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How bad is this year?

Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2023 8:06 pm
by mathGRE_Torsion
I want to know how competitive this year is, but the data on this forum is very confusing. For example, by this time, our 2023 application thread only has two pages, whereas the 2022 application thread has about 5 pages. On the other hand, this year's sweat thread is much longer... so I don't know...

So my question is, do we have fewer applicants this year (in comparison to last year)?

Re: How bad is this year?

Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2023 9:23 pm
by GLPHDAPP
I applied last year and this year. From my experience with applicants and my own results, I think this year might be a little bit easier than last year, but I might be biased. We will know more when some schools (Umich, UCSB, etc.) release their admission stats for this year.

Re: How bad is this year?

Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2023 1:07 pm
by LetMeIn2401
This year is ever so slightly easier. We are still reeling in from the wave of reduced acceptances that affected 2021 and 2022, so expect to feel the effects for the next few years.

Source: DGS told me that application numbers are only marginally down (T7 School) and they have 2 more spots to offer.

Re: How bad is this year?

Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2023 5:35 pm
by kkk23
From my own situation, I think this year is easier. Two months ago, I was desperate about my applications after comparing myself with the applicant profiles last year, but now the outcome is much better than that I have imagined. Maybe I'm extremely lucky.

Re: How bad is this year?

Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2023 7:02 pm
by salviati
I'm not sure there's necessarily less applicants -- anecdotally, there were only two math applicants from my school last year (the other applied people went for CS grad school or industry jobs, and I believe the pure math majors went into finance or something), but this year there's close to 10. There's also more incentive to apply for grad school since the job market/economy aren't that great currently.

That said, I can see it being easier in the sense that departments might have more funding/spots than they were offering in the past couple years. One of the advisors I interviewed with said he has 5+ positions since none of the students he made offers to last year ended up coming, and that the dept. overall is making more offers since they just hired two new professors.

But who knows ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: How bad is this year?

Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2023 12:53 am
by math.magician
Based on interacting with my department colleagues and graduate students, and spending countless hours browsing this forum and gradcafe, imho the difficulty is likely as follows (bigger means more difficult) obviously subject to departmental funding availability/etc

2021 Fall entry > 2022 Fall entry > 2023 Fall entry >>> 2020 Fall entry

Re: How bad is this year?

Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2023 10:36 am
by 18sama20
UNC Charlotte sent me an email saying that they have much larger than usual TA openings for Fall 2023.

Re: How bad is this year?

Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2023 6:46 am
by FieldsMedalist
This year should have been easier than the last 2 years, but surprisingly many universities have less funding this year. I think every year is becoming harder and more competititve than the one before it.

Re: How bad is this year?

Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2023 3:01 pm
by xbq22
FieldsMedalist wrote:
Mon Feb 20, 2023 6:46 am
This year should have been easier than the last 2 years, but surprisingly many universities have less funding this year. I think every year is becoming harder and more competititve than the one before it.
The issue this year is the continued back log from covid + economy is in the shitter, so a) more people want to grad school and put off going into the work force (this is a bad reason to get a math phd but people do it) and b) universities funding is down bc economy is in the shitter. Vicious cycle going on over here :(

Re: How bad is this year?

Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2023 4:17 pm
by Scathrules
xbq22 wrote:
Mon Feb 20, 2023 3:01 pm
FieldsMedalist wrote:
Mon Feb 20, 2023 6:46 am
This year should have been easier than the last 2 years, but surprisingly many universities have less funding this year. I think every year is becoming harder and more competititve than the one before it.
The issue this year is the continued back log from covid + economy is in the shitter, so a) more people want to grad school and put off going into the work force (this is a bad reason to get a math phd but people do it) and b) universities funding is down bc economy is in the shitter. Vicious cycle going on over here :(
Also wanna add that we're also having a lot of people who did masters during COVID applying for PhDs since they should have graduated by now. A lot of people either put off PhDs or went to masters since you can do it remotely. I know a good amount of people who did this in math and in other fields so expect even more competition next year too

Re: How bad is this year?

Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2023 12:57 pm
by 18sama20
Can anybody account for the astronomical increase in the number of applicants for Georgia Tech? They have indeed kept GRE scores optional but I think that there is something more to this than meets the eye.

Re: How bad is this year?

Posted: Thu Mar 02, 2023 2:26 am
by thyartismath
Scathrules wrote:
Mon Feb 20, 2023 4:17 pm
xbq22 wrote:
Mon Feb 20, 2023 3:01 pm
FieldsMedalist wrote:
Mon Feb 20, 2023 6:46 am
This year should have been easier than the last 2 years, but surprisingly many universities have less funding this year. I think every year is becoming harder and more competititve than the one before it.
The issue this year is the continued back log from covid + economy is in the shitter, so a) more people want to grad school and put off going into the work force (this is a bad reason to get a math phd but people do it) and b) universities funding is down bc economy is in the shitter. Vicious cycle going on over here :(
Also wanna add that we're also having a lot of people who did masters during COVID applying for PhDs since they should have graduated by now. A lot of people either put off PhDs or went to masters since you can do it remotely. I know a good amount of people who did this in math and in other fields so expect even more competition next year too
And I thought it was just me thinking these things! It’s nice to see some discussion that doesn’t make me feel insane.

This is a general question for anyone to answer, but this being my first PhD cycle I am curious: has long has the application process felt this competitive? Of course I’m not implying that there was ever a time where it wasn’t competitive, but it feels like my application might as well go straight to the waste bin with some of the stellar profiles I have seen here.