The opaque ways of the phd committees...

[bambi_86]

So, I'm posting this only a few hours after having received my second (!) rejection notice of the day. Needless to say it hasn't been a great day so far. 

 

What bothers me so much about these two rejections isn't specifically that I got rejected -- I always knew that applying was a gamble -- but that they were from schools where I had really good contact with my POI. For one of them, I had a recommendation letter from my POI:s foremost publishing colleague, an absolute top scholar in my (very narrow) field, and my POI had both encouraged me to apply and told me that he got in touch with the committee to lobby for me. I had a similar situation a few weeks ago, when I got rejected from a school where me and my POI:s interests matched extremely well. I have a vast number of publications and conference presentations within my field, and I'm currently in a renowned MA program (although professional) in this field. My grades are good (3.81/4), my GPA pretty good with a terrible quant score unfortunately. 

 

I guess I'm not surprised since all my POI:s have also told me that admissions is a tough game in their field, and two of the three POI:s at schools I've had rejections from explicitly said they weren't on the committees for this year. But still, I can't help to be bummed and a little surprised. I guess what I'm trying to assess is how much lobbying from one person can really help, and how much influence individual POI:s have on the process. I've probably been hoping for too much based on only individual people's words and encouragement, and I'm trying to wrap my head around what went wrong...

 

Still waiting for six more programs, of which I think I might have a realistic shot at two or so (even those may be tough). I did get admitted to Cambridge, but as I'm sure you all know, UK programs are not at all as rigorous as US ones and I haven't heard good things about my department. 

[c m]

I definitely think it can help but I know from reading other people's experiences on here that it most certainly does not guarantee anything.

 

I do not know about Asian Studies departments but I imagine that within Asian studies, there are a lot of smaller specialties.  Am I right? Reason I ask, is that is the same for my intended program, Art History. And for Art History, you might have a POI pulling for you but if you are contemporary and they need to balance the admits between contemporary American, pre-modern Chinese art, Italian Baroque, art of the Americas, etc. specialities then sometimes it just is bad luck more than anything else.

 

So basically, I am saying it is possible nothing went wrong.  The process is opaque and the problem just might be as simple as interdepartmental research balance.

 

And waiting for six more programs? That is still a good percentage to hear back from and means it is far too early to get overly discouraged.  Rejections suck, but Cambridge wants you so clearly you have what it takes to be a considerable candidate.

 

Good luck!

[Taeyers]

Sorry to hear things turned out like that. I'm sure your POIs did support you as much as they reasonably could, but to answer your question, sometimes that factor just isn't enough to outweigh others. Without a doubt, both I and my good friend in my cohort had strong support from someone either on the adcom or with strong influence. However, two of the handful of recruits that my program brought in this year had strong POIs pushing for their acceptance (one is even our department head), but they were both waitlisted. Instead, other recruits who just wowed everyone in terms of personality and passion about research were offered admission, even without strong support from a particular POI. Sometimes that's just the way it works. There was nothing actually wrong with the waitlisted recruits, and if compared against a different set of applicants, they might have been top picks for admission. Hopefully that will be the case at your other schools. You sound like a very strong applicant, so chalk this up to your bad luck, or just someone else's really good luck with that particular committee. 

[bambi_86]

Thanks a lot to the both of you -- really helps to hear about other people's experiences and knowledge on the matter. C m you're absolutely right that what I'm applying to study is a very small speciality in the broader Asian studies field, I know a lot of academics think it's too small to even warrant the full research attention of a scholar (which I don't agree with but that's a different story). I know there are no guarantees and that no word from any person can entirely make or break an application, just like you point out Taeyers. 

 

I guess it was just a crappy coincidence that I heard back from two of my top programs in one day. Hoping that I've had my share of bad news for this week. Best of luck to all of you, hope you get better news than I did today! 

[bambi_86]

Really, this was exactly what I needed to hear right now. Back to fighting spirit mode! :-)