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

[nickg1532]

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i'm pretty curious why you would get rejected too, now.

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call them + trip report

edit: while it probably can't hurt to ask, and i'd like to find out, i doubt they'll actually tell you. i have no prior experience to base this on, but it just feels like something they wouldn't disclose. but who knows, maybe you'll get lucky

[Thremp]

nickg,

One prominent MBA program I think has a system is place for evals for people who don't make cut.

[mengzi]

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edit: while it probably can't hurt to ask, and i'd like to find out, i doubt they'll actually tell you. i have no prior experience to base this on, but it just feels like something they wouldn't disclose. but who knows, maybe you'll get lucky

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true, they would have various reasons not to disclose the specific reasons why he didn't get in, so asking "why didnt i get in?" might not produce much.

a better way to frame the question would be "in what ways could i improve upon my application" i know of people who were wait listed at say b-school and were persistent in following up on their app that ended up getting useful info, and eventually, gaining acceptance.

the old adage 'never hurts to ask' certainly does seem to apply here.

what about talking to some of your old profs at harvard? they might not be privy to the actual admissions decisions, but prob have a good idea of what the profile of a successfull applicant to the phd program is

[mengzi]

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nickg,

One prominent MBA program I think has a system is place for evals for people who don't make cut.

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yes..., wharton perhaps?

i have seen where some(harvard MBA i think?) specifically say that they won't beacuse of the sheer # of applicants. but as op stated, this isn't going to be nearly as much of an issue w/polsci phd programs. furthermore, given op's strong background, and the fact that he did his undergrad at harvard, i would have to think that they would be willing to give him some feedback

[Jdanz]

Do you know any faculty there? have you been in contact with any of them?

My girlfriend is applying to the same schools for political theory along with some others.

She is the number 1 politics kid from my school this year. I know she's had the head of the department personally speak with all the people he knows on admissions committies as well as being put in contact with professors that are in her particular sub-field.

As i understand the selection process kids get "picked" by different professors who have to bargain to get them in. They do this by making trades with other profs.

So really you need at least one person that wants you in particular, which really high scores and stuff doesn't do.

In your case I'd assume you didn't develoope personal relationships, and were unlucky in your essays didn't catch the eye of any proffessor to the extent that they were willing to "fight" for you.

[smk67]

1) Who were you letters and were they strong?
2) Does Harvard have official or unofficial stands on accepting their own bachelor candidates for graduate school?
3) You probably know this, but you would have been better off applying to more schools unless you were deadset on one of those two and no others.

[NickMPK]

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1) Who were you letters and were they strong?

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They were from two law school professors and my boss at my former political polling job. I didn't really work closely with any professors in undergrad...plus I graduated six years ago. I think my recommendations were strong (I didn't read them), but now I'm a little paranoid.
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2) Does Harvard have official or unofficial stands on accepting their own bachelor candidates for graduate school?


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I can't imagine this was an issue.

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3) You probably know this, but you would have been better off applying to more schools unless you were deadset on one of those two and no others.

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Of course. Basically those two were the only schools that:
1.) Were ranked in the Top 10 overall or for what I wanted to study;
2.) Were in a place that my wife might be willing to move to; and
3.) Didn't have a really early application deadline (I didn't get my act together in time for those schools that had Dec. 1 deadlines).

[TMDG]

Did you apply to PhD programs? If so, have you done a decent amount of research as an undergrad? I know that for the programs I'm interested in (CS), previous research (ie. publications in journals, etc..) and recommendations are probably the most important parts of the application. Not sure if it's the same across all fields though.

[NickMPK]

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Did you apply to PhD programs? If so, have you done a decent amount of research as an undergrad? I know that for the programs I'm interested in (CS), previous research (ie. publications in journals, etc..) and recommendations are probably the most important parts of the application. Not sure if it's the same across all fields though.

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Yes, PhD programs. The only serious research I did as an undergrad was for my senior honors thesis. And I've never had anything published, but I thought it was exceptionally rare for undergrads to get stuff published. In any case, I never really considered a career in academics as an undergrad, so I probably didn't lay some of the groundwork for this that I should have way back then. It wasn't until I was in law school that I figured out it was what I wanted to do.