3 ms·

What exactly do you mean? I hear a lot of people put this kind of conspiracy theory view of academia out but I never really get the details.

• Alex3917 17y ago
  What I mean is that the best grad schools in the US are purposely designed to have an extreme bias toward selecting students with the best grades and the highest GRE scores. You can still get in without good grades and without taking the GRE if you've done very good research and have earned the trust of the right people, but it's very difficult. And even if you do get accepted, you'd probably face an uphill battle throughout your entire career.
  • jibiki 17y ago
    For real? People have always told me that recommendations are pretty much the only thing good grad schools look at. (For math, at least.)
    • pradocchia 17y ago
      Math is a holdout.
    • apu 17y ago
      This is true at all the top CS programs as well. They look at: 1. Past research (including published papers) 2. Recommendation letters GRE scores are a pre-filter (not set too high, I think, and certainly the CS subject GRE is ignored, even when it is required), grades matter only slightly, and the admission essays are basically a chance to disqualify yourself by saying something stupid.
    • Alex3917 17y ago
      I've heard this too, but do the admission statistics actually confirm it? I suspect it's more along the lines of, "we only care about your recommendations, as long as you have above a 3.7 GPA." I could be wrong...