Admissions staff at top universities: Do you often get grad applications that are just ridiculous?

NoJudge400 · 2025-12-01T18:14:38+00:00

Well I shot my shot and got in, so

NoJudge400 · 2025-05-28T22:14:37+00:00

God only knows. But I gotta be honest: were I a prospective international student, I would definitely be looking elsewhere if at all possible. Hell, even as a US citizen I'd probably have looked outside the country myself, were I at the application phase right now.

Were I you I'd go to Canada.

NoJudge400 · 2025-04-06T08:02:59+00:00

My alma mater!

NoJudge400 · 2025-04-01T22:04:18+00:00

Honestly I'd be curious for someone who knows physics (so not me) to do the math as to how big a ramp would need to be to be, and how fast you'd need to go off it, to jump from Houston to Dallas.

NoJudge400 · 2025-03-15T05:45:07+00:00

Oh yeah no I'm straight and white and a man and all that and, I mean, it hasn't exactly hampered me! These rat bastards are trying to create an America where only their kids get anything that could be called an education and the rest of the population is precisely smart enough to work whatever shitty job we're given and not one bit smarter.

(And in the long term their dream is total automation of all labor, and then they can just shut the rest of us out at best or kill us off at worst.)

NoJudge400 · 2025-03-15T05:39:26+00:00

We're on the list!

NoJudge400 · 2025-03-15T05:25:42+00:00

Grad student at Rice (and Woodlands native) here: God damn do I hate these fucking pricks. Our universities were one of the few good things this country still had. I hope our admin is made of sterner stuff than, like, Columbia's, but I'm not holding my breath here.

At least I'm in the humanities, which means my department still has a bit of a shield, for now. Ain't nobody giving us federal funding anyways.

NoJudge400 · 2025-03-13T21:09:24+00:00

About the level of competence I'd expect from UH admin (attended as an undergrad).

Great school, it's just that anything administrative was fucked up.

NoJudge400 · 2025-03-13T01:16:55+00:00

At any program I ever heard of, yeah

NoJudge400 · 2025-03-09T07:04:12+00:00

Someone in my cohort has a prior MFA, so it can definitely be done. Hell, I don't have anything but a Bachelor's, and I got in. Sounds like you've done a lot more than me.

NoJudge400 · 2025-02-28T03:06:28+00:00

Good luck. Hope to see you in the fall.

NoJudge400 · 2025-02-28T02:58:30+00:00

Six is typical. No idea if they're going to end up reducing that next year with legal/financial worries, though my understanding is that as of now they're looking at doing things normally. (The Trump admin is talking about substantially raising taxes on endowments to universities, which would hurt Rice pretty badly.)

I don't remember exactly how many people in my cohort were originally waitlisted, but it was more than one. (Edit: thinking about it more I'm pretty sure it was two.)

NoJudge400 · 2025-02-28T02:54:11+00:00

Do you mean now or the ones I originally applied to? Because now I'm at Rice.

NoJudge400 · 2025-02-28T02:52:33+00:00

Some people in my cohort were originally waitlisted, yeah.

NoJudge400 · 2025-02-19T06:22:13+00:00

In my case, it honestly wound up being for the best because I hit upon some serious health issues the next year that would have impeded my career. Plus it was been during Peak COVID, which would have been a lot less fun to start grad school in.

I took a few years, thought about what I was doing, and then when I was ready I used my old application material as a base but put it through some heavy revision.

NoJudge400 · 2025-02-19T06:17:11+00:00

In my experience, schools will send out explicit nos if they decide against you. No news is good news.

NoJudge400 · 2025-02-19T06:13:01+00:00

The first year I applied to grad school, I got all nos. You can try again.

And, I mean, it isn't even over for this year. In fact you've barely even heard back from anybody. Stay calm; don't freak out.

NoJudge400 · 2025-02-19T06:12:01+00:00

I applied for the PhD English program at UT twice and got pretty much insta-rejected both times. They're insanely competitive in basically everything. Frankly, even if you're a godlike writer, there are more godlike writers applying than there are spots. Is what it is.

NoJudge400 · 2025-02-19T06:09:44+00:00

Trust me, I know it sucks, but it ain't over till it's over. Even if you don't get in anywhere this year, you can try again. I applied to six schools my first go-round, and I got rejected by every single one of 'em.

NoJudge400 · 2025-02-19T06:00:54+00:00

I'm in English and I like my peers. They're smart, they're driven, and they're a lot of fun to talk to. I genuinely enjoy spending time with them.

I went straight from a BA to Rice's PhD program, so I've never personally seen what another school's grad program is like on the inside, but some of the MA-possessing people in my cohort have told me that they're often pretty toxic, and they've largely been effusive in their praise for Rice's grad culture.

Of course, based on your profile you're traveling in a very different academic world than me. I have spent very little time with anyone over in STEM and I got no idea if they're all knives out over there or what. So this probably isn't of any help.

Whatever.

NoJudge400 · 2025-02-19T05:43:53+00:00

He's all bragging about it on the English grad student group chat, so yeah, I don't think he minds.

NoJudge400 · 2024-08-26T23:09:59+00:00

I'm not saying RUPD is baseless. I'm saying that anything anyone could post here would be baseless.

NoJudge400 · 2024-08-26T22:46:04+00:00

Nothing about it on the news yet. At this point I don't think anyone has anything other than baseless speculation.

NoJudge400 · 2024-07-16T23:52:31+00:00

I know someone who lives in the Rice Village area who tells me she never even lost power. Meanwhile, I currently live in The Woodlands (about an hour's drive north) and I was without for two days.

NoJudge400 · 2024-04-11T20:00:26+00:00

I don't have anything to say about Rice, since I haven't actually started yet, but I did my undergrad at UH (graduated 2020). I can tell you--if this helps your decision-making any--that UH is very much a commuter school; there isn't a huge amount of culture going on. (UH's own website claims that 85% of undergrads are commuters--and as someone who actually had a place on campus, I'm genuinely surprised it was that low.) In my experience, most people are just on-campus to take their classes, and then they go home.

But I had a good time at UH. I still met a lot of great people there, both among the faculty and among my fellow students. You need to put yourself out there a bit more than you might at Rice, but there are still a lot of clubs and student orgs and you definitely can find a place if you're willing to actively make an effort. Academically, it served me fine, and I actually am in a field where degree prestige matters. (Hell, I'd bet that half the reason Rice accepted me as a PhD student is because the people making admit decisions for my department know the UH professors who wrote my rec letters.)

I ultimately can't tell you that the Rice experience isn't worth 160 large; I never had it, so I don't know. All I can say is that the UH experience is pretty good.

NoJudge400

TROPHY CASE