Disappointing dissertation grades: Are PHD admission chances doomed?

[Politicus]

I studied Master's in International relations at a reputed English University and performed quite well in term papers (averaged distinction) but the dissertation which I had expected would fetch marks at least at "merit" level has left me disappointed. It's only pass. While my GPA still averages equivalent to 3.38/4.00 (According to WES grades conversion) I am daunted by the fact the admission committee might have reservations as to my research potential. I have two conference presentations across the Atlantic, GRE scores in the 80s percentile and a decent SOP. Before grading, I was considering top-ranking political science programs such as MIT, Stanford, Princeton and OSU among others. However, after receiving dismal grades I am confused if I should still go for these programs, apply to mid- and-lower-ranking programs or simply renounce the idea of doing doctoral research? Out of this muddle, therefore, answers to the following questions would be helpful.

Does the admission Committee really take dissertation marks quite seriously, despite a stellar record in term-papers?

If yes, is there any way I can compensate for the apparent discrepancy?

And, would it be advisable to send dissertation (after editing and proofreading in line with supervisor's feedback) as a writing sample?

Any insights would be appreciated.

[roboticx]

Hi ,

I am also in the same boat as you do and would love to hear what others have to say.I believe you should mention in your SOP the actual reason  for your low grade in thesis  and  what you learned from it. In my case i have mentioned an extenuating circumstance where my department had an internal deadline of publishing paper out of your thesis and how my paper got published one week later. While i believe admission committee will frown upon the excuses for your own mistakes, being  honest is quite appreciated in academia.  Ofcourse i am just a Grad student, so take my suggestion with pinch of salt .

[cooperstreet]

The best you can do is improve the other parts of your application. There's nothing you can do about your grade now. Why ddi teh committee say you should only get a pass?

[GradSchoolTruther]

How in the heck is a deadline for a paper to be published an extenuating circumstance? And how do you get a paper published in such a short time in any journal that would matter to an admissions committee?

[alphazeta]

This is probably obvious, but the reasons matter.  What was wrong with the paper?  If it was simply underdeveloped or has easily fixable problems, then I think it would actually work quite well to fix those problems, show the new draft to your former advisors and send it out as a writing sample.  One thing about the low marks is that whatever flaws were involved will likely find their way into your letters of recommendation, so fixing the paper will kill two birds.  Ideally, the LORs would then say something about the fact that the first draft had flaws but you fixed them.

[ngogirl]

My master's program only gave Pass as an option for the thesis.. Will that be a problem?

[fuzzylogician]

2 hours ago, ngogirl said:

My master's program only gave Pass as an option for the thesis.. Will that be a problem?

No. 

There is a difference between getting a pass in a pass/fail system and getting a pass in a system that allows for several better grades. 

[fuzzylogician]

7 hours ago, roboticx said:

Hi ,

I am also in the same boat as you do and would love to hear what others have to say.I believe you should mention in your SOP the actual reason  for your low grade in thesis  and  what you learned from it. In my case i have mentioned an extenuating circumstance where my department had an internal deadline of publishing paper out of your thesis and how my paper got published one week later. While i believe admission committee will frown upon the excuses for your own mistakes, being  honest is quite appreciated in academia.  Ofcourse i am just a Grad student, so take my suggestion with pinch of salt .

Have at least one faculty member read your SOP and pay special attention to this part of it. As you wrote it here, it doesn't sound like something I would recommend adding to the SOP. It doesn't paint you in a good light and I would not consider it an acceptable extenuating circumstance. 

[fuzzylogician]

18 hours ago, Politicus said:

Does the admission Committee really take dissertation marks quite seriously, despite a stellar record in term-papers?

If yes, is there any way I can compensate for the apparent discrepancy?

And, would it be advisable to send dissertation (after editing and proofreading in line with supervisor's feedback) as a writing sample?

Any insights would be appreciated.

- Admissions committees look at application files as a whole, so this grade will be looked at in the context of your other grades, etc. The thesis is a larger project and therefore all things being equal I would expect it to be a reasonable reflection of the potential of a student to succeed in similar and larger-sized projects in the future. Conference presentations are another such indication. Yet another consideration is the opinion your professors express about your potential in their LORs. So an important question is what led to this lower grade. 

- Concentrate on the things you can change. At this point, assuming your deadlines are coming up in a month or two, that is probably your SOP and writing sample. 

- That is something you need to consult with your advisors about. You need to understand why you only got a pass, and how you can improve. It's possible that there are parts that are very strong and maybe one of them can be used as a writing sample, and it's possible that your grade indicates that the entire piece is weak. We can't know which of those options it correct, or if it's something else that led to the lower grade. 

[Politicus]

7 hours ago, fuzzylogician said:

- Admissions committees look at application files as a whole, so this grade will be looked at in the context of your other grades, etc. The thesis is a larger project and therefore all things being equal I would expect it to be a reasonable reflection of the potential of a student to succeed in similar and larger-sized projects in the future. Conference presentations are another such indication. Yet another consideration is the opinion your professors express about your potential in their LORs. So an important question is what led to this lower grade. 

- Concentrate on the things you can change. At this point, assuming your deadlines are coming up in a month or two, that is probably your SOP and writing sample. 

- That is something you need to consult with your advisors about. You need to understand why you only got a pass, and how you can improve. It's possible that there are parts that are very strong and maybe one of them can be used as a writing sample, and it's possible that your grade indicates that the entire piece is weak. We can't know which of those options it correct, or if it's something else that led to the lower grade. 

Thank you "fuzzylogician" for the comprehensive and insightful feedback. I have requested my school to provide me (official) feedback as to what went wrong with the piece of writing and once I get it, it will be clear where it needs improvement and how that can effectively be addressed. I am pretty sure, I will be getting strong LORs from other professors in whose modules I performed relatively better and this among other strong components of the application might assuage the dissertation nightmare. Still, as you suggested, I am on the lookout to identify and address what caused the lower grade in the first place.

Thank you once again for the insightful comments. 

[roboticx]

13 hours ago, fuzzylogician said:

Have at least one faculty member read your SOP and pay special attention to this part of it. As you wrote it here, it doesn't sound like something I would recommend adding to the SOP. It doesn't paint you in a good light and I would not consider it an acceptable extenuating circumstance. 

Thanks for your suggestion fuzzylogician. Initially my department (STEM) had set a deadline and gave us  some five months to publish a paper as publication carried some marks in  evaluating our thesis. The problem is that my paper was still under review during the dissertation defense and i have not heard any word from my reviewer.As such i had to lose marks concerning the publication part. As it turned out, i got my acceptance letter just a week after my thesis defense and my paper recently got published. While i have got assurances from my adviser and one of faculties from supervisory committee to corroborate my claim, i don't know if it reflects positively on me.  My thesis very pertinent to my PhD proposal and i believe there will me many questions regarding my relatively inferior grade in dissertation when compared to my coursework. I have also mentioned how my dissertation grade stack up against my peers.I scored 7/10 while mean score was 6/10 and topper's was 8/10.  My final GPA was 8.1/10 while top of the class had 8.7/10. I am not entirely sure how to address this concern.Could you please tell me how to go about this problem? Thanks again.

[cooperstreet]

I think that's a question for your advisors, no? Also robotics is not the same field as political science, by a long shot, so circumstances are very different.

[fuzzylogician]

4 hours ago, roboticx said:

Thanks for your suggestion fuzzylogician. Initially my department (STEM) had set a deadline and gave us  some five months to publish a paper as publication carried some marks in  evaluating our thesis. The problem is that my paper was still under review during the dissertation defense and i have not heard any word from my reviewer.As such i had to lose marks concerning the publication part. As it turned out, i got my acceptance letter just a week after my thesis defense and my paper recently got published. While i have got assurances from my adviser and one of faculties from supervisory committee to corroborate my claim, i don't know if it reflects positively on me.  My thesis very pertinent to my PhD proposal and i believe there will me many questions regarding my relatively inferior grade in dissertation when compared to my coursework. I have also mentioned how my dissertation grade stack up against my peers.I scored 7/10 while mean score was 6/10 and topper's was 8/10.  My final GPA was 8.1/10 while top of the class had 8.7/10. I am not entirely sure how to address this concern.Could you please tell me how to go about this problem? Thanks again.

The entire process sounds very different from anything I know. Perhaps not surprisingly, since I'm in a social science, not engineering. The publication requirement would not be something anyone in my field would ever begin to entertain; there is so much that goes into the process beyond whether the paper is good enough. I don't really know what to say, asking your advisor seems like a good way to go. If the paper is now accepted and published and your advisor and/or other LOR writers say it's a good paper and would serve as a good basis for your PhD proposal, that should help. Is there any way to petition to have the thesis grade changed retroactively, since you now meet the requirement?