What do you need to get into grad school?

Pentaprism
Wed, 23 Dec 2015 05:33:29 +0000

I can’t tell you the minimal achievement to get into a PhD program. I can however tell you the stats of a student who was accepted to 5 top-10 schools last year:

BS with 3.8 GPA from a top-5 school, known for grade deflation.

GRE scores: 170V, 168Q, 5.5W.

2 year research. One of the PIs is world-famous in the field.

Great LORs, one of them from the aforementioned PI.

Connections played a big part. For 2 of the 5 schools offering the acceptance, the potential PIs there were former advisees of the aforementioned PI. For another school, the PI is the aforementioned PI.