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Originally Posted by Golden Rule
A lot of the "randomness" in the process is based on who knows who, and it seems random because we typically don't observe it.
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I was referring to more actual randomness. I believe there are many times when admissions committees will probably have a significant portion of the pool that are more or less "equal" when all things are considered. In the end, if you have 20 "equal" people still being considered for admissions but only have 5 spots left, what do you do? This is just an opinion though, and you're definitely right that it might be more about unobservables that make it look more random than it actually is.
Note: When I say "equal" I just mean that they rate there chances of success similar although their profiles are different. For example, if one student has 800 QGRE with a 3.7 GPA, and another has 780 QGRE with 4.0 GPA, the adcoms may consider them fairly "equal." Think isoquants.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pookie bear
Suppose you take the pool of total applicants to Harvard and divide them into two sets. Set A is those students from top ivies, public ivies, and top LACs. Set B is everyone not from ivies, public ivies, and LACs. This is pure conjecture, but I would imagine that set B is the larger of the two, I have no idea though.
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For whatever it's worth, I was reading an op-ed by economist Thomas Sowell. He claimed that there are many rarely heard of LACs in the US, which actually send a higher proportion of their students to PhD programs than ivy league schools. His point was that the ivy league universities reputations are mainly because of faculty research, and not neccesarily student value added. By the way, when I say PhD programs I am not just refering to economics.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GymShorts
One day I hope to be lucky enough to honestly say that I've been supervising PhD students for 93 years, but before then, I would have to have lived longer than any human in recorded history has thus far.
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LOL. Unless of course you got your PhD at a very young age (like 7).
