odd selection rules

[nemo]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy
Now I understand!

[mobytish]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy
Now I understand!

Nemo, if you're going to discuss this topic with everyone, could you refrain from simply trying to insult people? Everyone else is, for the most part, trying to have a civil conversation about it and you keep interjecting with things like this.

[nemo]

Ok, It was a joke but a poor one. How can I delete this thread? I imagined that it was me who started it so I could delete it as well, but I don't see how! Sorry, no insult was intended!

[razor]

@nemo
Instead of being bitter, why don't you be thankful that they (I mean the US schools) tried at the very least admitting students from other countries even when they don't have the obligation to do so. Also, since you have decided on playing their game, you should accept their rules. Otherwise, you always have the option to apply somewhere.

Don't get me wrong. I am also an international student. It might seem unfair but that's the way it is. Just my two cents.

[nemo]

Of course I am thankful! This messages were intended to show a statistics of what I found out looking at your site. It developed itself into a debate about international vs. domestic applicants and I've chosen the devil's side... It's really nothing personal and I just hoped that people around here have some sense of humor. I had no intention to offense anyone. This is also why I try to delete this thread. Any Idea how?

[quizivex]

A bunch of interesting points brought up in this thread. I think grae's assessment was excellent. On the one hand, it may seem unfair that the admission system isn't purely "merit-based" and blind to international vs. domestic status.

But even though American students are given an advantage in the admissions process, you can say it's already unfair to us that we have to compete with the entire world (the other 95% of it) in the first place. People in Canada/Italy/Brazil/Turkey (insert your country here) who choose to stay in their home country for grad school don't have to compete with the infinite number of Indian/Chinese prodigies and other talented people from the rest of the planet. Internationals already outnumber domestics in American grad programs, so imagine how many more Americans would get into the schools of their choice if there were twice as many spots open with no international competition.

And then add in the other factors, many already discussed:

- American schools need to cater to American students first for various reasons.
- Many or most internationals will take their education back to their original country and not help the US long term.
- American students in high school and college are distracted with a large percentage of bullshit courses, so even a pure merit selection process that considers a student's long term potential would have to account for that and give us an edge anyway.
- And naturally, once you have an overwhelming majority of internationals in a department, they tend to congregate into exclusive social groups, talking their own language and only interacting with each other, ruining the social atmosphere of the program, (and leaving the Americans without opportunities to meet many friends... This is what I observed in my undergrad department).

So anyway, I do feel feel for the struggles of international students. They seem to be fighting extreme odds and then when they do get in somewhere they have to leave everything behind and adapt to a new country while diving right into a challenging program. But the domestic students aren't just spoiled brats who have everything handed to them either.

[sj211]

What exactly is this unfairness that is being referring to?

I don't know about physics programs at public schools in the US and can only speak of my experience with graduate students at my school (one of the top private US research institutions). We have a very large number of international students and there is no noticeable difference in quality and qualifications when comparing the international graduate students to the domestic ones. Also, I'd like to point out that the department has a fellowship which explicitly favors international students. Meanwhile only one of the department's fellowships requires US citizenship (NSF, NDSEG, and other US government fellowships not included of course). Furthermore, funding is guaranteed to students regardless of nationality and the tuition that the department must pay per student is the same for everyone.

Yes, it is true that the PGRE score requirement for international students is higher than for the typical domestic student, but there are several reasons for this. The first that comes to mind is one that I've talked about with a faculty member involved in the admissions process here. The department requires students coming from undergraduate programs (and masters programs for that matter) with which committee members are unfamiliar to have higher PGRE scores than students coming from well-known programs. This applies both to international students and domestic students equally. The chances that committee members are familiar with a domestic school is, however, significantly higher. Simply put, it is difficult for committees to evaluate the educational quality of programs that they are unfamiliar with so they look harder at the PGRE in order to make an evaluation.

The other issue regarding PGRE that I've been wondering about is whether or not the level of preparation for the PGRE varies from country to country. Presumably everyone who is taking the PGRE has taken classes covering basic mechanics, E&M, and QM. With either additional courses or a little bit of independent study of topics such as relativity and particle physics, nearly all of the material on the exam is covered. Personally, I've come to believe that doing well on the PGRE requires a basic threshold of basic physics that everyone taking the exam should have and an aptitude (whether natural or acquired) for PGRE style exams. I would be very interested in comparing levels of PGRE preparation from students in different countries. Questions along the lines of...

What were your typical undergraduate problem sets like? (format, length, frequency, etc).

Typical exams? (ditto)

How much time was spent preparing specifically for the PGRE? What did this preparation involve?

The other point that I'd like to remind everyone that there is no correlation between PGRE score and success in graduate school and beyond. Furthermore, private institutions have almost no reason to accept less qualified domestic students over more qualified international ones. The only issue I can think of is DoD funding; however, I have never heard of this being a significant problem in any of our research groups. Most of the research here is NSF funded so DoD cannot impose citizenship requirements.

Also, at a recent student seminar several faculty members explicitly said that they do not recommend getting a physics masters before applying to PhD programs unless your undergraduate GPA is low and there is a realistic expectation that you will do better as a masters student. This is because they will make you retake any classes covered by a masters program to ensure that all of their students receive a graduate level education that meets the department's standards.

Sorry for the length of the post and I hope it is clear and not too full of typos / grammar errors. Didn't really consider proof-reading worthwhile...

[nemo]

- And naturally, once you have an overwhelming majority of internationals in a department, they tend to congregate into exclusive social groups, talking their own language and only interacting with each other, ruining the social atmosphere of the program, (and leaving the Americans without opportunities to meet many friends... This is what I observed in my undergrad department).

At this special point I agree completely. Moreover a department made of a specific sort of international professors tend to accept only that specific sort of international students... I was in such a department in the us last year and I found something like 3 Americans, one Italian, me (eastern European) and the rest Chinese, and believe me or not, I didn't felt excluded by the Americans but by the... OK I should stop now, or else you'll call me xenophobic...

[noojens]

Quizivex: I agree with the spirit of your post, but I disagree with some of the particulars, e.g.

- Many or most internationals will take their education back to their original country and not help the US long term.

According to the study johnpauljones linked a few posts up, the mean long-term stay rates for international students is around 2/3, with 92% of Chinese students and 85% of Indian students still in the US 5 years after earning their PhD.

- American schools need to cater to American students first for various reasons.

I'm sure there are good reasons, but I'm having a tough time coming up with them. For instance, as a domestic PhD applicant I've only owed net income taxes one year of my life, so it's not like I'm economically entitled to a seat at a US grad school. It seems to me that the point of funding research with public money is to produce ideas and innovations that private industry is unable to generate. If that's true, then what does it matter if the researchers US grad schools train are foreign or domestic, if they stay in the US and do good work?

- And naturally, once you have an overwhelming majority of internationals in a department, they tend to congregate into exclusive social groups, talking their own language and only interacting with each other, ruining the social atmosphere of the program, (and leaving the Americans without opportunities to meet many friends... This is what I observed in my undergrad department).

I haven't experienced this. Quite the opposite, in fact - one of the reasons I liked both my undergrad and grad departments was that I made friends with folks from all over the world. I love that science is an international community; it's one of the reasons I'm drawn to it.

To sj211:

I think you're right that most international students are better prepared for the PGRE. In India, for instance by the time a student is applies for a US PhD, they've already passed (I believe - correct me if I'm wrong) two extensive tests that are heavily dependent on rote memorization. That's pretty strong selection for students who are good at PGRE-style exams. Any international students care to comment on this?

[Kites]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy
Now I understand!

The hell...?

So I am an American, and I can say, at least for myself, that I hope you don't get into one of our graduate schools at this point if you're so bitter.

[grae313]

nemo, I think this is an interesting discussion that has a lot of value, and I see no reason to delete the thread.

Humor doesn't always translate well in text, and I think cultural differences are at work here as well. nemo, I see the jest behind what you said and take no offense. I believe that the jokes were made without malice. Kites, take it easy! This is a stressful time of year, let's have some faith that everyone here is a basically a decent person.

relaaaaaaax!

[sl74]

To sj211:

I think you're right that most international students are better prepared for the PGRE. In India, for instance by the time a student is applies for a US PhD, they've already passed (I believe - correct me if I'm wrong) two extensive tests that are heavily dependent on rote memorization. That's pretty strong selection for students who are good at PGRE-style exams. Any international students care to comment on this?

Noojens, this may apply to students from India/China, but is not true for other countries. Here in Brazil, for example, all my exams, since undergraduate Physics 1, were on the "3 questions/2 hours" style. On my senior undergraduate year, it could vary from that to "4 questions/3 hours". They were long questions that required more carefull thinking than speed, so that you could develop the solution and show that you have a real comprehension of the subject (or not... lol). Homeworks were on the same style (only with more questions). As are Masters/PhD selection exams. That's the complete opposite of PGRE style. But I do not complain. PGRE is the rule by which we need to play the game, so the only thing I may do is to adapt.

About other points that were commented on this thread:

I think that given the large number of non-Americans applying for a PhD position in the US, it is natural that schools get more selective for internationals. But it is not true that students from other countries only face domestic competition. More than 40% of the entry class of the Masters program I am attending in Brazil were not brazilians (most of the were from Colombia).

[nemo]

Kites, see? I understand your joke! Idiocracy was a comedy! It's just for FUN! Come on! I have nothing against Americans! And nothing against the Chinese, or Indians, or whatever they are! How much more do I need to explain? I'm not bitter! Not at all! I've made some jokes! Why would I want to be admitted in a us university if I had something against Americans?!

[nemo]

In my opinion the PGRE is a good test! (see? I'm peaceful) and it's a pertinent selection made to the students. Other programs give so called "long questions" that are unnecessarily confusing the test taker. They even end up building absurd phrases in test problems in order to make them sound more "interesting". You probably don't know but there are physics problems on this world that are 3 pages long and on which you can work 10 hours in a classroom and on which you are graded considering the "style" of your solution...
So, in my opinion ETS is right and PGRE is also right. The only thing I'm not in the mood to understand right now is that this test is sometimes ignored. I understand that there are issues with the PGRE too. That a person can have a bad day exactly during the test (my situation too) etc. but this test is really testing the ability to reason fast and good. Now, how a university selects its students... well... that's another question... I also like beautiful blue eyes... Oh my god! I have brown eyes, I'm dead! (JOKE, OK? this was a J O K E !)

[sj211]

sl74, it sounds like the style of education you received in Brazil is almost identical to what I got in the US. In my opinion, at least, it is an excellent way to learn!

Nemo, I'm not sure whether or not you were joking about the absurdity of asking long physics questions. I have taken classes where weekly problem set solutions required 30-40 handwritten pages despite having only 3-10 problems. Furthermore, TAs were instructed to dock points if our solutions failed to be clear, concise, and complete. The ability to write in this way is essential to the production of good scientific papers and is one of the most important things that I learned as an undergraduate. In addition, a bit of stylistic flair, while not necessary in science writing, can help keep the reader's interest. Pretty much any review article written by Osterbrock exemplifies this. More to the point, I always learn more physics (and math) from involved and thorough problems than from quick ones.

Of course, PGRE style questions do not have their place and are quite valuable. My research advisor is excellent at quick "back-of-the-envelop" calculations that give order of magnitude estimates and often determine whether or not something is feasible. It is a skill that was not taught in my undergraduate program and I'm working to pick it up since it too is an essential skill.

[sl74]

The PGRE is a good test for its purpose: testing the ability to reason fast and good. I agree with that. Also, you have to consider a logistic issue: how much time would they need to grade "open exams" (by open exams I mean exams that you need to write down all the solution, not only mark the right choice)? Given that, yes, the PGRE is a good test.

But fast reasoning is only one of the skills that a good physicist should have. So, the weight given to the PGRE by admission comittes should be proportional to the weight that the abilities measured by it have on a Physics career, not taken as a measure of the full abilities of a candidate.

Beyond that, I agree with everything sj211 has said.

[kroner]

In my opinion the PGRE is a good test! (see? I'm peaceful) and it's a pertinent selection made to the students. Other programs give so called "long questions" that are unnecessarily confusing the test taker. They even end up building absurd phrases in test problems in order to make them sound more "interesting". You probably don't know but there are physics problems on this world that are 3 pages long and on which you can work 10 hours in a classroom and on which you are graded considering the "style" of your solution...

What do you imagine that physicists do?
Are you planning to come in to work and write 100 papers in 2 hours and 50 minutes each day?

[fc_pga]

Also, at a recent student seminar several faculty members explicitly said that they do not recommend getting a physics masters before applying to PhD programs unless your undergraduate GPA is low and there is a realistic expectation that you will do better as a masters student. This is because they will make you retake any classes covered by a masters program to ensure that all of their students receive a graduate level education that meets the department's standards.

Would you mind elaborating this point further? Does it mean that admission committees would gauge applicants with a masters degree elsewhere much differently (and how differently)?

This is a point which I am seriously concerned about, becuase I am applying to the masters program at my undergraduate institution (in my home country) as a backup in case I am rejected by all of the 10 American schools which I applied to. The masters program has a typical duration of two years and consists largely of independent research leading to a masters thesis.

Based on your comment (and the well-known fact that I will have to retake all the classes once I am admitted to an American doctoral program) I have always felt that a masters degree would sort of be a waste of two years' time (in the sense that all things being equal, that would delay my time of getting the PhD by two years). One alternative for me, in case I don't receive an offer, is to find a job and work for 1 or 2 years before reapplying for a PhD program in the states, but then I would have to account for the fact that I was not doing research in between. That's a dilemma.

[nemo]

Another thing that bothers me a little: Why are girls accepted with smaller scores that boys? Where does this discrimination come from? Do the universities see that by doing this they are practically offending all girls on this planet? As I see, this means that they admit that girls have on average a lower intelligence than boys. Now don't attack ME, I am sure this is not true, I saw very smart girls in my life, but again, I see this as an "odd selection rule"...

[sj211]

Sorry fc_gpa, I should have been more specific. The conversation at the seminar was referring specifically to master's level coursework. Though I don't know for sure, I would assume that significant, independent research done in a master's program will help out when applying for a PhD program. The more research the merrier!

Nemo, I'm highly dubious of the claim that PGRE score and intelligence are more than casually related. Among the smartest people that I know are several individuals with very high scores and several with very low ones.

[nemo]

but can we find people with high PGRE scores that are dumb? As I said, a very smart person can have a bad day and get a poor PGRE but a very dumb person cannot have a very "bad" day and get a high PGRE, what do you think?

[ultraballer2000]

Nemo, I'm going to assume that your inquiry about girls and universities was meant as a purely innocent speculation; however, it comes off as slightly ignorant. Physics is an extremely male dominated field, and always has been because of biased/sexist cultural and societal establishments. It's because of this that females will have an immensely more difficult experience pursuing a physics career: on top of with learning the subject, there is dealing with a whole separate dimensions of problems to overcome. Universities know this, and they take that into account when they make their decisions.

Also, I'm not exactly sure this is the right place to discuss that particular issue.

[nemo]

In that case don't you think it would be best to make the corrections at the level of society and the perception of girls in society? Why do you think that the life of a girl working as a graduate student in a very competitive university will be improved if she is admitted there with a score that is not necessary reflecting her abilities to do physics? All I want to say is that the universities try to solve a real illness in the society but with the wrong medicine...

[Kites]

I kind of agree with ultraballer.

Nemo you need to leave this thread alone I think. A lot of your comments have come off as either insulting or ignorant. As far as I can tell you're just a bitter international student (I could be wrong, but reading this thread this what I come away with).

This thread did start with some good statistics but it's quickly devolving into finger pointing and accusations.

Would someone please lock this thread? I am all for relaxing; it definitely is a stressful time of the year, but Nemo, you keep pushing peoples' buttons.

[mobytish]

Another thing that bothers me a little: Why are girls accepted with smaller scores that boys? Where does this discrimination come from? Do the universities see that by doing this they are practically offending all girls on this planet? As I see, this means that they admit that girls have on average a lower intelligence than boys. Now don't attack ME, I am sure this is not true, I saw very smart girls in my life, but again, I see this as an "odd selection rule"...

Nemo, before posing questions like this one, you might consider doing a little research. Just as we encourage people to find information themselves when they ask fairly obvious questions about grad school, I think the same should be true in your case. I've done a very quick google search regarding lower scores for women on the Physics GRE and came up with a large number of results. The following excerpts are from one such source, which I've chosen because it also happens to touch upon the international vs. domestic issue.

Before that, though, you should know that, as a female, I am not insulted by the scoring disparity (especially given research like that mentioned in the excerpt below) but I am incredibly insulted by your statement here, implying that females in graduate programs have lower intelligence on average than their male counterparts (not so much implying, since that's basically what you say).

...

An April 1995 study at the University of California, Berkeley, found that women with identical academic indexes to men obtained higher grade point averages in every major on campus, including math and physical sciences. The report concluded that women should have about 140 points added to their index to compensate for the SAT's underprediction, and that non-test criteria, such as high school GPA, were much better predictors for women in all academically rigorous and male-dominated fields. David Morin, a physics graduate student at Harvard, conducted his own study last year of the correlation between GRE scores and performance in graduate school, focusing on Harvard students. He found that while there was a very slight correlation between GRE scores and graduate course grades, there was no correlation with other measures of success in graduate school, including oral exam scores and overall completion time for the Ph.D. degree.

...
Foreign students, especially those from China, also do well on the GRE subject test, although their performance in graduate school isn't any better or worse than their American colleagues. "That suggests to me that the physics subject test measures some specific skill that can be taught, and it is taught very effectively in China, but it is not at all clear how much this skill has to do with what we want to know about potential physics students," said Howard Georgi, who has been involved with graduate admissions at Harvard University for more than 20 years. Jennifer Siders, a recent physics Ph.D. from the University of Texas who is now at Los Alamos National Laboratory, took the GRE subject test four times to meet her department's minimum requirement of 700. She finally managed to raise her score 200 points, not by learning more physics, but by learning how to take standardized tests, often at the expense of her actual coursework.
The standardized test format also seems to favor students Georgi describes as "idiot savants": those with strong mathematical skills who are very good at manipulating symbols without learning any of the real physics behind them, but who nevertheless tend to perform exceptionally well on the GREs. In contrast, two of his most impressive undergraduate physics students, both women with excellent undergraduate records, scored much lower than expected. Phyllis Rossiter, author of The SAT Gender Gap, concluded that, "This highly speeded test rewards the facile test taker, rather than the sophisticated, thoughtful thinker who gathers new information, organizes and evaluates and expresses original thoughts clearly and concisely."
From http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews ... gender.cfm

And before you respond to this by attacking the idea that graduate institutions should use the Physics GRE at all, you should keep in mind that graduate schools are doing the best with what they have to choose the students they believe will be most successful at their university. Sure their are inherent problems with these tests, but that's why they are only one piece of the puzzle.

[nemo]

What I am doing here is simply testing the reaction of the users of this site to some sensible problems. I'm not that bad in reality but there have been some questions I was asking myself about the selection made by the us universities and I've got here reactions that gave me really good answers. It's my last post here.
Good luck to everybody, and don't judge only the appearances.

[nemo]

With your kind permission, I would like to add another statistics here:
Statistics with only internationals

Q V W P
800 480 3.5 920 NONE
800 450 4.5 990 1 rejection Cornell
750 560 4.0 940 1 acceptance Cornell
790 670 4.0 990 NONE
790 640 3.5 660 2 rejection Stanford, Berkeley
800 350 3.0 980 NONE
780 610 3.5 630 1 acceptance USC
800 640 4.0 950 NONE
800 710 5.0 980 NONE
760 370 3.0 810 NONE
800 640 4.0 870 NONE
800 690 4.0 810 6 acceptance Cornell, UWM, JHU, PSU, OSU, MSU
800 580 4.5 600 NONE
780 260 4.0 620 NONE
790 570 4.0 840 1 acceptance, washington state U.
800 480 3.5 870 1 waitlisted Virginia
800 340 4.0 990 4 acceptences Harvard, Caltech, Boston, USC, 1 Rejection Cornell
800 510 3.5 990 2 acceptances Boston, Rutgers
790 320 3.0 680 3 acceptances Boston, Brandeis, Northeastern, Maryland
770 510 4.0 630 1 rejection UWM
800 640 3.5 900 1 acceptance SUNY stony brook
790 540 4.0 740 2 acceptance PSU, UF
800 330 2.5 800 1 acceptance Brandeis, 1 Waitlisted UMASS, 1 Rejection UWM
800 620 4.0 860 1 acceptance NYU, 1 Rejection Cornell
800 280 3.0 70% NONE
730 310 3.0 710 1 rejection CWR
740 520 3.5 740 1 rejection Rockefeller
770 510 3.5 950 1 acceptance Duke
800 700 4.0 990 1 Acceptance MIT, 1 rejection Cornell
800 650 4.5 990 1 Acceptance Cornell
810 550 3.5 810 NONE
770 490 4.0 990 1 waitlisted Cornell
780 480 4.0 980 2 acceptances UW.Seattle, Duke, 1 Rejection Yale

[Mataka]

I think the main problem with just collecting those statistics, is that it implies, or at least it seems that the underlying assumption is that the GREs are the most relevant factors ... but there're not.

[YellowXDart]

http://www.aip.org/gpb/pdf_files/130.pdf

Look under Admission Requirements and you will see that Yale has admitted students with a 590 PGRE. That should flat out tell you that your PGRE score is not the only part of your application schools look at. I don't know how many times this point needs to be repeated before you finally comprehend it.

This thread has really started to piss me off. Nemo, you come of REALLY ignorant, and not only in this thread but in others that you have posted as well. Your whole excuse that you're just trying to engage us in meaningful discussion is obviously bullshit, and your condescending attitude is getting obnoxious. It's pretty apparent that you come from a country where you are taught to feel superior to Americans and probably women as well. This is an attitude you're really going to have to fix if you intend to study in America for the next 5-7 years.

[ddubs]

I could not agree with nemo more. He has hit every nail right on the head. Kudos. I have compiled some statistics of my own to further prove our point:

Red hair/PSAT Verbal=52/female: Accepted Harvard, MIT, Rejected Cornell
Dislikes pasta and most nuts/PSAT Verbal=51/transgender: Accepted Cornell, Rejected Harvard, MIT
Nobel Laureate/PGRE=200: Accepted everywhere without applying
Awful rec-letters/No research/World-class juggler/male: Rejected everywhere

These are my conclusions:

Harvard purposefully accepts less qualified students (based on PSAT verbal scores from 10th grade) and juggling gets you nowhere. Also, if you get the lowest PGRE score possible, you will get in everywhere.

[TrueBLUE]

http://www.princeton.edu/physics/academ ... dmissions/

Just go through the above link. It really summarises well the whole process (to me atleast)... guess this would put the debate to rest!!

[johnpauljones]

http://www.aip.org/gpb/pdf_files/130.pdf

Look under Admission Requirements and you will see that Yale has admitted students with a 590 PGRE. That should flat out tell you that your PGRE score is not the only part of your application schools look at. I don't know how many times this point needs to be repeated before you finally comprehend it.

This thread has really started to piss me off. Nemo, you come of REALLY ignorant, and not only in this thread but in others that you have posted as well. Your whole excuse that you're just trying to engage us in meaningful discussion is obviously bullshit, and your condescending attitude is getting obnoxious. It's pretty apparent that you come from a country where you are taught to feel superior to Americans and probably women as well. This is an attitude you're really going to have to fix if you intend to study in America for the next 5-7 years.

Everybody knows their brains are a third the size of ours. It's science.

[notnaps]

Dislikes pasta and most nuts/PSAT Verbal=51/transgender: Accepted Cornell, Rejected Harvard, MIT

Daaannng I knew I shouldn't have spent my whole SoP to Cornell talking about how much I love pasta and nuts!! No wonder I got waitlisted

[betelgeuse1]

this is the most hilarious thread on this forum. I laughed for 10 minutes. Nemo: is this a sort of "reverse logic" "U" use here?
The star in the norther sky,
and from eastern Europe as well...

[betelgeuse1]

84 posts? WOW! nemo, I'm sure you're a nice guy, it's just that you don't show it too much...