Say you were accepted into a certain graduate program in School A, but you turned down the offer and went with a different school- School B. A couple of years down the road, you wanted to attend School A for a diferent graduate program, do have a chance? Or will you be automatically be rejected because the last time you recieved an offer you turned it down?
You have a chance
I doubt admissions officers at graduate schools generally act like teenage ex-boyfriends/girlfriends. There are a myriad reasons for turning down an offer. Your new application will be evaluated on its merits for the program you are applying to.
I can’t imagine your first son’s expereince with School A will even come up. This is a different kid’s application for a different grad program.
@happy1 No both applications are for the same person, but different grad programs. (It’s me who’s applying actually not my son)
At the grad school level, I think there is little overlap. You should have no complications from the first application.
Sorry, I misread. I think grad programs usually operate pretty independently by program so I think you should be fine. But the truth is you will never know exactly what goes into any admission decision – it is a black box. If it is a program you are interested in I wold definitely put in an application. If you don’t apply your chances of admission are zero so why not give yourself a chance.
This isn’t going to be an issue.
Graduate school admissions are typically handled by faculty in the department to which you are applying. If you were applying to different departments/fields of study (or even the same department but with a different advisor and a different focus, a prior offer that you turned down won’t affect your second application)
This will only possibly have an effect if:
- both programs are in the same department (may share the same admissions committee or separate admissions committees may share some of the same faculty members)
- the second program is small and very competitive for admission
And - the effect may be positive - if the committee members were very enthusiastic the first time around, they may welcome the opportunity to have the student be part of the second program (assuming that the second program isn’t so selective that they are turning away crowds of applicants).
We keep records of our grad program applicants for at least ~5 years and everything is in a database so we would know automatically if a student had applied to another program within our department.
@dazedandbemused As a matter of fact yes both programs are in the same department. But I don’t think the second program is as competitive as the first. Do you think it will help my chances if I apologize for turning down the offer for the first program (which was actually a couple of years ago)? Or should I just let the process work naturally without bringing it up?
I’m with @SJ2727: this isn’t high school. Admissions at both undergrad and grad levels expect a % of accepted students to not accept their offers, for lots of reasons.
Just keep walking forward. Your application is a package- with what you have done in the last “couple of years” typically the most relevant element of your application. Don’t apologize for the past- weave your narrative to show that the program you are applying for is a natural element of where your path is headed.
No, don’t mention it in your application unless you have to (our application includes the question: “Have you previously applied to XXX?” so you would need to indicate yes on our form, but we don’t ask for details).
If this is a program that interviews applicants (we bring all our top PhD prospects in for an interview visit), there is a small chance that an admissions committee member might ask you about it, so you should be prepared to have an answer.