Carlpolisci

What strategies do you all have for minimizing calculating errors? I would say 70% of the mistakes I make is not because I don't get what the question wants from me, but that somewhere in the process I drop a minus, calculate 5x2=20 in my head or just turn a 5 into a 3, etc. This obviously gets worse the more time pressure I am under. So I was wondering if you found strategies to work on these errors and reduce sloppy mistakes?

So I just found out that the FY2015 budget proposes a 30 Million dollar cut to the Fulbright program. As far as I understand that would alter the program tremendously, esp since it's not clear what part of the program will be most affected. Stumbled upon this petition and page of arguments. http://www.savefulbright.org I think this should get more attention!

I'll be right there with you. Just got my last rejection.

Ince you open the application you should see something along the lines of "has been updated". There's another link. But it's probably not good news :/

Not to break the stream of helpful advice and thoughts, but THANK YOU, really, for some things to think about. re: Relationship of comms and PoliSci. I believe it's a matter of public opinion and participation, so I think it has more a PoliSci hat than a comms hat, but I might be too stubborn trying to convince the world of that and just give up and live a life next to Marketing and Advertising people, teaching Communication 101 to future PR firm employees Thank you! and please keep the advice coming!

Did you guys change your research interests completely or did you just rewrite your SOPs it?

With the official GWU rejection out and only Harvard left, it's time for me to throw the towel for this year. If anyone has some time to share some advice, I'd be happy to hear what you all think if I should bother trying again next year: Congrats to all the admits!

Turning to the forum for some advice (which I should’ve done much earlier in the process, but those are the mistakes of a first cycle I guess). With 3 confirmed and 2 presumed (Columbia, Harvard) rejections of 5, it’s time to reflect. The core of the question is in the title: Should I bother trying again or is it a waste of my money and time. While I’m not going to relay on just the answers here, I’d really appreciate your opinion as you are all seasoned experts in the admissions circus. Some context: I’m an international student with a Communication Master’s from an American School with more of a professional image. I also have a MA from my university at home (totally unrelated field). My GPA at the American School is 3.91, hard to translate the international MA, but according to some random website it’s 3.38. Research Interest is political communication. I know a lot of profs look down on that as a communication, not a PoliSci subject, but I tried to frame it in PoliSci terms in my SOP, seems like it hasn’t worked (happy to send in PM if anyone is willing to read). Because of my hybrid interest, I also applied to Annenberg as my only comms program and there’s a project in line with my interest at NYU, where I thought I’d be a fit. Strengths: Have published a book on my research interest, wrote one peer reviewed paper Some other (journalistic) publications, lots of media coverage/punditry. Variety of Lectures, panel discussions. Some awards (e.g. Fulbright) Lots of academic teaching experience in research interest. LOR from the Fulbright Chair of my country. Others are ok, but no big names. Weakness Definetly my GRE which was 159 V/151 Q/4.5 - asides from running out of time I had hoped my strong CV evens that out. Lack of quant grades/experience/classes/anything. Lack of writing sample. given my international status and my professional Master, I only have two English writing samples, one’s a lit review, the other one is my thesis, both are honestly not very good. For private reasons I’m bound to the Boston to DC metro corridor. I’d definitely apply to more and less prestigious schools (although I didn’t choose so much by name than by profs) and putting more comms programs in the mix. But the thing is: The only thing, I can actually improve on (possibly) is the GRE. I'm out of school for quite a while, so I'm not going to write a paper in the next months. With these weaknesses, do I have a chance or should I not bother? And where else should I reconfigure my application? I really appreciate your advice!

There's the sting I've been preparing for all week, when the first Columbia admitt is on the board and my email is empty... (I know, might be early. still don't have a good feeling about this) Congrats, anxious!

I'm one of the rejections. Was not waitlisted.

when did you email them? emailed them this morning and haven't heard. Overinterpreting this in...3-2-...

Harvard is first week(s) of March, historically and confirmed by an email someone posted about 1500 messages up. One can be nervous about GWU starting next week (a late January email confirmed application and said it would be 4-6 weeks from then)

this is all too binary for me. in other news: this seems like another slow day: whhhhyyyyyy. I went so far as to contact NYU just to get ANY news, even if it's a rejection.

This is an issue for us too, although a little different since we live in Europe right now and my partner wants to come back to the states sooner or later anyways. But we're geographically limited by a) my partner's families NY focus and my wish to be a direct flight from home (am from Europe) and c) her lack of driving. The latter meant eg that I didn't apply to UNC, although there would've been a prof i'd really like to work with. In terms on where on the East Coast, we agreed I have a half vote more, but she does international NGO stuff, so DC or NY metropolitan area are her preferred options. That limited the schools I applied to and I'm two rejections (NYU presumed) of 5. We'll see how we deal with it next year, but I will have to widen my net a little bit.

Looks like Columbia is closing early today: https://twitter.com/columbia/status/434006114599198720 Not that it has anything to do with admission time frame, but you know...