Grad School Rejection: Worth trying to find out why?

[mengzi]

that is a pretty sick beat

i would def ask them. given your qualifications, you are certainly entitled to some sort of explanation. who knows, they might give you some advice on how to tweak your app a bit and then encourage you to re-apply sometime in the near future. at the very least, they could(and prob would, i imagine) tell you what you need to work on.

at the end of the day, what is the greatest harm that could come of asking?

i could only imagine how dissapointing a result this is for you, but if not princeton/harvard, one has to hope that stanford/berkley/u of chicago has a spot for you. it is far easier to strengthen essays and add to one's experience than it is to go back in time and stengthen one's paper qualifications. one has to hope that it is just a temporary setback

at any rate, good luck to you