dagnabbit

Probably Davis next week, and then the rest of the UCs the week after.

Condolences to the recently rejected - it's just the beginning of the cycle! My UT Austin app still says "under review," so I don't know what to make of that. In other news, I have it on good authority that we will hear from Wisconsin next week.

I would avoid University City. It is safe, but very expensive (for Philadelphia, at least) and full of undergrads. Try looking in the area surrounding Baltimore Ave between 38th and 50th - it's a beautiful, affordable area with a lot of green space and cool little shops (also home to Dottie's donuts, best donuts in the city). Also very safe - I think that's where a lot of Penn and Drexel grads live.

I think PSR's trolling of the gradcafe results board is basically a tradition at this point - let's all just remember that top ten programs will almost 100% not issue decisions until February. It's important to approach this process with a bit of levity! We will all have news soon enough. Speaking of which, we're coming up on some big announcements - tOSU, Wisconsin, and Davis have historically notified admits between the 21st and 25th.

Big congrats, @StrengthandHonor! Must be great to have a great acceptance in hand at the very beginning of the cycle. Does anybody want to claim the Riverside acceptance from yesterday?

Thanks so much! I can share through DM if you're really interested, but I would rather not post the school publicly at this point. I will say that it is not a program that is known to conduct interviews, so I was pretty surprised. @changeisgood, congratulations! Even if Georgia isn't your top choice, an acceptance this early speaks volumes about your strength as an applicant.

Wow, there's a UGA acceptance on the results board! I think that's the first PhD admission of the cycle - anybody wanna claim it? Side note: received an interview request today! It's so nice to have a bit of validation during this process - I hope that you will all experience this feeling soon.

Looks like we're starting to see some movement! Congrats to those who have heard from POIs at OSU - remember though, Prof. Braumoeller has said in the past that no interview≠rejection. Some professors choose to interview students, some do not. One of my letter-writers e-mailed me today to let me know that she was fielding questions about my file - exciting!

Not sure if you saw it already, but there is a really extensive thread about mock tests vs. the real thing already: Might be useful! I think the consensus is that ETS' PowerPrep tests are the best predictors of your actual scores.

Hope everybody's holidays were excellent! It's very exciting and nerve-wracking to think that, if this cycle is similar to prior cycles, we'll have decisions from at least a few schools before the month is over. To pass the time, what is everyone interested in studying? My subfield is IR, with specific interests in international organizations and foreign aid allocation.

For me, probably "chary." It means cautious/wary, but I can't think of any situation in which I would ever use it and I'm certain that I've never heard or read it before. Honestly, I think I learned more useful words than useless words while studying for the GRE.

This is just speculation, but they probably haven't - at my current undergrad institution the administrative staff don't even go back to work until Jan. 3rd, and it seems unlikely that an adcomm would have time to meet during finals. I'm sure you're fine.

My advice would be to revisit articles that present the type of research that you would like to do, and then find out which schools the authors are at. If your only concern is receiving adequate training in both quant/qualitative methods, you should be fine at any T30 program - though you would likely want to avoid heavily quantitative programs like NYU and Rochester.

I'd just like to echo this - a quick look through the results section or the wrap-up threads will prove that people get into top programs with scores lower than 166-161 all the time. A score like that will not preclude one from admission anywhere.

I was really struggling with cutting down my SOP to 4000 characters for UC Davis until I realized that they have a separate section on their application to list your POIs and explain why you want to work with them. I'm really not sure how I would have accomplished it otherwise without sacrificing something important, but maybe that's just a sign that I need to get better at editing. To quote Pascal, "I have made this letter longer than usual, because I lack the time to make it short." Anybody else have trouble/no trouble whatsoever with crafting a succinct SOP?

Yeah, I thought that was strange too, but I guess Stanford can get away with that kind of stuff. Luckily, my university has an official e-transcript system, and Stanford's application FAQ page states that one e-transcript can be substituted for the two physical transcripts. I think that only 2 of the 10 programs I'm applying to actually require a physical copy of the transcript - honestly, I can't believe that any school would still ask for physical copies of anything in 2016.

All of the programs I applied to require that applicants send official scores as soon as they've completed the test, but they will begin reviewing one's application with the unofficial scores if the official ones have not arrived yet. I have never heard of a situation in which a school did not require official GRE scores until after admission, though this is common with transcripts.

You will almost certainly receive conflicting advice on this topic - I know I did. I think that there is general agreement that it is neither required nor expected that you will contact POIs, and it is probably unlikely to make much of a difference in your admission decision. This late in the cycle, I would definitely avoid making initial contact with anybody - since it's really too late to ask them basic questions (are you taking students, etc) and you have not yet been admitted, I feel that at best you would be ignored and at worst it would come off as opportunism. However, it's probably worth asking your letter writers about this, as there might be different norms for linguistics programs.

Personally, after my finals are over and my apps are all submitted I'm going to start working on a contingency plan in the event that I strike out this year. Perhaps this might mean applying to a masters program (I do not want to shell out the $ for this, but I'm considering it), or applying to a few entry-level think tank/research institute positions, or really anything that I could do that would make me a stronger candidate next application cycle. While this has nothing to do with my chances of admission, my hope is that having a solid backup plan will relieve some of the anxiety that we will all surely experience over the next two or three months.

My advice would be to look through the U.S. News rankings in your subfield, go to every program's website, and look through their faculty. Apply to the places that are strong in your area of interest/have professors that you would like to work with. It's been said on here many times that attending a T25 school that is strong in your area of interest may be more beneficial to you in the long run than attending a CHYMPS school at which nobody can adequately advise you. However, it seems like many programs assume that their students' research interests will change substantially by the time they achieve ABD status, so YMMV.

As others have said, don't stress about what you have or haven't read - you're probably fine. One piece of advice that a past applicant shared on the political science forum, though, was really helpful to me in preparing my applications and it might be helpful to you as well. They recommended that one set aside a day or two to read through the current and recent editions of top peer-reviewed journals in their AOI, reading abstracts and occasionally full articles if they are germane to your interests. I did this, and it really helped to familiarize me with the questions being researched in my sub-field as well as the gaps in our current understanding, which in turn helped me narrow down my research interests and write my SOP. I (obviously) haven't been admitted anywhere yet (and I'm not sure if this is applicable outside the social sciences) so take this with a grain of salt, but it might be worth a shot.

I wouldn't say that you're aiming too high - you should absolutely apply to all of those schools if they all have at least a couple professors who you would like to work with. It sounds like your profile is very solid, assuming your letters are very positive and your SOP is good. I would advise you to apply to a few more schools outside the top 5, though; the PhD admissions process is very idiosyncratic, and this is only magnified at CHYMPS programs. If the schools that you listed are the only ones you would be happy at, then that's fine and I wish you good luck. However, adding a few more T10/T20 programs with which you have good fit to your list would probably increase your chances of getting in somewhere.

I think this is the right way to go about it. However, it's close enough to the deadline that OP has likely already decided whether or not to apply to UCSD.

My advice would be to look through the CVs of professors/grad students in your field, observe common trends, and try to model yours after theirs. Mine is laid out like this: Name and info (e-mail/phone number/etc) Education Research interests Research experience Honors and Honoraries Other work experience As an undergraduate, I don't have any publications or presentations to list, but if I did I would put them right after the research interests section. Hope that helps a little.

That's pretty standard - they want to know a bit more about your background so that they can speak to your strengths and (if need be) show how they outweigh your weaknesses (bad semester, lack of research experience, change of major, etc). If you have it, I would suggest sending a draft of your SOP as well.