DBear

High cholesterol

Pageant contestant

As an Asian female, I appreciate @TakeruK's endnote. I'm applying as an international student but grew up in the U.S. and did my first MA and interned in CA toward the tail end of the Bush administration. I always intended to return for my PhD and the election outcome did not change that. However, I made a conscious choice to exclude a bunch of states from my list. There are states I would have included had the election outcome differed. I had conversations with classmates in Korea who about this earlier this year. Though none of them changed their minds about applying to programs in the U.S., I know that some also applied to schools in Europe and Canada, something they may not have done in a different situation since U.S. degrees are pretty much the standard here. I'm still hopeful that things will be okay, but definitely going to be more vigilant and aware of my surroundings should I get in this time around and actually go back for school.

Bachelor pad

@hnm1231 I haven't seen a lot of results for Communication at all...... Judging from all the Psychology results flooding the system, maybe similar programs all announce at the same time and it's just not peak notification season for us yet... At least judging from the trends I dug up on the 7 programs I applied to, it does seem that it's still early in the game and the acceptances we've seen so far (congratulations to all!!) may be outliers. You should also update the decision date thread I really hope I'll have something to add to that thread soon :/

@hnm1231 that's super cool! Congratulations! Did you post on the results page earlier this month? There's a post saying it's from the dgs, which seems highly unlikely but who knows... Maybe it's not a troll (though the two posts regarding that program seem to provide conflicting info) either way, congratulations!

I had that happen to me and it also happened to another buddy here on the forum. I think it's just the system updating, it seemed to happen at the same time for us. I emailed the coordinator in my program for something unrelated to that shortly after that happened and my application was still pending. Wouldn't read into it too much but if you're REALLY curious, you may want to email the school.

Right?! Especially since at least one of the friends is an international student who paid extra to apply. They were all pretty reputable schools, too. Luckily, that was only one out of 10+ schools for each of them. @BrainHats, do you know if interviews are standard for your field? There are many fields where interviews are hardly conducted or conducted only sometimes.

One year a long time ago, there were penguins who didn't wear hats when swimming. This made their mothers livid. "Unacceptable!" Frightened, they screamed, "Bears!" Nobody seemed convinced so instead of going swimming they tried juggling. Their mothers tried everything they thought would teach her a skill. However, she couldn't even make oatmeal without disastrous results. So, the penguins gathered money

Though sometimes the dgs doesn't sing! 3 of my friends who applied to English Literature programs last year didn't get any notification yay or nay from one school each. 2 of the friends applied to the same school and neither one of them got a notification of any sort so both assumed it was a rejection when they didn't hear anything. They even emailed the school and got no reply. :/

Hot damn!

Frat boy

@smqn Eee, good luck!!! and a quick turnaround. UIC - University Illinois Chicago? So I had a skype interview with my POI at Temple University last week - I think I would say it was really casual and since she and I had some good back and forth via email, I wasn't too worried. However, I choked on the first question - which was "What are you working on now, tell me more about how you came about your research interests and why you want to go to Temple" In other words, it was a pretty basic question "Tell me more about yourself and why you want to go to this school." I, for some reason, really didn't think about this before hand, even though this is the most basic question in any interview. I think that because we had communicated earlier and she most likely has read my application materials, I thought she would skip this. Anyhow, I thought for a split second and just said whatever happened to come out of my mouth Immediately following this, she asked the second interview staple question: Do you have any questions? I had thought of a question or two so this was fine. I'm a bit older than the typical grad student and been interviewed and interviewed others more times than I can count. So I've been giving a friend tips on his interviews for this application cycle (though he's in a different discipline) which he says helped a lot - too bad I didn't take my own advice. So while I'm here - some staple questions that are good to prepare in advance for: 1) Tell me more about yourself - this is actually trickier than you may think as you need to decide where to start (I was born in Illinois on a snowy winter's day 28 years ago - that would not be a great start) and what to include and exclude while maybe touching on stuff in your resume/ SOP/ transcripts without simply regurgitating things the interviewer already has in front of them. So yeah, a quick few lines about you would be good. 2) Tell me more about your research interests - this may be asked in conjunction with 1) or in lieu of. Only thing tricky about this is how to keep this concise and not sound like you're just reading from your SOP. I think most of us will have more difficulty not going on and on about the stuff that we are passionate about 3) Why do you want to pursue your PhD - they may or may not ask this, but this would be a specific request to talk about what your goals for the future are (tenure track professor?) this may also be phrased as what are your plans for the future? or what do you want to do after you graduate.. 4) Why do you want to pursue your PhD here? - this is obviously different from 3). There are some of us who had a paragraph or more tailored to each specific school we applied to. Some of us may not have this. Regardless, if someone asks you this, they want to hear about specifics of the school. You don't need to go into too minute details, but still need to convey that you are talking specifically about them, and not some other school. You may choose to talk about the professors at this point 5) Do you have any questions? - Great opportunity to get info while also showing you did your homework Obviously, there may be questions very specific to Communication or your sub-field/ research interests but hopefully the above will be helpful in getting the basics out of the way. For most people, interviews are nerve-wracking but if you can answer the first couple of easy questions to your own satisfaction, that's the easiest way to calm your nerves for the rest of the interview. Also, for international students,the likelihood that we'll be interviewed is higher since many schools (especially those that require phd students to teach) want to make sure that we can actually speak English. TOEFL and eloquently written SOPs aren't guarantees of this. Students from countries like Singapore or India or Hong Kong where English is common (or even the national language) and most undergrad schools will be in English are not exempt from this prejudice, unfortunately. A good way to see if your English will be scrutinized is to check of the school you applied to offers TOEFL waivers to people from your country. Best of luck everyone - and if there are other tips or interview stories you have, please do share with us!

I'm not applying for Poli Scin (though that's what I majored in in undegrad/ my first MA) - but I saw this thread and I think it really is applicable to a lot of different disciplines in the non-money making fields (ie NOT engineering etc). I think one of the reasons that these misconceptions are fostered is because maybe people have professors (and parents) that may not be in touch with current application stats. Some of my professors, though they are very familiar with the application process, they just don't realize that there are SO many more applicants and graduates than when they went to grad school in the 80's/ early '90s. @MonodyI think it's true that if you keep your options to outside the U.S., it really does open up a lot of opportunities, but for top universities in many countries, the competition that @BigTenPoliSci has mentioned is exactly the same. I'm an international student from Korea and to get a TT position in a top university, one would be up against people who have graduated from the top 10. Every single one of the professors at my alma mater have degrees from a top U.S. university and the top university in Singapore or HK is super competitive to get in the door let alone TT. Obviously, the situation would be different depending on the country, but more and more, a degree with a top university in the U.S. is becoming a basic requirement, not something that adds value, to an application in many parts of the world. @StadimeterI think doing a phd/policy work is actually more possible than you think. I know a lot of phds in policy/ poli sci that didn't go into academia. Also while working in international development, I ran into a lot of phds in various government agencies around the world and especially in international organizations (namely the world bank group).

out house (hope that's not one word

UGH - I noticed that there were trolls on the results site here - I mean, what kind of mean spirited person do you have to be? I saw the the ICR post earlier as well and thought it was a bit strange since it hadn't even been a month since the deadline. I only found out about the program after the deadline and was beating myself up because it really looked right up my alley - hope the trolls go away and you get the info that you need ASAP!

There are so many of us! YAY! I'm 35+, just finished my second MA and my first round (and hopefully my last) of applications for PhD programs... I worked for a bit before getting my first MA in policy thinking I wanted to work for the UN or such. After working in policy for a while, I was better able to picture my career trajectory and visualize what my day to day would be should I continue down that path. I didn't like what I saw and decided that I'd return to school and do a second MA. I'm like a decade or more older than everyone in my MA cohort and I have friends from undergrad who are already getting tenure-track positions. The friends I have who stayed in the corporate world are pretty senior now and making lots of money. Then there are the friends who decided to be stay at home moms. It's a bit nerve-wracking to be starting something completely new at this age, I'm sure a lot of you can sympathize with that. For me though, the thing that worries me the most is that I've never stayed in one job for more than 2.5 years. Undergrad was the only time in my life that I was part of one institution for more than 3 years and even then, I took a year off before my last semester. So there's a part of me that's not so confident that I can stick with one thing for 5+ years. In a sense, I feel like I've painted myself into a corner and will be forced to complete my phd asap because of my age, so that's the bright side. Also, when I saw a friend freak out and obsess about admissions this time last year (losing sleep etc), I thought she was being young and silly. I thought that she'd led a cushy life up until now and didn't know what really warranted freaking out. Now I feel bad for being so judgmental since I'm totally obsessing! I thought I'd be used to applying for something and waiting for the results since this isn't my first rodeo- but this is so different from applying for jobs in the corporate world... At least with that, they usually get back to you quickly or give you some sort of time frame for when they'll get back to you. With my MA applications the second time around, I went to school in Seoul, Korea, where it it standard for schools to have an announcement date set in stone so you can kind of forget about it until that particular day. With the programs I'm applying to, it's not even clear whether or not I will be interviewed as schools all have different policies. In a sense I'm lucky that I don't have to worry about kids or a spouse, but my parents aren't getting any younger and I worry about their health since they'll be at least a 15 hr flight away if I get into school this time around. I know a lot of younger students who are still really unsure about themselves, their careers and futures. Not that being 30+ magically results in any sort of certainty, I do feel like older students who have to juggle families, give up big salaries, or just face the uncertainty of starting all over again only do so if they really are dedicated to the path. So I definitely think we have that going for us! Best of luck!!

Student debt

Body shop

@stereopticons What the!! That just sounds super condescending! @Feanor Every single one of my applications has been pending or some variation of "under review" since Dec 5th. Even the one I already had an interview for has the same status. I'm beginning to think there's only 3 statuses: pending, accepted, and rejected :/ Has anyone seen anything in between (other than a lecture on the virtues of patience?!)

Ken Doll

One year a long time ago, there were penguins who didn't wear hats when swimming. This made their mothers livid. "Unacceptable!" Frightened, they screamed, "Bears!" Nobody seemed convinced so instead of going swimming they tried juggling. Their mothers tried everything they thought would teach her a skill. However,

One year a long time ago, there were penguins who didn't wear hats when swimming. This made their mothers livid. "Unacceptable!" Frightened, they screamed, "Bears!" Nobody seemed convinced so instead of going swimming they tried juggling. Their mothers tried everything they thought would

Candy cane

Former president