<p>I know nothing about graduate school, so I thought I’d ask a few general questions…</p>
<li><p>What is the acceptance rate (we’re talking broad range here) for the top universities in the humanities/social science disciplines. (For example, take Harvard or Duke or Berkeley in history or sociology or religious studies.)</p></li>
<li><p>What percentage of applicants/admitted students at these type of schools receive fellowships? Are these incredibly hard to come buy? How much do teaching stipends cover and what students can get those? What kinds of students stand out as fellowship candidates?</p></li>
<li><p>GPA. Do they really care if your B’s in required freshman courses bring down your GPA? What GPA are these kinds of schools looking for? Do they look more at your grades in your prospective field or just overall?</p></li>
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<li><p>Awhile back, Stanford posted admissions numbers for all of its programs in the humanities and sciences. For the humanities, a typical admission rate was about 5% to 10%.</p></li>
<li><p>Most top programs award research assistantships, teaching assistantships, and fellowships to all admitted PhD students. Stipends tend to be in the range of $15k to $25k.</p></li>
<li><p>GPA: obviously the higher, the better. These are incredibly selective programs, and you don’t want to give them any excuse to throw your app away without a closer look. Grades in your major AND overall are both important at this level, and writing samples are also important.</p></li>
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<p>But getting into an engineering program at these top schools is easier? I’ve been looking at some and their acceptance rates were in the 20-30%.</p>
<p>in addition to lack of funding, you’ll need an advisor if you’re in a PhD program, and professors can usually only take a few students at a time to monitor their progress on their research and dissertation. that’s why the selectivity is so low. </p>
<p>engineering on the other hand is considered a professional school, and it is easier to teach engineering (as well as law and business) in mass to a student body because it goes by curriculum (but there’s research too).</p>
<p>Insane … so let’s look at these 400 people who apply to the Columbia History program … how do they choose? Let’s say you’ve got a 3.5 coming from Harvard and you apply to 10 of the top 25 schools … would you possibly get rejected everywhere? What does it take?</p>
Make sure those rates are for PhD programs and not for masters’ programs. Masters programs in engineering have pretty high acceptance rates, but many times they’re not (well-)funded.
If those are for PhD programs, think about the self-selection in the applicant pool. PhD engineering programs are for people who want to go into academia – the people who want to do industry won’t apply in the first place. Therefore, perhaps fewer people apply to engineering PhD programs than those who apply for PhDs in other areas.</p>
<p>Actually, about half of Engineering PhDs go into industry instead of academia, which is the highest percentage among all PhDs. Maybe this is due to the practicality of the field. Also, you pretty much have to have an Engineering background to apply to Engineering grad schools, while the requirements are relaxed a bit for humanities.</p>
<p>well, also, a BS in engineering will most likely land you an engineering job, as would a MS. but in BA in history might not necessarily get you anywhere, and nor would a MA in history. that’s probably also another reason why fewer people apply for engineering PhD programs and thus the higher acceptance rate. </p>
<p>“Insane … so let’s look at these 400 people who apply to the Columbia History program … how do they choose? Let’s say you’ve got a 3.5 coming from Harvard and you apply to 10 of the top 25 schools … would you possibly get rejected everywhere? What does it take?”</p>
<p>yup, you could get rejected everywhere. the thing about PhD programs is that besides your GPA and GRE, your RESEARCH plays an important role. it’s not about who has what stats to get in. it’s about WHY someone wants to get in and what credentials does this person have to prove that. your recs will also be a factor too as profs can attest to your passion in the field as well as your previous accomplishments.</p>
<p>Engineering graduate school applications skyrocketed after about 2000 when the tech industry slumped, especially for Stanford and Berkeley which are near Silicon Valley. I think it may be easing downward a bit nowadays, though.</p>
<p>In the humanities and social sciences there is a tendency for students to apply disproportionately to east and west coast schools so acceptance rates tend to be lower than at schools in the rest of the country. While there are many arguments about the overall quality of undergraduate education at the flagship state universities, graduate education at these schools can be every bit the equal of the HYP and S group, depending of course on the area of study. There are some real advantages to living in Ann Arbor, Columbus or Madison during the graduate years where the stipends mentioned above actually allow you to live more comfortably than in NYC or Boston.</p>
<p>I think the first thing you should consider is whether you really want to go to graduate school. I think you should do some research on what grad school is really like, especially for the subject you want to study. From what I’ve read, grad school is far different than undergrad. Fortunately, you have plenty of time to figure things out. </p>
<p>Here are some links that advise students to think long and hard before choosing to go on to grad school:</p>