Megan

While I can't provide too much insight, I will say that I was an undergraduate anthropology major. I had had some political science, and I had done a ton of independent research, but I do not believe that I did a very good job selling my skills, and my understanding of how political science as a discipline worked. I believe this was one (of several) reasons I did not get into a PhD program the first time around. For me, doing a masters was hugely beneficial. It turns out I probably DIDN'T understand how political science works as well as I thought coming out of undergrad, and both in terms of methods and theory, being in an MA has advanced my skills and knowledge substantially. I have one acceptance already this season, so I'll go ahead and say that I think this was a good move on my part. I certainly feel more confident going into my PhD program. All of that to say, I think one major question is to ask yourself whether you really have a good understanding of political science as a discipline, which you probably do more than I did. After that, make one hundred percent sure that you sell that in your SoP. That was one of the major things my graduate school adviser (who has served on adcoms at top schools in the part) told me this time around: "You weren't an undergrad polisci major, so if I'm on an adcom, I am looking for evidence in your SoP that you understand what it means to do research in political science". Hope that's helpful to you. It was to me for sure.

I haven't heard anything either, but congrats on LSE!! That's a great first acceptance! As for Yale, it seems to me we might have seen more on here if they were done? This whole process is confusing me this time around. The first year I used gradcafe, acceptances almost always came all at once.

Given the way things have been going, I haven't given up on anywhere, and don't really think anybody else should unless there is clear news from the department that they are done (UNC), and maybe not even then.

So, I got into NYU yesterday, and the package is $23,600 and change. The official letter from the graduate school insists that this will be higher, and is based on last years numbers, so maybe say $24,000, plus one summer at $4000. It's a fellowship, so TAships/RAships provide extra money if you get one/choose to take one. This is not a huge amount of money for NYC, and I saw somebody say on the results page that they didn't think this was livable in NYC. I wanted to drop a post here and just mention that while lifestyles are different for everybody, my younger brother lives in NYC on about this much per year, and has done for two years now. He has to budget, for sure, but his place isn't a dump, his neighborhood isn't super dangerous, he makes payments on his student loans, and his job requires technical equipment, so he actually makes a couple big ticket purchases a year. While talking to current NYU grad students may be most helpful, I just thought other people would be happy to know that it is POSSIBLE to make it on that much in the city without having absolutely no life.

Also, I'm comparative.

I claim one of the NYU admits. I'm SO unbelievably excited. I got the email and literally burst into tears. Good luck to everybody else, and congrats to all the other admits of the day!

I saw that in past years they seem to have been a little later on notifications...and their deadline was later so that would make sense.

Congrats to all the acceptances on this board! That's great news for so many people!

That was not at all the intention of my response, as I definitely didn't read that in yours. My opinion, and this has always been my opinion of standardized tests, is that IF you consider all other aspects of an application, the GRE score should be mostly irrelevent. I think this would be true if adcoms could fully and deeply read every application, but they can't. I think it's too bad that the GRE sometimes eliminates candidates completely (or mostly) from consideration, who might have been competetive except for low scores. I get that this is how it has to be for the moment, though. Initially, this was about whether the GRE was unfair for international students, and I think that it is. I think that the GRE is unfair in general, but I accept that it is a reality as I said previously. What I also think, however, is that for international students there is an even greater likelihood that the GRE will underrepresent their actual abilities, and therefor it provides a somewhat unfair disadvantage for those applicants. Maybe I'm wrong though. I'm not a non-native English speaker, and many of the non-natives on this thread seem to find the test completely fair to them. They are probably really much better judges of this than I am.

For international students in particular, but for everybody else as well, this is exactly what the SOP and writing sample should be for, and what an interview could supplement. Those three things together would be a fair representation of almost anybody's skills, unless they just completely cheated and had somebody else do their work and phone in for their interview, and they are representative of that person's skills in an environment similar to the one in which they are hoping to work, rather than in an artificial testing environment which provides unfair advantage to some and unfair disadvantage to others. All that said, the reality is that the GRE is probably not going anywhere.

My experience personally, and anecdotally from friends, is that everybody is slower in a second language and the GRE is a timed test. It isn't that I don't think that international students should have high level vocubularies and strong reading comprehension, but I do believe that it's slightly unfair to measure those components in a test that's timed is tightly as the GRE. Maybe the real problem is, I think the GRE is unfair in almost every way to practically everybody, and I can just see that it would be even worse if English isn't your first langauge. So...maybe it's more my personal hatred of standardized tests in general than anything else.

Me. Well, there seems to have been a single admission to both Stanford and UNC but other than that, I'm still waiting on absolutely everybody.

I was one of the students who had to review job talks for my department senior year of undergrad. They have students attend and write evaluations that are a component of the decision making process, and there were times were I just felt terrible for the poor job candidate. I wanted to go up after and be like, "Listen...do you need a hug? Let me make you a nice cup of tea. Here's a warm blanket. It's going to be OK."

Yeah, I actually don't think interviews discriminate against international students. I was arguing earlier that interviews are actually a really good addition to the process, and I think that's true no matter your first language. You should be able to comfortably (well, as comfortable as one ever is in an interview) confront that situation in English if you hope to pursue graduate study in that language. The only part I really think is an issue is GRE Verbal for international students. The rest of the process is reflective of the type of work you'll need to do in graduate school and as a professor (writing well, speaking well, including speaking in high pressure situations, etc), and so I think that's completely fair.

I actually don't think the GRE Verbal is a good screening tool at all, but I also think that if you look at the research on standardized testing the whole system is messed up. I don't feel that with an applicant's writing sample, SOP, and references from professors who have presumably been reading the applicant's writing and observing their ability to comprehend high level readings, the GRE verbal provides any additional information useful in measuring a candidate's potential for success in grad school. This is even more true for international applicants, but it applies across the board. Unfortunately, I think that there has to be a way to screen out a certain percentage of applications, because it is impossible to closely read every single one (for most high level programs), and I think the GRE functions as this screening tool in some situations.

I really hope that that wouldn't be true. Any professor at a major university should be used to having students from all over in his/her classes, and working with them on projects, etc. I don't think having an accent/minor linguistic mistakes would have an impact on how they viewed you in an interview. I mean, unless your English is really below the level needed for graduate study, which clearly it's not, I think you should be alright if you need to give an interview. On the other hand, having done interviews and the like in languages other than my first, I understand why it would be intimidating. I just don't think you necessarily need to worry about the discrimination side. Or at least I hope not. Maybe that's just naive wishful thinking on my part... The GRE IS discriminatory for non-native speakers in my opinion, though. Particularly since it does nothing to give them any indication of your ability to use English in an academic setting, which they can see much more clearly in your SOP and writing sample.

Wow, I didn't know that about Yale and interviews either. I actually think that interviews are a good idea though. First of all, the concept that academics in the humanities and social sciences primarily work alone is absurd. You work in a department, you teach and mentor students, and even in your research it is highly possible, though not certain, that you will need to work with others. Additionally, applications are so general and limited, I think interviews would give potential mentors and/or directors of programs an opportunity to get more specific information from candidates about the particular aspects of their academic credentials and experience that they find the most interesting or imortant. The other thing is, the interview could give professors an opportunity to see past those aspects of the application that can be hard to interpret, but also hard to explain in the application. Finally, interviews often give candidates themselves a sense of whether the school may be a good fit. Like a job interview, the questions they ask, the way they approach you, etc, can give you a clearer idea about the program pre-admissions weekend. I don't know, I know it adds an extra level and therefor an extra level of anxiety, but I actually like the interview idea, although I don't really think departments should be FORCED to do them. (edited for typo)

Were you the one acceptance on the board? How were you notified? Congrats by the way! That's exciting!

So maybe we will hear from them Friday?

Oh man. I just got an email from UNC and my heart skipped a beat, but it was COMPLETELY unrelated. *sigh* I think this process is eroding my sanity.

That's what I was assuming, but just thought I'd make sure I wasn't being misguided. Thanks.

So, my phone number from my applications is no longer accurate...should I do something to change it do you think? Or at this point can I assume that if the phone doesn't connect I will receive an email? I figure everything is done by email these days (but maybe that's just because I travel so much), so it never occured to me to worry, but lots of you seem to be getting phone calls...any input?

I've been lurking a long time too (with a little posting in the 2010 cycle). Currently in an MA after not getting in during my last round of PhD apps. I'm still waiting on all my schools and am incredibly nervous, but hoping there will be some news this week. I applied to UNC, GW, NYU, Columbia, Cornell, Yale, Princeton and Stanford. I'm now kind of wishing I had applied to more. Just wanted to stop lurking around and say hi.

Officially rejected at Princeton. I was pretty heart broken, but what are you going to do? It's so competetive. Just gotta wait out Toronto and my Masters program application now. Both look likely to be mid march. Congrats to everybody on some phenomenal acceptances!!

With my couple rejections I don't mind saying that my regional area is Central/East Europe (not Russia), but I think all those post-communist places are like drugs. You get a little and you're addicted. I'm sure if I'd been to Russia it would be Russia, but I wound up a little further west.