¿What are your thoughts on my Harvard application?

xraymancs
Tue, 23 Dec 2014 01:15:15 +0000

The GRE is a flawed examination, everyone knows that, but nevertheless, it is used along with the GPA in making an initial triage of a large number of applications. These very sought-after programs cannot read all their applications thoroughly and so they make some initial cuts.

With respect to having your own funding, yes it can help but there is still the issue of capacity. Let me do a back-of-the-envelope calculation.

In my discipline, physics, a faculty member usually can handle 2-4 Ph.D. students at a time at the most and some faculty have less. So if you have a department with 20 faculty and a 5-year graduation time (it is probably longer), then if the average number of students per faculty is 2 and all faculty are research active (this too is not usual, it is more like 75%) you can estimate that the total number of Ph.D. students would be 40 RAs + 16 TAs where the TAs keep their position for 2 years while they take courses. Thus the total is on the order of 56-60 Ph.D. students and the department can only take in 8 per year or so.

Now, if the program has 200 applications each year (probably much more for these highly selective programs) for the Ph.D. and wants to take in 8 students, they will probably have to make 12-16 offers of admission per year. If you are not in the top 20% of the applicants with respect to the GRE and GPA numbers, they won’t even read the whole thing.

That is just a numbers thing but consider this. For the any program, it is essential to find students whose academic performance is well matched to their program’s demands. If you take students who are weaker academically, they might not make it through the courses and exams and if the students are too strong, then they won’t come because they will get into a “better” program. No university wants to invest time and effort into a Ph.D. candidate only to see them fail and leave. The most selective schools will therefore only admit the students at the top of the academic heap who match their other criteria.

Sorry, that was long-winded but it is important for applicants to understand the reasoning that goes on in the Graduate Admission Committees.