Domestic student, 3.9/4 CGPA. Received other offers. Accepted this one with a supervisor and funding lined up.

ETH BSc. CS Weighted average 5.1/6. I did 4 Jobs in technical fields (Sensor chip manufacturing, Data Scientist, Software Engineer, Aircraft Radar operation). Did my Bachelor thesis in ML at a tier 1 company. Highlighted these achievements strongly in the Motivation Letter. I applied in the second window only for students from swiss universities. No LoR. No publications. No TA Experience.

Domestic applicant, advanced standing

I had to call the Graduate Director, he was very polite in his rejection. University of South Carolina made no effort to contact me regarding their decision.

Bachelor's Degree

2 professor development happened last week of May, one said he has no funding, so discussed thesis-based master's option, the other took his sweet time to schedule a call and finally got on a call on June 10th, stating his interest to hire me as a PhD student in his lab and offering TA. He gave me a task to write a summary on one of his projects, while working on it, on the same day, i received a reject. I have filed for appeal. Please suggest what more I can do.

Direct admission, 80/100 with a GPA of 1.2 according to the VPD. EU student (Italy)

International (Turkey), 2 years of research experience, minor in Maths.

Submitted two weeks after application was open, since admission was rolling-based there could be more bias for earlier applications. Later learned that the spring 2026 cohort was about 50 people, and also the last time the program will have a spring cohort.

There is no news about Funding yet.

Was invited to submit a video interview. Rejected around 10 days later anyway. I'm a psychology major but I didn't have any practical background in mental health so if I were to guess that would be the biggest reason.

Double degree in Physics and Biomedical Engineering. Research interships at ETH Zürich and the University of Cambridge. 4 papers published, (2 top tier conferences and 2 high-impact journals).