<p>@gradschoolreject</p>
<p>I think you’re going to get much more useful answers if you give more specific details about yourself. Such as what field you’re in, your stats, and what schools you applied to. Your description sounds vaguely good, so it’s difficult to assess where things went wrong.</p>
<p>You might find some useful information at this site:</p>
<p>thegradcafe.com</p>
<p>this will take you to a listing of its subforums:</p>
<p>[The</a> Menu - The GradCafe Forums](<a href=“The Menu - The GradCafe Forums”>The Menu - The GradCafe Forums) ]</p>
<p>I agree that it might be helpful to know what field we are talking about. We might be able to offer advice in how to strengthen your application for next year.</p>
<p>OP: First, you need to look at the programs where you applied. Do they take only a handful of students each year? Larger, well-funded programs give you slightly better odds than those that are forced to choose. say, five out of 100 well-qualified applicants. Are the faculty members researching in your subfield close to retirement (accepting few or no students) or just beginning their academic careers (not yet funded)? </p>
<p>Next, I suggest taking a hard look at your LOR writers to make sure that you chose the right people. Given your profile, your LORs may be the weakness. Did you meet with the professors in person? Did they seem invested in your success? Unfortunately, even professors who like you may “phone it in” when writing LORs, and these kind of letters can be detrimental. </p>
<p>Also, although LAC Operon’s words may have been harsh, I do think you need to take a look at yourself. Are you demonstrating in your research environment the mentality of a graduate student? You should be working somewhat independently, reading journal articles on your own, going beyond the minimum expected of you, and asking intelligent questions about the research. If your lab has meetings, you should be attending and participating when appropriate. You will get better LORs if you have demonstrated that you think and act like a researcher.</p>
<p>You may want to find work in a different lab environment for next year so that you can have a new LOR in the mix. </p>
<p>But the reality is that graduate admissions have gotten brutal in many, if not most, fields. With state funding cuts, more graduating seniors (population bubble), a weak economy (few jobs), the applicant pool is increasing as the number of funded spots is dropping. </p>
<p>@GrassBandit: “My D” and “My S” and “DD” and “DS” is CC talk. I resisted it for months before I finally succumbed. The only thing I won’t type is DD (“dear daughter”) or DH (“dear husband.”)</p>
<p>I only agree with the concept of the safety if you need a credential to do a certain job and the prestige doesn’t matter. Like I think you can have safeties for MSW or MSN programs, if you need the credential to do jobs in that field. However, if you plan an academic career…I just don’t see the point of a ‘safety.’ Getting a tenure-track job is difficult enough as it is even coming from a top school; I think you should go for the programs that are the best fit for you or not go at all. But that’s my opinion on it.</p>
<p>IT sounds like your GPA and GRE scores <em>were</em> stellar, if you got a perfect math score in a mathy field and a 3.7+ GPA. I mean honestly, it could be politics and such. Maybe the person that was doing research in your field wasn’t taking any students that year, or maybe they knew 2 of the applicants, or maybe…anything, really. I’m in a doctoral program right now and there’s so much politicking that goes on with the taking on of grad students, sometimes it doesn’t have much at all to do with your stats. For example our lab only has one slot this year and our lab manager is applying to the program, and unless Jesus himself comes along to apply for the program she’s going to get it.</p>
<p>The other thing, you said yourself you applied to more programs and this is only part of the bunch. So how many did you apply to? And what makes you think you’ll get rejected at all the rest? Do you have any evidence for that, or are you just in your “nobody will want me” post-rejection slump? I think you should wait it out and see what happens - I mean, always prepare a Plan B, but…</p>
<p>The OP sounds as if he/she is in a similar field to my D: Econ. Perfect GRE Q virtually required, Verbal of not much consequence, NSF app but no interviews. If that’s the field, I’ve been lurking and watching admissions results in the field and have a pretty good idea of the patterns in general. One note, as good as a 3.7 GPA is, it’s on the lowish end for results in Top 20 and certainly Top 10 programs.</p>
<p>LACOp, your reason re Safeties is sound but is one-size-fits-all. Safeties can and do exist, which is the original point. Whether it behooves one to then pass it up is another and whether the school may be cagey with funding until you commit is another. Option at branch point. There can be circumstances that are undreamt of in your philosophy that can make the choice valid. All that said, if my D had gotten in to only her Safety, my hope would have been that she would drop back 20 and punt, giving it another shot next year; I would have given this opinion only if she had asked me and on that I can never tell…</p>
<p>GB. you’re complaining to the right person. Back in 2002 (ignore the Oct 2004 start date in my profile, that’s for the “new” CC, the “Classic” one can still be accessed…see the small type at the bottom of this web page), I started the habit on CC, though not the DS/DD, or DH/DW (ack, ptui!) which came later. </p>
<p>The rocks were still cooling and there were fewer than 50K posts total at the time and there was just one board with many topics. Separate Grad school forum, even top Ivy and top LAC fora, had not been conceived. No Cafes. </p>
<p>For some posts, I cut-and-paste from e-mails I’d been sending to various people talking about my daughter’s process. Some of them were worth re-posting here. Rather than abbreviate her name with an “E” for Esmerelda, I thought I’d be clever and substitute a “D,” letting people think it was short for Daphne.</p>
<p>Well, folks somehow caught on…as in, I forgot to make the switch in a couple of usages…that D wasn’t short for Daphne at which point I confessed that it was short for “Daughter.” Other posters started using S for son and the rest is history. So you can blame me.</p>
<p>I think the original “dear daughter” or “dear husband” (the latter may have been the first, actually) was sarcastic. But it caught on too. But you can’t blame me for that.</p>
<p>Jeebus Christ…WHAT is your field of study? None of these answers are particularly useful unless we know that. Mentioning the specific schools might not be a bad idea either.</p>
<p>re: safeties
Just a bit of input, I got rejected from most of my lower ranked schools (top30) and accepted at most of my top ranked schools (top10)… so I’m not sure I believe in the idea of safeties either.</p>
<p>@OP:</p>
<p>Last year I was rejected from everywhere I applied too. I recommend trying to get in touch with program directors or admissions committee chairs to try to get some feedback. One professor actually emailed me a summary of all the comments on my application, which was incredibly useful.</p>
<p>This year there were not drastic changes to my application. I had some extra experience, swapped one rec letter, and I suppose had a pretty different SOP. But there were drastic changes to the results.</p>
<p>So, you are not alone. It was a terrible feeling to have planned to go to graduate school and then not get in anywhere. If you want to apply again next year, take this time and make the most of it. Best of luck.</p>
<p>6 isn’t enough? I applied to… two grad schools: GT and my alma mater. I find that a lot of people I know did the same because they had specific restrictions that whittled down the number of schools to a handful (in my case, I wanted to stay in the South; often, it was something like a significant other though). Sounds like the OP just aimed a little too high.</p>
<p>Your GPA and GRE are decent enough that you shouldn’t be cut-off because of those. I think you need to tell us more about research: I agree that your 3 years research experience is great, but is it in related field? Did you get publication (1st, co, or 2nd author)? Adcoms like publications, experience, much more than GPA/GRE. My GPA is 80% of yours with similar other stats and exp, but I got 2nd author publications, and I got in top 10-20.</p>
<p>Are those 6 schools in the top 10? If it’s 10-20 I think you’re pretty competitive. But I’m not sure if you would be competitive as well for top 10. What undergrad did you come from? Was it a top 20 undergrad school? (This matters as well)</p>
<p>EDIT: I’m in the LIFE sciences. Maybe you are in a non-life i.e. social science major? If yes, then different rule applies. :P</p>