How Graduate Admission Committees Evaluate Applications

Graduate programs receive dozens or even hundreds of applications and many are from students with stellar qualifications. Can admissions committees and departments really draw distinctions among hundreds of applicants? A competitive program that receives a large number of applications, such as a doctoral program in clinical  psychology, may receive up to 500 applications. Admissions committees for competitive graduate programs break the review process into several steps. First Step: Screening Does the applicant meet the minimum requirements? Standardized test scores? GPA? Relevant experience? Is the application complete, including admissions essays and recommendation letters? The purpose of this initial review is to ruthlessly weed out applicants. Second Step: First Pass Graduate programs vary, but many competitive programs send batches of applications to faculty for an initial review. Each faculty member may review a set of applications and identify those with promise. Third Step: Batch Review In the next step batches of applications are sent to two to three faculty. At this stage, applications are evaluated with regard to motivation, experience, documentation (essays, letters), and overall promise. Depending on the size of the program and applicant pool the resulting set of applicants is reviewed by a larger set of faculty, or interviewed, or accepted (some programs do not conduct interviews). Fourth Step: Interview Interviews may be conducted by phone or in-person. Applicants are evaluated with regard to their academic promise, thinking and problem-solving skills, and social competence. Both faculty and graduate students evaluate applicants. Final Step: Post Interview and Decision Faculty meet, gather evaluations, and make admissions decisions. The specific process varies depending on the size of the program and number of applicants. Whats the takeaway message? Make sure that your application is complete. If youre missing a recommendation letter, essay, or transcript, your application will not make it through the initial screening.

Transition to Democracy Essay - 2068 Words

Since the initiation of the Third Wave of Democracy, several countries have attempted to form a democratic system of governs. We take note that not all have succeeded. At the dawn of this era, democracy was being applied to countries with no prior history of a governing body that was place by the people for the people hence success of such a system could not be guaranteed because of the innumerous variables that existed in each country. People being the highlighted factor of variance, it may become easier to understand how countries such as Pakistan and Nigeria, both countries prior to the Wave had no local governing machinery. Pakistan further endured a partition from India which resulted in not only an instant religious and†¦show more content†¦The Spanish citizens were not always necessarily tormented by tyrants, whose political ideologies only reflected what benefited themselves. From 1931- 1936 , the second republic was formed in Spain where they established a free dem ocratic setting and For the first time a major breakthrough was made in regional autonomy, indispensable for the development of a stable modern democracy in Spain 1. Spain currently is a parliamentary representative democratic constitutional monarchy. Its branch of powers is separated in to two, where the executive power lies with the government and the legislative power is delegated to the Spanish parliament. Due to this structure it is very arduous for political figures in states and governments to abuse their power. The executive power in Spain is given to the Council of Ministers, which is led by the Spanish prime minister. The Prime Minister is initially nominated by the king where after he is required to obtain the vote of the lower house of parliament, and finally the king appoints the prime minister. Spain’s legislature is elected directly. The Spanish legislature branch consists of the congress of deputies and the senate whom serve for a period no more than 4 years. The senate is elected through bloc voting at a provincial level. The congress on the other hand is similar yet different, as it is at a provincial level as well. Two members are allocated for each province; the number ofShow MoreRelatedTransition To Democracy1149 Words   |  5 PagesBrazil’s transition to democracy was long and drawn out, with effects of the old regime lasting through the twentieth century. Even today, Brazil has difficulty remaining a fully consolidated democracy, as lasting economic and social issues from the authoritarian regime ignite issues within the country. 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Advantages and Disadvantages of Teamwork Free Essays

Advantages and Disadvantages of Teamwork Advantages: * The first and the most important advantages of group work is that it increases the total productivity. You can use the very best of every member of the group and thus have quality output. The best skills of every member of the group are utilized to the maximum, and thus there is no compromise on the productivity when you are working as a group. We will write a custom essay sample on Advantages and Disadvantages of Teamwork or any similar topic only for you Order Now This advantage would undoubtedly come first in the list of advantages and disadvantages of working in groups. The more members you have in a group, the more resources you have at the end of the day. This means you can meet more ends with these resources. Another way to look at it is that as the number of people go on increasing, the knowledge of the team also increases. All these people bring in their very own experience which adds to that of the group. This means, at the end of the day, the group has more knowledge, more experience and more resources. The assets of the company just increase in this way. * When you give a particular project to a group for completion, you also give them a deadline. When there are more number of people working in a group, you naturally intend to trust that group more as they have the manpower. If a few of the members are absent or not coming to work, the rest can still finish the project. Groups are bound to land up with more projects as they can develop more number of plans and more options for one particular problem. In the end, you are more in profit if you work in a group. * When you work alone, you are automatically biased towards someone or something. You are human and this is bound to happen from the best of managers. However, when you work in group, you reduce that bias considerably. While working in a group, you need to tell everyone why you are taking a particular decision. Once you tell the entire group about your decision, even they have to agree to it so that you can execute it. This way, you tend to think in a more professional way, which works better for you! Disadvantages: * One of the greatest drawbacks of working in a team is that there is no freedom of doing as you wish. How much ever you prove your point and the rationality of applying your decision, it won’t be agreed upon if the other members in the group disagree on it. Every action of yours needs approval from everyone else in the group. This becomes a bit time-consuming. Another problem is that working in a group is bound to give rise to ‘groupism’, which might add to the negativity in the working atmosphere and hamper the quality of work, not the quantity. * Another important mention in all the advantages and disadvantages of working in groups is the time factor one needs to evaluate all the members of the group. Most organizations look at the overall output and don’t look into the details if the work is presented as they wanted it. However, at such times, they don’t realize that some employees have hardly put in any effort and some have done maximum work. There are many escape routes while working in a group. Judging the productivity of every employee doesn’t only take time but is sometimes, impossible if there are no records. * When you work in a group and achieve more than the productivity required, you are bound to get some rewards. Sometimes, these rewards are equal for all while at times, they aren’t. Suppose there is only promotion available, who will get it? It is very difficult to measure the work done by every employee in comparison to others. This means that the possibility of unequal credit cannot be denied. Increments will vary for everyone in the group and this might add to the inequality. If ‘A’ has done 10 things and ‘B’ has done 100, B will be rewarded more in normal circumstances. Very few will take the efforts and check who has actually given more revenue. * While working in a group, many people develop a competitive attitude or approach towards their work. They are constantly trying to work ‘more’ than the others. What they should actually focus on is working ‘better’ than the others. This kind of attitude reduces the quality in the overall productivity and thus the objective of working as a team is lost. If you work in a creative field, this attitude will reduce the creativity to a great extent. Losing the focus is easy when all you are worried about is winning the race. Instead of competing with other groups members, people should compete with their own self to give a better output as an individual, and eventually as a team. * These were all the advantages and disadvantages of working in groups, that are not only mportant from the knowledge perspective but also because you need to find solutions to all the disadvantages. The benefits of working in groups undoubtedly weigh more than the disadvantages of group working. You need to focus more on the advantages of group work to gain maximum, quality output, efficiently. Thus, working together in groups and teams is more beneficial f or a company or for a project in school even. Continue doing the same! By Neha Joshi Last Updated: 9/27/2011 Buzzle:Â  http://www. buzzle. com/articles/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-working-in-groups. html How to cite Advantages and Disadvantages of Teamwork, Essay examples