mooneyed

I would reach out to UC-Riverside and request information on the years of funding just to be sure (questions about funding are totally okay!). In the long run it may be financially more savvy to pay Davis' $15k if you aren't guaranteed funding for 5+ years at Riverside. From what I know the Fellowship for first year, TA or RA in subsequent years is not unusual, though.

You should call. Chicago is infamous for never sending rejection notices. Unfortunately, that's the M.O. for some schools. A friend of mine jokes that he still hasn't received his rejection from their law school, and that was nearly a decade ago. It is also possible you are on a waitlist. Please don't take this as me stating you are absolutely rejected.

The problem with the Oprisko paper that the other doesn't *seem* to have is that it only counts the placements at Ph.D. granting institutions. That leaves out a lot of colleges & universities that may only have undergraduate or Master's level polisci programs. I know that may not be the dream placement for many, but in a very competitive market, a job is nice to have even if it isn't R1 or Ph.D. granting. I'd like to see a more comprehensive study, or perhaps one that broke it down by type of institution Ph.D. candidates were placed at & their numbers.

From what I've gathered, once you get out of the Harvard-Yale-Princeton (and possibly Michigan?) group, you have several schools in the top 15-20 that place very well. I would be assertive and check with the departments about how many people completed their Ph.D.s in the last few years, and how many are currently working in academia before you do anything. Academia is extremely competitive, but you are still in a good place if you are getting a Ph.D. from a top twenty.

I know one Americanist from the boards was accepted to Northwestern in the first round, not sure if anyone else was. Also, not sure about comparative.

I'm not sure if they have released all of the results, but on the results page it shows that Chicago sent out quite a bit of acceptances on Feb. 3rd. I think I remember some people already having waitlists and rejections on these boards, but you might have to go back a bit to make sure. Edit: Oops, too slow.