BillyJoel182

I read this thread with a little concern and wanted to add my own perspective. I am presently in my fourth year, recently defended my dissertation prospectus, and am preparing to start gathering data. Prior to my PhD program, I worked as an attorney and taught practical courses at two law schools. In this thread, I’ve seen three related, basic concerns: job prospects, strategies for maximizing job prospects, and the work load. Take my advice as a current student with a grain of salt, but be aware that the path to success in this field is idiosyncratic enough to doubt that tenured faculty know how it works, either.
Job Prospects
BigTen is right here, and the attempt to rose-tint the job market issue by noting that an important number of tenure track positions at research universities are held by graduates from 10-25 ranked schools ignores the struggles faced by the vast majority of student from those programs. It is frankly unconscionable that faculty at 50+ ranked schools encourage graduate students to attend. I truly believe the emerging consensus that a number of graduate programs exist to fill the egotistical and labor needs of the department rather than because they provide reasonable employment opportunities to graduates. Evaluating job prospects and placements by reading placement boards provides some information. Watching your colleagues graduate and fight for positions provides another.
Attending a PhD program outside the top 10-12 is a real gamble. Most students in this range seem to place at universities or outside jobs that at least provide standard of living and a reasonable connection to the questions and research that drew you to study social science in the first place. But the plight of Visiting Assistant Professors who make minimum wage is real, and in most cases the PhD does little outside the academic/think tank world other than convince employers with no idea about the academic job market that you’d leave. After the 12-14 rank, most graduates have fewer tenure opportunities, period. They certainly face uncomfortable constraints on the region and pay they must accept for any measure of job security.
If your passion or self-assurance prompts to take the risk of attending a program outside this range, do yourself a favor and pay special attention to the advice in the following section.
Securing a Stable Job
Publishing: Ask yourself an important question over and over again (and ask your advisors): can some part of the questions that animate me be answered in a compelling, novel way with data that exists on the internet? If the answer is yes, you need to work on publishing. If the answer is no, then you need to focus on generating compelling research and data collection designs. When you graduate, hiring committees will have an opinion about whether it should have been possible to publish on your question during school, and often times the answer is. Often times (especially in comparative politics), the more promising candidates are the ones that generated awesome data sets.
Networking: I promise you this works. Every week during your first three years of graduate school, find two non-academic employers that have jobs you think you might like and be qualified for, then email a person that has 5-10 years experience in one of those jobs asking for advice. Ideally, you would get 15 minutes to speak with them about their own day-to-day (like you’re interviewing them about whether you want the job) and what skills the job takes (as though you are preparing to interview for it).
This means you send out 300 networking emails in three years. You’ll get maybe 40 people willing to speak with you and 10 that like you. Find excuses to stay in touch with those people, and 1 or 2 will have a job for you when you graduate. This job worked for young law school students I mentored and seems to be working for MA candidates I work with now.
Grants: Winning a grant is easier said than done, but it can be very beneficial. Winning a grant that pays you to research frees you from needing to work and sends a signal to future grantors and employers that you are promising and talented. Winning grants for research activities achieves the latter. 
I have not won any of the general work-replacement grants, but those I know who have burst ahead of the rest of us. They have zero distraction. This is part of why students from private schools like Harvard and Stanford outperform equally talented students at Michigan or UCLA. They work less.
I have been fortunate enough to win a couple of small but prestigious-sounding grants to fund research. It has completely altered the way senior colleagues view my work and promise.
Work Load
I think the gallows humor about reading in the shower is part of what makes for bad graduate students. It is absolutely true that you cannot read enough to stop feeling behind your classmates or (heaven forfend) the faculty teaching you. So why bother?
First the saccharine advice: if you are an interesting and curious enough person to attend a decent PhD program, there is very little in the world, and nothing at school, worth the sacrifice of five to seven years of your personal growth and exploration. I don’t care if you end up teaching at fucking Harvard, your colleagues will never look at you with the wonder your friends do when you serve them a perfectly seared scallop or play them Fur Elise on the piano after you eat someone else’s scallops. They won’t know you like your mother or your husband or your son.
Here’s an inconvenient truth: 90% of you want to go to grad school in large part because you want to feel smart. Your colleagues will rarely make you feel smart, even though you are. The whole enterprise is about identifying flaws in even the best work (in order to improve it) and on some level, this is miserable. Don’t believe me? Ask students at the schools you were admitted to how they felt about the process of drafting and defending their prospectus.**
But your friends and family will make you feel smart, especially if you turn your substantial talent to excelling in at least one thing they can relate to. You want to feel proud and useful and cherished and special? Learn to give people something that gives them instinctual pleasure. (Usually not an AJPS article.)
Now for the professional advice you won’t ignore: You will have plenty of pressure to read deeply and critically and to learn method. I don’t suggest ignoring this. But the best ideas and the best careers don’t seem based on picking apart the causal identification of a key article. Great insight requires time to rest and percolate, and inspiration comes from wondering why people haven’t solved real world problems more often than it comes from replication data.
Models don’t provide insight. They describe it.
Good ideas require some amount of travel and art and philosophy and debate and REST and EXPERIENCE and EXPOSURE. If you want to have any hope of avoiding the scholarly lament that “my research and my life talk to twelve other people” you have to set aside some time to be out of the literature and out of the methods.
I’m not suggesting you spend every Saturday smoking weed and reading Batman comics. Maybe baseball games and 30 Rock marathons are rare indulgences now. But don’t cancel your subscription to the New Yorker or stop seeing your friends, because politics is about real life and on some level no one trusts that the academic without work experience, without family, without friends, without hobbies, has any insight about what animates actual people. 
Good luck with everything.
**Setting aside the problems with political science as a science, while this process of critique and revise makes everyone feel stupid and insecure, it does help you eventually feel proud of and defend your work. But to scratch the itch of feeling competent, you’d be better off having kids and teaching them to camp or make great spaghetti sauce or something.

About your dog: I think that depends entirely on you and your program. I am in a social science program where the majority of my analysis and writing can be done from home, and I prefer to work from home or from a library (as opposed to my cube in the windowless cube farm). When I was taking classes I was generally there from 9-6 or so, but now that my coursework is finished I am rarely at the school itself. I go for meetings, seminars, interesting kinds of things and I do most of my work remotely. My time is verrry flexible, and if my building didn't prohibit it I would get a dog in a heartbeat. Another thing to keep in mind: a dog can be a great comfort when you're all stressed out over graduate school.

Advice?

Age:
-Don't feel like you have nothing to offer just because you are younger. I was 22 when I started graduate school. You got accepted to the program for a reason, and chances are you are just as equipped as any older students are to successfully complete the program, just in a different way.

-Your older classmates may be just as terrified as you. Talk to them. You have a lot in common. You are, after all, in the same place.

-You will feel like an imposter, like you don't belong, or like you are constantly behind. Or all three. It's normal. It will pass. (Well, sort of.) People of all ages go through this.

Adviser related:
-If you are lucky enough to get both research interest fit and personality fit perfect, congratulations! But sometimes, personality fit is more important than research interest fit as long as the research isn't too different. A great adviser is interested in your career development, likes you as a person, advocates for you, and wants to hear your ideas. Even if his or her research is quite different from yours, they may give you the autonomy to work on your own projects and just supervise you. A bad personality fit will drive you nuts, even if you love his or her research. Consider that when evaluating your adviser fit. (This will vary by field: research fit may be less important in the humanities, more important in the natural and physical sciences. Social sciences are somewhere in-between.)

-Don't be afraid to be straight up blunt with your adviser when it comes to asking about your progress. Ask if you are where you should be both academic program wise and getting-a-job-after-this-mess-wise.

-Be proactive. Advisers love when you draw up an agenda for your one-on-one meetings, come with talking points and progress to share, have concrete questions to ask, and have overall shown that you have been thoughtful and taken control of your own program. Of course, this won't immediately come easily to you, but in time you will work up to it. Every semester I type up my semester goals, and at the beginning of the year I type up annual goals. I show them to my adviser and we talk about whether they are too ambitious, or whether I need to revise them, and how I can meet them.

-Don't expect your adviser to actually know what courses you have to take to graduate. They will know about comprehensive exams and the dissertation, but a lot of professors don't really keep up with the course requirements, especially if their program is in flux. Get you a student handbook, and find out what you need to take. Map it out in a grid, and check off things when you finish them. Show this to your adviser every semester. You may have to explain how such and such class fills a requirement.

-Nobody loves you as much as you, except your mother. Keep this in mind as you take in advice from all sources, including your adviser. Your adviser is there to guide you, but that doesn't mean you have to do everything he says.

Studying:
-You will have to read more than you ever did before, in less time than you ever have before, and you will be expected to retain more than you ever have before. The way that you studied in undergrad may need some tweaking. Be prepared for this.

-Corollary: you may find that your methods change with age or interests or time. I preferred to study alone in college, but in grad school, I prefer to study in groups. It keeps me on task and the socialization keeps me motivated. You may find that you shift from being a more auditory learner to a visual learner or whatever.

-You will feel behind at first. This is normal.

-At some point you will realize that your professors don't actually expect you to read everything they assign you. This, of course, will vary by program, but there will be at least one class where the reading is actually impossible to do in one week. The point is to read enough that you know the major themes and can talk intelligently about them, and then pick some of the readings to really dig into and think more deeply about.

-For most programs, don't worry so much about grades. If you stay on top of your work and do what you're supposed to, you will probably get an A. How much grades matter varies from program to program. In some programs, a B is a signal that you are not up to par, and more than a few Bs will warrant a discussion with your adviser or the DGS. My program isn't like that - A, B, it's all meaningless. My adviser doesn't even know what my grades are. But at almost all programs, a C means you need to retake the course, and two Cs means you have to convince the DGS not to kick you out.

Extracurricular activity: What's that? No, seriously:
-A lot of your time will be unstructured. You will have coursework, but most grad classes meet once a week for two hours and you may have three classes. You may have meetings with your adviser every so often and some seminars or things to catch (like we have grand rounds and colloquia that are required), but a lot of time will be unstructured. However, since you have so much more work than you had in undergrad, you actually will have less free time than you had in undergrad. This may initially cause you great anxiety. It did for me. Some people love unstructured time, though. (I don't.)

-Because of this, you'll have to be planful about your non-grad school related stuff.

-TAKE TIME OFF. DO it. It's important for your mental health. However you do it doesn't matter. Some people work it like a 9-5 job. Some people take a day off per week (me) and maybe a few hours spread across the week. Some people work half days 7 days a week. However you do it, there needs to be a time when you say "f this, I'm going to the movies."

-Find your happy place, something that keeps you the you you were when you came in. I love working out. It gives me energy and I feel good. I stay healthy. I also love reading fiction, so sometimes I just curl up with a good book, work be damned. You have to give yourself permission to not think about work, at least for a couple of hours a week. You may also discover new hobbies! (I never worked out before I came to graduate school.)

-Your work will creep into all aspects of your life, if you let it. This is why I hate unstructured time. You will feel guilty for not doing something, because in graduate school, there is ALWAYS something you can do. ALWAYS. But since there will always be more work, there's no harm in putting it aside for tomorrow, as long as you don't have a deadline.

-You may need to reach outside of your cohort for a social life. None of my close friends are in my doctoral cohort. I've met master's students in my program, master's students in other programs, and I know a few non-graduate students I hang out with, too. Go to graduate student mixers. (If your university doesn't have any, organize some, if you like planning parties.) Join a student group that doesn't take up too much time. I had a doctoral acquaintance who kinda laughed at me because I joined some student groups other than the doctoral student one, and I was usually the only doctoral student in those groups, but I met some close friends (and future job contacts) and had a good time.

-DO NOT FEEL GUILTY FOR WANTING A LIFE OUTSIDE OF GRADUATE SCHOOL. This is paramount. This is important. You are a well-rounded, complex, multifaceted human being. NEVER feel bad for this. Everybody wants some kind of life outside of work. Yes, you may loooove your field, but that doesn't mean you want to do it all day long. Some other doctoral students, and perhaps professors, may make you feel bad about this. Don't let them. Just smile and nod. Then disappear when you need to.

Career:
-This is job preparation. Remember that from Day One. Always be looking for ways to enhance your skills. Read job ads and find out what's hot in your field, what's necessary, what's in demand. For example, in my field statistics and methods are a hot commodity, and they're not a passing fad. I happen to really like statistics and methods, so I have pursued that as a concentration of mine.

-Don't be afraid to take on volunteer work and part-time gigs that will give you skills that will be useful both inside academia and out, as long as it's not against your contract. Your adviser may be against it, but he doesn't have to know as long as it doesn't interfere with your work.

-If you want to work outside of academia - if you are even *considering* the possibility - please please definitely do the above. Even if you aren't considering it, consider the possibility that you won't get a tenure-track job out the box and that you may need to support yourself doing something else for a while. You will have to prove to employers that you have developed usable, useful skills and this is one of the easiest ways to do it. But don't overdo it - get the degree done.

-For more academic related ones - always look for opportunities to present and publish. Presentations look good on your CV. Publications look better. When you write seminar papers, wonder if you can publish them with some revision. Write your seminar papers on what you maybe think you may want to do your dissertation on. Even if you look at them three years later and think "these suck," you can at least glean some useful references and pieces from them. Discuss publication with your adviser early and often, and if you have the time and desire, seek out publication options with other professors and researchers. But if you commit to a project, COMMIT. You don't want to leave a bad impression.

-If you can afford it, occasionally go to conferences even if you aren't presenting. You can network, and you can hear some interesting talks, and you may think about new directions for your own research. You can also meet people who may tell you about jobs, money, opportunities, etc.

-Always try to get someone else to pay for conference travel before you come out of pocket. Including your adviser. Do not be shy about asking if he or she can pay. If he can't, he'll just say no. Usually the department has a travel fund for students, but often it's only if you are presenting.

-If you are interested in academia, you should get some teaching experience. There are two traditional ways to do this: TAing a course, and teaching as a sole instructor. If you can help it, I wouldn't recommend doing a sole instructor position until you are finished with coursework. Teaching takes a LOT of time to do right. You should definitely TA at least one course, and probably a few different ones. But don't overdo it, if you can help it, because again, it takes a LOT of time. More than you expect at the outset. If you are in the humanities, I think sole instructor positions are very important for nabbing jobs so when you are in the exam/ABD phase, you may want to try at least one. If your own university has none, look at adjuncting for nearby colleges, including community colleges. (I would wager that the majority of natural science/physical science students, and most social science students, have never sole taught a class before they get an assistant professor job. At least, it's not that common n my field, which straddles the social and natural sciences.)

-Always look for money. Money is awesome. If you can fund yourself you can do what you want, within reason. Your university will be thrilled, your adviser will be happy, and you can put it on your CV. It's win-win-win! Don't put yourself out of the running before anyone else has a chance to. Apply even if you think you won't get it or the odds are against you (they always are), as long as you are eligible. Apply often. Apply even if it's only $500. (That's conference travel!) Money begets money. The more awards you get, the more awards you will get. They will get bigger over time. If you are in the sciences and social sciences, you should get practice writing at least one grant. You don't have to write the whole thing, but at least get in on the process so that you can see how it's done. Grant-writing is very valuable both in and outside of graduate school.

-Revise your CV every so often. Then look and decide what you want to add to it. Then go get that thing, so you can add it.

-The career office at big universities is often not just for undergrads. I was surprised to learn that my career center offers help on CV organization and the academic job search, as well as alternative/non-academic career searches for doctoral students. In fact, there are two people whose sole purpose it is to help PhD students find nonacademic careers, and they both have PhDs. This will vary by university - some universities will have very little for grad students. Find out before you write the office off.

-It's never too early to go to seminars/workshops like "the academic job search inside and out", "creating the perfect CV," "getting the job," etc. NEVER. Often the leader will share tips that are more aimed towards early graduate students, or tidbits that are kind of too late for more advanced students to take care of. This will also help you keep a pulse on what's hot in your field. It'll help you know what lines you need to add to your CV. And they're interesting.

Other:

-Decide ahead of time what you are NOT willing to sacrifice on the altar of academia. Then stick to it.
I'm serious. If you decide that you do NOT want to sacrifice your relationship, don't. If it's your geographical mobility, don't. I mean, be realistic, and realize that there will always be trade-offs. But you have to think about what's important to you for your quality of life, and realize that there is always more to you than graduate school.

-If you don't want to be a professor, do not feel guilty about this. At all. Zero. However, you will have to do things differently than most doctoral students. Your adviser will probably never have worked outside of the academy (although this may vary depending on the field) so he may or may not be able to help you. But you have a special mission to seek out the kinds of experiences that will help you find a non-academic job. Test the waters with your adviser before you tell him this. My adviser was quite amenable to it, but that's because I told him that my goal was to still do research and policy work in my field just not at a university, AND because it's quite common in my field for doctoral students to do non-academic work. If you're in a field where it's not common (or where your professors refuse to believe it's common, or it's not supposed to be common)…well, you may be a little more on your own.

-Every so often, you will need to reflect on the reasons you came to graduate school. Sometimes, just sit and think quietly. Why are you doing this to yourself? Do you love your field? Do you need this degree to do what you want to do? Usually the answer is yes and yes, and usually you'll keep on trucking. But sometimes when the chips are down you will need to reevaluate why you put yourself through this in the first place.

-To my great dismay, depression is quite common in doctoral students. Graduate work can be isolating and stressful. Luckily your health insurance usually includes counseling sessions. TAKE THEM if you need them. Do not be ashamed. You may be surprised with who else is getting them. (I found out that everyone in my cohort, including me, was getting mental health counseling at a certain point.) Exercise can help, as can taking that mental health day once a week and just chilling. Don't be surprised if you get the blues…

-…but be self-aware and able to recognize when the depression is clouding your ability to function. Doctoral programs have a 50% attrition rate, and this is rarely because that 50% is less intelligent than, less motivated than, less driven than, or less ambitious than the other 50% that stays. Often they realize that they are ridiculously unhappy in the field, or that they don't need the degree anymore, or that they'd rather focus on other things in life, or their interests have changed. All of this is okay!

-You will, at some point, be like "eff this, I'm leaving." I think almost every doctoral student has thought about dropping out and just kicking this all to the curb. You need to listen to yourself, and find out whether it is idle thought (nothing to worry about, very normal) or whether you are truly unhappy to the point that you need to leave. Counseling can help you figure this out.

-Don't be afraid to take a semester or a year off if you need to. That's what leaves of absence are for.

Lastly, and positively…

…graduate school is great! Seriously, when else will you ever have the time to study what you want for hours on end, talk to just as interested others about it, and live in an intellectual community of scholars and intellectuals? And occasionally wake up at 11 am and go to the bank at 2 pm? Sometimes you will want to pull out all of your hair but most of the time, you will feel fulfilled and wonderfully encouraged and edified. So enjoy this time!

PROFILE:
Type of Undergrad Institution: T3 University in Hong Kong
Major(s)/Minor(s): Economics and Finance
Undergrad GPA: 3.4
Type of Grad: NA
Grad GPA: NA
GRE: 168 Verbal/ 165 Quant/ AW 4
Any Special Courses:
Letters of Recommendation: 2 from former teachers, 1 from a professor I closely work with
Research Experience: 1 year research exp; projects in Middle East; 1 published paper at a Q1 journal
Teaching Experience:
Subfield/Research Interests: Comparative Politics/ Race, Ethnicity and Politics
Other:

RESULTS:
Acceptances($$ or no $$): Michigan ($$), HKUST ($$) 
Waitlists:
Rejections: Harvard, Stanford, UC-Berkeley (Education)
Pending:
Going to: Michigan
 
LESSONS LEARNED:
 
I think it is better to prepare in advance (at least by early November, you should have your SOP and essays ready) so that you can show them around to your supervisors, which can really beef up the quality of SOPs. I didn't so I really had to rush just before the deadlines.
 
When writing SOP, I followed 90-10 rule, meaning 90% of your research exp, proposed project and its fit to the department, while 10% is your personal motivation for doing PhD and justifying your research interest through personal experience. Don't make it too sappy but make it punchy and relevant to your essay (for example, I used my background as growing up under a military regime.) Everyone has a nice story to tell that can be linked to your research. This will be a good boost to the reader's interest when properly used.
 
Research fit is probably the most important part, as I applied to some schools knowing that I am not a fit. Try to spend most of the time for research into faculty.
 
It is also a numbers game. My strategy is very risky, so don't try this at home. Some fellows say ten is an optimum number.
 
Most of us probably will have to take GRE two times, one for learning how it works and one for really making it work for your application. Give some time for two GREs (Don't take it in November!)
 
SOP: As I said, my background, my research interest, my research experience, and why I am a good fit to the department. Feel free to ask for the file.
 
GradCafe helped me calm my nerves so hope I can pay back a little with this. Good luck to everyone applying for next year!
 

These rankings shouldn't really determine anything besides the classic 'top 5, top 10, top 20' groupings that are virtually the same as before.
I am finding them a bit weird to be honest. It seems many of the 'jumpers' have had pretty poor placement records in the last few years. Places like Duke, UC Davis, UT Austin, UNC have gone up when it doesn't really seem like they have done much to deserve the bump...
Of course, these rankings suffer from low response rates, a select few individuals doing the surveys, and a lack of information from those filling out the surveys. Reputation is sticky and it seems that departments making a number of hires - especially of senior faculty - are able to move up in the rankings. It's probable that survey respondents are able to see changes in faculty at a finer rate than changes or trends in placement.
I still remain skeptical about how good many of these state schools are in comparison to smaller programs. For the life of me, cannot figure out why UNC is higher ranked than NYU or Chicago for example. 

PROFILE:
Type of Undergrad Institution: Ivy League
Major(s)/Minor(s): Government/Sociology double-major, Latin American Studies minor
Undergrad GPA: 3.87
Type of Grad: N/A
Grad GPA: N/A
GRE: 168V/160Q/5.5AW
Any Special Courses: Methods course, Python, 2 seminars in Latin American Politics
Letters of Recommendation: 2 well-known Latin Americanists, one was my thesis adviser in Government. 1 sociology professor, thesis adviser and Director of Undergraduate Studies.
Research Experience: Research assistant for 2 professors, 2 university-funded undergraduate research projects, 1 summer research program with a well-known Latin Americanist at a different institution, 2 honors theses.
Teaching Experience: N/A
Subfield/Research Interests: Comparative Politics, regional focus on Latin America, substantial interest in political behavior

RESULTS:
Acceptances($$ or no $$): UT Austin ($$), UNC ($$), Pittsburgh ($$), UMN ($$), Princeton ($$), Berkeley ($$), Yale ($$), Columbia ($$), Johns Hopkins*
Waitlists: Duke
Rejections: Harvard
Pending: Notre Dame (implied rejection)
Going to: OMG NO IDEA
 * Declined before official offer/funding details
LESSONS LEARNED:
-        I think the strongest parts of my profile were my personal statement and my letter writers. There is something to be said for making strong connections with people in your field. You do this my networking (which is hard, I know) and by being an attentive scholar. Go to office hours, volunteer for research projects (just ask!).
-        Extra-curricular are not important unless they relate to your work as a scholar/contribute to skills that would make you a successful PhD student. For people with a few years left, try to find a research group, do summer research, take methods classes or join a club that does consulting, etc.
-        Calm down. Step away from your computer. You will be absolutely miserable refreshing your email all the time. I did not take this advice, and now have to work twice as hard to finish my thesis in time. I wish I had kept it all in perspective.
-        Impostor syndrome is real. Remember that you’ve worked damn hard to be here and that countless people have done the same to push you to this point. Don’t dishonor your work or theirs.
-        Rejection hurts, no matter what. Keep in mind that rejection of your application is not a rejection of you or your work. There are a lot of reasons why a department would have to cut you from their consideration. There will always be stuff you wish you had done better, but don’t obsess over it.
-        No one has really mentioned it so I thought I should. Applying with an SO is hard, even in the best of circumstances (and I think I/we got incredibly lucky). Be honest with one another from the start, it will make or break your relationship. How much are you willing to compromise on location/program? Are you willing to do long distance? How much distance? These are all important considerations that you should discuss BEFORE acceptances start rolling in. A lot of people make love in graduate school work, but others don't, and you need to be realistic in your expectations.
SOP: PM me, I’ll consider it.

If you (1) feel that you can effectively address the weaknesses of your application until next cycle (- and doing well in methods/research design classes at Columbia will certainly add to the quality of your application), (2) have a strong preference for working at a top 15-20 university after finishing your PhD, and (3) can afford the MA at Columbia, I could see why you are considering to turn down Cornell in order to get into a better program in the future .
There is an undeniable difference in placements between, for instance, Harvard/Stanford/Princeton and universities in the top 8 to top 12 range. However, only you have the information to calculate whether the expression (expected benefit of getting into a better program*probability of getting into a better program + advantages of the MA at Columbia (network, knowledge, prestige,...)) outweighs the costs of reapplying (MA tuition/costs of living, probably entering the job market one year later, risk of not getting into a program at all,...).
I am in a similar position: I have a fully funded offer from a top 10 university, but I am not entirely happy about this cycle and I am currently trying to get more information on what my chances would be if I were to reapply next year (with a LoR from a methods Prof., more field experience, better GRE)

As social scientists, we are invariably infuriated by the graduate school admissions process; it is lacking in methodological transparency, we feel certain that admissions committees suffer from several biases, and much of the available data is anecdotal (my friend got into Harvard with a 310 GRE, etc). This thread is our contribution to future prospective grads, and our tribute to those who have gone before us. Also, it's just really interesting.
Previous threads:
2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, and 2010
Format:
PROFILE:
Type of Undergrad Institution:
Major(s)/Minor(s):
Undergrad GPA:
Type of Grad:
Grad GPA:
GRE:
Any Special Courses:
Letters of Recommendation:
Research Experience:
Teaching Experience:
Subfield/Research Interests:
Other:

RESULTS:
Acceptances($$ or no $$):
Waitlists:
Rejections:
Pending:
Going to:
 
LESSONS LEARNED:
 
 
SOP:
 
 
 
 
 
Note: If you are uncomfortable revealing certain aspects of your file in order to maintain privacy, please do not let that stop you from posting the other parts! Anything is useful, and each cycle we have so many applicants who post in the main thread but leave before posting here - let's change that!

Yale isn't that good. It really isn't.

How awful of an idea is it to ask a POI something along the lines of how do you compare your program with these others and why should I pick yours given these interests and goals?

And the war between qualitative and quantitative lives on yet again

First acceptance - Columbia!!
Close to crying at work.....

I claim a Columbia admit.

I was just in the copy room yesterday where the UCLA official acceptance letters/funding offers were being scanned into electronic form. Expect your offers very soon.

I'm curious why you would consider Duke over Princeton?

I claim the UC Irvine post. If I don't screw it up, I may be getting my first acceptance!

I would not worry about Columbia yet. It's still about a week early for them, and they haven't been claimed on the forum. I don't know about you all, but if I got into Columbia I would definitely:
1. Call my parents
2. Start selling plasma regularly to be able to afford NYC rent
3. Share the good news on this board
Let's assume that the posts are trolls until proven non-trolls.

Hi everyone. I got several acceptances and rejections and wanna share these. 
* Accepted: University of Arizona(TA or RA / 15000$ per year for 5 years + one-time 5000$), Rutgers(TA or RA / 25000$ per year for four years + summer mentoring offer 3000$), SUNY at Albany(funding not yet decided and will come out in the next few weeks), U.C. Davis(funidng not yet decided and will come out in the next few days)
* Interview: USC, Michigan State.
* Rejected or implied rejections: GWU, Emory, Austin, Northwestern, WashU, Berkeley
And, I am wondering
1) if those who got admitted to Davis were notified of any information about funding.
2) if there is anyone who is having an interview or already has done it.
    (Is this for some kinda double-check after actual decisions have already been made or for dropping the candidates from their short-list?
 

If we consider Berkeley and Princeton as rejects, I am three rejections and await on 6 more humbly (and why not count princeton and berkeley? In Russia, if something goes away and you don't hear more, you assume is gone). If doctor of science of politics don't work out, I will pursue career in husbandry of animals. I feel especially drawn to moose and fish. 

I kind of wish Princeton and Berkeley would just send the rejection letters already.

I'm claiming one of the positive results from Pittsburgh. 
GRE and undergrad GPA were not high but I guess that some experience, two MAs, publications and a period lecturing helped in the end.
Couldn't be happier!

Claim acceptance from Princeton! IR subfield. I'm in Asia so it was almost 3am when I woke up and saw the email. Still hard to believe all of this.... Good luck everyone!

Claiming UCSD rejection. My hopes for warmer weather are sinking.

Just got accepted by UT-Austin! Email informing of admission with details on funding to follow.

I will be finishing my dissertation in the near future and moving on to the next phase of my life and career. Like most grad students, I stopped visiting this site once I started and the whirlwind of grad school kicked in. I recently had a conversation with a cohort-mate about the correct and incorrect impressions we had when we applied for grad school. That conversation made me think of this site, so I have visited again a few times lately.

The biggest misconception I had was about how program rank translated into job prospects. I thought that getting a PhD from Harvard, Michigan, or Stanford was what I needed if I wanted to end up at a big time R1. I didn’t get into a top 5, but that’s fine. i never wanted one of those high-pressure jobs at a top school anyway. I am delighted with a job at a 3-2 directional or a 3-3 regional. Maybe a 4-4 liberal arts school will be fun too, if it turns out that I like teaching and the location is good. I felt like my expectations were reasonable.

That’s not how it works.

The tenure-track (TT) jobs at the big time R1’s rarely come available, and when they do come up they go to a tiny handful (e.g., 3 or 4) market stars from the top 5. The market for ALL of the rest of the TT jobs (yes, that includes the undesirable locations and the 3-3 directional schools) is fought over by assistant professors looking to make moves and the rest of the ABD’s out of the top 10.

Those of us in the 15-25 range are looking for any TT job at all, not ones we like (e.g., the Arkansas Tech opening in American politics last year got well over 100 applications). Most of us take a visiting assistant professor (VAP) or postdoc jobs somewhere for one year, and often a second one. After that some of us get a TT job at an urban commuter school or remote directional. The rest? We lose track of them. Based on Facebook and word of mouth it seems that they become homemakers, yoga instructors, high school teachers, or wherever else life takes them.

 After six years my cohort of 20 has 12 people left. 1 has a TT job offer. 6 of us are waiting to hear on some VAP / postdoc jobs and waiting on more to post in the spring portion of the job market cycle. The rest need more time to finish.

 
If you are an applicant reading this, you are probably thinking that you’ll do fine. You’re really good at school. Your professors really like you.
The hard part of convincing a person not to go to graduate school is that person is told all the time that s/he is one of the best from their school. S/he feels special. I get it. I felt the same way. But once you are here you realize that we were all special. And almost none of us will end up being professors.