Cicero

I posted a question earlier, but I think it may have gotten lost in the Great Survey Tease of January 2014 so, I'm reposting below: I was browsing last year's thread and noticed that about this time people began posting that their FPAs had alerted them that some kind of update would be coming soon. Has anyone received such a tip this year? I emailed my FPA and was told that I would be emailed by IIE at the end of the month. I know that some people also reported last year that their FPAs were toeing the Fulbright party line, which is "update at end of the month" so I don't think what my FPA said means we won't hear this week. Still, can anyone report in with more optimistic word from an FPA?

Ok...and who also just almost had a heart attack after seeing the Fulbright email pop up in their inbox...for the application survey?

I was browsing last year's thread and noticed that about this time people began posting that their FPAs had alerted them that some kind of update would be coming soon. Has anyone received such a tip this year? I emailed my FPA and was told that I would be emailed by IIE at the end of the month. I know that some people also reported last year that their FPAs were toeing the Fulbright party line, which is "update at end of the month" so I don't think what my FPA said means we won't hear this week. Still, can anyone report in with more optimistic word from an FPA?

Yay! Paris primarily. How about you?

Anyone else on here applying for a full research grant to France? I returned to Gradcafe after using it several years ago when applying to grad schools. Such a great source for application info, results...and anxiety.

Hrm, mine are still screwed up. By the way, does yours download as a .do file and open in excel?

the link now appears on my log in page to view/print reviews, but when I download and open it, its not readable...just a bunch of symbols and formatting code. Is anyone else having this problem?

I've noticed several references in the past to people getting two or three reviews. What does it mean if you get only two reviews as opposed to three?

Thanks Illini and dendarii!

Where is this on the website? Not that I don't believe it, I just want to read this great message with my own eyes. I've been going to the FastLane NSF-GRFP log in page, and also the page were you can search by name for previous winners and didn't see it either place.

I know this is totally lame so, hopefully I'm not the only one, but has anyone else tried searching by name to see if their name might just show up?

I have my gmail open in another tab and, after reading all these posts about the amazing new info acquired by some of our intrepid forum members, I saw the little (1) appear after "inbox" on my gmail tab and had a little heart attack. It just appeared again! Time to post this and check! Edit: oh the downside of being on so many institute listserves, and for having a department that is very good at forwarding (sometimes numerous copies) of information about talks etc that may be of interest to us.

I'll be the super optimist and say this Friday, April 1 at 9 am Eastern time.

Does anyone know if hearing back about the NSF might be tied to the fact that the temporary spending measures expire on April 8? According to the CNN articles linked below, if a new plan is not approved (or the old one not extended) there will be a government shutdown. I really hope not, because I can't wait to hear back, either way. http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/27/ahead-of-the-curve-the-next-7-days-23/?hpt=C1 http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/17/breaking-senate-passes-bill-to-fund-the-government/ By the way, I'm a first time applicant in political science (but I don't study American Politics, so I plead ignorance on all this budget stuff)

I've actually been wondering the same thing...does anyone have any insights regarding this?

This really depends on your field of interest. And in some cases, you would be hard pressed to come up with a list of the essential text books for a given subfield....I asked professors a similar undergrad (and I was a poli sci major), and they all told me there was no core set of books they could recommend to me. Although this may be more true of comparative politics than other fields. My impression is that fields like IR have a slightly more defined core literature...and courses such as great books in IR are offered at many schools, both at the undergrad and graduate level, so you could try looking up those syllabi if IR is your field.. I have no idea how this goes for theory or american . I guess for methods, and perhaps this could apply to political science in general, the two books that come to mind would be Rethinking Social Inquiry and Designing Social Inquiry. Although depending on who you ask, one of those books may be strongly recommended over the other.

Just FYI to save yourself the hassle and the $ of more applications, Georgetown and Chicago are known to make masters offers to PhD applicants that they didn't accept. So, if you already applied to those schools for PhD, save yourself the time and money! Good luck! I hope you hear good news soon!

Bad news today for me. I got an email saying that first round decision notifications have been made, and telling me to log into the application site to see if my application has been forwarded to the committee for review. Sadly, it was not. I applied for intermediate Arabic. Has anyone else heard anything?

I've heard the only notifications people have received thus far are ones notifying people if they have been disqualified. I'm resigned to the fact that its going to be a long wait.

I'm also applying, for the first time, but from what it sounds like, we'll hear back in late march/early April. It sounds like you are notified much the same way you are re: grad school applications, with an email directing you to log onto the secure application site. If you click on The Bank section under forums, you will find threads from both this year's applicants and past applicants. The thread from previous years might help you answer your questions. Good luck!

My advice would be apply to the programs that are your top choices, the ones you feel you would like the best fit for you, that you would be happy at and wouldn't be settling to attend just so you could be going to grad school. Then, go on any of the visit weekends you get invited to and see how you like it. This way, you aren't applying to a ton of programs, but you still have the option to either go to a program or stay on your current career path/not go to grad school. This way, you won't always be wondering should I have applied/what would have happened if I had applied. If you have been thinking about this for five years, and you don't apply this year, my guess is the same issue will come up again next year. And as the other poster said, there is no shame in deciding that you don't want to be a prof. anymore.

One school to consider, perhaps as a safety, although the nature of PhD admissions often makes it hard to call any school a safety, is University of Virginia. They have a growing American Politics department with several faculty who line up with your interests in media and politics as well as APD. The best thing to do is look at the faculty at the top American Politics programs and see who lines up with your interests. Things could change by the time you are ready to apply, but this will at least give you a starting point. Hope this helps!

Congrats!

I will be attending Berkeley. Sub-field: Comparative Politics.

Thanks for the info SBL! Alas, I think my magical powers are waning. Maybe there are too many muggles in the area.....