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I've been wondering this for a while.

I'm currently doing the first year of my PhD in Frankfurt. Originally from New Zealand.

I'm not complaining about my situation but if anyone asks me I'll honestly say I would have preferred an English-speaking country.

I'd actually applied to about 9 PhD programs in the US and all rejected me. Yet I was accepted to a (supposedly far more competitive) fully funded European PhD, and rather quickly - accepted late last year and already working now.

It has me wonder. I had very strong letters of recommendation from professors that are well known in my field. I had also published a paper (which has now been cited in Nature) out of the fruits of my research Master's.

My GPA is about 2.8-2.9 by US standards (hard to convert, my school was a "we grade harshly, rarely give out As and we'll make you sweat for a B" style system). Professors at home told me my grades were irrelevant with the strong letters.

People say that I was likely discounted because I had a research master's already and I'd probably see doing more course load as beneath me? That doesn't seem to hold water.

I really don't know. Any thoughts?

It is sometimes difficult for admissions committees to evaluate applicants coming from universities or university systems that they don't have direct experience with. This is especially true if they also don't know your letter writers. It can help to apply to universities where someone in the dept. has some connection to the country you're applying from. Since someone at Frankfurt knew one of your letter writers, that person may be better informed about your letter writers, the quality of your school, and the meaning of your grades.

Many Universities have GPA cut-offs where they don't look at applications below a particular GPA threshold. The cut-off is generally much lower than the average admitted applicant, but can still be quite high. Universities vary on this, some don't do it at all, some have strict transparent GPA requirements, and some do this in practice but don't say so in writing. Most programs that use these sorts of GPA cut-offs would probably have a cut-off of 3.0 (or even higher for elite institutions). So your application may have not even been read if your official GPA conversion translated to 2.8 - 2.9!

If you want to avoid getting your application thrown away before it is even looked at, one strategy is to contact a professor in the department that you want to work with. If you convince them that you would be a great student under their supervision they can often contact the admissions committee and ask them to look out for your application. In this scenario, you still might not get admitted, as the committee does usually have the final say, but your letters of reference will at least be looked at, and the professor at the university you are applying to can send the committee a note about how tough your university is and how well respected your letter writers are in your field.

Your friend's explanation about your research masters is almost certainly wrong. I doubt many programs would reject you just because you already had a research masters.

Your existing related master's does make a significant difference in most US schools. Somebody that already has a master's will usually skip coursework and go directly to research because the school cannot grant a second master's in the same or related field.

This means you bypass the stage where you're being a TA and taking classes and consequently, there's no opportunity for you to get to know professors and their labs. On the flip side, there is no period for groups to assess your work before they invite you in.

Practically, in the departments I've been in, this means a student with a master's needs to contact professors prior to application review and find a group that is willing to accept them. From that point, the application is a mere formality.

As you have found out, there is little chance if somebody goes through the normal application route. Those applications tend to get stuck in a pile that PIs don't read.

The strongest way to do this is having your existing professors send an e-mail, especially to somebody they have a working relationship with. In any case, good recommendations are required with research background. Courses and grades aren't really that important.