What do I need to know about grad school admissions?

<p>As for Caltech...</p>

<p>Physics:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.pma.caltech.edu/GSR/faqapplnt.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.pma.caltech.edu/GSR/faqapplnt.html&lt;/a>
PhD only:</p>

<p>"What are my chances of being admitted?
The Physics Graduate Admissions Committee receives several hundred applications each year from highly qualified students. As an example, out of 500 applicants, 70 may be admitted based on current need, and 30 may accept. Caltech is a small private university and admission is highly competitive. It is impossible to precalculate an applicant's chances for admission."</p>

<p>70/500 => 14%</p>

<p>Computer Science:
<a href="http://www.cs.caltech.edu/faq.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.cs.caltech.edu/faq.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>"Can I earn a terminal Master's Degree in Computer Science at Caltech? Caltech only accepts students who intend to pursue a Ph.D. in computer science."</p>

<p>But yes, dallas808, you do have a point - some of the other Caltech depts are fine with Master's.</p>

<p>===
I see, ehiunno. What types of math and statistics was it heavy on? Was it based on aeronautical engineering?</p>

<p>The math could be read by anyone with a solid grasp of mathematical analysis and lin alg. Aeroacoustics is a fairly interdisciplinary field, and most of the engineering concepts that I worked with come from electrical engineering, but a lot of it is taken from aero/astronautics.</p>

<p>For example, my research consisted of finding a method of calibrating MEMS microphones for phase, and I used some of the more basic ideas (Fourier transforms, cross spectral density, free field substitution). For this area the 'word of God' is often considered to be Bendat and Piersol's Engineering Applications of Correlation and Spectral Analysis.</p>

<p>The vibration limiting/noise reduction side I don't have as much experience with, but I know of several big people in that area that did their PhD in aero and not EE.</p>

<p>for the record, I was not well versed in much of that when I did my mentorship/internship, but I had a bit of a crash course in it (aka reading Bendat and Piersol and lots and lots and lots of AIAA papers)</p>

<p>Thanks for the reply, ehiunno!</p>

<p>==</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=173842%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=173842&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Anyways, w.r.t. grad acceptance rates.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Okay, the bottom line on all of this wahooing about affirmative action is this: you were not there reading applications, and therefore you are not privy to knowledge about which applicants are "better" than others.</p>

<p>Incidentally, I think it's silly to point to higher admission rates as "proof" that it's easier to get in as one thing or as another. Admission rates to many graduate schools in science are higher than undergraduate admission rates. Does that mean it's easy to get into these graduate programs? (Ha! You wish.) The people who apply are highly self-selected, and that the applicant pools are extraordinarily strong.</p>

<p>And it's all very well and good for men to highhandedly claim that women in science don't experience any disadvantages in their formative years. Tell that to all the people who look at me distinctly askew when I tell them I'm a scientist and a cheerleader.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Haha, don't quote me when I'm enraged! :)</p>

<p>Incidentally, we're having basically the same argument, with most of the same major players, in the MIT forum again this year. Deja vu all over again.</p>

<p>mollie, that is going to come up every year at the MIT forum, try not to let it get to you! :)</p>

<p>While I am a bit enraged myself by the reverse discrimination both in terms of gender and race (and lets be fair, it happens) I do get sick of hearing about it. Students want to get into these schools so badly, and I can guess that the vast majority in MIT's applicant pool could succeed there. When these students get denied, they are going to be very, very upset.</p>

<p>I didn't apply to MIT, but I was just as upset as most of those people when I got rejected by Olin. After talking to some people in admissions there, I realized how difficult it is to pick 120 kids from 1100 equally qualified applicants. I am certain grad school 'admissions officers' (or really, prof's picking who they want to work with) face an equally difficult time.</p>

<p>I'm not actually sure what the point of this post is, but I will say this. I do believe that college admissions should be race/gender blind, and I also believe I was put at a disadvantage being a white male. I don't want to bring this up again here, but I will ask: do these factors tend to come into consideration as much in grad school admissions as they do in undergrad?</p>

<p>It's difficult to say, because there aren't as many statistics available as there are for undergraduate admissions.</p>

<p>In biology, I suspect that yes, there are affirmative action policies in place for minority applicants, but I also suspect that the percentage of minority PhD applicants is smaller than the number of minority undergrad applicants, so the effect of these policies is less visible. There are not affirmative action programs in place for women in biology PhD admissions -- most of the top programs are about two-thirds women right now.</p>

<p>Mollie,</p>

<p>ahhh I have noticed that a lot more women want to go into bio than men do. i wonder why that is. My gf wants to go into bio research, while I really could live without it (though biophysics and bioinformatics are really interesting). I really love Physics and want to go into applied physics (maybe theory) or EE research.</p>

<p>I noticed the same trend this summer when I did SRGS, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science group was about 2/3 girls, while there were only 2 girls (out of 11) in the NASA group.</p>

<p>I have a gut feeling that race/gender aren't a big part of grad school admissions because grad programs are not going to pick a less qualified applicant over a more qualified one for ANY reason. grad schools don't advertise how 'diverse' they are, they advertise the intense research they produce, and I doubt a grad program would sacrifice that for an unpublished statistic. Don't think I am implying that urm applicants are any less qualified overall, I am only saying I would suspect there would be less of an issue of programs picking slightly less qualified ones due to any reason.</p>

<p>than again, that is only a high school serniors reasoning, so take it with a grain of salt!</p>

<p>It depends on the size of the program I would think. Some schools I got admitted to because I had demonstrated my qualification, but for others which have more qualified applicants than they can admit, 'fit' matters. If they think because of something in your background that you could bring a special something to the group, then something like race could play a role. But it is less likely to than it was in undergrad.</p>

<p>I don't know that I would characterize graduate school admissions as a "more qualified" vs. "less qualified" situation.</p>

<p>There are several students in my program who are pretty unimpressive to me, except that they worked with professors at my school for a summer as undergrads. Those professors wrote letters of recommendation for them, and poof! They were admitted.</p>

<p>I guess I don't see grad school admissions being any more or less based on "merit" than undergrad admissions -- they care a lot about a person's research experience, which may reflect a keen scientific mind with outstanding experimental abilities... or it may reflect the good luck that the person had in working with a big name in the field.</p>

<p>Again, as we've discussed before, grad school admissions are often based on professor connections more so than anything else. People do get in with poor GPAs and test scores. Even those with poor GPAs may be exceptional researchers who prefer independent research to taking classes (and professors care about their professional reputations - they are usually fairly honest in their recs). </p>

<p>Haha mollie, yeah, I should have kept the quote strictly to your quote about grad acceptance rates being similar to undergrad acceptance rates. And since this forum has such a high turnover rate each year, another new thread on the topic is just going to be posted year after year after year.</p>