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Hey everyone! I am so excited to reapply this year after getting SO close last year. I'll be a year post-grad now, and I'm gathering some teaching experience under my belt. Wishing you all amazing luck!

I worked in admissions at RISD, here are the 2025 Updates. RISD Painting: 11% Sculpture: 26% Photography: 17% Graphic Design: 9% Digital Media: 13% Also, Yale School of Art: 6%

I stumbled upon an article that includes a research process that I cannot understand. The authors try to investigate the perception of musical works of two groups, one of expert listeners (15 people) and one of non-expert listeners (25 people). All listeners have to take a test, and do the following tasks: 1) listen to the musical piece and place a number of markers where they perceive something important is happening; 2) associate a degree of strength to these markers to report how important is that event; 3) associate with the marker a quality available on a list provided by the authors. However, to study these groups, the authors don't just collect the results and compare the two groups between each other. What they do is to compare these results to a "model." This model is made by the research team through the same tasks taken by the listeners. The authors report that "it is essential to the methodology of the experiment that the test subjects performed exactly the same steps that were used in the model analyses. Thus, the model analyses can be understood as hypotheses for the results of the experiment." Therefore, since I perceive something in some way, I expect you to perceive something in the same way, and I use my own perception to analyze and discuss your responses. Is this a valid methodology? P.S. I report the quote for clarity. If this is considered plagiarism, let me know and I paraphrase the quote.

Oh my god @Senochka so informative, I really learn a lot from your post. Yeah, your measure to approach the schools you wanted to apply to is really a good way to get a glimpse of the disability services at those schools, and this approach should work quite effectively. I hope every student and applicant with a medical condition can see your post. Good luck with your master's studies and everything, and I generally wish that there will be more people just like you, with a warm heart and helping hands!

Hey there, doing a Grad Cafe sweep for no valid reason other than I am bored. The topic is rather old, and maybe you already got your answers. But I am blind, so am qualified to chime in ahahah. First and foremost, I am sorry that some of the responses you received were off-putting in nature. I am not as competitive as either of you guys, so I know for a fact that I got rejected when I did and from where I did based on merit and not my disability. But I also know for a fact that a negative outlook on certain disabilities exists at top schools. How do I know that? Through experience. I am the alumna of one of these top schools, and I can firmly say that accessibility services SUCK at most top tier institutions. Although this is not reflective of any committee's treatment of disabled candidates, I believe it is reflective of the institution's general disposition towards disabled candidates and students. For this reason, when I was building my school list, I emailed each and every school on my provisional list and asked for pre-submission walkthrough and personal post-submission assistance. I did not apply to any school that said no or made me play pinball between different departments regardless of how much I wanted to apply to that school or how good my fit was. In my experience lower Top 30 and 30-50 were the most responsive. I believe that is because these schools have a stronger interest in treating applicants and students better as they want to climb higher on the ranking ladder, and part of it is to receive more applications. In contrast, at HYPSM, you are lucky if they throw a glance your way. So, it is no surprise that they are less interested in ensuring that the students can navigate the system comfortably. Another thing I did not do for my grad cycles but did do for my undergrad cycle was to contact student disability offices and ask for a copy of their policies, if they go, "ADA.", skip. If they are responsive and delineate their processes for you, give that school a chance. Also, contact DHS well in advance, and ask whether they had any severely disabled students in the past, and they would be willing to talk to you about their experience. Sometimes, what we interpret as bias is the fear of "handling it wrong", and people find staying away a safer option than trying their best. So, if a department has experience working with disabled students, great! I remember the time I asked a department about their experience with and policies on disabled students, and they proudly told me that they had a "talking elevator" in their building. So, I believe what you think is there, is there, but I am not sure if it has enough weight to tip the scales from "nope" to "come on in" or vice versa. I am blind and ı got into the terminal master's program of my school with a generous aid package, I am blind and I would be shooed away if I applied to the same school for a PhD. Best of luck!

Hey there, Fellow Turkish national here. Although I am not doing political Econ., I have completed a degree in the U.S. and am very familiar with the system and the current state of the U.S. higher education, as well as how Turkish profiles are assessed here. If your institutions are any two of Bilkent, BOUN, Koc, you are lucky. There is a well-established network of graduates of these institutions in American higher education. Both former admits and possibly faculty will help shedding positive light on your profile. Your GPAs are near-perfect and your GRE score is very solid, making you competitive for top tier programs. However, I am afraid your school list will limit the return on your six-year investment. First and foremost, PhD admissions are not like undergraduate admissions. There is no concept of a "safety school", "outcome predictability", and hence, there is no such thing as a "top candidate" unless you are Malala Yousafzai or Timothé Chalamalameimammamia. What I mean is, your excellent stats make you a "realistic" candidate for these schools, but there will be loads of applicants in the prospective pools of them like you. Some candidates will even be the recent grads of these schools, and thus will be better connected than you are. Some will be seasoned policy professionals who want to pivot to academia after years long work in prominent think tanks or the U.S. government, some will have publications etc. Long story short, range is important. Also, your European list stands in stark contrast with its many modest choices to your U.S. list. If you ask me, many mid-tier U.S. schools will provide you with a better education and better credentials than some of these European schools. So, my humble advice to you would be expand your U.S. range. Choose two to three top-notch schools at most, four if you are really keen on trying your hand at these. Then add slightly lower-ranked but still very respectable schools. For example, why isn't Duke on your list? Both Timur Kuran and Dani Rodrik are there, and both are doing PE. Also, instead of applying to Harvard Gov't, apply to the Political Economy program that is co-designed with the Gov't department and HKS, and is run by HKS. In that case, you would need to apply through HKS, which is tiniest bit less competitive. As I said, I am not doing PE, so I cannot recommend specific schools, but Michigan, NYU, UCSD, UCLA are known for their quantitative rigor. Still, if you ask me, do three of the HYPSM, three of these other schools I mentioned, and six schools ranked even lower. The competition is UNREAL. Nearly all of the schools in your current list and the ones I mentioned here were subjected to BRUTAL funding cuts. Plus, when the current administration wants a school to cave in, their first instinct is to go after the said school's visa sponsorship privileges. Thus, the game is harder for int'l students. I know that George Mason has a good political economy stream and so do UIC and Vanderbilt. You can try GWU, Georgetown, UNC Chapel Hill, Virginia etc. but def. expand your range. For UK, on the other hand, please note that the application process is much more cumbersome. As you also noted in your post, funding at many European institutions is not guaranteed, so, you need to follow the ESRC and DTP open competition deadlines and send in an initial application. Also, when you are applying to Oxford DPIR and Cambridge POLS, you need to fill additional external scholarship forms for the funding schemes that suit your profile (e.g. The Leverhulme Trust PhD fund). UK schools have their own funding as well, but these are limited in coverage, and the full coverage ones are awarded to 3-6 incoming students at most. Moreover, some of these internal and external funding schemes have residency & citizenship reqs (e.g. Commonwealth, EUEA etc.). So, choose frugally and wisely when it comes to the UK. For Europe, EUI and Mannheim are excellent choices. The former offers unconditional full funding and the latter does not have fees associated with a much more generous stipend & expenses scheme. I would suggest that you add Sciences Po. Paris, HEC Paris, IHEID, and CEU to your list for the very same reason. However, you can expand your scope here as well. Look at Belgium, Denmark, and the Netherlands for some excellent options. Now, IHEID, CEU, and Sciences Po have deadlines and admission styles that mimic the US system. HEC Paris has a final app. deadline in late March/early May. When it comes to VRJE Amsterdam, UvA, Lund, KU Leuven, on the other hand, much like UZH on your list, these treat PhD admissions like hiring rounds and mostly hire by project. The good thing is, their cycles start around Feb., by that time, you will be mostly done with your US and core European apps and will likely have an idea of what you need to do. So, follow sites like FindAPhD and Academic Positions for structured PhD calls. You can also sign up to receive notifications whenever a PhD position is open at these universities on their websites (most use Verbi, check dept. pages for more info.) Last, but not least, when it comes to fit, think narrower. Think professors, not schools. Of course, some schools are clearly better at something than others. For example, UNC Chapel Hill and UIUC are behavior and comparative-heavy schools whereas UW Madison and Georgetown have an edge in IR. Still, if you find a perfect PE match at a CP-heavy school, apply there, if you find only some generic matches at a PE-forward school, pass. Find professors whose work you cite or would cite in your own work. As a final note you might want to look into policy schools as well. Most of them are not as cut throat as traditional poli sci departments and are especially strong in PE. Suggestions; McCourt, LBJ, Ford, Scharr, Harris, Batten. Oh, and, these applications are hard to complete with lots of components, concurrent timelines, so choose wisely, not widely. I saw some people apply to 20 schools, DO NOT do that. Build your timeline and when you will do each application before September ends, it will help you streamline. Apply to 12-15 US & UK & Core European schools, and once they are done, apply to the other European schools if need be. Best of luck!

Hello! I already did my MEd at the University of Lethbridge. After getting registered some time as a provisional psych I am applying for a PhD with the University of Calgary and University of Alberta.

Hi!! just saw this - I did my internship with a well renowned national newspaper in my country and even though my gpa is 3.0 I'm trying to get better and at least boost it unto a 68% avg in my first semester for this yr which would push it to be predicted as 3.5 later hopefully and my writing samples have a variation - for the essay I've included personal stories which pushed me toward journalism and my enthusiasm for cultural critics. I do hope I get in though because this is one of my life goals.

Did anyone else get offered a Queen's fellowship on top of the sshrc doctoral award? I somehow completely missed the letter in my extranet from three weeks ago and the deadline to accept is by today. Mentionning in case anyone else is in the same boat!

Welcome back! Any advice you have from your experience applying in the past?

I'm hearing a lot of uncertainty since you aren't too clear cut on what your goals are. I think it is fine, grad school will teach you lots of skills that can set you up for various fields. We often do a lot of mindreading when we first enter grad program, but everyone comes from generally different backgrounds and thinking. Some have strong research skills, some have more volunteer experiencing. We all see like a bit of imposter syndrome and we try to put ourselves out as capable. It is normal to doubt. But you are in a grad program and that means you are here to learn and to make mistakes. Hope that makes sense.

YEAR THREE AND I'M BACK. (apparently my favorite hobby is applying to mfa programs.) anywho this place wont become a party for a few months yet, but i just want to say an early: good luck! don't SWEAT. have fun! alright now back to work.

Man so many posts about power hungry bosses beating down on young teens mostly, smh, we need better workplace laws condemning this behaviour.

Hi everyone, I’m curious how other grad students who are teaching assistants or part-time teachers manage their workload alongside studies. Balancing lesson prep, grading, and research can feel overwhelming at times. Do you have any strategies or routines that help you stay on top of both? Would love to hear how you structure your week and keep stress under control.

Hi everyone, I just gave the GRE for the first time and am contemplating how my scores affect my application shortlist. I also would appreciate advice on whether to give it again (which I probably will) and if so, how much energy to invest. PROFILE: Type of Undergrad Institution: German, global top 50 Major(s)/Minor(s): Political Science/History Undergrad GPA: The approx. equivalent of a 3.9 (top 2% of my cohort of around 350 people) Type of Grad: MSc with a focus on Comparative at a global top 10 institution Grad GPA: The equivalent of a 4.0 (top of cohort of around 60 people) GRE: 159q/163v/AW not out yet Research interests: The interaction between ethnic intrastate conflict and regional autonomy/federalism/decentralization. I want to use mixed methods. Any Special Courses: I took several quantitative methods courses which I excelled at. I also took qualitative methods courses during my Graduate studies and would say that my training was quite (mixed) methods heavy. Letters of Recommendation: Full professor from my undergrad whom I worked for and which supervised my BA thesis, also two associate professors from my Graduate institution (one of them my thesis supervisor there). Possibly another full professor from my undergrad who knows me quite well, although he does theory (I would put him only in programs which I expect to be friendly towards "interdisciplinary" approaches involving Comparative and Theory). I am confident that all of the letters will be very strong. Teaching/Research Experience: 1x TA on a quantitative methods course, 2x TA on a Political System course, both at my undergrad institution. RA for 2.5 years at my undergrad institution. Scholarships: I received around 18.000€ in scholarship money over the course of my studies (keep in mind this is Europe, so no substantial fees to cover), as well as a substantial contribution to fees for my Graduate studies. I hope I can use this to signal that I have the ability to bring money on board. Publications: One peer-reviewed publication earlier this year which I co-authored; the journal's impact factor is 3.1. Writing Samples: I have multiple Writing Samples which I believe highlight my abilities to combine quant and qual methods, my ability to work with large datasets, to theoretically frame research in an innovative way and which are pertinent to my research interests. I will probably submit my MSc thesis for most programs. Other: Took an extracurricular at my Graduate institution which involved a three month research project. I am mainly concerned about my GRE quant score - although I reckon that I will be able to get it over 160 when retaking the GRE after some more studying, any more substantial improvements seem difficult as I am working a full time job. I would be thankful on your thoughts on the following: Which tiers should I aim at with my profile? Are there any levers through which I could efficiently improve my application before December 2025 deadlines? Do any particular programs come to mind that you think would fit my interests and profile well? Many thanks to everyone contributing

Hey y'all! I thought it'd be nice to have some support going through this round of applications I hope to apply for UBC, SFU, UofA, and OISE for their MEds respectively. We got this!

Hi everyone, I’m currently working on a research project related to Vietnamese litrature (1975–1990). Some of the materials I need are only available through university libraries (Harvard, Cornell, UC). I’m looking for a research assistant (student/faculty with library access) who could help me access and possibly scan certain materials. I’m happy to provide compensation for your time and effort. If interested, please DM me. Thank you!

With a 3.0 GPA, UofT grad school might be a stretch but not impossible if you have strong references or research. If you’re not into other Canadian schools, focusing on getting a good job first makes sense—you can always revisit grad school later with more experience. US/Europe could be options too if you’re open to studying abroad.

Yeah your Uni careers page is helpful, they also sometimes have affiliated programs so thats worth checking out! Good luck😃

Hi everyone, I’m in the process of exploring graduate study options and I keep running into the same challenge: deciding which university to choose. On paper, many programs look strong, especially those in Europe that are offered in English, but it’s hard to know which factors should weigh the most. For those of you who’ve gone through the process — what influenced your final decision? Was it tuition, scholarships, ranking, location, student support, or something else entirely? I’d love to hear your perspectives since I think this could help a lot of us who are still in the decision-making stage.

The Duke Acoustofluidics Group (https://acoustofluidics.pratt.duke.edu/) is inviting the most motivated, talented Ph.D. candidates to join us. We have multiple positions now. We conduct research at the interface of physics, engineering, micro/nano technology, chemistry, and biomedicine. Our group is highly dynamic and has a strong track record of impactful research, with publications in Nature Materials, Nature Methods, Nature Communications, Science Advances, and other high-impact journals. The graduate students from our group have been recognized with more than 100 awards for their research achievements, including National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Fellowships, Fulbright Scholarships, NASA Space Technology Research Fellowships, Baxter Young Investigator Awards, Materials Research Society (MRS) Graduate Student Award, Founder’s prize from the American Academy of Mechanics, a Boris P. Stoicheff Memorial Scholarship from Optical Society of America, a SPIE fellowship in Optics and Photonics, and best paper awards at the IEEE Ultrasonics Symposiums and MicroTAS Conferences. Our alumni have an outstanding career trajectory, with over 60% gaining faculty positions after graduation. To date, twenty-six of our former Ph.D. students and postdocs have received tenured or tenure-track faculty positions at prestigious research institutions worldwide such as Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania (USA), The University of Texas, Austin (USA), ETH Zurich (Switzerland), University of Birmingham (UK), Virginia Tech (USA), University of Colorado, Boulder (USA), Indiana University (USA), West Virginia University (USA), North Carolina State University (USA), Binghamton University (USA), University of Iowa (USA), University of Nebraska, Lincoln (USA), University of Dayton (USA), Technical University of Munich (Germany), Peking University, Zhejiang University, Southern University of Science and Technology, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Dalian University of Technology, Shanghai University, Zhengzhou University.. The three values that are core to our group are (1) hard work; (2) innovation; (3) collaboration. Thus we would like to recruit Ph.D. candidates who honor these three values at the highest level. In terms of background, we consider candidates with excellent training in one of the following fields: Physics, Engineering, Biology, and Chemistry. We recruit candidates with strong background in physics or engineering to develop new technologies; we also recruit candidates with strong background in chemistry or biology to develop new applications for these technologies. Candidates with strong publication record and excellent research training will have significant advantages. If you are interested in joining us, please send to Prof. Tony Jun Huang (email: tony.huang@duke.edu) with your CV.

The UC Irvine MFA program is very much focused on a literary approach to the writers. Genre fiction is unlikely to be apropos for the program. To get an idea of what type of writing is being honed here, you can look at the shortlist of their alumni works and get a sense of what type of approach they are looking for. https://sites.uci.edu/mfapublications/

Hi, If you’re looking for something affordable and simple, you might want to check out Fast ESA Letter. They connect you with licensed professionals online and the process is pretty quick. You just book a consultation at a time that works for you, then hop on an audio or video call from home. If you’re approved, a licensed therapist will send your ESA letter straight to your inbox within 24–48 hours. Their letters are valid for housing and university accommodations, which makes them a solid option for students.

Hi, I'm looking to get an emotional support animal letter that my university will accept, but I'm not sure where to start, especially in the Stillwater area. Does anyone know of a therapist or doctor who provides these letter? I’m not a fan of going to the doctor and my budget is a bit tight, so I’d really appreciate any affordable and hassle-free options. Any advice or recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone, I’ve been talking to a lot of students recently, and one thing that keeps coming up is how challenging research papers can be. For some, the struggle is finding reliable sources. For others, it’s turning all those notes into a clear argument. And for many, it’s honestly just staying motivated through the long process. Personally, I think the toughest part is balancing research with clear writing. It’s easy to collect tons of material, but then you end up drowning in information and not knowing what to keep or cut. 👉 I’m curious: What’s the most difficult stage of writing a research paper for you? Is it the research, outlining, writing, or editing? I’ve been putting together a few practical strategies that have helped me (like quick outlining templates and citation hacks). Happy to share them if anyone finds that useful. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!