[ND89]

Recently been rejected by Imperial College London for a PhD research degree and it was because my bachelor degree did not reach the minimum requirement. My bachelor's GPA isn't significantly lower than Imperial College requirement and my masters GPA well exceeds the minimum requirement.

Anyhow, before my application was processed to the department I was able to speak with an potential supervisor at Imperial College to supervise my intended research. The supervisor told me to convey to the department that he was 'potentially happy' for me to join him to conduct research.

When that was conveyed, my application was processed and then rejected shortly after due to not meeting the minimum requirement.

After rejected, I contacted the supervisor that I spoke to earlier and he said he doesn't agree with admissions and believes that a masters degree should be sufficient enough to do research. He also mention that he will look into it and contact me back.

Do you guys think a professor would have enough authority to overturn my application status? Or any other thoughts on this and if I can do to increase my chances?

PS. Sorry for the long post

[threeportdrift]

(Original post by ND89)
Do you guys think a professor would have enough authority to overturn my application status? Or any other thoughts on this and if I can do to increase my chances?

There's nothing you can do to increase your chances. The chance of the supervisor over turning admissions will depend on what the department/faculty/university policies are on entry grades. If it is a hard line policy, you won't get in, if there is some leeway, then you might.

[evantej]

(Original post by ND89)
[...] Do you guys think a professor would have enough authority to overturn my application status? Or any other thoughts on this and if I can do to increase my chances? [...]

In short, yes. You will find with large universities that it is not actually the academics who make the admissions decisions. There will be a team of dedicated postgraduate administrators who sift through the thousands of applications they receive each year and make decisions based upon fixed criteria (i.e. a GPA of x for programme y). They are administrators. What 'we' as students and academics would consider good qualities for them to have (e.g. some subject knowledge of the subject they are dealing with), is often not what they actually have because it would cost the university more (i.e. graduates from certain subjects rather than random person with business administration qualification).

If your academic goes challenges their decision then they will back down. They do not have the knowledge to make any informed decision upon your application and they are costing the university money by rejecting you, because the academic suggests that you should have been given an offer in the first place.