What's the impact of former university's transcript on PhD application?

xraymancs
Sun, 15 May 2016 20:13:19 +0000

I hate the word “top” for programs. The rankings are all just popularity contests with large departments getting ranked higher than smaller department which might be very good too. A better way of describing what you are interested in is a “highly selective” program. This is a good term because lots of people apply to such programs and only a few are able to get in. This is just a numbers game for the most part because all the applicants are usually very strong and a choice has to be made to select from such a large pool.

It sounds to me like you can have a competitive application but it is never a sure thing. You need to apply to programs which are less selective but which have faculty of note in the area you are interested in. Your current research mentor can help you choose and hopefully write a strong, personal letter of reference.

As for transcripts, ALL programs will require you to present original transcripts for all of your university work. This means that you will have to get your transcripts from China as well for each application. In some cases, you can provide a scanned version and the original when you decide to enroll but you need to carefully check the requirements because you don’t want your application to not be considered for this reason.