noumenope

Between USC and CU-Boulder, which is considered better for international security (particularly terrorism and political violence)? Just want to make sure my interpretation of the situation is accurate.

If I know that my top choice school has already sent out a round of acceptances and rejections weeks ago, but I still haven't heard anything, do you think it would be helpful at all for me to email the DGS and reiterate that it's my first choice and I would definitely go if offered admission with funding?

Weird...it wouldn't let me delete that quotation of "Tvent1986" for some reason.

I would take them at their word, but only call during normal office hours (9-5).

Okay thanks, I had a feeling it was something like that. I still haven't heard from UCLA or Chicago even though others have heard back up to 3 weeks ago. I guess no news is good news at this point? Luckily I have a couple other quite solid options now, in case my "reach schools" don't come through.

Is there some administrative reason, or is there an element of hedging (as in, if not many of the first batch they make offers to accept them after a couple weeks, they may accept a few more - almost like an informal wait list)? Just curious.

Has anyone heard from U. Chicago's Political Science dept yet? I haven't, but I think they say first couple weeks of March, if I remember correctly. Seems a bit late compared to other programs; wonder why that is.

Hello friends, so I'm seeing this question in most of my applications. Most don't list it as one of the required questions to answer but I'm wondering - does it look bad if you leave it blank? My concern is that I'm applying to a high number of programs due to their competitiveness (12) and I don't want that to count against me (like - "oh, it seems unlikely he'll even matriculate here why offer acceptance?"). How have you all approached this question? Do you answer it when not required? Have you heard of any reason why not answering it would be held against you? -- Similar, secondary question: if they ask whether you've applied to the school before, are they referring to just graduate level programs, or does that include undergrad? Thanks!

Are POIs a much more important thing for applicants to STEM programs? I was actually advised not to reach out to any professors in the programs I'm applying to in political science by a professor at Yale. That said, I still plan to name 2-3 professors that I'd like to work with at each program I apply to.

Good luck - I get the sense these sorts of meetings are much more important/happen more often in the physical sciences than the social sciences.

Thanks guys! You think it's worth addressing in my SOP for those 2 programs?

They wouldn't remember my having applied, but I definitely remember that pretty much every program I applied to the first go around also asked if I had applied to the school before and if so, in what capacity. That's the only reason I'm asking, and I can't think of what other purpose that question might serve in their application process. I'm hoping you're right though, because 2 of my top 3 choices fit into that category.

This totally makes sense. I guess there's no real way to know if (assuming your assumptions are correct) 2 years of low acceptances make up for it enough that they feel they can accept and matriculate more students this year. Great idea to use Poisson to analyze the distribution. But I think your calculation of how many people applied each year is off. Usually the number of new students (in this field's programs) is equal to about 40-50% of the number of students they accepted for admission. But proportionately speaking, all of what you said applies and makes sense.

I applied to some doctoral programs right out of undergraduate (really before I was ready, and only to reach schools), and now, several years later, with some great job experience on my resume, I'm ready to apply again. It's really important that I get full funding (as we all know), since this is PoliSci and I'm not wealthy at all, so I'm going all out and applying to 11 or 12 programs that I'm interested in. My question is this - would someone on the other side, looking at my application and seeing that I've applied to the program and been rejected before, automatically look differently at it? Basically, would my hurdle automatically be that much higher, and would I be better off applying to another program that is similarly regarded/difficult to get into/etc.?

So this is what UCSD's polisci doctoral program lists as their recent admission ratios. I'm wondering, does anyone know what's going on behind the scenes in a case like this? UCSD has always been extremely highly-regarded so it's not just a recognition thing. Lack of funding? It's not a low-quality applicants issue because the avg GRE scores they post are very high for polisci. Basically I'm trying to figure out if there's any reason to believe that acceptance rate might go up to its 5-year average again this year. Admission RatiosYearAdmitted/ApplicationsNumber of New Students200825%18200924%17201020%15201117%12201218%19201321%21201412%7201512%12