curufinwe

I have a friend who will turn down Pittsburgh once he receives info about the stipend amount WUSTL will be paying (and provided that it is an appropriate amount for living).

DO NOT do that. FIRST, have a list of the fit schools for you. Even if you were a genius, a school will not accept you if you are not a good fit for them. So that's number one. Number two, DO NOT really listen to the rankings A LOT. Just make a list of school your research interests fit, and try to factor in other issues like funding, or location (if you care about this). In the end, you can eliminate few by saying "whoa, I probably don't even have a shot at X" or "what would I even do with a phd from Y???". You know, the obvious ones. It has been said over and over again on this website. Brown and Georgetown (the two schools I stupidly applied to) have VERY VERY VERY bad acceptance rates and are very hard to get in. So it does not really matter if they are at the bottom of the list.

I am curious. What happens if you have two similar candidates with good references, but you know the recommenders of one candidate from the US job market and whatnot, but unfamiliar with the other one's recommenders?

Congrats to all MIT admits.

I avoided that "since I was x years old" approach, and now to think about it, it definitely would not hurt my chances as long as I did not sacrifice anything else to put that in. I mean, is the adcomm member going to say "uh, why do I care what you did when you were young! go to hell!" and tear up your application file? I think I should've added something like that to schools except Columbia (they have a 500-word limit).

...

Does it really matter when your undergrad institution has or doesn't have a graduate program? I mean, I am currently in an MA program, possibly the best in my country with a 3.71 GPA (and trust me, my professors admit they are stingy with grades compared to the US) and an undergrad degree from another awesome school in my country with a 3.93 GPA (valedictorian) at which I studied on full scholarship for 4 years and an almost-1500 GRE. I did not apply to a school if there were less than 3 professors who were interested in my area of interest. In my SoP, one paragraph for my past scholarships and my fluency in English (117 TOEFL iBT) and my exchange year in the US, one paragraph on the calculus-statistics-research methods-formal modeling courses I took (business major, so I was involved in numbers), one paragraph on my area of interest, one paragraph on how much I want to be in the academia and teach and do research, and one paragraph on how the school is a good fit. My writing sample was a paper accepted to a conference in Budapest, got an A for the class I wrote for, and my professor said that topic could easily be researched for a thesis and that it was insightful. And no acceptances. Yes, Columbia was a long shot and it is in my list because my professors said "you never know" (sometimes you do!). But my other rejections leave me no chance to go to a school that 'The Realist' would say "you 'might' get a TT job". I absolutely see no points in my profile I can improve other than shooting lightning out of my... uh, never mind.

Was your undergrad institution in the US? or somewhere else in the world?

You are absolutely right, DJ_CA. And imagine yourself graduating from an international university. I do not even stand a chance against those LAC's in terms of recommenders or the name of the school. So this process has taught me that you can get great grades and be the top of your class, get great GRE scores but you are fighting an uphill battle if your school is not known by the adcomms.

Last year, 75 applied overall. Assuming this year's numbers increased, by sub-field, we have around 20% chance. I'm Comparative. What about you guys?

Damn. Around 5 % acceptance rate. This process is getting more and more like a lottery! And I have terrible luck! And they say on their website that all people accepted to PhD are offered full funding. So last year, they did not accept anyone to the phd in order to avoid the legal issues, right?

Ouch, 3 is still dangerously little. You mean 3 slots, right? They would accept more I hope, to be on the safe side You got that info from an inside source?

I heard no one got funding from Brandeis last year and that they returned the application fees. Really hoping they won't do the same this year

I study democratization/regime change/authoritarianism with a focus on Middle East. At this point, I will just be happy if I do not get rejected by all!

With the trend of rejections, I'd be so happy if Brandeis sent an acceptance. Otherwise, I don't see myself getting in to any other places.

If SP does get into Harvard as well, which he/she will, we need his stats and SOP and recommenders as an answer key

LOL. So wait, did they send your acceptance to some wrong e-mail address and they just found out about it and rectified it? Congrats

I did not post anything on the results page, but come on, if you receive nothing during the acceptances wave, it is a "no" with very few exceptions. More hopes at that point would only increase the degree of the disappointment. Though they could have posted "(assumed) Rejection".

Any comparative polit... meh, what's the use...

2 more until ace, SuddenlyParanoid Congratz. I wanted to get my closure with NYU so I e-mailed them. Why can't they just say "sweetie, forget it, you are rejected"?! Instead, she gave me the classic BS: "The admissions process is ongoing and all applicants will be notified of decisions when it is complete". Bleh. I will report them to ECHR! This is inhumane

Where is your acceptance from? And you mean it is very hard to get a "job" or a "TT job"?

Hi, My professor told me that, with the competition, more and more universities refrain from offering tenure track jobs and that in the near future, only the awesomest ones among us will be able to land one while others will not have much job security. I have no idea how true that is. So I thought I'd ask you guys and what you have been hearing.

So is Europe or Middle East or Latin America... I do not know but Far East Asia might be as well.

Male prostitution is looking like a good idea at this point!

Can we just end the "NO I WAS BORN MORE UNLUCKY THAN YOU WERE!!" rant to prove a point and let this part of the forum for those who would initially want to discuss their futures at the non-top 50 programs? Yeah, some of the things the OP said were uncalled for. But let's be grown ups and let people be what they are? end.