Why am I getting rejection in PhD admission after interview? When I was in my bachelor's program, I applied to three universities in Europe for masters. My two first choices accepted me and offered me funding for my masters studies which is competitive (2 students in my field got it). The third university which is not as well known as the others in my field, but still very good, accepted me but did not offer me funding. They interviewed me in this university and then rejected me. For the other two universities, I also had interviews and they both accepted me.
Now I am applying to PhD programs again in Europe. I did my masters in one of those universities in which I was accepted. Again, I have applied to three universities. This morning, the one that was not my first choice and again is not as well-known as the other two, after an interview, rejected me. This position had 5-6 vacancies.
I am confused about this, to be honest. Because I do not know if I should interpret it as that I will be rejected in the other two as well, or just assume it depends on my match with their programs. If the latter is the case, why did they even interview me? The thing that confuses me is this: if they shortlisted me, it means they were considering me. After the interview, they rejected me. I did not have the impression that I could not answer their technical questions. My question is this: should I interpret that the same thing will happen with those well-known universities? Why do you think that they rejected me while I feel I am qualified enough to the other two as well?
In late 2019, I had funding to employ a single PhD student at my European university. So I opened up a vacancy, and I received about 140 applications. By sheer necessity, I had to reject 139 candidates, and that included several very good ones indeed.
The main difference you're experiencing is that European Master programmes can accept scores* of students every year, but many European PhD positions are job vacancies that can only be awarded to a single person. So you're suddenly dealing with significantly more serious competition for the available positions. Rejection merely means that at least one candidate was even stronger than you.
*exact numbers depend on country, university, programme, but it's typically much much more than one student per programme.