BayesLives

Really interesting to see all the different focuses. I was an Econ and Classics (Latin and Greek language focus) major, so I'm all over the place.

Just received a UCLA admission via email, so it looks like they are not done. I am going to withdraw my app, though, so if anyone has been waitlisted/not notified, there are definitely still some spots! It's a great program but I'm a New Englander and would die from that sun exposure :-) Good luck to everyone!

I'm in for Methods, for what that's worth...

Just got my GSB rejection via the website (after an email telling me to check). 650 apps, 2 acceptances...so I'm not too surprised.

Yup, I'm out at Berkeley, too. The randomness continues.

I'm neither in nor out of Yale so far (haven't heard either way, which I'm hoping is a good thing), but I did grow up in New Haven. It is a very cheap place to live. Rent is low. So that may be why the funding looks low (e.g. Stanford's offers look HUGE, but factor in the cost of living in Palo Alto and it turns out to be just like other offers).

I go to a college with a top-5 polisci grad program, and I've talked to some of the profs about why/how this happens. They basically said that every year they make a first cut from the 4-500 applicants down to 60. That part is easy. Bad GRE's, fluffy classes, bad statements of purpose. From the last 60 on all of the students are of almost indistinguishable quality. They're all so good on paper, it's impossible to tell which ones will be good in grad school. So from 60 down to the 20 or so who get in, it's almost all luck. So suppose there were 60 "good" applicants in the entire country, and they each all applied to the 10 best places. If the process is completely random, there will be a few people in the right tail who get in everywhere, and a few in the left who get in nowhere, and people in the middle who get into some random proportion of the schools. Of course the process isn't entirely random (I'm sure there really are some applicants who get in everywhere because they are head and shoulders above everyone else, but I doubt there are many people like that). But that is the main explanation for why things seem somewhat random...it's because they are! So people who get in everywhere shouldn't get too high on themselves, and people who get in nowhere shouldn't get too low on themselves.

Not to feed everyone's gmail paranoia (I too get jumpy every time I see the "(1)"), but I just legitimately found an email from a prof at a program I got into in my spam folder. I am so lucky I happened to check! Figured I should spread the word in case this has happened to anyone else...

I'm also not seeing anything...weird. Checked on a Mac and a PC.

UCSDers - anyone get their funding info yet?

Could be, could be. Would be nice to hear from Yale. Did anyone apply to Cal Tech? I have no idea when we should hear back from there...

Agreed. I'm waiting for all those places too. Curious how people would rank them all? For example, in a perfect world, how would people choose between PEG and Stanford GSB? There's no way I'll be making that choice, but it's still interesting to ask!

I second that question. Also does anyone know anything about Harvard PEG? The app deadline was later than Harvard's, if I recall correctly. Wondering if that means they get back later, too. Of course since they only accept 4 people it's a pipe-dream, but whatever...

Hey guys, new poster here. Just got into UCSD. To the other admits: did you receive a subfield in the admission email? Mine doesn't specify... Good luck to everyone else!