Is it really getting harder to enter grad school?

[gurumaster8899]

With the economy messed up and all, i keep reading that more people are going back to school...does that make it harder for the other applicants, especially for Phd programs?

[natofone]

Yup. Not only more competition, but also fewer spots and less funding. Much more competitive than two years ago would have been.

[bbq555]

is this the same for masters programs?

[SconnieNation]

there is definitely more applicants and funding is, for the most part, not increasing. On the flip side, schools need to make up lost funding. I wouldn't be surprsied to see if you did a general survey of various programs, the number of enrolled students being up (I'd guess 5-10%) from previous years in most programs.

[sankd]

A large increase in applicants, which started last year, made things especially difficult. The irony is that while in some cases they may take more applicants because they need money, it's not really an improvement on their actual acceptance rate.. and less people get funding, which is the real problem.

So basically, it is harder to get into graduate school in general, and especially worse to get funding.

[natofone]

is this the same for masters programs?

No, I've heard that many MA programs are enrolling more students to increase revenues. There should be more spots for MA programs. The PhD front seems bleak.

[Tritonetelephone]

YES, it is really getting harder to enter grad school - especially if you expect funding.

I only applied to schools that fund all or the vast majority of their accepted students, which is common in my field. Every single school I applied to received more applications and accepted smaller cohorts than usual. There are lots of complaints about it from 2009's applicants throughout these forums.