ladedodaday

For what it's worth, Princeton received around 640 applications this year. Surprisingly, the consensus is that applications are down from last year.

To be honest, I wouldn't hold out too much hope. They let in forty, with the aim of a class of twenty. Judging by the visiting weekend they'll get a fairly high yield. But, I guess you never know. Also, they ended up with a class of 33 or something a couple years ago so they might be shooting for lower classes these days. Either way, good luck!

I was actually shocked by the school's generosity (I just got the email). They make things seem dire on the website, but they ended up offering me more than any other school I was accepted at!

That is brilliant. Congrats!

If a couple more people post their essays (I'll get around to it eventually) I think this will be the most enlightening thread on the board. It has been fascinating to read the ones already up and to see how different approaches still lead to favorable admissions outcomes. They have definitely widened my own perception of what a personal statement should look like!

If you don't mean to offend, you probably shouldn't accuse people of "race bashing." That doesn't merely imply that someone is racist, it accuses them of being racist. Let's be more civil than that and not dig up posts from weeks ago to make tangential points.

I have been fairly lucky with admissions and got into a number of excellent schools (3 in the top 10 and another two in the top 25) so here are my little slices of wisdom: 1- Undergrad isn't everything. I went to a socially fantastic, but not highly reputable public university with no graduate political science program. It comes in somewhere around 100 on the USNWR university ranking. You don't have to go to Harvard to get into Princeton. Unfortunately, this comes with a huge caveat: if you are coming from a lesser known school, you are fighting brutal odds at many programs. 2- Your professors are your best resource. Find young professors in your department who (hopefully) went to schools you are considering and pick their brains. Give your personal statement to anyone who will read it (even professors you never had for class). Do a thesis and develop strong relationships. Ask your adviser to get in touch with people they know at other schools; their network can be yours! 3- Small GRE differences don't matter. The general cutoffs seem to be 600+ (Most of the top 50ish) and 700+ (Top 5). If you get over 700 on both sections, and at least a 5 on the writing, you will be fine almost anywhere. 4- Fit does matter. It is a nebulous concept, but in my acceptances they always emphasized my "fit" within their program. Conversely, I know why I wasn't a good fit at the schools that rejected me. 5- Write a fantastic, professional personal statement. Explain your background, prove that you understand political science, and tell them why their program is a great fit for you. You don't need an elaborate, original research plan to get into a school. 6- Don't apologize for anything in your application. 7- Just because a school is lower ranked doesn't mean it's easier to get into (and vice versa). Schools like Vanderbilt/Notre Dame/Brown (and apparently BC, judging by the incredibly depressing thread on this board) are incredibly difficult to get into. They often have higher average GRE scores and lower acceptance rates than top 10 programs! When picking the schools you apply to, make sure there is a real range unless you are a poli sci rockstar. 8- There are lots of great schools and great scholars outside the schools that are obsessed about here. For example, in my subfield: Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Colorado, and UNM are fantastic programs with many of the field's leading scholars. It seems that for methods people, TAMU, Florida St., and UNT are the same way.

Hahah, I actually had an exam question while studying in England that read something like: "Jurgen Habermas is a brilliant theorist with many great ideas, it is just a shame nobody can understand what he is saying. Discuss."

I'm not entirely sure where you get the impression that NU is a "specialty program." As with ND, it has a strong comparative politics program, including one professor (James Mahoney), who literally wrote the book on comparative historical research. If you look at their current job candidates, over half are comparative (and the other half are theory). Also, I can't imagine living in South Bend over Chicago.

Has anyone here received one of the Columbia rejections? I thought they usually took a while to send those out.

I think that's actually a neglected point about all programs through. Even higher ranked schools like Northwestern and WashU place some of their candidates regionally. Either way, Western Mass is an interesting and beautiful place to live.

Haha, this whole process is somewhat odd. But, I think they are sending them out individually because they want to put names at the beginning of the letters

Eh, I have no idea. I'm still wondering why it takes Berkeley over a week (and waiting) to send out rejection emails

The acceptance emails also mentioned letters, so maybe they only notified acceptances with emails, but everyone gets a letter.

Eh, there are definitely some great schools in the 50+ range and fantastic scholars who teach there. For example: BU, BC, USC, UNM, UMass, etc. have all placed grad students at good schools in quality locations. I know this is a bit of a tired debate, but there are great schools above and below the 50 mark.

I concur. Don't people only apply to schools where they can see themselves succeed? If you have gotten in anywhere, be happy! You chose to apply there so it must be a good place for you. There are plenty of people who want that spot, and many of them deserve it as much as you.

You should check out the "professional school" section of this website. It has all the people applying to IR programs.

I did the same thing as Rossiya; I looked through the top 25 programs and selected all programs that had relevant faculty members. Then, I narrowed down the list, removing schools in bad locations/inconsistent funding. After this, I added a couple schools outside the top 25 because they had extremely strong programs in my specialty. DJ_CA makes a very important point though. The rankings say absolutely nothing about how difficult a program is to get into. For example, it is much easier to get accepted to UCSD (over 20% acceptance rate and ranked 7th) than Brown (less than 5% acceptance rate, but ranked 46th). So, when deciding which schools are safeties/reaches/etc., make sure to pay attention to acceptance rates (or size of program/number of applicants), not ranking. As a final point, I disagree with curufinwe. All rankings have their purpose: the USNWR rankings are the best indicator of a department is perceived by its peers, while the Chingos ranking is the best representation of how schools place at R1s. Neither tells you which department is better for you, but both are useful for looking at a department in greater depth.

Comparative!

For another update: I recently talked with someone at the school and they said they expect to have a class of 6-7 students. The school got a record number of applications ("hundreds") and I think things are currently winding their way through the bureaucracy.

Betteryear, I think the biggest problem (aside from the policy focus) is that you applied to a lot of extraordinarily competitive schools in an extraordinarily competitive year. There are probably lots of people with your numbers, but nowhere near enough spots to go around. It isn't a good situation, and lots of qualified people won't get into schools they would thrive at.

I don't know if Plisar wants an open discussion, but could we have a new thread about this since there are so many people who want to discuss it?

I'd appreciate a PM as well! It'd be helpful to hear about funding before I book a plane ticket.

No, I understand the math perfectly well (it's very straightforward). It's fairly obvious that a reciprocal ranking can only include other PhD granting institutions! The problem is, as they mention, 55% of PhD recipients get tenure track jobs, but only 15% get jobs at PhD granting institutions. So, the placement ranking only includes a little over 1/4 of tenure track positions. I understand why this is the case, but the biases of rankings need to be explicitly stated before people can use them to make decisions.

I think the problem with the Chingos study is that it doesn't include placements at non-political science PhD granting institutions, which means their results are a bit skewed. So, if you want a job at a top-100 research institution, by all means, that's your ranking, but that might not be everyone's goal.