I feel a little disheartened because I’ve been rejected from many of the places I applied to and haven’t heard back from a number of others. Is it worth it to hold out hope for the ones that haven’t sent out updates?

 I have been rejected from 5 schools and am expecting 3 more rejections soon enough without any invitations for interview. I’ve had my time in regret and disappointment and I’m now thinking about what to do next. 

Should I just give up at the thought of me obtaining a PhD? I feel like a mess right now.

These excerpts are from just three of the many messages we received this year from grad school applicants who were moving through the stages of rejection grief.

Some understood it would be an uphill climb, and half-expected the bad news. For others, it was a surprise because they had followed all the advice on how to craft the perfect application.

For everyone, it was disappointing, demoralizing, and confusing – what can I do if I’ve been pushed off the only path I know to a career in science?

This week, we explore the arcane inner workings of an admissions committee, and detail not only WHY you received that rejection letter, but what you can do about it next year.

Why Not Me?

The first question many applicants have is, “Why did I get rejected?” In many cases, they have experience, grades, and strong letters of recommendation. So what gives?

The answer will be different for every person, of course, but there are some common threads that could lead to rejection. We take a look behind the scenes in an admission committee meeting to learn what makes some applications rise to the top, while others are cast aside.

Fierce Competition

If you only apply to schools your mom has heard of, like the Ivy League Yale, Stanford, or Harvard, then you’re much more likely to receive a rejection letter. The same may be true for schools on the coasts, or in heavily populated areas.

These programs receive thousands of applications from the most qualified students in the world, some of them with first-author papers. If you ONLY applied to extremely competitive programs, odds are, you got a lot of rejections.

Next year, treat grad school the way you did undergrad: with a mix of reach-schools, target-schools, and ‘safety-schools’. Having options is a good thing, and the research training at these other schools will be as good as, or better, than the Ivy League.

Early Birds

They say timing is everything, and that’s true in grad school applications as well.

Applications may arrive in the admissions office between the open date and the deadline, but the admissions committee will review those applications in batches. Their goal is to find the most qualified students to offer interviews, but the staggered nature of the review process presents a few challenges.

Early in the cycle, the committee may offer interviews to a few top-tier candidates and reject a few that don’...