5 ms·

Inside Graduate Admissions

49 points by samclemens 11y ago

untilHellbanned 11y ago
Lots of fascinating insight. Definitely worth a read. “Grades are increasingly a lousy signal, especially at those elite places that just hand out the A’s. So you don't even have that anymore,” “This is an elite university and a lot of the people at the university are elitists,” one professor said with a laugh. “So they make a lot of inferences about the quality of someone's work and their ability based on where they come from.”
- huac 11y ago
  Reminiscent of http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/opinion/sunday/leaked-harvards-grading-rubric.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/opinion/sunday/leaked-harv...
  - linhchi 11y ago
    Haha only half way through i realized it's a joke I suffered a serious bias of the kind: "Well, this is Harvard, let's try a bit more to make sense out of it, maybe it's you that dont understand"
  - harryjo 11y ago
    That joke article is a reaction to http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/12/03/harvard-professor-raises-concerns-about-grade-inflation/McZHfRZ2RxpoP5Xvwged1N/story.html http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/12/03/harvard-professo... a 2013 article about Harvey Mansfield's war on grade inflation. What's funny is that Harvey Mansfield has been at war against grade inflation for at least 18 years, going back to his anti-Affirmative-Action debate (somehow, affirmative action caused grade inflation among the majority-white population of Harvard, according to Mansfield). http://nersp.nerdc.ufl.edu/~lombardi/edudocs/mansfield_gradeharvard_chron_2001.html http://nersp.nerdc.ufl.edu/~lombardi/edudocs/mansfield_grade... Back in the '90s, the going theory was that _Vietnam War_ created grade inflation, as schools gave out higher grades to help students get draft deferments. Of course, that was before GWBush taught us that you can draft-dodge just fine with C grades.
santaclaus 11y ago
Interesting -- I thought the key to getting into a good PhD program was letters of recommendation, publications (not even first author), and fellowships (NSF, etc). > a heavy focus on the GRE I've never heard of someone getting into a program based on GRE scores... bombing the GRE is certainly a red flag, but things like recommendation letters from big names are way more important.
- zzleeper 11y ago
  You are right. It is not unusual to have 20 applicants with perfect GREs, so they act more like a minimum threshold
  - geebee 11y ago
    One additional factor here - a "perfect" GRE math score, 800/800, was typically only about a 95%ile score (at least back when I took it, which was admittedly 15+ years ago). Ok, 95%ile isn't a low score, but it's not like a "perfect" LSAT or MCAT score, which I believe indicates a 99.9%ile ranking. This is important, because while 20 candidates with "perfect" math GRE scores definitely indicates a strong set of standardized test takers, it isn't comparable to perfect scores in other standardized exams.
    - wfo 11y ago
      Most of the time for grad admissions they use the subject GREs and almost entirely ignore the basic ones (though they require you take them). Math PhD programs don't even care about any part of the basic GRE, just the subject test, which is used exactly how the article describes. I assume in humanities programs they give weight to the verbal/writing parts of the GRE just as a pre-filter before they examine candidates. But the quant part of the GRE is so basic (high school level, no calculus) that the difference between missing a single problem is the difference between 100 percentile and like 75 since almost everyone who is trying does unbelievably well.
      - geebee 11y ago
bjwbell 11y ago
Considering the completion rate for PhD programs, admitting a broader applicant pool would likely make it worse.
- daniel-levin 11y ago
  Or better, because it is possible that the current process selects adversely.
  - barry-cotter 11y ago
    If you go to Google Scholar and look up the correlation of GRE score with completion, publications and professional success it will be positive. The fact that it isn't predictive within a programme is just a reflection of range restriction, same as how Google found that GPA had no reliable relationship on job performance in the set of people they actually hired.
zzleeper 11y ago
At some point I had to stop reading. This article is absolutely imbecile, and I don't say that word lightly or to troll. Just one example b/C on mobile: > For instance, those whose programs were not at the very top of the rankings frequently talked about not wanting to offer a spot to someone they believed would go to a higher-ranked program. They didn't want their department to be the graduate equivalent of what high school students applying to college term a safety school. In this sense many of these departments turned down superior candidates, some of whom might have enrolled. Many of the professors sound insecure about their programs even though they are among the very best Grad school is not a job you can apply to through the year. All offers are made at the same time. If you make an offer to the best guys, what will happen is that when Harvard comes and scoops you , you will end up empty handed and had no students. The reason is that most schools make an offer on e.g. say Feb and then there is an agreement to allow students to reply up to April 10th. So if your offers get turned down, you will have to scrap the bottom of the barrel. Again, this article shows utter ignorance about grad school, stuff that just a call or email to any grad student could have answered. Also, sorry for sounding grumpy but I don't have a problem with people being wrong; I have a problem with being wrong and being an asshole about it
- huac 11y ago
  might be since it's 2 am but their interpretation sounds both correct and compatible with yours. limited spots = limited number of offers, you want to give those to the best students you think will enroll in your program.
  - zzleeper 11y ago
    Thats the diagnosis, which is correct. The interpretation is that the price are insecure, racist (or discriminate in other way), and so on.
searine 11y ago
Hard limits on GRE scores are reasonable. If you can't pull at lease a 75th percentile on your subject GRE, you probably shouldn't be trying to get a PhD in it. Personally, I got >90th percentile with a bare minimum of studying. I wouldn't be surprised if most of my classmates at the time had the same.
- jseliger 11y ago
  If you can't pull at lease a 75th percentile on your subject GRE, you probably shouldn't be trying to get a PhD in it. Depends on your subject. The subject GRE for English lit, for example, is an incredible crapshoot: Much of it concerns passage identification, and if you happen to recognize that this one is from Billy Budd and this one is from Gulliver's Travels, great. If not, you can lose a lot of points in ways that are unlikely to reflect what lit profs are really judged by in the academic market: their ability to write peer-reviewed articles and books.
- cafard 11y ago
  This stuff is a lot more systematic now than it was in my own caveman days, and people may for all I know prep more. However, I had a college classmate who had mediocre GREs. This was not the problem for him that it might have been, since he picked his program based on climate (no more snow). He got his Ph.D. and has every since happily taught and published. He was very good at what he studied, but not at taking standardized tests.
- harryjo 11y ago
  > If you can't pull at lease a 75th percentile on your subject GRE, you probably shouldn't be trying to get a PhD in it. Your system, has, built into its design, a requirement that for each PhD student, 3 others must try to get into a PhD program, to create a top 25 %ile.
zump 11y ago
Depressing. I'm from Australia with a 3.0 GPA, do I have a chance to make it into any universities in California (for a Master's degree?)
- barry-cotter 11y ago
  Terminal Master's degrees are profit centres for American universities, not something on the straight and narrow track to a Ph.D. As such the entry requirements are lower than for getting into a Ph.D. programme.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- ayberk 11y ago
  You do, although don't get too hopeful for better schools. It's true masters is easier to get into, but as a current international masters student in California, I can say mean GPA and test scores are still high. You can find my e-mail on my profile. Feel free to shoot me any questions you have :)

49 points by samclemens 11y ago

Lots of fascinating insight. Definitely worth a read. “Grades are increasingly a lousy signal, especially at those elite places that just hand out the A’s. So you don't even have that anymore,” “This is an elite university and a lot of the people at the university are elitists,” one professor said with a laugh. “So they make a lot of inferences about the quality of someone's work and their ability based on where they come from.”

huac 11y ago
Reminiscent of http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/opinion/sunday/leaked-harvards-grading-rubric.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/opinion/sunday/leaked-harv...
- linhchi 11y ago
  Haha only half way through i realized it's a joke I suffered a serious bias of the kind: "Well, this is Harvard, let's try a bit more to make sense out of it, maybe it's you that dont understand"
- harryjo 11y ago
  That joke article is a reaction to http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/12/03/harvard-professor-raises-concerns-about-grade-inflation/McZHfRZ2RxpoP5Xvwged1N/story.html http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/12/03/harvard-professo... a 2013 article about Harvey Mansfield's war on grade inflation. What's funny is that Harvey Mansfield has been at war against grade inflation for at least 18 years, going back to his anti-Affirmative-Action debate (somehow, affirmative action caused grade inflation among the majority-white population of Harvard, according to Mansfield). http://nersp.nerdc.ufl.edu/~lombardi/edudocs/mansfield_gradeharvard_chron_2001.html http://nersp.nerdc.ufl.edu/~lombardi/edudocs/mansfield_grade... Back in the '90s, the going theory was that _Vietnam War_ created grade inflation, as schools gave out higher grades to help students get draft deferments. Of course, that was before GWBush taught us that you can draft-dodge just fine with C grades.

santaclaus 11y ago

Interesting -- I thought the key to getting into a good PhD program was letters of recommendation, publications (not even first author), and fellowships (NSF, etc). > a heavy focus on the GRE I've never heard of someone getting into a program based on GRE scores... bombing the GRE is certainly a red flag, but things like recommendation letters from big names are way more important.

zzleeper 11y ago
You are right. It is not unusual to have 20 applicants with perfect GREs, so they act more like a minimum threshold
- geebee 11y ago
  One additional factor here - a "perfect" GRE math score, 800/800, was typically only about a 95%ile score (at least back when I took it, which was admittedly 15+ years ago). Ok, 95%ile isn't a low score, but it's not like a "perfect" LSAT or MCAT score, which I believe indicates a 99.9%ile ranking. This is important, because while 20 candidates with "perfect" math GRE scores definitely indicates a strong set of standardized test takers, it isn't comparable to perfect scores in other standardized exams.
  - wfo 11y ago
    Most of the time for grad admissions they use the subject GREs and almost entirely ignore the basic ones (though they require you take them). Math PhD programs don't even care about any part of the basic GRE, just the subject test, which is used exactly how the article describes. I assume in humanities programs they give weight to the verbal/writing parts of the GRE just as a pre-filter before they examine candidates. But the quant part of the GRE is so basic (high school level, no calculus) that the difference between missing a single problem is the difference between 100 percentile and like 75 since almost everyone who is trying does unbelievably well.
    - geebee 11y ago

bjwbell 11y ago

Considering the completion rate for PhD programs, admitting a broader applicant pool would likely make it worse.

daniel-levin 11y ago
Or better, because it is possible that the current process selects adversely.
- barry-cotter 11y ago
  If you go to Google Scholar and look up the correlation of GRE score with completion, publications and professional success it will be positive. The fact that it isn't predictive within a programme is just a reflection of range restriction, same as how Google found that GPA had no reliable relationship on job performance in the set of people they actually hired.

zzleeper 11y ago

At some point I had to stop reading. This article is absolutely imbecile, and I don't say that word lightly or to troll. Just one example b/C on mobile: > For instance, those whose programs were not at the very top of the rankings frequently talked about not wanting to offer a spot to someone they believed would go to a higher-ranked program. They didn't want their department to be the graduate equivalent of what high school students applying to college term a safety school. In this sense many of these departments turned down superior candidates, some of whom might have enrolled. Many of the professors sound insecure about their programs even though they are among the very best Grad school is not a job you can apply to through the year. All offers are made at the same time. If you make an offer to the best guys, what will happen is that when Harvard comes and scoops you , you will end up empty handed and had no students. The reason is that most schools make an offer on e.g. say Feb and then there is an agreement to allow students to reply up to April 10th. So if your offers get turned down, you will have to scrap the bottom of the barrel. Again, this article shows utter ignorance about grad school, stuff that just a call or email to any grad student could have answered. Also, sorry for sounding grumpy but I don't have a problem with people being wrong; I have a problem with being wrong and being an asshole about it

huac 11y ago
might be since it's 2 am but their interpretation sounds both correct and compatible with yours. limited spots = limited number of offers, you want to give those to the best students you think will enroll in your program.
- zzleeper 11y ago
  Thats the diagnosis, which is correct. The interpretation is that the price are insecure, racist (or discriminate in other way), and so on.

searine 11y ago

Hard limits on GRE scores are reasonable. If you can't pull at lease a 75th percentile on your subject GRE, you probably shouldn't be trying to get a PhD in it. Personally, I got >90th percentile with a bare minimum of studying. I wouldn't be surprised if most of my classmates at the time had the same.

jseliger 11y ago
If you can't pull at lease a 75th percentile on your subject GRE, you probably shouldn't be trying to get a PhD in it. Depends on your subject. The subject GRE for English lit, for example, is an incredible crapshoot: Much of it concerns passage identification, and if you happen to recognize that this one is from Billy Budd and this one is from Gulliver's Travels, great. If not, you can lose a lot of points in ways that are unlikely to reflect what lit profs are really judged by in the academic market: their ability to write peer-reviewed articles and books.
cafard 11y ago
This stuff is a lot more systematic now than it was in my own caveman days, and people may for all I know prep more. However, I had a college classmate who had mediocre GREs. This was not the problem for him that it might have been, since he picked his program based on climate (no more snow). He got his Ph.D. and has every since happily taught and published. He was very good at what he studied, but not at taking standardized tests.
harryjo 11y ago
> If you can't pull at lease a 75th percentile on your subject GRE, you probably shouldn't be trying to get a PhD in it. Your system, has, built into its design, a requirement that for each PhD student, 3 others must try to get into a PhD program, to create a top 25 %ile.

zump 11y ago

Depressing. I'm from Australia with a 3.0 GPA, do I have a chance to make it into any universities in California (for a Master's degree?)

barry-cotter 11y ago
Terminal Master's degrees are profit centres for American universities, not something on the straight and narrow track to a Ph.D. As such the entry requirements are lower than for getting into a Ph.D. programme.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
ayberk 11y ago
You do, although don't get too hopeful for better schools. It's true masters is easier to get into, but as a current international masters student in California, I can say mean GPA and test scores are still high. You can find my e-mail on my profile. Feel free to shoot me any questions you have :)