Senioritis

You should be completely fine. I'm a current PhD student and one of my recommenders didn't send them until the end of December. He was the DGS at my undergrad school and was very reassuring that most programs are very lenient on LORs coming in late since that's probably out of your control most of the time. Also I applied last cycle and I ended up choosing Berkeley so if anyone has any questions about the program or grad school in general I'm happy to help out! ☺️

Have any of the UCSD admits received an email from a professor with similar research interests outside of the normal admission emails? Just wondering if this is a standard thing the department does. (Because if so, it's a very nice touch haha )

Because I've worked so closely with the DGS he was my first email when I got the Cal acceptance so he asked me to come talk to him. He mostly wanted to know how important it was to me to stay in LA now given that option (I'm a couple of months from married, so my husband's job availability has been an important component of where I go), and I just told him that it was very, very unlikely I would be staying in the department. (Even though I really love it and anyone who gets in there should definitely go!! )

Good! Actually, no! I'm an Americanist but I'm in my last semester of undergrad there now and I've taken a few grad classes/researched with the DGS for years so I know the department extremely well. (When I started getting into top choice schools, we had a discussion and I sort of withdrew my application since I really wanted to move on to somewhere else to expand my ~intellectual horizons~ if you will) If you have any questions about USC feel free to message me though! It's a great program.

Okay I wouldn't worry too much. I spoke with the DGS last week and they had a lot fewer Americanist spots than IR and I'm pretty sure he's the one who made all the phone calls on Friday to people in that subfield (since that's his area) so I wouldn't stress too much yet. Because of the way IR and Poli sci are lumped together for graduate but not undergrads I get the impression that the department would likely have poli sci and IR faculty notify their subfields respectively instead of all at once.

Is comparative your subfield?

Where do you go online to check it?

I received it and I'm also about an hour and a half away so you might want to double check with the department to make sure they didn't miss you or something.

Awesome! He's really great. I'm finishing my undergrad there right now and I've worked really closely with him for the last three years and taken a couple of graduate courses, so if you have any questions about the program from someone outside of POIR but familiar with it I'd be so happy to share! It's really a great place. (I just decided not to do grad and undergrad at the same school) Prof Grose in particular really really cares about his students and will do everything to help you succeed, so huge congratulations to you!!

The person whose name was attached to the email address was not the same person who the email was signed by so maybe they're sending them out in batches too! I just noticed it after my last reply, so even though it's short it doesn't look automated necessarily. Don't give up hope

My email was very short and not individualized at all. About one sentence saying you're accepted and another saying the preview days are March 10th and 11th. No info on funding or anything else.

I received an acceptance email about ten minutes ago so it looks like they are still going out right now.

For any of the USC admits, who did you receive a phone call from? Just curious!