<p>I wanted to ask this in the general grad school forum because I am curious for PhD, Law, Medical, and Business Schools. Are they different in the number of tries that you get? What I mean by "tries," is whether reapplying would actually do any good. If you have been rejected once or twice already, does that signify a lost cause? Does each subsequent time you apply make you disadvantaged in the eyes of the admissions people because they see that you have applied before? </p>
<p>It would be helpful if anyone could share their experiences with this in any of the grad schools. Personally I'm especially curious about Medical School and Business School, but anything anyone has to share would really help!</p>
<p>I guess it might depend on the field, but in the Ph.D. programs in larger areas, such as engineering, they don’t seem to care that you’ve applied before. This might not be true if you’re in a tiny area where the professors reading the application might actually remember you.</p>
<p>Whether it’s a “lost cause” or not depends on whether anything is changing with your application. If you’re in “regular” job (i.e. not research), then your application’s improvement each year is small/non-existent from a Ph.D. perspective and thus applying to the same programs is probably foolish. You need to aim lower each year or improve the application.</p>
<p>For the professional programs (JD, MD, MBA), I think the answer is “infinite”. Those programs are essentially a business.</p>
<p>In Ph.D. programs, I imagine there is more of stigma attached to applying more than, say 2 or 3 times. If you were unqualified the first time but you then improve your background and gain necessary experience, applying a second time will certainly be beneficial (and the readers will notice that you improved). If you were unqualified the first time and remain unqualified, its going to hurt.</p>