10 Reasons Why Your Grad School Application was Denied

Applying for graduate school programs in the U.S. takes time, effort and lots of money.

After you have exerted lots of time and effort, you might decide to apply at around 5 to 10 colleges and universities based on the "Safe, Moderate and Ambitious" categories.

You very well know that the admission probability to an Ambitious choice is close to zero. However, what if the universities that you have considered as Moderate and Safe had also rejected your applications? What would you do if this happens?

Be Honest when Applying

Ask yourself these hard questions and try your best to answer them honestly:

1. Did you select universities, colleges and departments carefully, making sure your profile will fit into their standards or requirements?
2. Did you apply at an adequate number of programs or departments or only at one or two universities?
3. Did you submit your complete application documents before the admission deadline?
4. Did you spend enough time on creating your own statement of purpose?
5. Do you have prior research experience; if you have, did you express your research interests in your SOP?
6. Do you have supporting materials to back-up your research experience?
7. Did you know whether your referees had written anything negative information about you?
8. Did you send most of your applications to highly competitive programs that have low acceptance rate?
9. Do you have satisfactory test scores?
10. Do you have decent academic scores?

Can you think of any other reason/s why you admission have been denied? Most of the students would say something like: "I applied at the right school, but it denied admission without any specific reasons."

Well, that’s not usually the case. Universities tend to receive a large pool of applications, and they to evaluate each of them closely and then decide who will be the best fit for their programs.