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Was there a surge in application volume this year?

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2014 5:27 pm
by TomServo
Was there a higher ratio of applicants to available spots across all schools this year? And if so, was the surge primarily from domestic or international students? PSU had 600 applicants for 25 spots this year.

Re: Was there a surge in application volume this year?

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2014 6:15 pm
by torch000
Not according to the admission statistics for Fall 2012
http://www.gradschoolshopper.com/gradsc ... admissions

which if your number is a hard 600, indicates that the volume of applicants has decreased

Re: Was there a surge in application volume this year?

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2014 8:05 pm
by bfollinprm
There has been consistent growth in people entering both graduate and undergraduate programs in physics in the US for the past several years. This year was a continuation of that trend.

Re: Was there a surge in application volume this year?

Posted: Mon Mar 31, 2014 4:24 pm
by Catria
The acceptance rates on the AIP website are a little misleading, if Dr. Knop's (a prof at Quest, ex-Vanderbilt prof) claims are correct.

Many East Asian kids (oftentimes cram school graduates) will shotgun 20, 30 (one Vanderbilt applicant reportedly sent as many as 40 apps) applications with a poorly written SOP, who may or may not know what research they want, and recs that don't mean as much. And yet, they used to make up 2/3 to 3/4 of the apps back in the day where he worked at Vanderbilt... perhaps a little less now, though. My PI said that, for this reason, the real acceptance rates are anywhere between what's on the AIP's website and twice that figure.