unclejoecannon

I am also interested to know the time span of their data. Primarily because one school is listed as having only 52% of its PhDs in academic jobs. This contrasts with the last five years of placement which seems to suggest that the number is closer to 80 or 90%.

I want to start by saying I have not reviewed their methodology. I do know, however, that some of their numbers appear to be off for programs that I have some information about. For example, one program is listed as funding none of its first-year students. This is not entirely accurate as they do fund most of their first-year PhD students. That said, there could be something strange about how certain stats are calculated.

I think the fellowship will be the key for you. You have a great profile, but more importantly you have your "own money" so to speak. That is to say, a program can admit you and it will not cost them anything since you have outside funding. While I doubt anyone would let you in solely because of this, I really do believe that this can work to your advantage if a program is trying to decide between yourself a similarly qualified applicant. What area do you want to study?

Depending on where you live in MN another, relatively, close option is Iowa State or University of Nebraska. Depending on your subfield though I would look at WI-Milwaukee, Marquette, or Mizzou.

Without going into too many boring details, I went into a PhD program straight out of undergrad and decided a few years in that it was not a good fit for me and that it was time to move on. I am currently in the processing of reapplying to PhD programs and this experience, along with my time in grad school, has demonstrated that I had no idea what I was doing the first time around. That said, I figured I would share what I have learned in the hopes that it might help some people out there who like me were, whether they realized it or not, in over their head. That said, I begin with the caveat that I can only speak from my own experiences and those of the people I know from grad school so this is an inherently biased sample. 1) Rankings are useful, but they should not be the sole determinant of where you apply. I made the mistake of applying to only top 25 schools in a specific geographic region. In doing so I missed out on a lot of good schools that would have been a great fit. More importantly, the rankings, especially at the top, can be entirely uninformative. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc. could not place a single student at an R1 for a number of yeras and they would not drop out of the top 10. Similarly, there are mid ranked schools who do a great job of training grad students and have amazing faculty and placement records that will never crack the top 15 (for a number of reasons). Lastly, some top schools have a large number of graduate students. This can be both a blessing and a curse. It can be a curse if there are 3-4 people in your market year who all do the same thing and want to work with the same people. 2) Placement records can be misleading. What you really want to know is where their PhDs have received tenure. There are many people who get top 15 or top 25 jobs and then fail to produce and are denied tenure. While the school may not be at fault for this, if there is a repeated pattern of this it may well indicate that students are not properly trained. 3) Look for schools that offer a research design and dissertation writing class. I have known a number of people who have struggled to write or even formulate dissertations because they had no idea how or where to begin. Having a course that forces you to think about what you want to do for a dissertation and then helps you make progress toward that goal can be invaluable. 4) Lastly, do not be afraid to leave graduate school or look into other programs if you are not happy. I know that this is not exactly cheery, but it is a piece of advice I really wish someone would have given me. A lot of very smart capable people, some of whom are very successful political scientists, have attended multiple PhD programs. More importantly, there are a lot of smart people who have, for whatever reason, decided that grad school is simply not for them. I apologize if this is a bit disorganized and rambling, but I really do hope it might be helpful for at least a few people who are new to this whole process.

You need to carefully consider the type of signal it will send to people in the discipline if you turn down a good program like Wisconsin to go get an MA, even if it is form Yale. I am not saying that it might not work out wonderfully for you, but people talk and it is hard to tell how this move will be interpreted. Furthermore, the people at Wisconsin could easily be at a Harvard or Princeton when you next go out to apply and it is very likely that they will remember you, which could be good or bad.

Anyone else out there still waiting to hear?

Since no one has asked the standard question yet, was the email from Vandy a mass email or personal?

I would prepare for a mix. You probably shouldn't need anything dressier than business casual, and I truly doubt you will even need that. At the same time I would NOT wear jeans a t-shirt. Jeans and a button down shirt or sweater are more than acceptable, but you probably should leave the Communist Party t-shirt at home To be cliche, first impressions matter!

Has anyone else heard anything new? I saw that there is a rejection via email up on the results section.

Has anyone heard anything about a waitlist or rejections?

I know that WashU sent out notices at the end of January, early February. That is strange that you have not heard anything.

I can understand the temptation. I would imagine it is even greater for you since you had already had correspondence with him about when a decision would be released. Hopefully it will be soon.

Judging by the number of views this post has been receiving I assume that there are several other people who are waiting to hear? Just curious to know who else is waiting to hear.

I think it also depends on which subfield you want to pursue. If for instance you want to do theory then a poor performance on the Analytical writing section would probably not bode well. However, I think the others are quite correct, a strong writing sample and statement can make up for a moderate score on the Analytical writing section.

In the last several years the number of American politics applications has been dropping after, while the number of comparative politics and IR applicants has been drastically increasing. Not sure what has caused this but it does present an interesting problem.

From the results section it looks like notification next week would be more or less consistent with the past few years. Although it could very well be the case that they have made decisions and are just waiting to get final approval from the grad school, etc.

I would be careful with this. There are some places that do not negotiate at all. Furthermore, everyone I know who did get more money was offered that money by the department rather than trying to negotiate.

Does this mean they have made a decision or are still narrowing it down? Just curious.

Did you have much interaction with Bruce Oppenheimer? Or any of the other American Politics faculty?

Thanks for the news. Hope we both hear good news soon.

Has anyone heard any news from Vanderbilt?