APGradApplicant

I just got an e-mail about ten minutes ago from a Florida State University professor within my subfield letting me know that I was admitted to the program with funding! Excerpt: "The award letter will offer you a package valued at approximately $43,500 for the 2010-2011 academic year (see the attached electronic copy of the letter). You can expect funding for a total of five years provided you make normal progress in the program each semester. This award provides a tuition waiver each term and a stipend of $20,500. You will be appointed to work with a faculty member as a graduate assistant and paid $17,000 during the 9 month academic year in addition to the tuition waiver. After successful completion of your first year coursework, you will be provided a $3,500 summer stipend and a tuition waiver. In addition to the waiver and stipend, we provide support for travel to present research at a professional conference each year, an office in the department, and access to top notch computer and experimental research labs "

Gosh! We seem to have a shortage of American politics students, so I'll throw my name into the mix here. Subfield: American politics Research interests: Political institutions, particularly Congress; Congressional elections; Congressional member tactics in DC vs. at home; Parties and partisan primary election dynamics; women in politics; congressional redistricting

I know! I swear that the closer the notification dates come, the more this site becomes an addiction.

I agree with rising_star. Essentially, your LOR-writer's absent-mindedness was a blessing in disguise, as it sounds like it prompted them to let you know earlier than the rest of us U on Minnesota applicants that you're at least admitted.

Cpaige- Yeah I wouldn't worry about it. The editors already removed the obnoxious post (and the one I put up calling their bullshit). Obviously most of us here (in fact, everyone I've seen post here for the most part) are mature adults. Some people, however, are apparently still in grade school but just happen to think they should get a PhD. To all- In any case, I'm starting to think that a UNC rejection could be in the works for those of us who haven't heard anything yet, but at the same time maybe I shouldn't be so pessimistic. As my signature shows, I still have plenty of places to hear from, as do most of us. I agree that we should just ignore anything like that in the future. In the mean time, I'm very grateful for the Grad Cafe. It's good to not have to vent about admissions anxiety, discuss the grad school process, and celebrate successes all by myself. I hope we can create a support group forum this fall for Grad Cafe "alumni" who will be starting poli sci MA/PhD work, as I'm sure I'll need the support.

M.Y.- I can't speak for cpaige but my read of the situation is that her admission wasn't wrong. It was just some loser posting pretending to be her I'm guessing because he has nothing better to do and might be feeling insecure about himself for presumably getting rejected places. The reason I'm thinking it's fake is that "cpaige" on the results postings mentions being in American politics subfield, but if you've read her posts all over the forum here, she's clearly an IR/Comparative student. Anyways, all of us on this message board should ignore that posting and just feel bad for the deadbeat living in his parents' basement who wrote it, haha.

Congrats to everybody with good news today! I'll claim the OSU rejection just to be a party-pooper . Nah, I'm honestly OK with whatever happens. I know that wherever I end up is where I'm supposed to be. Here's hoping for good news all around this coming week. No doubt it's going to be a big one.

Cpaige- Congrats! It's clear that you've put a lot of time, energy and enthusiasm into this process, and it's clearly paid off with your acceptance to such a great program! I have a feeling next week will bring good news for even more of us!

I agree with Ferrero. I really think that aside from those early, early acceptances to Berkley, we need to take any other information as likely to be true. People aren't just going to anonymously post false information for their own amusement. It's a fact that admissions cycles do take time and that some people are going to get in earlier than others. Congratulations to whomever was admitted to Stanford. That's quite an accomplishment!

Would definitely be interested to know who got into UNC-Chapel Hill. Assuming it's real, congrats!

Btw, not one of my schools so not big news for me but it maybe to other people: Does the MSU acceptee want to show their face here?

Right, that seems to be the difference between Brown and UGA. I promise I didn't make up my acceptance, haha.

It's seems to me that you've set fairly realistic expectations in terms of where you've chosen to apply. I agree with a previous person here who said that barring some kind of disaster you should get into one or two of those programs. However, should the worst happen and you do not, I would highly recommend re-taking the GRE. Investing even just a couple of months of studying and learning the test would no doubt raise your score. It's a known fact that there are simply some people who don't test well, which is why standardized test scores are such a hot topic of debate among students, professors, politicians, school bureaucrats, etc. However, in the end, putting aside whatever our personal views may be about it, they matter. With enough solid practice that allows you to understand the test structure and improve upon areas of weakness, I would imagine you could most definitely get the score up and enhance your profile.

That was the text I got as well. I'm hopeful that they do mean that.

Ferrero, nice work on your intel. Keep it coming. You seemed to be spot on with UCD, although they came in even a little earlier than you said. Makes me wonder whether anyone will have news from MSU and/or Rochester by the end of the week. We shall see....

Apparently my reputation on this site is now -11 or "poor". Lol, I guess that's what I get for starting this back and forth. However, I think the more likely explaination is that some people here seem to not care for my political views. And it's supposed to be the right wing that's "intolerant"?

Haha, right. I imagine politics is a subject that rarely if ever will be something we explore as future grad students Like I said before, it's good to see that there's a variety of viewpoints and perspectives here. That's what keeps the discipline from becoming boring.

I don't want this board to get nasty between people at any personal level. Obviously there are just differences of opinion. Thank God we live in a country where that is possible. So in all sincerity, Ferrero, best of luck to you in your grad school search and don't take my disagreement with you as a personal attack.

OMG! Thank you Aunuwyn! I'm so glad to see that not all of my fellow poli sci grad students are going to be socialists.

Yeah, way to go. Rage against the machine! It's really the government's responsibility to just do everything for everybody, isn't it? What do you want to force everyone to buy next?

Thank you everyone for the congrats. I don't want to spark any controversy (although I'm sure I will as I'm 99% my views are the minority here) but between my acceptance at UCD today and Scott B. winning the MA Senate race tonight, I can say that this was a great day!

Tskinner- Congrats!!!!!!! I got the same e-mail with the same information!! Who knows, maybe we'll end up in the same program. Great to see that other people got the good news!

Congrats to you, too, Ziz and Bobb and thanks for the kind words from the other posters as well. It's still so early in the season, and while it's nice to know that I'm not going to have to post in the "What if you don't get into any schools?" topic forum, let's remember that it's one down, 16 to go. Also, Bobb, glad to see that the TAMU acceptance on the results posting wasn't a fake. I guess the American schools are just getting started. I imagine that this topic forum will grow considerably between now and the end of March!

I finally got a notification on one school! Very excited to be accepted at Georgia, as I like their program very much. Regardless of what I finally decide, it's a huge relief to be in somewhere.

With the work thing, that was to show that I hadn't done anything out of the ordinairy. Haha, trust me that I know what you're saying about the congressional internship. I've met some pretty dumb interns in my day. My thoughts pretty much matched up with yours in regards to where I will probably end up seeing acceptances. Thanks for the input and best of luck to you in your admissions process. I look forward to staying in touch with everyone here.