<p>I just had a question regarding the graduate application process. When schools ask you what other graduate schools and programs you're applying to and tells you to list them, does this information affect their admissions decision at all?</p>
<p>-Mark</p>
<p>Everyone will say no. The idea being that schools just want to know who their competition is. But...</p>
<p>When I was filing applications, I made sure to include only schools of the same general "level" on any given application. So the big state schools got other state schools, and a couple big name schools got each other.</p>
<p>And I'm probably the least paranoid applicant ever.</p>
<p>agreed. My reasoning was if a school thinks they are your safety, they might not be interesting in admitting you. One of the schools I applied to was Harvard - but that definitely did not show up on any of my applications to other schools, unless it was UC-Berkeley.</p>
<p>I didn't even think twice about that question. It was on the applications when I applied to college, and it didn't seem to affect my admissions at all. My boyfriend was heavily involved in college politics, and apparently, the school kept detailed records on who their main competitors were. Whenever those schools saw an increase in admissions, the school was concerned if they didn't also see an increase in admissions. I am guessing it is the same for graduate school.</p>
<p>In my (humanities) discipline, when we ask for that information, it has nothing to do with the applicant. It has to do with an administrative need for what is called "benchmarking." In a nutshell, graduate programs need to keep track of their competitors. It especially helps us to know for what programs our applicants are turning us down.</p>
<p>Here's another way in which this information helps us: When we are waiting for our top choice applicants to accept or decline our offers, knowing to which other programs they applied gives us an idea of timeline. I know that one certain program in my field, for example, notifies applicants of decisions MUCH later than the rest of us. Thus, if a specific applicant has not yet notified me of whether or not s/he will be joining us, and I know that s/he has applied to University XX, if s/he hasn't been forthcoming with me (which I dislike) I can deduce s/he's waiting to hear University XX's offer.</p>
<p>I cannot say anything about other areas of study (the hard sciences, for example), but in my field (and in many cognate fields in which I have good friends and colleagues), revealing this information NEVER handicaps an applicant in ANY way. In graduate study, the concept of "safety" doesn't enter into the conversation, at least from our perspective. </p>
<p>We Do Not Care If We're Last On Your List. Our job is to compile OUR list. ;)</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>That's why my advisor told me. Also my schools are almost in same caliber of each other so it wouldn't really matter. Well one of them is a bit down the list but I've been in extensive touch with it so I'm not worried at all (I think it senses that it really is my top choice). Really, I would be happy going anywhere on my list. It's just way of measuring their yield.</p>
<p>They have no role at all in the admissions process- same as in undergraduate admissions.</p>