if a faculty member wants you, you'll get in.

what field are you speaking from?

i can say with certainty that that is not categorically true in mine (or at least my department).

Mathematics. And computer science. Empirical data suggests that this is true in chemistry, and physics as well. And I can't imagine it not holding in other fields.

There's a faculty committee that reviews applications. If faculty member X goes to someone on the committee (or several on the committee) and says "hey, I've met with applicant Y and I really want him, and I have funding for him," then there's no way you're not getting in.

If X says "This guy is really good, and I want to work with him," even without offering to fund, it's still virtually guaranteed that you will get in. Unless X is a dick and everyone hates him, or if everyone knows that X is a horrible mentor to students.

It's rare that you get faculty vouching for undergrads or young (1st/2nd yr) grad students, so when it happens, the department listens. Similarly, if you haven't passed quals or are having difficulties there, but you have an advisor willing to work with you, the dept. will be a little more lenient/flexible with scores and timelines, typically.

You're in biostatistics where? And what committee did you serve on?

[edit: rereading, am I understanding that you're a grad student on a grad admissions committee? What year?]

University of Washington. yeah, serving my 2nd year on the admissions committee now.

When you say vouching for 1st/2nd year grad students, sounds like you are talking about students who are already in the program but haven't reached candidacy yet? I think that would be analogous to someone in our department being borderline on quals, but if their dissertation advisor vouches for them, then they'll make it through. I would agree with that much.

But in terms of straight admissions into the program, the thing is that our faculty who aren't on the admissions committee don't really get involved. There was the one instance that I mentioned, of one of our own professors writing a stellar letter of recommendation for an applicant, and wrote in her letter that she would be delighted to have him as a dissertation advisee. But she still never went so far as to get in touch personally with any of the admissions committee members and ensure that he got in. And interestingly enough, he almost didn't. His file was literally on its way to the "reject" pile except someone on the committee spoke up and said let's have another look.

And my other point was that I think it's harder to get a professor's attention in this way than one might think. In this case, the guy had to work for this professor for an entire summer to impress her to this level. I don't think this can be accomplished through a few e-mails or even meetings with a professor that you might want to get on your side, which is my understanding of what was being suggested above.

Anyways, I obviously can't speak to how it works in other departments or fields. I'm just sharing what I've observed and been a part of in my own.

Nice, good school. I'm surprised they have students on the admissions committee.
Yes, this is exactly what I meant.
Yeah. My point is that if the faculty member really wanted you to get in, he could just go talk to people on the committee, and imo there's basically no way the committee would ignore that. That they typically don't do this is likely because they don't get to know applicants well enough to vouch for them, not because 'that's not how the system works' or something. That was really my only point.
Yeah, I agree mostly, although I lol'd at *entire summer*, since that doesn't seem like very long to me. Seems kind of standard, in fact. If you know 100% where you want to go for grad school, this suggests that doing an REU there may be a worthwhile venture.

I will note that if you do research as an undergrad, there's a fair amount of networking that can go on at conferences. If someone sees your talk or poster and is impressed, and you chat them up, I think you can work something like this. I've done a lot of networking over dinner and drinks.

But by and large, a few emails (or equivalent) with someone isn't going to motivate them to go talk to the admissions committee.

You're a PhD student in UW Biostats?

yup

yeah i think we're pretty much on the same page then, i think there was some misunderstanding from above about what we were even debating.

woot, got one of my school's nominations for the Goldwater Scholarship!

grats

Just shipped my first acceptance letter, directly to PhD program at Purdue!

Congrats. I don't think I'll hear back from any schools until late Feb at the earliest.

grats ijs!

This, I'm expecting March 1st at the earliest but one dept already invited me to come over Winter break and showed me around (I had lunch with the dept chair even) so I'm pretty sure they want me. It's my 3rd fav school of the 14 I applied to so I'm happy so far.

Congrats on the first acceptance though-- that's huge.

I'm not sure how those pre acceptance fly outs work b/c they aren't common afaik in econ. While it has to be at least a weak signal of interest I had a friend last year get a fall flyout then wasn't even waitlisted. There could have been due to quite a few factors though and likely had something to do with him having a weaker application.

The place I did my PhD did this every year. It was a big part of their recruiting efforts. I'm not exactly sure, but my sense is that everyone brought to campus before getting accepted could more or less be expected to get accepted. The only you weren't accepted is if you turned out to be a raging jerk/weirdo during the two-day visit. They're simply not going to spend that kind of money, time, and effort on you unless they already think you're qualified. You have to really mess up to not get accepted.

This was basically true for biophysics as well. We absolutely did reject some recruits because of their behavior during the visits, though. The most obvious two that I remember were 1) person who made it clear that we weren't his top-choice school (if we accept and wait for the recruit to decline, it becomes harder to fill the spot, and the next best recruit may commit to somewhere else in the interim) 2) Inappropriate drunk behavior. Hint: if you're not a good drunk, take it easy on the alcohol.

That said, I would treat a visit as an opportunity to get people specifically interested in you, just in case you're not yet a lock. So, for example, give a substantive answer when someone asks you what you're interested in, etc.

There were ~25 total prospective students there so I presume more were invited but I was definitely the best dressed and most outgoing guy there (I guess that's what happens when you apply to Math departments). The director of graduate admissions said she expected me to be competitive for university fellowships so I'm expecting to get in, just not quite sure about funding as I'm applying to the Master's program at this particular school.

why are you doing a master's and not a phd?

I've always found it interesting that my department doesn't do our flyouts until after everyone has already been accepted. I think the plus side in terms of recruiting is that the students are at ease, and we do a good job of making it clear to each of them that they are wanted (I know I wasn't a top candidate in my class but they still made me feel very sought-after on my visit).

On the minus side, if someone turns out to be a total dud, it's too late, he's already in.

yeah way better to bring out accepted students. students can feel free to let loose and then current grad students can find out who doesn't belong at this school and convince them to go elsewhere.

works extremely well imo

I'm applying to a mix (6 PhD programs, 8 Master's) for a variety of reasons.

In Applied Math/Stats, some schools will require the GRE Math Subject Test (which I didn't take) for PhD and not for the Master's.

I'm extremely fortunate that I have a >3/4 scholarship to undergrad, so my parents have agreed to pay for a master's. It's also easier to get into master's programs than PhD programs (because master's generally aren't funded) so I'm likely to try to do my master's at a top 10 department and then see what happens after that. That way if I do decide to do a PhD I'll obviously be more competitive at top schools.

I actually found the atmosphere pretty relaxed. The dept chair saw where I went to school and mentioned he was a Cubs fan, so we spent the first good bit just talking baseball and I think that helped me a lot. It made him seem a lot more human rather than some deity-like admissions figure that I'm not allowed to show any personality around. I'm not sure if he did it on purpose but it was a fantastic way to start things off.

for normal people, it doesn't matter either way, i_m.

In any case, I'd strongly recommend starting a PhD program, even if you don't have an intent to finish it, just to save the cash.

+1. Who knows, you may change your mind down the line anyways.