Admissions is a four stage process.
- The grad admissions committee reads all the folders to ensure a consistent baseline. If a folder is admissible, then the GAC makes a recommendation for which other faculty might want to read a folder. This is where folders might be assigned to you. This process is intended to be complete by approximately Jan 15, where every folder has been scored by at least one person, and possibly assigned to faculty who might be interested in working with the person.
- Individual faculty then read the folders. Most people just read the folders that are assigned to them, but everyone is welcome to read every folder. If you are looking for someone with particular attributes, you could search for that, e.g., keywords in their research statement. Faculty then give scores.
- The sectors then meet in February and make admissions decisions. For example, in the computing sector, we rank the applicants by average score, and then consider then from highest score to lowest score, based on their research interests, and whether there are enough people interested in advising. The commitment to advise is integral to the admissions process.
- Once decisions are made, The Graduate Program Administrator sends out decision letters, usually early March. The admission letter will specify a primary advisor, but that is only a commitment by the department -- the student is free to seek different advisors. If multiple faculty are interested in advising a student, then the letter will list alternate advisors as well. If an RA is offered, the letter will also specify that.
So your process should probably be:
- Work out how many students you want to take, and to fund. You'll get an email from the ADH early January asking you to fill out a form with the min/expected/max number of students you are willing to advise, and the min/expected/max number of students you are willing to offer RAs to. The number students you are willing to advise and the number of RAs you have to give do not need to be the same.
- After January 15, start reading and reviewing folders. You probably have about three weeks.
- Identify the handful of candidates you think you would want to work with.
- Attend your sector admissions meeting and make recommendations about admissions.
Some additional bits:
- We try to make admissions decisions as a sector. If a faculty member wants to admit a low-scoring student, that's a problem because if the student ends up not wanting to work with that faculty member, *and* no one else wants to work with them, then we end up with a very unhappy student wandering the halls looking for an advisor. So we try to admit students that we agree are the highest-qualified students, and that multiple faculty agree would be a fit for our department.
- There are fellowships available, but fellowships are primarily used as a recruiting tool to attract candidates from under-represented populations (e.g., highly qualified female or minority candidates).