PhD admission model - some "waiting season" though

Question

I contemplated this question a lot. in the B-school forum similar rejects for "high profiles" are dismissed for being "unlucky" or "pure random". i don't buy it, although i agree there is a certain amount of pure luck in the admission process... but i try not to reject claims without proposing alternatives - so i came up with a somewhat mixed qualitative/quantitative model for PhD admissions. here it is.... comments and opinions welcome.

i roughly classify factors affecting admission into 3 categories:
- competence (candidate's ability, potential for research etc...)
- fit (i.e. between candidates interests and abilities and the department and faculty research agendas)
- luck

 competence  is simply an estimation of your ability to study at PhD level and make valuable research and your potential to become a university professor. it is measured by your GMAT/GRE scores (and TOEFL if applicable), your undergraduate and graduate GPA, and to some extent, your work, research and teaching experience if applicable, LOR and SOP. the last two are used mainly as supportive evidence in my view.
it is hard to quantify this competence. different people value different aspects in a different way. so in estimating your "competence" level ask yourself how do the department you apply for value your competence. of course, your perceived level of competence depend on the "field", i.e. other applicants. so whil at a tier-B school you might be assessed as an extremely competent applicant, and ultra-elite may assess you differently.
another important aspect of competence is your career goals - your motivation and commitment to become a researcher.
trying to quantifying it - i think that competence level is responsible for about 40% of your application, or in other words if you try to give a score for each of your application, you can get up to 4 points in "competence" out of 10. dividing it further, i think 10% are earned by motivation and commitment and 30% are earned by academic and intellectual ability.

 fit  is even harder to measure. but let's divide it even further.
there is a "general fit" - how your broad research interests fit the department's "research agenda". by reading the department's website you should get a feel of what the fit is. do you agree with what they are writing? do the department have specific research centers or "research interest groups" that match, broadly, your interest. you should remember that fit is not measured only by the "subject matter" of the ineterest (i.e. "top management decision making"), but is also depend on research aproach and methodology (quantitative/qualitative) and scope (micro/macro/ interdisciplinary etc...).
there is also a "personal fit" - is there, or are there specific faculty members that match your interests more specifically? can you show this match? the "match" here is assessed not based on your broad interests and approach, but on a more focused research interest (and therefore you must have one, and state it clearly in your SOP). you shouldn't be too specific though, you should try to have a good personal fit with 2-3 faculty members. 1 is ok but may be too risky (see luck factor). 4 means that your interest may be too broad to create a good "personal fit". a good personal fit should be bi-directional. that is, the faculty memebr would think there is a good fit if they think that you, the applicant, has something to add for their research - a certain insight, special ability or experience, that can give added value to their work.
the last type of fit is "group fit" - here the pool of applicants is assessed as a group, and those who have something unique and different to offer stand out and gets extra points. unique work experience/life experience? a talent that can diversify the department? excellent....
quantifying all these i think that fit accounts for about 50% of your application strength, and again, each application may have different "fit". breaking it down, i think it is 20% general, 20% personal, 10% diversity.
scoring your application give upt to 2 points for general and personal fit and up to 1 point for diversity and special contribution.
the SOP is probably the most important aspect of the application in making this fit clear by telling a good story.

the last 10% are there for pure luck. if the faculty want to work with is overloaded with students, or get an application from someone which he knows personally (or knows personally a recommender of the applicant...)... all this can hurt your chances... but you can help your luck by communicating with potential advisors and get the "feel" for wether you are lucky or not. give your application 1 point if you are a lucky person.

so here we are - 
3 points for academic competence
1 point for motivation and commitment to research
2 points for general fit
2 points for personal fit
1 point for diversity and group fit
1 point for luck...

how many points you need to get admittance?
i believe something around 8 is the minimum. and the super-elite may require 8.5 or even 9 (but remember that each factor is already "estimated" according to the school... so there shouldn't be much differences now).

this "theorizing" explains well my admittance to wharton and ding from kellogg:
not being too modest, i think that my competence gave me 3 points in both and the same points for comittment and luck. but the fit was different. while my application showed very good general fit with wharton (which i would score around 1.5-2), my kellogg application won't get more than 1-1.5. i also failed in the personal fit (i think i even posted something related to that in this forum, without mentioning kellogg specifically).
i estimate my wharton application at around 8.5-9 (depending on luck) and my kellogg application at no more than 8 if i am extremely lucky (which i wasn't).
according to this model i expect to be dinged by MIT (maximum 8 if i'm lucky), and might be accepted by harvard (i need all my luck to get 8.5).

am i talking complete nonsense here?

bauble · Answer

Hobbit, this is complete nonsense...

Just kidding.

This is sort of my sense of it. SOP is not really in competence other than in how well you articulate ideas perhaps. Also, the luck factor depends on your other attributes. If you are really strong otherwise (competence and fit), you do not need luck. If you are the 5% behind the < 1% who are shoo-ins, then the luck factor increases as your profile weakens.

Sharpshooter · Answer

Oh is fitness that important? I wrote in my SOP that I am happy to do whatever they want me to do and work with whoever assigned to me. Hope that is impressive enough. :p

robbie1981 · Answer

On the whole, I agree.

I think my ding at Kellogg is a matter of fit, in particular of diversity. Even if I looked at the faculty research interests to find a match between them and my research agenda in writing my SOP, I think there are applicants that better fit to their program. Moreover, even if Kellogg had admitted me, I would have preferred to go other schools... since they are relatively weak concerning publications on top-tier journals. In sum, I think their decision is correct.

My question is: how could they have realized such "lack of fit" on the basis of my app?

For this reason, I think it is also a matter of the weights each school assign to each factor. I suppose that for Kellogg diversity worths a lot. Just to make another example, in New York University's application it is not compulsory to talk about your research interests.

Unfortunately, is difficult to understand how a specific school take care of a specific part of an application. Consequently, you should not only be careful, but also lucky - because of the lack of information - in "shaping" (putting emphasis on the factors they consider important) your app consistently with the school demand.

Of course, you should also have the time to try to infer what a specific school is looking for and to customize your application. :-D

bauble · Answer

Here are some insights from my interviews. A large part of research success as a prof is in developing your own research streams. So this is where I think the profs look into your SOP or your interests in talking with you. If your interests are vastly different from those of the department, they might be concerned that it would be tough for them to help you. Articulating interesting and relevant interests, irrespective of whether you ultimately do them, serve as some level of confirmation that you are able to develop research streams. I think diversity might be valued to match profs to students in a rough way, but I am just speculating here. For example, if they take 4 people all with identical interests, the few profs who could help would be overcommitted.

Of course, this is only in the few places in which I have had extensive interviews (I was admitted in all, so I think I have a good grasp of the process). This is a small sample, so it is entirely possible that there are places who bring in the smartest guys irrespective of interests, and just let the chips fall where they may.

tkkoh · Answer

bauble - I think many here are interested to know where you have been admitted to.

tkkoh · Answer

Indeed, I have heard a few times that NYU doesn't require applicants to describe their research interest. I thought this is pretty strange.

hobbit · Answer

i do think that "fit" is the most important factor in the application...
in fact i considered to title this thread "the admittance of the fittest".

cabro57 · Answer

hobbit: Based on my own experience, I'm not so convinced that fit is the most important factor in many business disciplines, given that few incoming students have actually ever done significant research in their preferred field. I agree that a very good and well motivated SOP will help faculty evaluate competence. However, I think students would rather do interesting research about subjects they didn't know about before entering than "stick to their plan" and do something that's either (i) uninteresting, or (ii) been done 15 years ago.

In all, I agree that "intangibles" play a role in admissions, but they're much more closely related to (the school faculty's assessment of your) "potential" than to "fit". This may be different at some schools of for some fields.

PhD admission model - some "waiting season" though

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards