<p>If an applicant really wants to go to a particular grad school in earth sciences, but is rejected, can he beef up his resume and reapply the following year without adverse effects?</p>
<p>Depends on why the applicant was rejected. Has he spoken to faculty members at the school in question? Sometimes, it’s because the student’s interests did not line up with the work being done by particular faculty. It might also have been because the department/faculty lacked funding to support an additional student or a particular project.</p>
<p>This is so far theoretical, the first application is in the works. He wants to get into a particular program, and if he doesn’t get in the first time, he wants to enhance his application and try again in a year. I’m just wondering if that ever works.</p>
<p>I think it is perhaps more common in the humanities to apply twice to the same department.</p>
<p>As was said, it depends on the reasons that the student was rejected. If the student needs more research experience, that can be obtained in a year and another try can be had. If the student’s GRE scores were too low, the student can reapply the following year with higher scores. Sometimes students are rejected because the professor they wanted to work with can’t fund them or wasn’t taking students, but applying the next year can change things.</p>
<p>But if his research/interests just isn’t/aren’t a good fit with the department, then that’s not something that can be easily remedied.</p>
<p>What kind of adverse effects are you talking about? Basically, it doesn’t necessarily diminish your chances to reapply to the same department as long as you have done something in the interim year to improve. And nobody is going to yell at you about it.</p>
<p>Thank you, Juliet and AuraObscura, those are thoughtful and logical answers, and they make perfect sense. My question was prompted by a remark a woman I know made when I told her of my son’s stated plan, she said that once you are rejected you sort of get blackballed by that school. That seems a bit extreme, especially if the application is significantly improved over the intervening year. </p>