"If you went to a good school (as you seem to claim), I am willing to bet that one or more admits were advocated for by a professor and (most likely) ended up a

"If you went to a good school (as you seem to claim), I am willing to bet that one or more admits were advocated for by a professor and (most likely) ended up as that professor’s advisee. You may not have been told about this, but I bet it happens. As I said elsewhere, strong doctoral students (relatively speaking) are extremely hard to find, and most good professors won’t leave a good fit to chance. Maybe your field is different, but I somehow doubt it." The program doesn't do direct admit like that - I know because I asked. Faculty can advocate, and everyone was matched with an advisor, but for the most part first year funding was not under someone's direct RA line, and a slim majority of students ended up switching advisors (myself included). Ironically, one of the professors who did recruit the strong doctoral students did so in a way that was a very useful cautionary tale for my own recruiting - namely that it's very hard to actually determine that from an application.