Overqualified - Truth or lies?

[geographyrocks]

So, I've noticed more than a couple of people posting on the results board that they were overqualified for a program.  This has ALWAYS been coupled with a rejection.  At first, I thought it was just a bitter response.  Since then, I've seen people post as if the program told them that they were overqualified.  And after the shear number of seeing people claim they were overqualified for a program, I began to wonder: Is that ever true? 

 

What do you think?  Do you think anyone is ever rejected because they are overqualified or do you think that people will go to any lengths to preserve their giant egos?

 

 

[Human_]

i'm too overqualified to be talking to you people on this forum

[sys88]

I've heard of "safety schools" rejecting "ivy candidates" because it wasn't worth the effort to recruit the candidate when they clearly were qualified/going to accept an offer elsewhere. I have no idea how real that is.

[vityaz]

I doubt it. Sounds like sour grapes.

[TheGirlWhoLived]

I don't know about grad school, but this definitey happens with jobs. So, why not?

[dat_nerd]

I doubt it. Being rejected on a lack of research fit is the more likely reason. 

[geographyrocks]

I doubt it. Being rejected on a lack of research fit is the more likely reason. 

That's what I'm thinking.  There's a reason why so many people get rejected from their "safety schools".  I think most people choose a safety school because they think it's easy to get into, not because it's a good research fit. 

[pears]

I've heard of "safety schools" rejecting "ivy candidates" because it wasn't worth the effort to recruit the candidate when they clearly were qualified/going to accept an offer elsewhere. I have no idea how real that is.

 

I doubt it. Being rejected on a lack of research fit is the more likely reason. 

 

I think it's probably a mix of these. No sense in investing all the effort (plus time and money) to recruit, set up funding packages, etc., for a candidate who will likely not commit. I also wouldn't be surprised if people who regard any graduate program as a "safety school" — if there even is such a thing! — have a tendency to rub interviewers and POIs the wrong way, i.e., seem self absorbed or overly confident in a way that would make them a poor fit for a given cohort, lab, department, or professor. Not that I have any real experience in this sort of thing, but if I had the option of being extremely selective when picking candidates, admitting someone who came off as cocky would give me pause, especially if there were other applicants with more pleasant personalities, even if they had, say, one fewer publication.

[Bleep_Bloop]

This happened to me and I wasn't bitter about it, I got into a better-ranked program in the end. In my case it wasn't simply "poor research fit." I was first waitlisted by the school, which reviewed apps very early in the cycle. I heard through a contact that I had in the department that they worried that I would take an offer elsewhere and didn't want to spend the resources trying to recruit me. I was told to contact the department if I didn't get any other offers, in which case they would take me off the waitlist. I got into a top program, notified them, and the waitlist turned into a rejection. No hard feelings on either end, I've since been on good terms with members of that department. But it was, in fact, because they thought I was overqualified/going to go to a higher tier of grad programs. So it does happen.