yourruth

I just heard from USC and got invited as one of the finalists!! There are about 14-6 finalists and only about 70% will get a final offer.

who else are still waiting? I am waiting to hear from USC and Maryland. USC will release the result anytime soon this week, but I am not sure about Maryland as their deadline was mid of Jan.

Ahhh five seats...so brutal. haha I knew it but still though.

Though you are waitlisted, it seems very highly likely that you will get in..no? Since I did not get a notification of admission, I assume that I was not chosen. Wish you all the best though....hopefully some of them have been admitted more than one program so that you can have a place there!

How did they inform you the status? I didn't have an interview or hear any news. My application status is still 'submitted'. I also did not get in UM. They stated in the email that they admitted only eight. I am still waiting USC to release their results. So far, I got only three rejections (Berkeley, Michigan, Duke(Public policy) and another highly-likely rejection from Chicago (Harris - they just submitted my application to a master program). Hopefully I can hear some good news from USC or UW.

I just found out that UW extended the deadline. I didn't know as I submitted mine in Nov. Do you think this means that the number of applicants were not as many as other years? Just asking to hold little hope.... BTW, I applied UW, USC, Michigan, Maryland, and other two schools with public policy major (Chicago and Duke). I've already got a reject from Berkeley but never heard from any other schools....

I applied USC, Michigan, Maryland, UW, and Berkeley. I got a reject from Berkeley but never heard anything from any of other schools...

Are you talking about USC PhD program? Have they already notified applicants of the decision?

I am pursuing my master's degree in social work and would like to apply PhD in social work or public policy. My interests are administrative data, child, and inequality. Since my interest (administrative data) is kind of between social work and public policy, I will apply schools depending on which department prospective supervisors belong. Anyways, well, I have some irrelevant but impressive (I think) experience, and I am not sure if this would be appealing to admission committees as well. My cohort, social work department, has experienced a huge increase in the number of international students—almost tripled in recent years—and this has caused issues, especially regarding the international students' transition. So, I developed a peer mentoring program and organised the first pilot program earlier this year. I won a university grant ($2000) for this project last year. Then, I led a team of students to do evaluation research. We conducted focus group, wrote a report, and presented the result to the department staff. The head of the department promised funding for next year program operation. Now I am leading the team to publish the evaluation research. Of course, the research was supervised by one of the faculty. The supervisor has been working very closely with me over the past year and I think she would be able to write a very strong, detailed recommendation letter. The thing is, however, this experience is totally irrelevant to what I want to do in PhD. I am not interested in mentoring program or international students. Also, I want to do data science in my PhD, but the research above is qualitative research. Is this experience still good to write on SoP?

I am a social work major pursuing master's degree and applying for a grad program in Computational Social Science. I have 3-4 people in my mind that I can ask for LoR. First, an IT department professor I have been working for as a RA with a Community Informatics project for 10 months. Second, a lecturer, not a professor but a doctor though, whose class I had last year and got A+ from. She recently suggested me to do research together and I will be paid. She knows me quite well. She can write in detail about my intellectuality and personality. Third, I have two options. (Btw, I have implemented a mentoring program to improve the experiences of the students in this department. And there are two people who can talk about this in a LoR.) 1) The head of department. She knows me and my project. She is happy about it. I also took her course last year and got A+ as well. But I am not sure how much she knows about me.. We barely had personal contact. I know she knows my name and face though. 2) My supervisor who have seen me and supported me through the mentoring program. We are quite close. She would be able to give details about my mentoring program and my personality. I don't know if I choose the head of the department or my supervisor. Though my supervisor may be able to give some details about me, I think the second person also can do that. I am not sure how much a LoR from a head of a department counts in the admission process. Which one should I choose??

I have another question though. So, it is a huge relief that my verbal would not hurt my application, especially when I am an international student. But would it be still okay when I apply top tier schools? I know there are other factors, but would my verbal lower the chance of getting in to any top tier programs when they consider my application? I want to apply CAPP (Computational Analysis and Public Policy) at University of Chicago or similar programs in NYU, Columbia, etc.

Rich, Thank you so much! I have checked several schools in which I am interested and they all state on their website that they don't have any minimum GRE scores but most of accepted students have quite high scores... I will ask them directly if my score would hurt my application or any chance for scholarship.

Thank you AmberKian. This sounds very hopeful! Yes, I am an international student. Is it true that verbal is not very relevant? I am finishing my two years of masters program in Australia and my GPA is very high ranked 95% among approximately 130 students. So I will be waived for TOEFL though.

Today, I took my 6th GRE in the previous 5 years... I have never been good enough, and ironically my score is going lower and lower. Today, I got V: 152, Q: 164. My verbal scores has been vacillating from 151 to 159 whereas my math has been always good. My writing has been also terrible..always 3.0 except once. Anyways, I am now so tired and thinking maybe GRE is not something for me. I have a score that is V: 151, Q: 170, AWA: 4.5. I am thinking about applying with this score. But I am not sure if it is good enough. I want to do master or PhD in Computational Social Science, such as Computational Analytics in Public Policy at Chicago Univ. And yes, most of the programs I want to do are STEM. I did my bachelors in Business and masters in Social Work. I have been working as a research assistant in IT department working for research about community informatics. I also have a list of voluntary experiences and worked with a range of vulnerable people. I think my profile is pretty good. I received full tuition merit-based scholarship for this masters as well (I was one of two international students who got this scholarship). My GPA of this masters program is 3.9/4.0 and this school is among the top 5 in Australia. I am just so anxious about my verbal score since the programs accept students from a variety of majors even if they are STEM programs. Should I retake GRE? I have already taken GRE three times this year and verbal has never shown any progress, but only regression. I have put aside other work—my research assistant work, my personal research project, admission essay, etc.—and I am so jaded. Another thing is that I cannot be just satisfied with being accepted but need scholarship. Does GRE count much when assessing applicants for scholarship? Should I take another one???

Hello, I am very frustrated now and desperated. I really need to get into PhD 2014 and my chance in developmental psychology program looks so low. I have no idea at which level of schools I should aim. I just have different experience(taught myself highschool course) and plethora of international experience. I can explain why I did Business and why I decided to change my major though. But I need advice about what strategy I should have by now and what level of schools I should apply to. Please, help! I did my Bachelor's in Business (GPA overall 3.41) GRE V:159, Q:166, AW:3.0 (I know...it is horrible) No subject GRE Courses: Psychology, Statistics(total 6 credit) Experience: -2 years of work experience in major international company as a sales consultant (but I know it won't help that much) -volunteer work in orphanage 2 years -children place 100hrs -RA in parent infant lab 6 months(University) -RA in child lab 6 months(University) -RA in homeless program 2 months