The Admissions Process: How it Works

[Minnesotan]

*Originally posted by UndraftedFreeAgent

In my first semester in an Econ PhD program, our director of graduate studies explained how they went through the process of choosing who to admit and claimed that it was quite standard throughout the social sciences. Their first run through, directly after the deadline, is spent removing woefully unqualified applicants. He said that roughly half of all applicants had multiple major problems in their profile (no/negative recommendations, GPA 2.5 or below, GRE scores below 400 in every catagory, and so on), not just one poor section. He said that this problem was even more pronounced at top schools, as every student has a "stretch" school and many of these overlap. As application fees have apparently dropped significantly over the years, mediocre students feel the extra application, as unlikely as an admit may be, is still worth it.

He also told us that, unlike the pure sciences, social sciences get a lot of applicants who apply simply because they were afraid of going out into the real world or didn't know what else to do with their degrees. These were often less driven students with relatively poor credentials.

This is all before the applications ever make it to the committee. Granted, I'm sure that none of the people on this forum will find themselves on the immediate drop pile (aside from myself, of course), but the point is that there really are many unqualified applicants out there.

***

Once the initial round of cuts have been made, that's when the rest of the committee gets involved. This is the painstaking process of which most of you were thinking, where details start to matter. The director of graduate studies forwards the "reasonable" applications to the other committee members. All members of the committee get all applications. The job is then to go through and rank the top applications based on what the committee member is looking for in students. Ranking is generally limited to 3x the number of slots available. Each member has his or her own idea of the ideal student profile, so this is when the committee gets together to discuss applications.

The first step is to compare the rankings. Naturally, any consensus on top students means an admit, while an agreed low ranking means a rejection. What happens next depends largely on the program in question. Some committees will go through and argue for/against certain applications until a set of compromise rankings is established. Others, particularly those with a strict pecking order, default to the opinions of the senior members of the committee. Usually 40-50% of the admits are on the consensus admit pile and the remaining 50-60% are chosen subjectively. Here is where "fit", unique parts of your profile, having worked with a professor/someone the professor knows, and things like that help. Your best shot is if someone picks up your file and is willing to fight for your admission. Otherwise, it's the crapshoot we've been talking about for months.

I think he explained it told us because he never dreamed that any of us would leave and apply to another program. Not like it's any big secret that must be hidden at all costs, but the entire process seems like a black box mechanism to outsiders (meaning we throw in our apps, something mysterious happens, and then we get our result).

**I will sticky this for a week. Let me know if you all want me to keep it up there longer.

[farty14]

Wait, you mean there isn't a black box that produces admissions results!?

[Minnesotan]

It merely records them for the FAA.

[myheartsapounding]

On an average how many colleges should I have applied? I applied to 4 for neuroscience PHD and have heard that I should have applied to more. Thought I had a good chance of getting in and now feel like crawling in a hole. If people apply to a bunch of schools and then make their selection, what happens to those of us who could have had a better shot if people would be more selective of where they really want to go instead of applying all over the place? I already know the answer I am screwed!

[glabkl]

Myheartsapounding -

If you are confident that your application will be competitive in the applicant pool of the 4 schools you applied to, you'll be fine. Schools know the percentage of admitted students that matriculates, and they admit the number of applicants that will bring in the class size they want for the next year.

If your application is borderline, it may be advantageous to apply to more schools. However, I applied to 6 of the 8 'best' chemistry PhD programs last year, and after getting admitted to all of them, I wondered why I had applied to so many schools. After all, there weren't enough weekends in March to visit them all. At the March visit weekends, I kept meeting up with the same students: most competitive applicants applied and were admitted to all the 'top 5' schools and perhaps one or two 'second-tier' schools. As a result, the 'top 5' schools all admit about 5 times the number of applicants they want to see matriculate (with the possible exception of Berkley, which has a much larger chemistry program than the other 4).

Please note that this is true only for American applicants; I don't know as much about admissions from the foreign applicant pool.

Some people apply to more schools because they think they have a 'borderline' application; other people apply to more schools because they honestly don't know what their top three or four choices are; for others, applying to a bunch of schools is simply a nervous tick.

I realize that the waiting period is still going to be painful. My top choice school was the last to respond, and I spent about a month biting my nails before I finally received my 'e-mail of admission' from the department head. Good luck!

[myheartsapounding]

Thanks,

I felt like I was a strong candidate, but I see several who have received interviews to the schools I applied. Do they send out interviews over a period of time, or all at once? Haven't seen anyone posting for Berkely neuroscience yet, maybe there is hope. I'll keep my fingers crossed. One thing against me is I am white male 23, from what I have heard that is not a feather in my cap for being interviewed, is it true?

[amanda1655]

I occasionally read the forums on the Chronicle's web page because the questions are often answered by actual professors. Someone started a thread about how admissions committees consider applications that I found profoundly helpful.

Here is a link:

http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/t ... 917.0.html

The process is very similar to the one described above, except that the students at this particular school are ranked in their individual subfields for admission. Some schools also pre-screen applications before they go to the committee so that the committee is only looking at 40 applications rather than the full 300 who applied. Anyone with a low GPA or a low GRE score might not even have their application reviewed by the department. Ouch!

To Myheartsapounding -

I know 23 year old white males who were admitted to graduate programs in science at Johns Hopkins University and law schools at Northwestern and Yale. If you are qualified for admission, your gender, minority status, or age may give you an edge over another candidate but that does not mean that white males are not being admitted to graduate school.

[myheartsapounding]

Thanks, I visited the site, maybe I still have a shot. If I don't get in this year I'll know to apply to 123,987,456 schools, just kidding, but will apply to several more. I am not going to lose hope.

[KUNRD07]

Are you sure offers of admission are made to 5x the amount of students they want to matriculate? For example, Rockefeller University gets around 600 applications every year and have around 30 students enroll every year. That means 1 in 4 applicants are accepted...it just doesn't seem like that could be right.

[farty14]

Right, universities do not admit 25% of their applicants. Here is a link to Minnesota's statistics for admission in political science: http://www.grad.umn.edu/data/stats/ad/1071200.html

25 students were offered admission to the program in 2007-2008. This was equivalent to 10% acceptance rate. Also note, however, that the rate for all doctoral programs in social science was 16%--though several years ago it was around 25%. Admissions has gotten more competitive in recent years.

Basically, acceptance rates for competitive programs are typically between 5-10%.

[fall08]

The professor who takes charge of the addmission just askes the secretary to post me as a strong candidate. Does it mean the possibility I get the offer is very large?

[Canadianpolsci]

Iffa a yer grammar not in the way standing...sound is good to me!

[Minnesotan]

You can always tell the science nerds. =)

[KUNRD07]

Brutal. lol

[nailbitingnmiserable]

The professor who takes charge of the addmission just askes the secretary to post me as a strong candidate. Does it mean the possibility I get the offer is very large?

how did you even find out? What program did you apply to?

[anonuser109]

Any idea how this fits into the "weeding" out?

[Canadianpolsci]

what is an AWA? Tell me and I'll try to answer

[Canadianpolsci]

Oh, analytical writing assessment. This is a stupid test for people who CAN write. Amazingly and obviously, ALL admitted candidates to good schools in humanities and social sciences who are not foreigners will get 5, 5.5, or 6.

For non-science candidates, this part of the test is so incredibly easy to get a 6 on, its absurd. Princeton Review's GRE BOOK cracked this a LONG time ago.

I teach the GRE, and I can tell you there is a formula to score 6 which works every time, so long as you can write basic, strong, freshman university level English.

The secret is: LENGTH. No matter what the topic and argument, you write 5, indented paragraphs, with 1 space in between each paragraph. You have an into, then 3 body paragraphs with into sentences, then a conclusion, summarizing body and repeating intro. All questions are the same, exactly the same. Arguments have the same errors every time. My favorite stupid ass argument is: "Old people like pets. The city of Burlington has decided to buy a pet for every citizen over the age of 70. This will make them happy." I AM ONLY SHORTENING THE ARGUMENT, NOT SIMPLIFYING. Other arguments include: "Ice cream is great. California is hot. Therefore, open your own Ice Cream parlor in California and you will make lots of money."

The only danger with these "argument" essay topics is they are so dumb you will laugh and therefore waste time, and not attack every single last reason they suck.

Then there are the "issue" questions, which are really just traps. Morons always do the same thing. The decide to take a PASSIONATE stance on an "issue"! WOW!

Let me remind you what goes on here: graduate students with bad funding are hired by ETS. There job is to read Issue and Argument essays, and assign a mark. THEY GET 120 SECONDS TO READ EACH ESSAY. Then they assign a mark. Each essay is read by two independent checkers. 5.5 means one tired guy reading the 120th response to the issue "Art is which is useful is the best kind of Art" or whatever, gave you a 6, the other guy gave you a 5. There are no half-marks.

CONCLUSION: AWA MEANS NOTHING unless you scored below 5.

What is the difference between a 5 and a 6 essay? LENGTH. PARAGRAPH INDENTATION. SILLY GRADE SCHOOL 'HAMBURGER PARAGRAPH" STRUCTURE. The test CANNOT differentiate true writing ability of ANY applicant likely to be admitted into a top 15 humanities or social science program.

[anonuser109]

what if

[Canadianpolsci]

I believe the phrase is: 'Sucks to be you'

[rising_star]

what if you got a 4 because you didn't think reading about the AWA in the GRE book was worth your time, knowing you are a decent writer? Then, not knowing anything about this 5 paragraph etc. rule, you end up with a 4...

then you clearly didn't grow up in Florida taking the Florida Writes! Test which was later incorporated into the FCAT. I skimmed about 2 pgs in the GRE book on the Writing section, decided I should just do 5 paragraphs the way they made us in 4th, 8th, and 10th grade, and went with that to get my 6.0. Kinda appalling really. But then I got an argument question I actually know a lot about because it was about education and I'm from a family of public school educators.

[picklejar]

Yeah, I got a 4.5 on the AWA. And I am a professional, published writer. I must not have read the right code-cracker for this one. I'm hoping my writing samples and other stellar test scores will outweigh this stupid assessment.

[anonuser109]

picklejar - have you been able to ascertain what impact this might have? my other scores are all significantly higher... but here's what i'm worried about: some grad student tasked with weeding out the "definite no's" are just told to get rid of anyone with a score under 50% (percentile).

any thoughts?

[fall08]

how did you even find out? What program did you apply to?

I sent some emails to the professor, and told him my information, including GRE/TOEFL scores, university, work experience, etc.

In fact, at the beginning I just hadn't taken GRE. He told me a high GRE score is very important.

About 2 months later, I told him my GRE score, and he just sent an email to the secretary, and I can see the email, too.

I apply for statistics MS.

Some one told that GRE relates to the rank of statistics school, is that true?

[picklejar]

anonuser--I have no idea, to be honest. I would be really surprised if someone who knew even a little bit about the GRE would look at my verbal score (99th percentile) and my subject test score (90th) and my crappy writing score and not think "Huh..." But whether that "huh" translates to throwing my application in the bin or deciding to take a look at my (accepted for publication) master's essay excerpt I think depends on the program.

I can say this with ease and aplomb NOW, of course, but do I really want to go to a program that trusts the GRE writing segment as a true test of one's writing abilities? Ugh.

Ask me again when the rejections start pouring in, and we'll see.