I am noticing that certain Ph.D. programs have requirements like being in the top third of your class, or something as such. Do these programs really have such rigid requirements, or are these just general suggestions? In this specific case, I am wondering why rank would be such an important factor for a grad program.
Because an given program will accept around a dozen students per year and maybe less. Highly competitive.
@Sportsman88 good point, thanks!
PhD (and MA) admissions are also less general than for undergrad. Sure you could have been a club president and done a bunch of volunteering, but if it doesn’t make you a better student in your desired field, they may not care as much. It’s all about showing that you’re hot stuff (or have the potential to be hot stuff, rather) in your specific field (so biology or chemistry or history or whatever).
While they still want academically strong students, they sometimes are more forgiving of lower GPAs if you show promise in a different way (so, great research experience, conference presentations, an academic publication, etc).
It is extremely competitive with only so many spots available each year, and it’s simply an entirely different admissions game.
@harvestmoon good points, thanks!
What PhD program do you know has a requirement for being in the top third of your class? I am curious, because class rank in college usually doesn’t mean as much and most graduate programs don’t care about it very much. I could see a program saying something like “Most of our successful applicants are near the top of their college classes,” but not a program rigidly requiring someone to have been in the top third of their class. Lots of PhD students get master’s degrees first, too, so their undergrad class rank would be less meaningful.
@julliet some CWRU programs seem to require specific positions in rank.
@SeinfeldFan where on CWRU’s graduate admissions site does it specifically say you have to have a certain rank? I think you may be misreading what it says. Many universities don’t even rank their students.
@MITer94 it was specifically referring to the English Ph.D. program.
I read this from http://www.case.edu/gradstudies/prospective-students/admissions-information/admission-standards/
“Applicants must have a good academic record, e.g., a B-average or rank in the upper third of his or her graduating class at an institution whose status and programs are readily assessed.”
Note the part “at an institution whose status and programs are readily assessed.”
So if your undergrad (or MS) school doesn’t rank students, it’s not “an institution whose status and programs are readily assessed.”
I personally think the Ph.D. application process is more similar to job application than to undergrad application. The process is not rigid and is very personal. Depending on the individual, that can be a good or a bad thing.
@Pentaprism wow, thanks a lot! I didn’t read all of that.
@SeinfeldFan1 if you’re looking at English PhD programs, there definitely aren’t strict ranking cutoffs (that I’ve ever heard of)… A certain GPA minimum/recommendation usually (3.0 or so), but English programs are especially more interested in your writing sample, personal statement, previous research and teaching experience, etc. Maybe the “requirement” you mentioned is more of a recommendation/what most students who were previously accepted had.
I’ve read about cases where departments accept students with below a 3.0 and have to fight to get the student admitted through the graduate school. That’s sometimes the catch - a department can wish to enroll a student all they want, but if they can’t get the graduate school to accept the student, they’ll have a problem. It’s actually the graduate school who admits students. The department just recommends them for admission.
It’s usually not an issue, though, because English PhD programs (in all of its subfields) are extremely competitive and there are tons and tons of cream of the crop students applying. You can maybe get into a lower ranked PhD program with a low GPA, but usually, if your undergrad GPA is a detriment, you pursue an MA first, which can be used as a stepping stone (or, for some subfields of English, is what pretty much everyone does first). It’s then your MA GPA that matters most for PhD admissions, which should also be pretty good to get into top programs.
This isn’t to say that no one with below a 3.0 can get into an English PhD program but that it’s a lot harder to do so. Generally speaking, though, lower GPAs can be overcome with excellent everything else because English PhD programs are more holistic than number-driven like law school or med school.
And then… there’s funding, which is the actual area of concern here. Even if you could get into a PhD program with a low GPA, would you get funding? If not, then… one should really reconsider pursing the PhD.