I wanted to know how much weight the college someone got a master's from matters while applying for a doctoral program? So for instance, if a person is enrolled in a college which is not well known and his application is great in terms of research projects, CPI score, TOEFL, GRE scores etc., then would that person's application be considered worse than a person who is doing master's from a very good college (well-known)? In particular, I wanted to ask this because I have heard that those Indian students are preferred for PhD programs in Physics in good colleges in US who have done Master's from a top IITs like IIT Kanpur or IIT Madras and students who apply from a lower ranked IIT get frequently rejected. P.S: Those who have no idea about IITs can take the question in a general context from my first paragraph.
718
When applying to a PhD program in the US, how does the admissions process work? If an applicant is weak in a particular area, is it possible to offset that by being strong in a different area?  Note that this question originated from this . Please feel free to edit the question to improve it.
109320
I am applying for PhD programs in the USA, one of the schools requested a PhD research interest. The problem is I do not know how to write it, and I didn't done any research in my masters degree, are there any solution?
5048
I've heard of people transferring between graduate schools because of their advisor moving to another school and taking their students with them.   Do students ever transfer for other reasons? If a student isn't happy at the school they choose, could transferring be an option? Presumably they would frame it as something positive such as "turns out I really want to work with Professor X" rather than "I hate my school", but does this ever happen? Is there a certain timeframe in which this is possible? (Assume it's a 5 year PhD program.)  If the answer varies by subject please mention the subject in your answer.  (Context: many friends have told me that if it turns out I'm not happy with my choice, I can always transfer. My impression is that this is actually difficult since many schools don't accept transfer students and in any case not being able to stick with a program looks bad -- but I don't have evidence either way so wanted to ask people who are in academia. Of course the ideal would be to pick a school one is happy with in the first place!)
103298
I feel I've received poor grades in my bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering - Second Class Second Division as per UK grading system. Having finished my bachelors in the UK I wish to enroll into a masters program in Systems or Mechanical Engineering in the US. I am currently employed by a logistics company in Dubai.   How can I improve my chances of getting into a grad school in the US with what I consider as poor grades? What other factors can strengthen my application?
84726
Recently, someone analyzed  and found that over half of the professors at the top 51 universities graduated from a top 10 university.  have also brought this up. From my personal observations, most schools do hire graduates from better ranked schools.  Is this because of the competitive job market? We have so many good applicants, we have to narrow it down some how! Or is it simply that these schools produce the most PhDs? Has this always been the case? How rare are exceptions to this? I know of a few people who graduated from a top 75 school and got hired at a top 50 school. But what about bigger gaps? The top 10 schools seem to just swap graduates, do they ever hire from a 50+ ranked school?  Update 2018: I have accepted a tenure-track position at a top 75 department at an R1 university immediately after graduating from an unranked department at an R2 university. It does happen! This may or may not generalize to other fields and countries.
86489
I'm wondering whether dismissal / withdrawal from a PhD program should be listed as disciplinary action on subsequent applications. A Master's program application usually asks questions like:     Have you ever been found responsible for a disciplinary violation at any post-secondary institution you have attended, whether related to academic misconduct or behavioral misconduct, that resulted in a disciplinary action?   I was academically dismissed from a PhD program after four semesters for not being able to maintain the minimum GPA. I plan to fully include this information in my application (e.g. through transcripts from the institution from which I was dismissed), and address why I was dismissed (and what steps I have taken to address academic concerns) in my Statement of Purpose.    Q: However, I am not sure if my dismissal counts as one that is due to "disciplinary violation" related to "academic misconduct or behavioral misconduct". I was simply dismissed due to not being able to maintain the required grades. Should I answer the above question in the negative?
51583
I finished my master thesis 6 years ago, since then I gained a lot of experience on my field and also in academia. I can say that in that time I was a "child" , very inexperienced. I think that also my advisor did not help a lot, and I tried to do  a lot of things by my own, without someone to really review my things. Despite that, I still received a good mention by the master committee on final results.   Some days ago, I just decided to read part of master thesis, and I just realized a big nightmare coming. I identified a lot of typos, some references errors, and some improvements that I should do, but I did not. The worst thing is that I wrote a paper to a conference with my master thesis results (and some errors are there). The conference is not a high impact conference, but still the paper has my name and is available for everyone...   As I am finishing my PhD studies for now, I am concerning a lot that situation. My dream and goal is to pursue a Professor career. So, my questions are: What are (or could be) the consequences of a master thesis and paper with errors (some minor and some major) in academia? Revoke degree after years by errors in master is possible ( I am concerning a lot this situation that I thought on it)? How can I minimize it (I thought that I can put a fixed version of my thesis and paper in the future, for instance on my personal website)? How those errors can impact me in a Professor recruitment process?  Sorry for the long text, I am blaming myself all the time, and really afraid about the possibilities since I know that Academia career is really competitive.
21858
I will be a second year math under-grad in September, and currently doing an internship at applied math research institute. However, my interest after my bachelors is to do PhD in pure math at a top math school. My question is:  How important would the recommendation letters from my current supervisors be while I apply to grad school? (Note: My supervisors are very active in their field of research, but are not quite famous.)
15777
I've had a promising Skype interview with a great professor from a top-level university in US. Our research interests are closely related and he encouraged me to apply BUT he says that all decisions are finally made by admission committee there.  The question is "Is a professor in such a high-level university able to affect admission committee if he really wants a student?" or "Does admission committee decision-making process become easier if a professor really wants an applicant?"  The main point is the difference between my transcript (which is a real catastrophe!) and my research background which is pretty good so the professor's decision might be different from admission committee.
40746
Suppose you do bad in undergraduate school in say computer science. But you do very well in a masters program in computer science. If you want to apply to a PhD program in computer science, will the masters degree grades offset the undergraduate degree grades?
3306
I understand that schools are trying to gauge the chances of an offer being accepted by a potential candidate. Similarly to what has been described for job applications and other questions that a lower ranked program might not offer admission to someone who applied to just top schools.  How much should a candidate divulge about the other schools he/she is applying to? If applying to a top school will it decrease your chances if you are stating you are applying to another top school?  I find this kind of questions a bit intrusive and that might even compromise to some degree my application. Perhaps some people that have been in admission commitees can shed some light on the dynamics related to applicants that applied to several schools.
89336
The following question is not a general question about , but rather about applying to several positions within the same institution (regardless of applying to multiple other institutions as well).  Starting questions are, as follows. What are the potential effects, following such strategy? Mostly negative, mostly positive, or neutral? A situation often occurs, such that an institution advertises several positions that I believe I would fit, however, among those, only one (usually) is the best fit (my preference), but others are also suitable (decent fit).  Therefore, my main question is twofold: 1) is it a good strategy to apply to all suitable positions within an institution; 2) if Yes, should I mention my preference, for example, in an application letter (if No, I assume that the optimal choice is to apply to the position with the best fit)?
31833
I'm applying for graduate school (PhD in computer science), and I'm considering writing to faculty whose research areas match with what I intend to pursue, to understand:   Whether they'd be looking for new students at all in the coming year? If they did, would they be potentially interested in my profile (I know no-one would guarantee an acceptance without me going through the process of application), but it would help to know if they would not be interested at all in me - which would leave me  free apply to other schools in which I get a neutral/positive response.   Keeping the above in mind, what would be the best way to introduce myself in the first mail?   What should be the salutation - I know "Respected Sir" sounds archaic, but was wondering if "Dear Professor X" sounded too informal or not! Do I state my credentials (details of where I did my undergrads/masters) first, or do I state my purpose in writing to him/her? How to mention my background concisely, without giving too much details, while at the same time not "underselling" myself as a potential grad student? I want to give a link to my resume/profile hosted on my website - should I embed the hyperlink, or is it better to write the link in plain text? How do I end such a letter - the obvious ones (such as "see you soon" or "till we meet again") being not quite suitable in this case)?   I'm basically afraid of saying too much (causing vexation) or too little (resulting in no response to my missive). I understand that the faculty are accustomed to seeing their inbox flooded with such mails each year, few of which ever get a positive response - which may not always be due to lack of an interesting profile, but the manner in which the mail is worded (Many professors have explicitly mentioned on their websites that they would not respond to generic "Do you have funding" type of queries no matter what the credentials of the student are!).   Though my interest is specific to CS, I believe it would apply to other fields as well. Also, I would be interested in the opinions of both present faculty members (who have to sort through such mails), and past applicants to grad-school (who have the experience of successfully writing to their advisers before applying)...
88140
I have the following dilemma: I am finishing my Master's degree in pure mathematics this academic year (summer 2015) and I hoped to apply to a PhD program (US schools) starting from September 2015. Therefore, I have to apply this fall (till December 2014 in most places).  However, I have the following problem - my first article has just been completed and I have to go through a painful publication process which will not be finished in time (surely not till December). Second problem is that I have not particularly high GRE Math results (around 750 I guess, still waiting for results); the exam can be retaken only in April 2015.  Therefore, the only strengths I have are high GPA and solid letters of recommendation. I guess I could send the article to Arxiv.org, but I am not sure if that is acceptable to admissions committee and I am not familiar with the process of placing the article there.  So my questions are:  Is it OK to apply this fall and in case I am not accepted to the desired program, reapply next year, in the fall of 2015?  Or there is some kind of cooldown like the one you have in industry jobs and it is wiser to skip this year's admissions and apply in 2015 with a solid application profile?
44539
For PhD applications, I have mentioned that I am interested in some research areas. Besides, I am thinking about mentioning some professors' names, so that it shows I have read their websites and I am not just sending out generic statements applicable to many schools.  But is it good to mention some professors' names in the statement of purpose, if I don't know them personally? In what cases is it good, and in what cases it isn't?  For example, is it good to only mention    those whose research directions are aligned with my research interests, or/and those whose books or notes I have heard of, or better, might have read some parts of, or/and those who are already established and famous (such as having certain titles), or/and those that are directing the PhD graduate programs, or/and those that are heads of the departments?    What will other professors who are not mentioned think? How will you do, if it were you?
46523
This question is inspired by answers and comments to the question  on this website.  Suppose that an applicant to a graduate program suffered from some mental health issues during the completion of his previous degrees, and that this situation had a noticeable impact on his academic performance (for example, significantly lower grades or part-time status for one or several semesters).  Most graduate school applications have sections dedicated to providing explanations for such special circumstances, and it is of course strongly recommended that any applicant with unusual drops in academic performance should mention something about this in the special circumstances section. Otherwise, the admission committee will be left to guess what might have happened, which is likely to decrease the odds of being admitted (indeed, it seems a consensus that the more tangible information an admission committee has about an applicant, the more confident they can be about the fact that admitting him will be a sound investment).  Many answers/comments to the question  seem to recommend being very careful about revealing details on one's mental health conditions, given that there is still a lot of stigma attached to mental health conditions. However, in the case of PhD applications, not mentioning anything is not an option.  This then leads to the following question: If not making any mention of health issues is not an option (such as in PhD applications), how much details should one go into? To avoid stereotyping associated to any particular disease (such as depression=unreliable, learning disability=not smart) one could limit the description to "health problem", but could this lack of details be seen as suspicious and/or still a situation where the admissions committee will have to do guesswork?
36506
I've been admitted to more than one PhD program, and I'm having a very hard time making a decision.  The programs I'm accepted to have advantages and disadvantages with respect to one another. How do I weigh the relative importance of difference aspects of the program in order to make an optimal decision?  Ultimately, this is not a decision that anybody else can make for me, because everyone has different values and priorities, and the right decision for me may not be the right decision for somebody else. However, you can help  by giving me more information about how different features of a program will affect my experience in graduate school and my future career.  The offers under consideration differ in a variety of ways:          I need to know more about what kinds of things are important and how these will affect me, so that I can make an informed decision about balancing competing criteria.     Note to readers: These answers quote extensively from other answers on this site (and link to them). If you read something quoted here that you find helpful, please follow the link to the original source and vote it up!    This is a special community wiki 'canonical' question that aggregates advice on a very broad topic - see more information in this .  Each answer here relates to a different metric that one might take under consideration. If you have a new "critical" metric not in the list above that you believe should be an important part of the decision, post a new answer. If you want to add something related a metric that's already represented in its own answer, edit that answer.