Ella Simmons

Couldn't agree more. You'll never know if you don't give it a shot!

That's great! Shows you the importance of being persistent.

Study something you love and do well!

Try the NOVA GRE Prep Course. Great for Math!

Don't forget Kmart!

At some point soon, you might find yourself with offers at Yale and some other set of schools, and then a bunch of non-Yale people will say, "Don't go to Yale" (especially if you are in American politics), and you will need to balance their words against the enticing siren song of Yale. If your next-best offer is Wisconsin or Cornell or something, then perhaps you should go to Yale. But if you are looking at a Michigan or Berkeley or MIT, then you probably shouldn't, and here's a reason why that no one else will mention. Forget for the moment all the concerns about faculty exodus (though for what it's worth, a fellow prospective student said he met with Alan Gerber and Gerber said, "don't count on me being around in a couple years"). The administrative side of things is a disaster. The head administrative assistant doesn't answer her emails or phone (or sometimes responds six weeks after an email). The flyout visit itself was a mess, where she was nowhere to be seen and poor Greg Huber seemed to be trying to hold the whole PhD program together himself. It took ten weeks to get my expense reimbursement check--with the city misspelled and the ZIP code wrong--which was a lot of money at over $500 because I shared a rental car with a couple other prospective students. (Other programs--check in hand two and a half weeks after forms sent in, all of them). Then, after I deposited the check, I got another check a week later that was lower by $7.50. Mystified, I set it aside, but then this morning my bank called to say that Yale actually stopped payment on the first check and that the bank had to charge a $10 returned check fee! No warning from Yale that they had made a mistake with the first check and were stopping payment. If this sounds petty and irrelevant, keep this in mind. Yale Political Science doesn't have its own placement officer. The position was eliminated due to budget cutbacks. The same administrators who put together the visit and process reimbursements are the ones who will handle your job applications when you are on the market. So if you don't mind them going out seven weeks late and with errors, go to Yale.

These tiers are way out of whack. All the cool kids are going to Berkeley and avoiding Yale.

Okay.... Where are you going?

Nope! You need to go to the Government Affairs forum.

I am!

I am definitely giving Michigan full consideration and am going to the flyout, but it seemed to have the lowest concentration of POIs for me--maybe I need to look at the faculty again. Perhaps when I visit we can have a lively chat about the program! And, I will say, this is exactly the kind of thing that I would hope to get out of this thread and forum--information I hadn't considered, lists of professors I somehow missed. Thanks very much for your reply!

This is a good idea. I am pretty torn between Berkeley and Yale. I know the econ people at Urch do "Where should I go?" threads but that didn't seem to be a thing here, so I appreciate a transition on this forum from "Where will I get in?/Where am I getting in?" to "Where should I go?"

Ah, okay. I was searching on "political science." Very odd indeed. Perhaps a disgruntled former MAPSS student.

There is only one person on the results board who talks about a master's offer from Chicago. Notice there is one from NYU as well. I haven't heard from them either and am baffled at what they could possibly be doing at this point, but suffice it to say, I would definitely not accept a consolation master's offer.

There was another thread somewhere where someone wrote out a long list of suggested questions for visit days, but I can't seem to find it. Does anyone else know where it is? Thanks! Edit: Found it! The rest of the thread is good too.

Got a call from Yale thirty minutes ago.

I think this is perhaps an overly nihilistic view of admissions. Lower-ranked schools accept a higher percentage of people, which often happens to comprise the people strong enough to get in at better-ranked programs plus the people who were just on the edge and aren't subject to getting poached. Sure, there's noise, and candidates don't have a universal quality ordering across schools, but I am still somewhat surprised given that I thought the fit with faculty at Northwestern was pretty strong.

People with MIT offers, did anyone get information on funding (I know it's possible we might have different offers)? I had a missed call from Massachusetts, returned it, MIT professor said I was accepted with full funding and that complete details were in the voicemail he left--but there was no voicemail to be found. Frankly, I am not even sure which professor I talked to. Also, does the official notice really come via postal mail? How quaint.

I am confused as to how I got into MIT and rejected from Northwestern on the same day. However, the Stanford rejection makes sense. Poor fit--my impression was that they are quant-heavy and trying to be economists. Having dropped out of an economics PhD, it is crystal clear that that's not what I want.

Based on my preferences and results, it's looking increasingly likely that I will be in the Bay Area. Assuming this happens, I am facing a choice of what to do with my car. First, I need to decide whether to sell it or to bring it. If I sell it, I can buy another one in California or I can go without. If I bring it, I can drive it across the country or I can ship it. Personally, I am leaning toward bringing it and driving it across the country, as this is something that I have always wanted to do, but is this somehow unwise or unnecessary? If I did do it, the trip would be much easier and more enjoyable with a traveling companion. Would it be weird to try to see if any members of my incoming cohort also need to go from East to West and want to go on an amazing road trip? I am actually from New York, so the trip would start there.

I agree with you, but the person who wrote this article sounds unhinged, paranoid, and bitter. Everyone is stealing her content? Everyone is looking at her website? Perhaps they are looking, but that's a very normal part of reviewing someone's application for graduate school. And, it's interesting that academia only makes her sick after all her PhD applications were denied. Perhaps she just was not a good fit--writing blog posts serves a distinct purpose compared to producing academic research. But, to be clear, there is absolutely a life outside of academia. The important thing is figuring out where you fit and excel in the world and pursuing that. For some of us that's academia, for others business, for others blogging, and so on.

Visiting weekend dress was already discussed I think that dressing up too much not only requires unnecessary effort but also makes one look out of place in the academic setting, as if one is trying too hard or doesn't understand academic culture. Fretting over whether your pants are perfectly pressed or your earrings match your eyes is probably thought of as a distraction from serious scholarly concerns (or something). Personally, I was planning to wear khakis, a polo shirt, and a sweater, which I think is respectable while still comfortable and not distracting.

"Awaiting program decision."

I think the Government Affairs forum might be more relevant.

Sorry, I just don't see how learning that someone declined an offer is useful or informative. Tons of people get offers, inevitably some decline them, maybe they are members of this forum, maybe not. Frankly, the school has probably already anticipated that many of its offers will be declined, and upon declination, a new offer probably doesn't even go out to a wait-list candidate. The school will only go to the wait-list if the actual rate of declinations is greater then the expected rate of declinations--good luck trying to estimate that from the postings in this thread. So if anything this is just contributing to unnecessary anxiety and offering false hope.