, but it seems that we are far too soon in the season for that. I also want to know, though, how many applicants get those coveted PGR plus a few spots, because then if I knew more or less my range, I could estimate where I'd have better chances, if I had any chances at all. And I know just about everyone on here is wondering the same thing.

[gatewayselect]

In any case, however, it seems that if the top ten schools all had the same applicants, they would for the most part all pick the same people. 

 

 

This is false.

 

There is an incredible variability and just dumb luck with admissions, which is all explainable with the subjectivity of the admissions process. With every change up in the admission committee, how one fares varies drastically with each year they apply. And how one fares will differ randomly across different universities. An applicant may one year get accepted by only lower ranked schools and rejected by higher ranked schools, and the next year rejected by lower ranked schools and accepted by higher ranked schools, despite having the same exact credentials as he had before.

 

The only way anyone is going to be able to objectively rank you on a ranking between 1 and 2,000, is if there are maybe five or six different block ratings, such that persons 1 through 400, are all equal in rank, and all persons 401 through 748 are all equal in rank.