ARealDowner

Does anyone here on the boards live in or know someone who has lived in Plainsboro and commuted? I'm not really interested in the graduate housing, it seems like too much of a chance I'd end up in an undergraduate style living situation which I'd really like to avoid, and the stipend seems plenty generous to allow living off campus. It appears like there are a number of good options in Plainsboro, just wondering rather living in a surrounding community like that is somewhat common, what commute would be like, etc.

There was a bit of the disorganization alluded to above, I had a one on one meeting with a faculty member who just completely forgot about it and wasn't there. That said, the department seems across the board great, particularly if you're an Americanist with an interest in institutions (especially anything with law or the judiciary). The students seemed to not have too much of a social life outside of coursework unless they lived in New York or Philly (not surprising given that it's Princeton, NJ), though a sizeable portion of those in the dissertation stage did live in one of those two cities. If you have any more specific questions, feel free to PM me.

This could be the case, but it seems to me it could easily be an issue of sample size as well...

I got a call from Indiana, no idea if they were going out all at once or not.

It's a tossup between WashU, Princeton, Vanderbilt and UNC for me. Vanderbilt's probably the wild card, but as policyphdhopeful pointed out, they did manage to grab Bartels from Princeton, and also have Bruce Oppenheimer and Joshua Clinton, all fantastic legislative people which is what I want to do (and of course, Clinton and Bartels would be great for methods). They also have a recent hire, Molly Jackman, whose substantive research interests really intersect with mine. In a similar vein, lots of people at UNC who I could work with, good methods sequence too, can't beat WashU for methodology (or the funding package they offered me), and Princeton is, well, Princeton (not to mention I'd love the chance to work with McCarty). The others are all great departments, just not quite as good of a place for me personally.

For anyone wondering (cough cough, Zajonc Says), I'm an Americanist and there's a quite decent chance I end up not choosing Princeton (I don't know if that makes me crazy or not). Unfortunately, I want to at least attend the official visit, so you'll have to wait at least that long for an update.

It looked like it...it mentioned me by name and subfield but other than that seemed pretty formulaic. I have no idea if they're admitting in waves or not.

Just heard from Vanderbilt that I'm in there. Email from the DGS.

Just the DGS. The email guaranteed funding but didn't include the details, said those were to come. Hopefully we'll hear from a POI soon. I would love to get an email from Nolan McCarty sometime in the next few days.

Same! Unbelievable. Was not expecting that, to be honest.

I'm really hoping we hear back from Vanderbilt soon. The fact that one person emailed them last week and they replied that the end of last week was a possibility has to indicate that they're close to a decision...

My favorite part was where we're all puppets being played with so faculty members can compete with other faculty members they know. I just want to know where the scoreboard is keeping track of who gets the most recruits.

As to the discussion about choosing between programs, I'd like to add on top of what everyone else said that I'm also going to look for a program where the faculty are as accessible as possible, and co-publish with grad students on a regular basis. If University X has great brilliant people in what you want to do but your time and access with them are minimal, I feel like it's almost a waste. Also, I hate to say it, but funding might end up playing a factor....I'm not gonna pick one school over another for minor differences, but I've got two offers right now that are essentially $10,000 a year apart...the prospect of a $50,000 difference over a five year period is pretty tough to completely ignore....

I want to make it known that I think this is a pretty sharp piece of analysis. I actually have done my own tweaking of some of the studies taking into account average program size as a control. If you're getting a lot of placements but you have 20+ admitted students in each cohort, I'd much rather be at a program that has slightly less placements but an average cohort size of 10, ceteris paribus. Other than faculty fit and feel, I'd say rate of placement is my biggest criteria, regardless of institution. Granted, given my goals stated above, that'd make more sense than for someone who wants to teach at a cutting edge research school. Desired outcome plays a huge role in decision making, obviously.

I'm actually very open to teaching at a LAC or other non-PhD granting program. Maybe it's because I come from one and I really appreciate the high quality of teaching and ability to interact more personally with students (to which I directly attribute my decision to follow this career path). It's possible I fall in love with the more high profile research that happens at a higher ranked institution and want to pursue that path, but as of now, I'm not opposed to a more teaching-oriented career. That said, definitely want to be in academia. Don't think I'd want to pursue a government/think tank job.