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There is a difference, however in the various other occupations and that is simply that the prospects are terrible AND the investment. Lawyers have found massive decline in employment in their area of work and will face increasing competition from other countries (e.g. India) but nevertheless the number of lawyer jobs is still increasing dramatically. Furthermore lawyers spend 3 years in their programs. Meanwhile, we spend nearly 7 years (comparative politics) to completion and given many of our skill profiles to enter the occupation are likely giving up more in both market income and actual growth in some other somewhat decent job, compared to lawyers who are often unskilled. I also would be interested to see the stats, but I am also under the impression that TT faculty populations are shrinking. The closest thing I can think of is aspiring agents or actors in Hollywood in terms of probability, however aspiring agents don't do it for 7 years and the life of actors is much different.

It is somewhat far-fetched to think this is true. The ultimate question is: what would be sufficient evidence to the contrary? If by virtue of saying things that are unpleasant to you they are then disgruntled students etc. then you've set criteria where non-disgruntled students never make fun of naivete of prospective students on that site. This is implausible to me.

Also comparative, haven't heard. I also that just speaks volumes about how many people are rejected, however.

There should be a place, besides my bed, where people who are having a PhD-driven existential crisis PRIOR to even entering the program could hide and cower in uncertainty and self-doubt. Life would be marginally easier.

I'm not sure you read my entire initial post - which was targetted at others in this thread. In any case, this is not the computer science forum, which perhaps is your source of confusion. But I would also ask you to answer my question in the discipline of political science - can they work at Google as a back-up plan? How likely is this? However, yes I would tell the English PhDs they are crazy and they would be free to ignore my comment. Their opinion matters more than mine. But having a sober look at prospects is important and this is facilitated through understanding the prospects. It required a bit of craziness, however to pursue such a goal. After all, I'm doing it too. Yet the dropout rates in English PhDs are incredibly high - imagine if people could know in advance and forego the stress and anguish? This is for discussing precisely these things. But of course, apparently everyone is fully aware of the risks, everyone knows exactly what they want to do, etc......(right). FYI, poliscijobrumors is a terrible place not worth visiting - not because they're all calloused but just because they're all trolls. There is a difference between the conversation happening on this forum and over there.

Incredible, congratulations! Well, it looks like Yale, UCLA, and Princeton are only outstanding places for me. Columbia and NYU rejections arrived.

Are you insinuating that the Political Science PhDs from low-ranked universities are working (even on non political science research) at Google?

And I am convinced that most of those seeking a PhD for other purposes really don't get that even if you learn applied statistics or can write well, (1) the opportunity cost of a PhD makes it a poor choice for gaining that training (2) socialization in the discipline will make you feel like a failure if you do not want to enter academia (and often faculty will dedicate less time to you), and (3) the research you do in academia is completely different from outside of academia. For some reason people are downplaying this, but just open up the APSR then look at just about any other publication. It is NOT THE SAME, despite the perceptions of some undergraduates on here - e.g. you will not develop formal theories ANYWHERE else.

Christ. Columbia and Princeton, y u tease so muchhh?!!!! Also, I am not displeased by the fact that they do not send out the acceptances and rejections at the same time. However, I am puzzle by how a mass wave of NYU rejections went out (i think?) and acceptances, but I have no word. Caved and e-mailed the GSAS. At this point I have implicit denials at UNC, UCLA, NYU. Waiting on the hail mary of Princeton.

It may not be customary because people are egomaniacs but you should do it. It saves everyone time. People like fakeusername who have stated unconditionally that if accepted they would reject a program are wasting the time of adcoms and university administrative staff, as well as those who might otherwise get an offer in lieu of them and then perhaps cause delays for others. It's a feedback effect similar to traffic congestion modeling. To reiterate: if you are not going somewhere with certainty, tell them. I recently did this for Cornell.

People certainly have a lot to be happy or optimistic about! I'm not sure about being proud of applying, but whatever! I would direct you to the link I posted previously about various questions to think about for departments. My criteria: (1) post-doc or assistant professor placement record in programs I consider somewhere I'd be willing to work, (2) faculty fit (all programs I consider are good fit, but some are PERFECT), (3) years of fellowship offered, (4) statistical methods, (5) program reputation, (6) student opinions of the programs' focus/resources/faculty accessibility, (7) location of university, (8) are methods in department?, then a bunch of minor factors. I think a way to approach 'methods quality' is not # of required methods courses, but to examine the papers from faculty teaching the courses and get a copy of the syllabus for the more advanced courses if possible (all departments approximately cover the GLM and perhaps quasi experimental methods, so the required sequences at top programs will rarely be enormously different [Rochester and NYU perhaps are exceptions]). I am more interested in whether departments offer more advanced statistical courses that are rarer due to needing critical mass for enrollments - Bayesian, machine learning, text analysis, etc. Additionally, I wouldn't limit yourself to the courses if you actually are interested in getting very advanced on methods - examine the papers of faculty you want to work with and be aware that they will refer you to appropriate resources if they are your advisor, although you will need to navigate the learning on your own or through an external program. Something I also consider is how much of the methods training is in the department or whether you are going to the econ department for applied econometrics vs. the statistics departments for applied statistics or statistical theory. It can be nice when the applications are politics and you're not stuck in a stats department for most of your classic, cloistered from the rest of your politics peers. Additionally, the methods focus can vary by sub discipline - are the methods courses taught by Americanists, Methodologists, or what? I am particularly interested in this question for formal theory, less so for the standard stat sequence, and more so for advanced stats courses. Additionally, at each program where I am accepted, I've gone through the CVs of POIs and marginally not-POIs and recorded how many times the faculty have published with those in their department (both students and faculty). I then plan to make this a key part of the discussion when I speak with POIs at visiting days. It should be noted that seniority of faculty will also determine the number - i.e. I expect assistant profs to have (1) fewer publications in general and (2) less publications with grad students. My variable of interest is a count, not a rate. EDIT: I would really suggest doing this...it's a way to keep faculty honest about their involvement with students. Note also that program reputation only gets such a high mark because it partially determines what *future* faculty might be at the university. Faculty move at the junior and senior level, and if a department had their entire methods squad leave and the methods team looks meh right now, if you factor in program reputation (defined however you think is appropriate) it is likely that in the next 5-7 years they will fill those roles with someone decent.

I think this is exactly what I have stressed is probably not the correct approach to this. This is because the model you offer isn't explains little variation: there are some steps that are often necessary (unless you're John Van Neumann or John Stuart Mill) but rarely sufficient to obtaining an academic career (presuming this is the goal of most on here). We really don't all have those resources - and I am absolutely certain that most of us will experience massive self-doubt throughout our PhDs because it will be clear that this is the case. Work ethic and the ability to grind are perhaps necessary, but as stated, not sufficient for the same reason I can never be in the NBA (alas...). In line with this, I promised myself that if I did not receive full funding to the programs where I am offered admission I will not attend a program. This is not an issue of financial return, but moreso that it's improbable that if departments don't view your potential as high enough to warrant funding that you will beat out those who do receive funding for an academic position. Perhaps this is a bit of an overreaction, but let's be clear that it does not always work out...this is how people graduate with massive debt from a university and bleak financial prospects. However, I think you ARE right about one thing: you have to just give it your best and that is all you can ask for...it's just being aware that your best might not be good enough that is the difficult part.

Do you have the data on Binghamton? As far as I can tell, no place (even Harvard) has near a 100% placement rate. Even ignoring the quality of the placements (e.g. Canisius College), and counting post-docs along with other research fellow positions, VAPs, etc., there were 16 placements from 2010-13, or 4 per year at Binghamton. Given a class of 47 and assuming on average 1/6 of those are on the job market, that's 7.83 people or ~51% placement. To get to 80% would require 1 in 10 students go on the job market in that period in a given year. Feasible but unlikely. I'm not sure what you mean by "academia is potentially the most comfortable occupation to do research in." If anything, it is less comfortable compared to public policy careers prior to the exceedingly rare achievement of tenure. Additionally, the research of academia and policy analysis/embassy research are completely different along several dimensions. There are huge differences in questions, methods, communication, end-goals, and even data sources between political science - as found in academic journals - and the policy research you are referring to. While an optimistic approach toward potential failure in achieving an academic career is terrific, it is crazy to think the research and writing itself is really that comparable. This is even the case of RAND, Brookings, and the CBO, and is particularly the case for anything in an embassy, politician's office, or consulting firm. There are many paths to the policy research destination. I suspect a PhD in political science is not the most efficient nor really all that helpful for that path. Graduate education is necessary for these roles, but more often than not the PhD in political science offers little improvement over an economics MA or rigorous MPA/MPP, with the PhD in economics or public policy being more attractive than political science to others. Not sure if trolling...

I was just curious. If you want to have that conversation (otherwise ignore below): While nothing is deterministic, I made the decision to limit my applications to only certain programs because while we all have to be a touch crazy to pursue an academic political science career in the face of the base rates of success, I was skeptical that I am a large enough outlier to emerge from a low ranked program and obtain a job in academia. Kudos to those who have the (hopefully tempered) confidence that I did not. While it is true that ranking is only roughly correlated with "successful academic careers," if you remove some measurement error by grouping universities by decile on most "academic success" rankings, the correlation is quite strong (I ran this analysis about 2 years ago on someone else's data but can't find my code, sorry). However, we are not really talking about "academic success" broadly - which tends to capture number and prestige of publications, awards, etc. of actual faculty and/or post-docs - and it is my understanding that the correlation is indeed quite low with regard to alma mater and employing institution in these rankings. Yet it is also my understanding that the correlation is actually quite high for placement (adjusting for program size) weighted by placement quality (defined however) and even higher for unweighted placement counts. Long story short, for getting your foot in the door by getting a job, it is my understanding that being in the T-30ish matters quite a bit. It seems this has changed modestly over the years, but I haven't seen enough reliable data or robustness checks on this to make feel confident in that claim. What intrigues me is there is probably a fair amount of heteroskedasticity in the errors at the top and the bottom if you use the large, 100+ program samples that some papers looking at this do! Of course, we still get unbiased estimates of the parameter we care about!

Out of curiosity, is everyone who is on this board aiming for a career in academia? What about those going (or only applying) somewhere outside Top 30ish? P.S. Got funding offer from Wisconsin and it was surprisingly good. PM for more details.

How many years are students usually offered fellowship? It's my impression that the first two years are usually fellowship but I am not sure if that is accurate. Additionally, if a program offers guaranteed funding for 5 years but in their offer provides the annual amount for 5 years but alas 2 of those are fellowship, is it assumed the remaining financial package is RaA or TA?

I would bet the house that all NYU has made all offers at this point. UCLA may keep them coming in spurts. Also, Evgeny - do you have a 4.0 and 170/170? You pretty much applied to the T-10 + Rochester.

I just found this and it is incredibly useful for thinking about what information you should ask and consider of programs. Note that it is for history, but applies equally well to political science: https://secure.historians.org/projects/cge/PhD/Questions.cfm

Didn't apply but exciting! A Harvard acceptance posted... I think 6 programs have outright or implicitly rejected me at this point, which would be terrible except that IT ONLY TAKES ONE and I've got that - I hope you all do too by the end of the process. Maintain cautious optimism everyone! Note: given that I applied to 14 places, have 6 rejections at relatively lower ranked places than where I have been accepted, I could well get 12 rejections. That has to be some sort of record, right? So, UCLA tomorrow. Dun dun dunnnnnnnn.

Side question, because the flood of personal responses via email has been a bit difficult to track and I'm at work: Can anyone help me fill in the below list correctly? WashU - Someone via email said end of next week? Yale - Results page indicates end of Feb, maybe early March Princeton - ??? Looks like historically last week of february? Columbia - end of february?? Not sure either. UCLA - End of next week.

Very few, without RAships or TAships. Standard stipend at duke for summer and first year is about 26 I think? There are other fellowships etc that every student receives, but that's the stipend. Meanwhile wisconsin is purportedly 11k?!!!

Yup! Bummer, NYU was a school I would've probably picked over Duke based on fit.

Does every university have a visiting day? Duke emails made no mention of it.

The results page indicates the email is the first point of contact. So, keep refreshing!!

Right... I just wasn't sure if they tell you what the teaching or RA load is in the other years. It can be brutal. However, the package for the first year is pretty terrific. Any idea what the summer tuition stipend covers? Does this mean we can take classes at Duke in the summer? (These are obviously questions for the department but I figured I'd ask here in case you knew)