slacktivist
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Posts posted by slacktivist
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Yes! I just got into Michigan with your profile. Undergraduate GPA was slightly higher, but I didn't have a publication. The GRE will be important, but if you can get good scores and communicate your research agenda well in your statement of purpose, you should be competitive. The publication and references should make your application stick out.
EDITED TO ADD: Also, research fit matters a lot!
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PROFILE
Type of Undergrad Institution: Community college, M.A.-granting university ranked around 60th in its region by U.S. News
Major(s)/Minor(s): Political Science
Undergrad GPA: 3.3
Type of Grad: M.A. from a U.S. News top-50 Ph.D. program
Grad GPA: 3.6
GRE: V: 169 Q: 160 AW: 4.0
Letters of Recommendation: Two from undergraduate advisors, one from M.A. professorResearch Experience: One semester as undergraduate R.A.
Teaching Experience: One semester as T.A., one semester as grader
Subfield/Research Interests: American politics
Other: Multiple conference presentations, undergraduate scholarships, undergraduate award for best paper presented at a regional conferenceRESULTS
Acceptances: Three (top-6, top-25, unranked — all fully funded)
Waitlists: Two (top-25, top-40)
Rejections: Seven (two top-25, five top-40)
Going to: Top-6LESSONS LEARNED
1) Research matters. A lot. I had a great writing sample that fit well with the program I chose, as well as a history of winning awards for my research. I was able to write compellingly about my research agenda and clearly identify faculty I could work with. I'm now heading to a program that is ideal for my interests.
2) It seems if you have some previous research you can hang your hat on, then the objective indicators in your file will matter less. Look at my file. I failed out of college at one point! I got a B and a C in graduate school. My GRE writing score was mediocre. The GRE was the one objective indicator that admissions committees could look at and believe I could be successful in their program.
3) I threw in the application to the top-six school because I really wanted to go there, not because I had any expectation of getting in. Don't be afraid of taking a calculated risk and apply to top programs if they seem like a really good fit for your interests.
SOP
Wrote about undergraduate and graduate projects, discussed the development of my research interests, and tied my development to a single broad, thematic question that drives my research.
- law2phd and AuldReekie
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I'm in, off the waitlist at Michigan. I can't believe it.
Awesome! Look forward to consulting your methods chops to improve my research.
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I've declined my Illinois offer. I hope that helps out someone here!
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Admitted at Michigan! I'm speechless.
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Admitted at Stony Brook. Lots of 11th hour action for me
Well, there's your decision, mate. The stipend might be tough, but that's an outstanding program.
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Good conversation going on above!
Just wanted to let everyone know that I have been admitted to UT-Austin as of early this a.m.
Congrats! Deciding between UT and UVA?
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This discussion indicates one of the hidden costs of going to a lower-ranked program: they tend to have fewer people to work with. If one faculty member leaves or you can't work with someone for whatever reason, it makes the dissertation that much harder to write.
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Hey man.
Having gone through this application process before, let me tell you that there is nothing more frustrating for people who are truly trying to make decisions about which school to attend than seeing people begging for others to give up their opportunity so that you can have what you want. Looking at your offer, you have a great situation already and it just seems sad that you would be so openly dissatisfied with your good fortune that you would be willing to make someone else rush their decision to make your life easier. As someone in the same field and with the same substantive interests, just chill out and let things come as they will because the utter desperation in your posts makes me very certain that I wouldn't want to work with you at all.
Chill out and take a break from this website.
This is unnecessarily harsh and condescending. Darth has a case of the nerves about this offer, understandably so since it's his dream school. If fellow applicants aren't allowed to express their hopes/dreams/fears/etc. with each other on this anonymous message board, then what the hell good is it?
I also think you're reading too much into Darth's posts to assume he's dissatisfied with his offer in hand.
If anything, I wouldn't want to work with someone who is openly judgmental of others because they expressed feelings that do not harm anyone else.
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Email the programs you applied to and ask why they rejected you. Though they are legally barred from sharing what is in your letters of recommendation, they should be able to give you a good idea of how to improve your application file.
Also, given how competitive graduate admissions are, you could simply reapply the next year and have more success. There is little to separate those who are admitted and those who are rejected. Sometimes, the line between admission and rejection is a matter of luck.
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Yes, but easy with the language of "negotiate". Make a polite request. If it's really the case, indicate that this might influence your decision. But understand that faculty will be bemused at the notion of you making a huge life/career decision for what is at most going to be a couple of thousand dollars per year. Granted that's a lot of money to a grad student on a poverty wage, but to negotiate successfully you have to put yourself in the other person's shoes so ask yourself what would make a persuasive case.
I negotiated my funding offer when I started grad school and can speak to this point from Prof. Nooruddin. Programs are not inclined to move on the base stipend amount. Also, if you've signaled that a program is your top choice, they will not consider it a credible "threat" for you to choose a lesser program over a small sum of money.
However, you can request something like summer funding or a semester of fellowship. I even managed to negotiate the latter at a place where I got in off the wait list.
If you're thinking about negotiating, you could ask current and recent grad students about their experience with departmental norms around funding.
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I hear you. I'm also on the wait list at Michigan for American politics. What I heard from UM is that they should know more at the end of the month, which will be a week after their admitted students visit.
I'm pretty relaxed, though. If it doesn't pan out, I'm lucky to have a good offer from an established top-25 program that is best known for my specific research area.
This would be a nice clearinghouse thread for wait list changes.
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Another thing to consider about rankings: with very few exceptions, they are incredibly sticky. I didn't have much of an idea why until I spoke with a senior professor at another university about my possible options. He was concerned about a program due to its recent losses. The main person he brought up left in 2004.
A lot of senior faculty—faculty who serve on search committees—simply aren't plugged into what's happening on the personnel side of the discipline. If a school promises X new hires in the next few years you are in their program, it will take a long time before the program is thought of as stronger because of them (well, unless the new hire is Gary King or someone like that).
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"Wasting your time" seems like a strong statement, but if you're looking to be employed in academia after graduate school, you're really limiting your options about where you can go and what kind of jobs you could get by ruling out using quantitative tools to study politics.
For instance, a program like the politics department at New School seems like a good fit for your stated approach to studying politics. However, they have only placed one PhD in the last five years in a tenure-track position at an American research university. (To put that in greater perspective, the department also lists a PhD that went on to become a rabbi.)
I'm transferring between PhD programs right now, so I've had greater cause to dwell on placement records more than the average student coming directly from undergrad. In my experience, a lot of people think grad school and the academic job market is a sucker's game, but if you are happy with the median program outcome (placement and attrition) and are fully funded, then, by all means, go.
The bigger problem for you is that if your professors aren't supportive of your decision to go to graduate school, then they're either not going to write letters of recommendation, or their letters will not be helpful.
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I accidentally left all of my clothing at home (more specifically, I forgot to take my suitcase out of my car, and realized this while on the shuttle to the airport) for my UT-A visit, and basically had jeans and a sweater over a t-shirt. It was fine-I was probably one of the more casually dressed, but not so much so that I think anyone noticed.
I'm just happy when academics remember to wear pants.
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I haven't committed anywhere, but I've become sure I wouldn't choose Pittsburgh over Illinois (EDITED — brain fart).
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Withdrew from the Pittsburgh wait list. Hopefully, that helps someone out.
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Rejected by Northwestern.
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Pitt emailed me about two weeks ago. I'll be withdrawing from the waitlist, though.
Are you visiting Texas or Merced?
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So is Harvard the last hold out here? Seems like everything else is silent...
Still waiting on Northwestern (informal waitlist?) and Penn (waitlist/rejection). Penn grad coordinator said that decisions would be out by Friday.
Georgetown might not have even looked at my application because I missed one semester of my transcripts, and it turns out my main professor of interest is moving next year.
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Thinking of applying to PhD programs this fall for Pol Econ - for what programs am i competitive?
in Political Science Forum
Posted
Washington's funding situation is horrible. If you have outside funding or help from your family, then it's doable.
When I applied to PhD programs out of undergrad, one of my letter writers was a UW PhD and he recommended against applying, even though my research fit well with the department.