yellowshoes

Best of luck!

For all those Vanderbilt applicants out there: I just contacted the director to update my file and asked when we should expect to hear from them. He said the committee is meeting this week and that the first round of offers should go out next week. He will also, thank you for not torturing us, send "somewhat impersonal mass emails" to those waitlisted and those who will not be considered any further. I think we can all agree that if it's going to bad, we'd rather just get it over with.

I asked Dr. Kelly how many typically are accepted for the MA and how many enroll. No info about the number accepted but said usually 8-12 come. He also said that he was sorry about the tough decision in my case, that they got 160 applicants for PhD and are only able to take 6. No word on if they have already taken those 6. Seems like "were" able would be a better term if they already had. Didn't say anything about "congrats on the MA" or the like, but I'm not reading too much into that because clearly anyone who applied for PhD wouldn't necessarily be thrilled by the MA offer. I actually wrote to ask who would be replacing Dr. Bruell, but they do not know yet. He said he will certainly keep me posted and to write bakc for updates as I wish. I also emailed the director of the MA program but havent heard back yet. Perhaps I will get a better read from that end. I looked on the site for a list of current students but didn't find one. I will certainly ask for some contact info for some of them. Is there a better way to do that then simply asking the director of the MA program for the info? That is a great idea (talking to current MAs) and perhaps the best way of seeing how MAs are treated. I would say you would definitely need to visit, rwfan, since you only live 6 hours away. I am about a 4 hour flight away, but I would certainly visit before I planned to go. Of course that is dangerous, as I already love Boston and would probably fall in love with the campus which would compromise my rational decision-making. Not a bad idea to throw out the idea of visiting to the profs in hopes of getting a vibe. I still have hope that you are being strongly considered for the PhD program rw! Based on those who didn't mark "consider for MA" on their apps, BC doesn't torture its applicants by sending rejection letters way late, so it's good that you haven't heard I think! You could always e-mail. Dr. Kelly is very nice and prompt.

Dr. Kelly informed me some time ago that they would definitely be bringing in someone great to replace him, and that they would know before decisions had to be made. It would put me in severe debt, but truth be told I will be in debt anyway if I go to my undergrad institution another year and it seems that BC is decently strong in theory (someone correct me if I'm wrong). Also, there's no promise I would get any better offers next year. One of my main concerns is that depending on how many MAs they accept, they may or not may not care about their MA students at all. I don't want to pay a ton of money to go to a program where they virtually couldn't care less that I'm there. This may not be the case at all, I'm just speculating.

Not to mention that a lot of people who apply for their PhD there mark "no" when it asks whether or not they want to be considered for a MA. So the competition may be weak. Any ingisht into this matter is more than welcome.

Got my letter today; not as bad as I had feared; I was rejected for PhD but accepted for MA. Not sure if I should be happy or not. For starters, they don't fund their MAs so it's not like they have a lot invested. Secondly, for all I know they may let everyone who wants to get a MA get one. It's nice, though. Maybe this means you are for sure in or at least close to it, rwfan88, or else this way of releasing letters REALLY makes no sense.

Maybe BC will send out some more letters today, and hopefully they will be acceptences this time and yours will be among them rwfan88!

I'd say UT Austin is a good bet.

No problem, and I completely understand not wanting to hang around for another year. I just don't want someone else to end up in my situation. If I don't get in, I'm stuck going to undergrad another year regardless, and I'll have wasted 1,000 dollars and a ton of time I should have been writing papers so I could submit them the next year. If I get in to my safety school (which isn't even really a safety) I'm not sure I'll even accept the offer because going another year at my school would be much cheaper than getting a MA at that program. It's a tough spot to be in, and I don't recommend it. That being said, though, if you really feel ready to apply in the fall then go for it. In the end, I may be happier having tried and failed the first time then not having tried and wondering forever if it could have worked out without the 5th year.

I think going to undergrad another year, if you can stand the wait, is a really smart move. Here are the reasons: 1. You won't waste 1,000 in app fees. 2. You won't waste a ton of time you could be devoting to doing research. 3. You will have your thesis completed before app season even stars. You say your school doesn't offer thesis, but I'm sure you could do an independent study with a prof which would result in a paper. If you wrote it the best possible, not just to get an A in relative standards, that would serve the same as a thesis and the prof could write you an exceptional rec. It is hard to wait, though. I was told to but didn't listen.

Precisely what I was getting at. Seems to be a common idea.

I'm slightly confused about some of the advice offered here. Most of the schools to which I applied only asked for a PS or a SOP, none of them asked for both. In that case, is one supposed to combine the personal and research into one? To the original poster: I am somewhat in your position. I go to a relatively small state school that only offers a BA for Political Science. I got a fully paid scholarship plus stipend to come here, so at the time I felt it would be foolish to turn down the offer. I haven't officially heard back from any school (although around half have already admitted students, so it's not looking good) but this is what I've learned from this whole process. To begin, undergrad instution DOES matter, but it DOES NOT mean you can't get in. You will simply have to work a lot harder than whose who went to known schools. 1. GPA IS RELATIVE. The truth of the matter is that a poor GPA will hurt you, but a poor GPA from an unknown school will be deadly. The coursework may not necessarily be easier (I have a friend who graduated from my program, went to the best law school in the nation, and claims that it really just wasn't that hard) but it WILL appear so. 2. THE GRE IS, THANK GOD, OBJECTIVE, BUT ONLY WORTH A LITTLE. I spent the majority of last summer working to get a good score. I ended up with a close to 700 verbal and a little over 700 quant. These are average or below average at most of the schools I've applied to (and I didn't touch the top 10). Don't fool yourself into believing that getting these types of scores will make you competitive with those kids making the same scores from the big leagues. The only thing this does it not get you immediately thrown out. 3. GET THE BEST LETTER WRITERS YOU CAN AND WHO LOVE YOU. The benefit of coming from a smaller school is that your may be getting more one-on-one time with professors who will bend over backwards to help you out. This is good. It is also good if you hapen to be one of the smarter kids in your state program. However, make sure that your profs are full professors and make sure that they really do love you. Be forwarned, however, that adcomms know the competition at your schools isn't that tough, and a mediocre letter from a well-known prof at a big school is worth more than the best letter any of your profs could write, even if they are super smart and nice and awesome. So, mediocre letters from yours profs is a MUST AVOID. Be a TA or an RA. Take a least a couple of classes under them where you write term papers (not just have exams). Have one of them advise you on a thesis. 4. GET SOMEONE WHO KNOWS SOMETHING READ YOUR PERSONAL STATEMENT. This is perhaps what will ultimately kill me in this process. The majority of my profs have been out of school several years and don't know what is expected these days. One of them told me "just say you like poli sci, that's all I did." They were floored when I said, "No, I think they want to know what I want to research in grad school." It doesn't help that only rarely do kids from my program apply to grad school, so they don't see many of these. Furthermore, my school doesn't offer a MA or PhD so none of my profs are reading applications yearly. It's not that they won't want to help, they do, but they simply are out of the loop. 5. SEND YOUR THESIS OR PART OF IT IF AT ALL POSSIBLE. I am currently writing my senior thesis, so I had to send a term paper in my application. If you can, start your senior thesis NOW, or this summer. If your program works the way mine does, the first semsester is for research and the second for writing. You want to be writing the fall of your senior year if you plan to apply then. And you ideally want to be writing immediately that term in order to have any of it ready to go by December. I don't care if you made an "A" on your term paper, either. An "A" at your school likely was not that hard to get. And more than likely you wrote it knowing those standards. You need to write your thesis for the adcomms. A kid from Harvard may be able to get away with submitting an "A" term paper, but you likely won't. Here's the deal: you are probably very smart and comparable to many kids who went to better schools, but you are going to have to prove yourself to the committess more than those kids will. The only paces you can really do this are in your Personal Statement and your Writing Sample. It's not that they don't want kids from schools like yours, but you haven't already been "approved" so to speak by the big ones. I'm not in any way discouraging you from applying. I'm simply preparing you for what may come as a shock down the road. You go along thinking, "okay I have a great GPA, GRE scores, and my profs LOVE me, I'm totally in," without realizing how much of an uphill battle you really face. I may have to wait until next fall to reapply and submit my then-finished thesis. I think I will stand a much better chance then. For me it was a very sad wake-up call when I realized that being at the top of my program isn't nearly as great as I had been led to believe. I love my professors and their work dearly, so it is very unnerving to think I may never be able to get where they are, even at their level. Hope I haven't scared you away from trying! Just letting you know some things I wish someone would have told me a year ago. I'll be sure to let you know if I do get into schools.

For me personally it is the research/teach load. I would much rather work at an institution where I teach a few courses and research as I can, rather than at a place where I am expected to pump out papers and only get to teach one course a semester. Also, I am sorry if I have generalized too much. For me, I really love where I go to undergrad and want to teach at a place just like it. I think we all sort of set ourselves standards by where we went. I, quite honestly, think I would feel inadequate at a place like Yale, where the students who approached me might in all due respect, be a lot smarter than me. That being said, I also sort of cringe at the idea of teaching at a community college, even though I personally know several very smart people who got their starts at one, and who are going to make a lot more money than me in 10 years. I think there are certainly nice individuals who came from the big 10. During my application process I spoke with a prof at one of my target schools who earned their PhD from the best in the nation. They were incredibly friendly and helpful before they knew anything about my ability besides my interests. (And by helpful, I mean really helpful. much more so than any of the others profs I spoke to who came from much lower ranked programs.) They remained equally so (no more, no less) after they knew some of my stats. Again, though, I think people sort of generally favor those at their level or higher... even people who are already close to the bottom like myself.

Just to clarify, you mean that there are 500-600 PhD applicants for UW every year? The site said something like 250 for 2008... Are you serious? They don't even fund all of their students. Anyway, to the main point of this threat, I appreciated all of the comments here as they have all been honest and respective of others. I honestly don't know much about all of this, but I can share what I have observed. When I intially approached a professor of mine to discuss graduate school, he informed me that he got his job because he didn't go to a top school. The man who hired him told my professor that he would much rather hire someone at the top of their lower-ranked school than at the bottom of a higher-ranked one as the latter can be "non approachable." When you hire professors to teach at a small BA-only department like my own, you are looking for amiable individuals who are better teachers than researchers. This is partially because the majority of those attending X university are, let's face it, not the brightest of the bunch who got good state money to attend, rather than smart trust-fund kids at the big 10. At X University you are hoping to spark some interest in a kid who is probably otherwise not going to think twice about important issues. At the big 10 you are filtering the comments of those who are trying to win you over to write them superb letters for grad school. This is a simplification, of course. There are very smart kids at X schools who simply couldn't afford to go to Harvard or who didn't want to, and who have big dreams and who are arrogent. There are also not-so-bright kids at Harvard who got lucky and don't care about school at all. But the bulk of those you are teaching does matter when looking at who you hire. Interestingly, that professor is retiring soon and my department is trying to replace him currently. They have over 40 applicants. I have no idea whether or not that is competitive, but it sure doesn't sound like an easy ticket to a job, even at a BA only department at a small state school. If I don't get in anywhere this year, I'm going to have a serious talk with my professor about whether or not to apply to less-respected programs next year. At that time hopefully I can get some info on where exactly these applicants came from, and how much that matters. That could provide a good look into the system for those of us who don't want to teach at Yale, but who want a job at a good, yet small state school.

I'm afraid those of us still waiting may not like what we get. I think washu sent out emails to all those admitted or waitlisted earlier this week. Unless those were personal emails. But I doubt it.

I was just fixing to suggest this from those of you who have gotten into several great schools. If I don't get in anywhere this time, I plan to try again next fall. I think my personal statement was fairly weak (I don't know what a good one looks like, though.) so some exceptional examples would be of REAL use to those of us who don't quite have it all figured out. I looked and looked on google for some examples before I wrote mine but had little luck. Great idea.

Well, if BC is following trends, it seems that they sent out the first set of rejections last monday, the next set this monday, and so hopefully they will send out acceptence letters this coming Monday and yours will be one of them! They may take a week per cycle.

Sorry to hear that. Wonder who they are going to accept. Hopefully you'll get into some other great schools! As for me, its not looking good as BC was the lowest ranked school to which I applied. But it is private, so maybe there's a bit of hope elsewhere.

Haven't gotten my beautifully awful letter yet. (It was mailed on Monday.) Anyone else hear anything from BC yet? And status page updates? I'm anxious to see who get in, even without me.

Did you e-mail or call her for that information? Or did she just send a heads up e-mail?

Perhaps you are right, and for my sake I hope you are. But I honestly don't know why they would send some of the missing letter people mention of fellowship while not others if they hadn't looked at the apps. There would be no way to do that.

I think the department has to recommend you for a fellowship, which means the dept has already decided.

I got the same e-mail. Really MN? That long? I'm wondering if some people got a different version of this, as apparently some people got the "we need that letter because you are considered for a fellowship" versus "we need it". Which raises the question: if they already decided who was up for fellowships last month, why are the leading everyone else on?

UGH! That's awful. I guess they get tired of that, though. I wish someone would come forward with a BC admit if there are any yet! I would like to know if there status pages were any different so I could be sure I was out. I sort of the think BC calls it's 5 lucky ones, though. I mean, why wouldn't they, it's only 5 people.

Ouch. So the department just didn't respond? Was that a "no, you didn't get in" from the grad school or a "no, we aren't telling you"? Schools should just e-mail everyone. So much easier on us!