<p>How is grad school admissions at top schools different from undergrad? Is it easier or harder? Do they care about ECs much? Does double majoring help at all? How related does your field of graduate study have to be to your major? How important is your GPA/GRE?</p>
<p>I don't know if it is easier, but I would say it is more straightforward. You should be able to get a good idea of where you have a shot at being admitted by talking to profs you know.</p>
<p>They don't care very much about EC's.</p>
<p>Double majoring doesn't help that much from what I have heard. You'd be better off spending that time doing research.</p>
<p>It depends on what field you are going into. I'm doing materials science, which is a very interdisciplinary field. About half of the people I met on visits didn't do mat sci for undergrad. If you were going into physics, you would have a hell of a time without a physics degree, mainly because you would bomb the subject gre.</p>
<p>Again, importance of the gre depends on field. Physics and math, it is very important. Engineering, not so much. Everyone gets a good quant score, so that won't really set you apart from the rest.</p>
<p>Just Wondering, what kind of gpa/gre score would one be looking at to get into a top physics phd program (mit, caltech, berkeley, princeton. ect.). Considering average research/interships</p>
<p>totally depends on the field. you'd be surprised how hard/easy some programs would be.</p>
<p>Here's a dumb question...</p>
<p>Do phds work the same if you get them in another country? I kinda want a phd in music from the Netherlands, but I don't know if they work the same way internationally.</p>
<p>They don't always work the same in other countries. For example, you need the equivalent of an MS before starting PhD work in Germany. This is because their PhD program include no coursework.</p>
<p>What do you need to know? Just because a university is highly ranked doesn't mean that they're any good in your field/major. Just because a specific program is not highly ranked doesn't mean that it can't be the right one for you. Expressing interest, by attending a grad day, emailing professors, etc. can go a long way.</p>
<p>It's based on professors, rather than adcoms. Fewer people generally apply, so it's hard to standardize or control anything. People can get very poor GPAs and GREs and still get in, if they have EXCELLENT research/recommendations.</p>
<p>Basically you have to show that you are capable of doing research on your own, and at the PhD level. You can do this by (a) taking grad lvl courses as undergrad, and (b) doing undergrad research. Since you got into Caltech (I read the Caltech board =P), you have excellent resources to consult about this.</p>
<p>Admission is considerably harder. Put it differently, you are asking the adcom not only to admit you, but also pay your full tuition AND some stipend which could amount to $70K/year (or > $300K over 5 years). Some departments only have 20-30 slots each year while several hundreds/thousands apply.</p>
<p>GPA/GRE and other stats are usually used in initial cutoff rounds or tie-breaker. Truth be told, they don't even matter if the candidate is already well known by the adcom. </p>
<p>In grad admission, almost all admission decisions are made at the department and then "recommended" to the graduate school. Professors, even those not in the adcom, can have considerable influence on one's fate.</p>
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Admission is considerably harder. Put it differently, you are asking the adcom not only to admit you, but also pay your full tuition AND some stipend which could amount to $70K/year (or > $300K over 5 years). Some departments only have 20-30 slots each year while several hundreds/thousands apply.
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<p>That doesn't necessarily make admission to grad schools harder. For one thing, whereas undergraduates are expected to only leech resources off the university once they enter university (the prices of which they pay with their tuition), PhD students are expected to contribute to original research in the process (and the money that grad students make is relatively low).</p>
<p>It does depend on department, of course. Application numbers are more likely to vary from year to year. And if you fail to get in the first time, you can still try a year later (and do research interim).</p>
<p>Yep. Grad schools have a good thing going. They get some extremely bright people to do research and teach at their institutions for ridiculously low wages. And thousands of bright young minds line up for the chance work for peanuts because if they survive 5 years of it they get a fancy piece of paper -- and in some cases a chance at a modestly paid academic job. (the last part isn't guaranteed though)</p>
<p>I don't disagree that many grad schools run a low-cost model (like Wal-Mart :). But the cost for funding a grad student is the same. For TAs/TFs, the fund usualy comes from undergrad tuition revenue. For RAs, it comes from some research grant. Given a limited budget, a department can't just hire unlimited graduate students for research. Many departments certainly hope so since they are turning down 90+% of well-qualified candidates.</p>
<p>The truth is, application numbers don't fluctuate much. The funding situation is more unpredictable and hence the number of funded slots available and one's chance of admission on a particular year. On a good year, ~10% who apply get admitted. One a bad one, how about 10 out of 800?!</p>
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The truth is, application numbers don't fluctuate much. The funding situation is more unpredictable and hence the number of funded slots available and one's chance of admission on a particular year. On a good year, ~10% who apply get admitted. One a bad one, how about 10 out of 800?!
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<p>Which grad schools are you referring to? Not all grad schools have such low acceptance rates. For reference, the US News and World Report has acceptance rates for engineering grad schools at 20-40% for many institutions. </p>
<p>Not every grad school has 800 applicants. Many schools sometimes have only a few open slots per year (sometimes even none), and comparatively fewer applicants. That's fluctuation. As for schools like Berkeley and MIT (the prestigious ones), the numbers don't fluctuate as much. But keep in mind that not all of us are into the most prestigious institutions.</p>
<p>clinical psychology phd programs range from 1%-10% acceptance.</p>
<p>That only applies to phd programs. It's the norm for people in enrolled in master's programs to pay the full tuition themselves (or most of it).</p>
<p>The differences in acceptance rates varies significantly between phd programs and masters programs. It can be as high as 40% for engineering MS and perhaps as low as 10% for the engineering phd at the same school.</p>
<p>US News doesn't break down the individual department/program stat. The subtle point I am trying to raise with my posts is that you are not applying to a graduate school but rather a specific department. Even the better-managed ones can occasionally experience temporary funding difficulty and internal politics that reduce the available slots for a given year. Unfortunately, most departments don't/can't furnish this info upfront which will certainly influence your decision to apply. It's probably better off for them to make this a guessing game anyway. So, be realistic regardless your qualification. You are far better off putting the effort applying to as many departments as you can. Follow the recommendation of your professors who are more in tune current affairs at other schools. Don't assume a low-ranked department will take you in for sure because they may not even have a slot! </p>
<p>Much of my opinions are drawn from personal experience and/or accounts of realiable sources at various places from Ivies to other top-25 engineering departments as well as lower-tier grad schools. I do hope my posts shred some light to OP original question.</p>
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<p>Those numbers refer to PhD and MS admissions. This thread seems to be focused on PhD admissions. Remove MS students from the equation, and those numbers will go way down.</p>
<p>The admissions are easier than undergrad because you don't have to be an all around superstar or well-rounded or Miss Congeniality--you have to be good in your field and closely related ones and show promise for doing independent research--so lopsided math-science vs. arts humanities is not a problem.</p>
<p>Wow, dang it. I see. It's so difficult to get acceptance rates for PhD programs from external sources.</p>
<p>But it's far easier to get them through professors within your department who you do research with (if you get into good relations with them, then that will make your application far, far stronger - and they can even give you a fairly accurate estimation of your chances).</p>
<p>How do most grad school applicants compare to Ivy League applicants (in terms of numbers) anyways?</p>
<p>A few questions...</p>
<p>1) How many papers is considered good for admission to grad school? If you don't have any first-author papers, is that okay?
2) Do grad schools care about papers you did in high school, or is it like in college admissions where middle school stuff doesn't matter?</p>