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On the other side: What I learned about applications by being on the admissions committee

Upon emerging from our admissions meeting, one of my fellow first-time application reviewers told me that she was shocked:

“Did you know that professors had to fill out so much about you when you ask them for a recommendation?”

The answer was only ‘yes’ for me because one of my profs made me fill out my own recommendation. But there really is no way to realize that profs are actually made to rate us along several dimensions, in addition to writing a letter.

Instead, I was more shocked by what the faculty considered important when it came to deciding who to invite for an interview. Factors I thought were important were totally disregarded, and things that I glazed over were the deciding factor that in some cases caused applicants to be thrown out (and probably resulted in myself being thrown out during my first attempt).

These are some of the things I learned by being on the other side of the admissions process:

- What you say about yourself -

The resume and statement of purpose were by and large the most important parts of the application. Here, we looked for signs that applicants would be able to hit the ground running and contribute to the department.

It’s no secret that relevant experience in your field helps a huge deal.

Another factor that successful applicants tended to have was a clear idea of what they wanted to do. The best applications laid out specific plans about who they wanted to work with in the department, and why they wanted to do so. Usually they would list multiple alternative plans – this is a smart move, in case the professor mentioned did not actually need a graduate student. That said…

- Faculty consults -

Consulting with individual faculty via email beforehand was an amazingly smart move. If you could get a faculty endorsement before the applications even arrived in the mail, it practically guaranteed you a spot at the interviews.

- What are recommenders asked about you? -

Obviously everyone knows that recommenders write a letter for you. But when a recommender receives a request for a letter, he is also commonly asked to address several specific things. Here’s a request I received when asked to write a letter for one of the undergraduates in a class I taught.

- Your role (employer, professor, etc.) in interactions with the applicant.

- How long you have known the applicant.

- Place the applicant into a general peer group and rate the applicant against that group. For example, is the applicant in the top 1-2%, 5%, 10%, 25%, etc.? Please justify the ranking.

- The applicant’s strengths, weaknesses, and potential as a (role).

- Why the applicant would be a strong candidate for the (program) in particular.

- How strongly would you recommend this candiate? 1) strongly recommend 2) recommend 3) recommend with reservations 4) not recommend?

The majority of letters we received were full of praise for the applicants. With strong recommendations, consistent ratings in the top 1-2%, etc. 

We found that if profs had anything bad to say at all, they would be very sneaky about it, and then sugar-coat their criticisms to no end.

e.g. “X had some trouble at first, but after a few iterations finally…”
or
“Y struggled a bit at …. However, as a person, she is great to be around.”

Even if there was no outright criticism, applicants were sometimes rejected if they came across as mediocre.

In a stack of shining applications, we questioned why students were rated in the “top 10%” instead of the “top 5%” or “top 1-2%”. Yeah, it was that bad. Impress your recommenders, people!

- How much does GRE / GPA matter? -

Given how much sweat and blood (and money) we pour into achieving a high GPA/ GRE score, I thought this would weigh heavily in an applicant’s chances. But here’s what one faculty member said regarding an applicant with a high GPA/GRE, but who lacked relevant experience:

“If I wanted someone to take the GREs for me, this is who I’d hire, but…”

Here was an applicant with nearly 4.0, GRE percentiles in the high 90s, but she was wait-listed despite her book smarts, because she had nothing else on her CV that showed research aptitude.

That said, people with otherwise great CVs, but with suspiciously low GREs (especially in the sections relevant to your field, in this case people with low quantitative GRE scores were frowned upon because the research in my department is somewhat math-heavy) and GPAs (there was one person who was getting C’s or B’s in everything) were passed over. In these cases, unless the applicant had something on their CV that would explain away their poor grades (heavy involvement in extracirrculars, disability, language difficulties…), a low GPA / GRE was regarded as worthy of suspicion.

- What about extracirriculars? -

There were some amazing applicants who had founded charities and made a huge difference to their communities. There were some who had spent months abroad helping underprivileged children, or who were excellent atheletes and such. Unfortunately these factors were given a nod of approval, but subsequently ignored if the candidate did not also show similar aptitude for research.

TL:DR

After reading through this round of applications, I found myself asking “how the heck did I get accepted?!” I actually asked my prof this. He answered that it sounded like I had a plan and some experience under my belt, so I looked like I would be able to start contributing immediately. Comparing this to my previous failed application, I realized the biggest thing that changed from that attempt to this one was that I gained a year of experience in a lab which used similar techniques to the people I wanted to work with, had become more well-versed in the literature, and had developed specific hypotheses I wanted to test.

So bottom line, it was the applicant who looked most like he knew what he wanted to do, whose interests were in line with those of several faculty members who needed students, and looked like he could do it, who were invited to be interviewed.

A lot of info in this exceedingly long post might have been obvious, but I guess many get too caught up in grades and stuff to realize that this boils down to a job application. Good luck!

Interviews

Every time I recall my first round of graduate school interviews, I cringe. It was a terrible, terrible experience, which ended with me wanting to jump into a hole and die.

By the way, yes, I interviewed twice, and I am tempted to blame my first rejection on my utter lack of preparedness for my interviews.

I am ashamed to say that my 18 year old self was a hundred times more prepared for my scholarship interviews than I was for graduate school.

Apparently “Wise men learn by other men’s mistakes, fools by their own”, so here are some of the mistakes I made:

• Overconfidence: People were telling me that once you get invited to a school’s interview weekend, chances are you’ll get in unless you’re an axe murderer, are super weird, or ask stupid questions like “how little work can I do and still get a PhD”? THIS IS FALSE. I recently learned that at least in my department, a large pool of applicants was cut down to small pool of invitees (10% of applicants), who will be competing for an even smaller number of spots (>50% invited, not quite the ~90% people led me to believe). This varies from school to school, but my advice now would be to always assume the worst. Sure, schools will wine and dine you, leading you to think that you are a hotshot whom they need to impress, but do not be fooled! I will say now that this false sense of security led me to under-prepare for my interview, with disastrous consequences.
• Dress code: Many interview invites will say that the dress code is casual. FALSE. In an effort to out-impress each other, many of the interviewees I was with were in formal attire, blazer, tie and all. And there I was in my undergraduate hoodie. Afraid of over-doing it? It’s better to come over-prepared than under-prepared. Bring a tie in your luggage, even if you think you won’t need it. Iron your shirts/skirts. Comb your hair/acquire hair gel. Bring deodorant, freshen your breath. Dress smartly, appear neat. You are interviewing for a job, not attending a frat party!
• Replying to invites late: being an international student, it was hard to schedule interviews such that I’d only need to fly to the US once, and not take excessive amounts of leave from my job. Because of this, I waited for multiple schools to get back to me about interviews before replying to any one school. Big mistake. I pissed off the schools that invited me early, and received several angry, pestering emails, wondering if I would condescend to accept their humble invitation to their lowly school (cos in hindsight, that’s the impression I gave off by not replying immediately). The moment you receive an invite, reply immediately, with unbridled enthusiasm.
• Who are you talking to? Most of my invites came from admin staff like course coordinators. One day this guy emails me with an invite and I naturally assume it’s another of those admin guys. I reply in an informal tone and address him by first name. Guess who he was? He was the freaking department chair! Either google stalk and find out who you’re corresponding with, or play it safe.
• Current students: The existing students in the department may look like their only concern is taking you out and having fun, but amidst the partying and tours, they are silently judging you. If they find you are no fun, or weird, or stupid, they have a say in rejecting you.
• Follow up: As soon as you can after the interview, thank via email the faculty members / students you interviewed or interacted with. Remind them about yourself, and why you are the best candidate for the program. Flattery helps. e.g. “Thank you for taking the time to talk with me today. I really enjoyed our discussion about _____. I hope to work with you on ___________ and look forward to being able to contribute (insert awesome skills).”

Things you’ll likely discuss in the interview:

• If you’re applying for a position in someone’s lab, read up on that lab’s background. Spin your own experience so that it sounds like you will bring useful skills to the lab, and really fit in.
• Most departments are looking for students who will be able to contribute soon after they start. Describe how you will do so. Do you have ideas for a project, even before starting? Rehearse describing it.
• Look over your application, and make sure you know what you said on it so you don’t contradict yourself in person.
• Look over your resume, and be prepared to describe in detail your old job responsibilities and past projects.

• Prepare stock answers to common questions, like “what are your strengths/weaknesses?”, “why should we accept you?”, “what other schools are you applying to?”, “why did you apply to our program?”.

Can I haz acceptance letter?

Over the years, I’ve received numerous requests for advice on applying for scholarships, college, grad school etc. The vast majority of these requests fall along the lines of:

Is my application strong enough?

How do I pad my resume?

Which colleges / grad schools should I apply to? How many?

How do I prepare for interviews?

How does the process of applying to US colleges differ for international students?

Of course, these are all extremely important, and not too long ago I was the one who was freaking out over them. However, caught up in trying to secure scholarships or get into the best schools, many people fail to ask these questions:

Is a scholarship / grad school right for me?

What am I signing myself up for?

A little background about myself: I’m currently a graduate student at Stanford, with a scholarship from ASTAR (briefly, a science scholarship from the Singapore government, which pays for undergrad and grad school tuition in exchange for a 6 year service commitment).

Now that I’m currently down this track, I can tell you from the other side that I wish I’d asked myself these questions earlier on. I do not regret my choice – I just have these moments where I suddenly realize that as a naive 18 year old, I basically put down in ink what I would be doing for the rest of my life.

Because they’re so hard to obtain and involve so much money, many people think it would be crazy to turn down a scholarship. During my undergraduate days, as well as at Stanford, I’ve met people who have accepted scholarships from all over the world, whose lives have been affected by their choice. One thing I hope to achieve in this blog is to shed light on this question: What does accepting a scholarship really entail? I refer specifically to sources of funding that involve a service commitment, or bond, where you’re required to return to work for your funding agency for a certain amount of time.

In a similar vein, I’ll also discuss the following:

- graduate school. Free food jokes aside, what is grad school really like?

- international student life. At one point, I was Fresh Off the Boat (or plane). And severely homesick. And misunderstood.

Finally, the all important:

- Scholarship /college / grad school application tips and tricks. I’ve served as a student member of various interview panels / admissions committees, so I’ll write about what caught our eyes while we were sifting through hundreds of applications / interviewing dozens of kids who all seem to be geniuses.

Till next time,

- B