guest56436
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Posts posted by guest56436
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38 minutes ago, dih2 said:
Isn't the admissions process itself this screening process? Do these departments accept students who haven't demonstrated that they will likely succeed in the program?
Well, it is presumably supposed to be. But it's track record of predicting who will last and who won't is not very good. Of course, I don't think anyone should expect it to be perfect.
It seems the admissions process is fairly reliable for determining especially strength of applicant/student and potential. You can see that every cycle in these threads. There are a handful of applicants every year that do extremely well across the board. Then there are a handful that get rejected from most or all places. It also does an adequate job of sorting students into the tier of programs that they should probably belong to (not perfect by any means though).
But it doesn't seem like a very good indicator for predicting attrition. Attrition rates for most programs - even top ones - are somewhere around 50%. That's extremely high. Now, I don't think attrition rates should be 0% or else your program isn't rigorous enough (and we certainly wouldn't want the potential candidates pool for academic jobs to double which would be a disaster).
But I also see an admissions process that looks for the best students rather than potentially the most promising or committed ones. Large emphases on pedigree, GPA, GRE, ect. that really doesn't indicate a whole lot.
I did a masters in a program affiliated to a top 25 program and watched attrition closely. Out of a cohort of around 20, 2 or 3 people didn't make it past the first year and a half (one even dropped out after the first semester). Another 2 probably won't even make it to comps. Then a bunch will take the masters and leave. It's crazy how unprepared and unfamiliar these students were with what grad school entails. This is typical across many programs.
That being said, I am sure the admissions process is difficult to do. Lots of applicants and lots of noise in the process.
But I do think there are a few things these programs could do:
1) It's interesting that there is a real lack of an interview process throughout the discipline. Most sciences programs employ them extensively. Even other humanities/social sciences like sociology and history use them quite a bit as well. One way of weeding out those great students that don't really know what they doing/committed is through interviewing them.
2) Smaller cohorts. I really see no reason why some departments have these massive cohorts. Yeah, they need TAs of course, but there are ways of addressing this. The academic market is saturated as it is...and having smaller cohorts that support their students better would make attrition less likely.
3) Political science as a discipline could make masters programs more prevalent and/or used as breeding grounds for developing good candidates for top programs. Other disciplines and countries do this, not sure why political science doesn't. A student who has been through a rigorous masters program is much less likely to not know what they are getting themselves into.
- changeisgood, krapp and VMcJ
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57 minutes ago, VMcJ said:
Honestly, I'd like to see one day a screening process that can really separate those with higher chances of not dropping out from those that probably will. I understand people drop out for several reasons and not all of them are predictable, but still seems to be that many people go into graduate studies without really understanding what is it like.
Yeah and it's frustrating for people that have been preparing for this for like 4 years and have taken a number of grad courses in a reputable program to have these flimsy students take spots.
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Chicago is most definitely done. They are one of those programs that doesn't send rejections for a long time...although IIRC there were a couple of doctoral admits in previous years with the rejection waves so who knows.
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1 hour ago, em2 said:
I don't trust USNews to rank Political Science programs. What do you all consider the top institutions, in terms of 1) placement, 2) strong faculty, 3) prestige?
So you would rather trust prospective grad students opinions about something they haven't even experienced before rather than systematic surveys distributed to professors throughout the field?
Well all know there are flaws with ranking systems but nonetheless they have been shown to correlate fairly well with placement.
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1 hour ago, dih2 said:
Should we expect Harvard this week? I recall someone saying it would be the last couple days of Feb, which I guess would be next week
Highly doubt Harvard will come this week.
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I doubt programs will give you much of an answer.
One thing you could do potentially is ask one of your letter writers to look over everything.
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3 minutes ago, tkid86 said:
In what way? I'm trying to relax and telling myself that I'll know in seventy-two hours for Yale if the results stick to the past trend of admits and rejections at the same time. I've got fun plans for tonight and I don't want to be thinking about this throughout the night.
Just would have expected more movement by now.
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Yale sure is acting weird.
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No, the former is IR.
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I wish more programs sent out rejections before admits.
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2 minutes ago, resDQ said:
same for me. If Yale is all out, then all I'm waiting for is Michigan and Harvard.
Yeah, Harvard would be the last stand. And at this point - not a chance in hell I'm getting accepted so it would be pretty much over.
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So I had mostly calmed down this cycle. But I haven't been this anxious since Berkeley/Princeton day. Desperation is probably setting in.
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Seems eerily quiet for a Yale day in here.
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1 minute ago, polisci13542 said:
Do you guys think its over for yale?
The nice thing about Yale is they send mostly everything in one or two days...so we should know fairly soon.
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1 minute ago, rimbaldienne said:
Well, I am an international student, who works on American politics, not yet in grad school and I live outside of the United States. There are a large number of programs outside the US that deal with American politics, not to mention scholars.
Canada esp. has a lot of Americanists and undergrads that get interested in the field.
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You know what would be real effective trolling?
If someone made a bunch of accounts and started claiming admits in the thread.
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Just now, Kenga said:
Trolls. I still have to meet the international student who is interested to study something they never studied before (American politics).
There's plenty of internationals that end up in the American subfield.
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The trolling is sloppy this time...no stats and all international admits.
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1 minute ago, dih2 said:
Uh oh, another Harvard post. Looks like I'm done for both for Yale and Harvard
Relax. It's not even close to time for Harvard yet.
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4 minutes ago, GradNYC said:
So is NYU done? I i already have a MA and haven't received a rejection or acceptance yet...
I would assume so since they already sent out waitlists.
Welcome to the 2016-17 cycle!
in Political Science Forum
Posted · Edited by Comparativist
For the record, I never drew this distinction so I'm not sure why you distorted my comment like that.