fbeyza

I would definitely recommend a house in your case. Apartments near UCR are overpriced, but there are plenty of dog friendly ones (even large dogs). They like to charge a lot for animals though. My cat is $25 extra a month plus have a $200 one time fee per pet in the lease they didnt actually enforce.
 
For price comparisons, apartments here are 900-1200 for one bedrooms, and about 700 if you share a two bedroom apartment. Houses generally run 300-600 to share a three+ bedroom and ~700 to share a two bedroom.
If you decide to come here, hit me up and I can tell you which apartments are walking distance and dog friendly, or help you find other housing opportunities.

Riverside is cheap in my opinion. Mind you, I'm from the urban core of Los Angeles so I have a skewed perception of what's affordable; I pay $1,600 in LA for rent. Rents in Riverside are $300-500 depending on whether you get a room mate or live alone. UCR students can ride the transit system for free, so transportation costs are low. UC tuition includes health coverage, so that's another cost you wouldn't have to worry about. I suspect you could survive on $600-700 monthly if you lived frugally. Getting a car, going out to drink, etc. etc. would obviously increase your costs but that'd be on you to budget.
If you're considering between UCR or Claremont I'd recommend the former. The ranking is about the same and they're both close to one another physically. However Claremont has a reputation for being stingy on graduate funding. Which I find weird since they're a private university. Plus attending UCR gives you access to the resources of the UC system, including inter-library loans and potentially taking courses at other campuses later on. I'd only recommend Claremont if you feel your fit there is better than at UCR. 
Here are their respective placement records: UCR, Claremont

I believe you have an offer from Kentucky as well no? Admittedly I know little about Kentucky, so I can't help in comparing it to UCR/Claremont. 

You can get a nice room in a house for $350 or lower, you can find a decent apartment for $350-$500, and food is pretty inexpensive too.  Cost of living there is extremely low.  As long as you don't try to live in the LA area and commute in, you'll be fine.

Got an acceptance from ucr with dean's distinguished fellowship but i could not understand its details. Can Anyone who accepted the offer from ucr explain this financial package to me?

Got an acceptance from ucr with dean's distinguished fellowship but i could not understand its details. Can Anyone who accepted the offer from ucr explain this financial package to me?

Does anyone else find it utterly moronic that American's admissions committee hasn't even convened yet and its already after the deadline? So glad I wasted the money to send my GRE and apply.

UC Riverside here

I have received offers from UIUC and Indiana, and accepted Indiana.

If anyone has been accepted to the University of Illinois and doesn't plan to attend, please inform the department promptly. I have been waitlisted and would really like to attend this school!

Confirmed my PhD position at King's College with a full scholarship and tuition from the ESRC.
Also have to do an obligatory study abroad semester at either UNC Chapel Hill or University of Singapore,

Heard back from New School! 
Applied for PhD, accepted for MA -- Currently enrolled as an MA. 
Funding isn't great, but that's to be expected. 

Kentucky is ranked pretty low (70s), but it is ranked. The difference between a program in the 50s and 70s isn't much. If you go to either, your looking a regional public or small liberal arts schools for future options. Go with the funded offer.

You can survive on $14k in Lexington. As for CGU, your chances for funding a bleak as they don't fund many political science students.

Accepted to phd program in political science at CGU, official letter to come next week.

I am accepted to CGU for the Economics-Polisci PhD. I am waiting till tomorrow for notification from two other programs. CGU is a really good choice the only drawback is that it does not have as much financial assistance as other programs. I will let you know tomorrow.

I got a result today from DPE of cgu. 
Good luck everyone. 

Hey everyone!
I am also new to this forum. As a current MA student in Political Science at one of the top universities in Turkey, I will be applying to the PhD programs in the United States.
MA GPA: 3.84 GRE Scores: 162Q/158V/5W, TOEFL score:111. Undergrad GPA: 3.58. In undergrad graduated from Honors College of my university with double majors in econ, IR.
Research experience: 2.5 years, teaching experience: 3 years. One conference presentation, and (hopefully) one co-authored paper by the time of application.
Strengths: Research experience, background in statistical analysis, very strong recommendations
Weaknesses: GRE scores. Most of the top programs have average 165 Verbal scores. I am hoping that admission committee will take into consideration the fact that English is my second language. Also, my math score does not really stand out. In addition, although my institution is very well known in Turkey, it is ranked between  250-300 in the world. 
Will be going into the field of Comparative Politics. Top choices: Princeton, Columbia, U of W St Louis, University of Michigan, Northwestern. I know these are super difficult to get into, but I will try!
Good luck!

In my case this info is very helpful for 2 reasons:
- Actually, stipends do differ a lot and even twofold differences adjusted for cost of living happen. I wouldn't have applied to one of my schools if I knew what kind of stipends they offer (think California...) Sadly I've waisted a lot of money on this application
- Some universities provide different stipends to different candidates - that means that there is space to negotiate the stipend, which is something very useful to know

Same here, CGU. 

Hey @Syas how did you find out about your waitlist situation? Did you email the department because I've been waiting to hear back from them as well and hoping it's at least a wait list rather than an outright rejection. I have other options but I'd really like to get some closure if you know what I mean! Cheers!

Anyone considering to decline an offer from the UIUC in comparative? It turns out that I am currently in the #1 slot in the waitlist for comparative.
Edit: Could someone also inform me about their financial package? Thanks.

I heard it from the coordinator.

Anyone got some news from UIUC?

I urge those of you who were given offers of admission to input the stipend information at http://www.phdstipends.com/ .  Knowledge is power.

Any news on visit days from UIUC...Rochester and Duke? Could somebody tell me when these are?