I got rejected from a MSc program

[thehockeykid]

Well, I am not too happy about being rejected by my MSc program . I was wondering for re applicants what did you do during the 1 yr before applying again assuming you made it this time around?

 

I felt like I did well on the GRE but apparently it isn't good enough. I think I will prob re-write.

 

I was thinking of doing some programing in my spare time. I am not too sure what kind of jobs i can get with a bachelors of science....maybe like a pharmacy tech, pharmacy sales

[JohnDakota]

It really depends on your life goals.

 

If you need an MSc/PhD for whatever you want to do, then do whatever is necessary to get in next year. THis could be networking with potential supervisors, getting your grades up to make cutoffs etc..

 

To be completely frank - graduate programs are the biggest scam out there at this point in time. Assuming you're thinking of doing a purely academic program, and not an MSc in industry, then your time would be better spent failing at your own startup company in comparison to doing an MSc or PhD. This is especially true for life science graduate degrees, and I think it goes without saying for humanities.

[Exocytosis]

I was thinking of doing some programing in my spare time.

 

Do you by any chance go to Western?

 

If so and you're interested in programming, PM me

[thehockeykid]

I want to be a leading researcher who gets published in prestigious journals. but at the same time i don't want to get rejected from MSc again....so i dont want to put my life on hold for a year, if it is for nothing.

[advair250]

MBA's are only useful for people who have been working for 5+ years. It's a waste of time and money for people fresh out of undergrad - I don't know where you stand on that spectrum however.

[NutritionRunner]

Do you have any idea why you were rejected?

 

How were your:

• grades
  
• letters of reference
  
• previous research experiences
  
• letter of intent/statement of interest?
  

 

Did you make contact with a POI (professor of interest) before you applied to the MSc program? Did they encourage you to apply?

 

Is your POI not taking any masters students this year? (Perhaps he or she is on sabbatical, or is already supervising the number of students he/she wishes to supervise)?

 

Did the department lack funding for MSc students this year? Did your POI not have funding for you?

 

Did you clearly articulate your research interests and did they align with the research being done by one or more POI in the department(s) where you applied? Did you mention the POI(s) in your letter of intent?

 

In your letter, did you clearly explain why you are a good fit for their particular program, and how you could be an asset to their program? Did you clearly explain WHY you want to pursue an MSc in their department, at their institution?

 

Was your application fine, but this year was just a competitive year?

 

Did you apply widely or only to one program?

 

Identify the weaknesses in your application, and work on strengthening them for next year. If your GPA is too low, take additional courses, or try to take some graduate courses to show you are capable of graduate level work. If you don't have a lot of research experience, try to acquire more. If you didn't have great reference letters, try to get to know some people, either through taking additional courses, or through work or volunteer experiences, who can strongly advocate for you. If your letter of intent or statement of interest was weak, make use of the many resources available on how to write such statements, and get several people (and preferably a professor in the field you want to pursue) to look it over and make suggestions.

 

As for what jobs you can do, I'm sure your university has a career centre, with resources available to students and alumni. Make use of their services and their job postings.

 

(I was accepted to all the Masters programs I applied to, with funding. I made sure my references had my letter of intent, my CV, my transcript and a listing of my strengths. I had many people look over my letter of intent. I made contact with POIs prior to submitting my application, and they all said that they would be accepting Masters students and that my research interests aligned with theirs. I therefore had professors who were willing to take me on when the graduate admissions committees met and discussed which students to accept.)

[JohnDakota]

I want to be a leading researcher who gets published in prestigious journals.

 

That seems more like an ego driven goal rather than a subject driven goal.

 

I wont say it's impossible to, in the long term, be consistently successful with that kind of motivation - but it's damn near impossible.

 

You need to find out what motivates you in terms of subject, or principle. That's the only way you'll do the work necessary to publish - most graduate students publish - and have the fortitude to stay in academia and pursue increasingly elusive tenure track research positions. And believe me, it takes a remarkable amount of fortitude these days. I'll tell you right now - less than 10% of all PhD graduates land tenure track jobs these days.

 

If, at this point, you're thinking you can't take rejection from an MSc program again - get used to this kind of feeling, or move on to something else. It sounds harsh, but the whole academic research experience is about failure and rejection, and having the strength to push through and pursue your interests.

 

Want to pursue an interesting idea? Expect to have to fight for it with your supervisor, and likely be told to just do what he/she says - especially as an MSc student. And if you eventually become a prof, you'll have to apply for grants to support your research - 70+% are denied at this moment in time.

 

Want to publish something you've worked on for 2 years? Expect to have a panel of 3+ journal reviewers dumping all over your hard work and likely rejecting it once or twice before it gets accepted with revisions.

 

Want to graduate? Expect to get torn to shreds for 2+ hours by a panel of 5+ professors whose job it is to break you down.

 

The whole academic lifestyle/exercise is about psychological strength, having thick enough skin, and enough self confidence to push through when everyone else thinks you're insane.

 

And with the job prospects in research in general, or academia specifically - you are insane. It's just not a reasonable career option at this point in time when you factor in the time, personal sacrifices, professional sacrifices necessary to have a 10% chance at success. And if you succeed, the compensation is pretty marginal - adjunct professors make 30k per year, not to mention the 3+ years you'll spend as a postdoctoral fellow being compensated around 30k per year, with little to no benefits, little to no job security, and no clear or connected career path.

 

But if you're dead set on pursuing this career - then all the power to you. We need people doing research at all levels.

[thehockeykid]

I am so pissed at the MSc department for not accepting me. I want nothing to do with that program, i am so MAD. why can't they see I am a good researcher!!!!! my gpa, reference, research interests were clear but there were more qualified candidates. I went super try hard in my final yr to impress them (no social life in my 4th yr) and this is what i get.

 

I am not going to wait a yr, because who knows they can just reject me again. i will see if I get into any other programs that i applied too, but my first choice I am not happy with them.

 

i dont know why there is no legacy option for Canadian schools unlike the usa. so much for keeping up the family legacy.

 

been drinking and eating horribly for the past few days since i heard this terrible news. i dont know what to think right now, maybe it is a sign or something. i know i dont want to put my life on hold for this one program, especially if there are other options.

[JohnDakota]

Man. You really need to relax.

 

Unless you're a fully funded student, you have to realize a professor needs to have the funds and project for a prospective MSc. It's not like undergrad or med school where there are defined cohort sizes each year.

 

You really should have communicated with a number of profs first to determine if they were looking for students or not.

 

At the end of the day you're applying for a research position. Of you didn't spend the time to talk directly to professors, asking them about their work and seeing if they're looking for students this year, then you immediately go down on their candidate list - even if you have higher grades.

 

You made a mistake. Just learn from it going forward. Failure is a part of life. It's how you respond to failure that defines you as a person.

[thehockeykid]

Man. You really need to relax.

 

Unless you're a fully funded student, you have to realize a professor needs to have the funds and project for a prospective MSc. It's not like undergrad or med school where there are defined cohort sizes each year.

 

You really should have communicated with a number of profs first to determine if they were looking for students or not.

 

At the end of the day you're applying for a research position. Of you didn't spend the time to talk directly to professors, asking them about their work and seeing if they're looking for students this year, then you immediately go down on their candidate list - even if you have higher grades.

 

You made a mistake. Just learn from it going forward. Failure is a part of life. It's how you respond to failure that defines you as a person.

i do regret not talking directly to profs. didn't know how important that was

[robclem21]

I have one question related to all this:

 

Most departments (at least UofT) give conditional acceptances based on finding a supervisor. Meaning the department has accepted you (based on grades, references, etc.) but you can only be admitted to the program once you have arranged a supervisor who has agreed to fund you and support your research.

 

So, were you accepted conditionally and then unable to find a supervisor, or outright rejected?

 

If you were outright rejected, than it makes little difference if you talk to profs or not because clearly there is something else wrong with either your grades or your letters of reference, or the way you convey your research interests in writing. This is a much bigger issue than if you couldn't find a supervisor. Many applicants get accepted but then not enrolled because they can't find a PI to support them.

 

However, if you were given a conditional acceptance but not able to find a supervisor, than that is just a lack of research and pretty easy fix in the future. Just learn from your mistakes and do your "research" next time you apply to a position. Many researchers don't have funds to support new grad students constantly because a) their grants are running out, or their lab is saturated with students already. Either way, nothing you can do about it really except try to find a different supervisor. In an MSc it is tough to find a researcher whose research interests align perfectly with yours. You will have to make sacrifices and compromises and the focus should be on gaining skills for your PhD and just getting some papers out if that's your end goal.

 

Your attitude of "family legacy" suggest a little immaturity in handling the way this is done. You can't expect work to be done for you based on your families history. You will have to do it on your own and not rely on luck you were born into. Failure is part of life, especially in academia. If you are expecting an easy ride to publishing in premier journals, I think you have a lack of real understanding how this profession works and should examine if you have the work-ethic to really go through with it.

 

Good Luck

[A-Stark]

MBA's are only useful for people who have been working for 5+ years. It's a waste of time and money for people fresh out of undergrad - I don't know where you stand on that spectrum however.

 

Unless you're like my brother who did an MBA almost directly after an engineering undergrad and now works as a financial analyst.

 

I am so pissed at the MSc department for not accepting me. I want nothing to do with that program, i am so MAD. why can't they see I am a good researcher!!!!! my gpa, reference, research interests were clear but there were more qualified candidates. I went super try hard in my final yr to impress them (no social life in my 4th yr) and this is what i get.

 

Well, have you done much research already? How many publications do you have? Did you apply anywhere else?

 

I am not going to wait a yr, because who knows they can just reject me again. i will see if I get into any other programs that i applied too, but my first choice I am not happy with them.

 

i dont know why there is no legacy option for Canadian schools unlike the usa. so much for keeping up the family legacy.

 

been drinking and eating horribly for the past few days since i heard this terrible news. i dont know what to think right now, maybe it is a sign or something. i know i dont want to put my life on hold for this one program, especially if there are other options.

 

It's certainly a blow to go through stuff like that, but there are lots of other programs around and I will say from experience that grad school is not the end-all and be-all of life. I don't know how these so-called "legacy" programs work at certain US schools, but I doubt very much that they ever apply to grad programs.

 

As others have mentioned, admission to a graduate program requires adequate funding for you as well as a willing research supervisor. It may help in advising you if you can tell us which field you hoped to do research in. In any case, I disagree that finding a research supervisor ahead of time is really at all necessary. I remember conversing with some prospective supervisors when I applied to a bunch of programs way back in 2007, but I think that was mostly after I'd been accepted. Now, I had already completed an MSc at my undergrad school, but with that experience I got into all the programs I applied for. I got into a PhD program, but didn't want to take on that commitment when I planned to apply to med school within the year, and ended up in my second-choice one-year course-based (with a major-almost-thesis project) masters program because my first choice program didn't offer any funding.

 

Anyway, I'd suggest waiting to see what the other programs will say.

[NutritionRunner]

I have one question related to all this:

 

Most departments (at least UofT) give conditional acceptances based on finding a supervisor. Meaning the department has accepted you (based on grades, references, etc.) but you can only be admitted to the program once you have arranged a supervisor who has agreed to fund you and support your research.

 

That certainly isn't the case everywhere. I was encouraged to contact professors BEFORE I applied to MSc programs. Some universities don't give out conditional acceptances like you are suggesting. So you need to contact professors before you apply, find out if they are taking MSc students and if they would be a good fit, and then, if they are wiling to take you on as a student, and you meet all of the other program's requirements, then they will advocate for you when the admissions committee meets. For the programs that I applied to, I had to indicate which professor(s) I wanted to review my application.

 

Other universities, and other fields, may do things differently, but in my case, I was strongly encouraged to contact professors before applying.

 

As for legacy admissions, I'm glad we don't have them in Canada, because that means everyone is on a level playing field. I'm the first one in my family to attend university, so if having a family legacy at a university was important, I would be greatly disadvantaged. I like the fact that in Canada we are judged on the basis of our own accomplishments, not that of our families. Of course, students from academic families still have advantages, as their families can help them more easily navigate through higher education. When you are the first person in your family to attend university, you have to figure out everything on your own - you don't have anyone who has done it before to help guide you.

[A-Stark]

To add further, at least two departments at UofT do not give conditional acceptances (or didn't when I applied), so I'd caution against generalizing.

[JohnDakota]

Unless you're like my brother who did an MBA almost directly after an engineering undergrad and now works as a financial analyst.

 

Your brother seems to have been pretty lucky, much like a friend of mine who did an MBA after an MSc. and landed a job at HP - after over 200 job applications and a year of unemployment.

 

If you speak to any management level person in private industry who has an MBA - as I have with family friends who have been VPs of HR and Sales in GSK and Cisco respectively, as well as professional colleagues who work at GSK as liaisons between academia and industry - they'll all tell you that MBAs are best done after having at least a few years of work experience.

[advair250]

Your brother seems to have been pretty lucky, much like a friend of mine who did an MBA after an MSc. and landed a job at HP - after over 200 job applications and a year of unemployment.

 

If you speak to any management level person in private industry who has an MBA - as I have with family friends who have been VPs of HR and Sales in GSK and Cisco respectively, as well as professional colleagues who work at GSK as liaisons between academia and industry - they'll all tell you that MBAs are best done after having at least a few years of work experience.

 

 

What JohnDakota said.

 

As for the brother, thats good, but you definitely don't need an MBA to be a financial analyst, in fact i'd say that is not using the MBA to its intended potential/purpose.

[thehockeykid]

i didn't know but academia seems to have so many politics associated with it, supervisors advocating for you etc...

[JohnDakota]

i didn't know but academia seems to have so many politics associated with it, supervisors advocating for you etc...

 

There are politics in every professional career - every....single....one..

[aaronjw]

Your brother seems to have been pretty lucky, much like a friend of mine who did an MBA after an MSc. and landed a job at HP - after over 200 job applications and a year of unemployment.

 

If you speak to any management level person in private industry who has an MBA - as I have with family friends who have been VPs of HR and Sales in GSK and Cisco respectively, as well as professional colleagues who work at GSK as liaisons between academia and industry - they'll all tell you that MBAs are best done after having at least a few years of work experience.

 

This.

 

What makes an MBA effective is being able to apply concepts after you've actually seen how the work environment is and what business is really all about which you won't get from textbooks, case studies, and lectures on management and financial theory whether in undergrad or in an MBA program.

 

You need experience to tie the two together for the same reason they don't let you practice medicine without having gone through residency(training).

 

Go get some experience and then go back for an MBA. You'll be much more worthy than someone who did their UG and MBA back-to-back

 

 

Oh and try to find a program that teaches the reality of business life through more than theoretical considerations eg: management theory (a laugh that truly is)

[thehockeykid]

anyone here have experience applying to PhD programs in the USA? I will prob do a masters in canada and go from there

[JohnDakota]

anyone here have experience applying to PhD programs in the USA? I will prob do a masters in canada and go from there

 

This will be my last comment in this thread because I'm getting the feeling that you're Brock, or someone like Brock....

 

In the even that your'e not who I suspect you are - my last bit of advice to you is to stop being fixated on the letters PhD and MSc. They're, quite literally, worthless in this day and age. I should know - I have both designations.

 

Do some self reflection on what you've studied over the years - in school, on your own time!! - and determine what gets you excited to investigate more. THAT SUBJECT, that PRINCIPLE, is what will eventually lead you to personal and professional success in life, and if you choose to pursue graduate school, professional success in your PhD and academic career.

 

If you do perform this self reflection, and you do determine something that excites you greatly, then go out and find some prospective supervisors that study that/those topic(s). Email them, cold call them, show up at their office even if it requires a long drive. You need to demonstrate that you are interested in their area of research, their past and current work, and above all you need to get some face time with them.

 

If you're not a troll, like Brock - I'm getting the feeling you are though - then the only other explanation I can come up with, for this incredible fixation on the PhD designation, is your 'family legacy' and some family pressure. Trust me, if this family legacy or parental pressure is your motivation, you will fail and you will waste 6+ years of your life involved in this failure. Academic research has no place, time, or tolerance for motivations of that sort.

[NutritionRunner]

Like JohnDakota said, do some self reflection. Figure out what you want to do and what qualifications you need in order to do what you want.

 

In my case, the jobs I am interested in (public health and community nutrition) all require a Masters degree. So, that's why I'm pursuing a Masters. If at some point what I want to do requires a PhD, then I'll look into doing a PhD at that point in time.

 

For information on graduate programs and on careers in academia, check out, respectively, grad cafe and The Chronicle of Higher Education. You will find that there are not a lot of jobs in academia for those with PhDs. It is very, very hard to get a tenure track job these days. Many research jobs only require a Masters degree. So do your research and find out what qualifications are required for: 1. the job you eventually want, and 2. the graduate programs or other education you need for those jobs.

[thehockeykid]

I can assure u i am not a troll. I have been thinking of many possibilities because obviously i am upset that i got turned down from my 1st choice in graduate school. I think anyone would be upset, especially when you talked to them and you thought you were going to be accepted. my head is running like 50 mph

 

I also found out another school told me I missed the scholarship deadline, so i am not happy about that. 4th yr is a stressful time, i dont know what i doing doing this summer, what i am doing after graduation, and on top of that i have all these BS assignments and exams to prepare for

[aaronjw]

Self entitlement is large with this one

[spontaneouscombustion]

Sounds like this is the first time you've ever dealt with disappointment. Rejections happen. Take it as a chance to self reflect, possibly explore other opportunities. Anger or feeling sorry for yourself isn't going to help.