NYCBluenose

One more for the Berkeley rejection club

congrats to Cornell and Iowa admits! Psyched for all of you!

I know I'm only deluding myself into believing there's still hope, but what are our concrete reasons for thinking UC Berkeley admissions are done? I know there were a ton of admits on the 5th, so its definitely plausible that they're all done, but it looks like UCLA has been continuing to notify admits here and there despite an initial burst. Has anybody gotten an actual rejection or heard from the DGS that there will be no more admits? Thanks!

To be perfectly honest, I found their whole online system pretty dodgy. They claimed to have only received a "cover sheet" from my primary recommender as opposed to an actual letter, and that my research proposal hadn't uploaded (obviously I had triple checked before submitting my application). They confirmed reception after I and my recommender resubmitted only a week ago, and I got my rejection last night. Given that these two things are central to my application, it leaves me wondering whether they actually considered my app as a whole or just ruled it out before receiving those re-submissions. But hey, that's probably just me rationalizing a rejection, LSE is a fantastic school and I know most of their students come in with sky-high GPAs. Good luck to you, in any case!

Ugh, just got a rejection email from London School of Economics Poli Sci MRes/PhD. Here's to hoping for a better rest of the cycle!

congrats on your acceptances, everyone! Keep your fingers crossed for the rest of us

Welcome guest2401! I figured i'd weigh in on the US vs. abroad question. I'm half American and half British, and have applied to PhD's mostly in the U.S but a few in the UK as well. Depending on my results, I might also apply to Sciences Po Paris and University of Copenhagen later on as well. I'm fairly conflicted. I have lived in Europe (Brussels, then Paris) for the last 2 years both for work and for an MA degree, and I absolutely love it. Also on an intellectual level, its a great fit for me, both in terms of my current MA advisor (who is right in my subfield), and in its methodological openness. In particular, there seems to be much less emphasis here on econometrics and heavy-duty quant methods, which is perfect for people like me who are interested in constructivism (usually more qualitative). On the other hand, I have at this point consulted with continental European, British, and American professors, and have been told by all of them that it is extremely difficult to get a job in the U.S with a foreign PhD. I hope that they were exaggerating, but they said that it is possible, although not easy to go from Oxford, Cambridge, or LSE into a U.S academic job, but that anything else would be nigh-on impossible. So my feeling is that a U.S PhD will give you more flexibility, allowing you good opportunities to take a job abroad afterwards if you want.

Xuejia, if it makes you feel better, I had a similar moment yesterday. After someone claimed a UNC admit on here, I went back and checked my UNC application status, and to my horror realized that one of my recommenders had never submitted his letter. My status application was incomplete, obviously way way too long after the deadline. I spent a solid 24 hours being pissed off at myself for not having sent my recommender a personal reminder e-mail, and then just being generally depressed at having thrown away the possibility of joining a great department. With a bit more distance, however, I've decided that these mistakes happen, probably a lot more often than we realize during a cycle in which we all had to juggle tons of applications simultaneously with school/work and personal life. At this point we just need to hang in there, and hope for good news from our other programs. It's been a huge encouragement to see so many people on these threads getting acceptances on their second cycles. Bottom line is that we're committed to this (we wouldn't have put ourselves through this torture otherwise!) and if we give it some time and patience, something good will come through; hopefully this cycle, but if not, then on the next one.

Congrats to everyone on their acceptances, especially those not on their first cycle!!

Hey josh, I'm interested in IPE and the Eurozone crisis/austerity policies, although from a constructivist angle. So are you interested in researching the ECB in particular then?

Really glad this worked out for you in the end! I also had a terrifying moment when I realized that my school had sent me an official transcript- which I uploaded for my apps- that was missing two courses (not even sure how that was possible). Thankfully, like with your experience it seems like their default is to send an email saying 'sorry, it's too late, try again next time', and then accept new transcripts without much fuss after being recontacted.

Big congrats to those who have been admitted! Also for TV, in case anyone needs distraction and hasn't seen it yet, i'm pretty convinced The Wire is the best TV show ever. It's 5 seasons long, so it might even last you until your admissions decisions arrive.

Hey guys, Long time lurker here but figured i'd finally join the conversation. I applied/am applying for Poli Sci PhDs to Columbia, UCBerkeley, Brown, MIT, Harvard gov't dept. (just in case of a miracle), UNC Chapel Hill, Cambridge, LSE, and Sciences Po Paris. So I guess that's 9, although I don't think much of my counting skills after my quant score on the GRE As a half/american half European I applied to both because I'm not sure where I'd rather live, and there are good academic fits on both sides of the Atlantic. I'm a bit worried that the advice I've gotten suggests that for academic jobs in the States, European degrees aren't taken seriously (which would be ridiculously arrogant). Anyway looking forward to hearing everyone's app stories, and here's to hoping we all get big fat envelopes with lots of funding!