GopherGrad

I hear you, especially to the extent that the "asking" is done through gritted teeth, but good luck getting people to give up trying to understand such an abiding mystery that seems to have such an effect on our futures. I know this is true for me. I'm likely to go 1/13 this cycle, but I got into a shoot-the-moon program that fell relatively low of my own estimation of fit. I'm elated, humbled and honored by that result, but how such a great, competitive school saw fit to scoop me up when none of the other twelve had any interest baffles me and I would go some distance to be de-baffled.

Unless "any good" is a higher standard than it sounds at first blush, it's hard to figure out how you don't end up with a pile of 150ish similarly qualified applicants. It's nice to know that my B in freshman bio from 14 years ago didn't much prejudice my file, but it sounds like I coulda spent a little more time and the gym and the bar than I did the last couple years.

Anyone can be a Zen model for others; one just needs to find a group of individuals tweaked-out enough that one appears at peace. Stop looking at the results posting. Wait until you see a claim here from an established handle, learn about the acceptance and then we can work backwards to see if we're close to done. If it's like most other schools, it will go dark relatively suddenly and there will be no question.

As argued before w/r/t Yale, Princeton and Stanford, we have 15-20 regular posters who have been admitted to top programs. Some of our posters will be admitted to Harvard and claim the admission here when the real action starts.

I've often thought it would be a good idea for Grad Cafe to provide a verified handle to faculty members and admissions ambassadors, then sticky a thread in which (only) the verifieds can post when they start and finish giving out admissions offers. Grad Cafe gets more traffic, the phone lines of America's political science departments get less. The trolls get less food. Etc.

I agree with Lemeard, but I'm going to put it more bluntly. You need to look at the placement results of both schools and ask whether the lower ranked school has a history of providing that result. If it doesn't, you don't go. Period. Ranking is not everything with respect to prestige of placement. Prestige of placement is not everything with respect to happiness. But if your "ambition" maps on to a general sense of what most people see as "better" placement, and the schools you're talking about are 20 or more ranks apart (instead of half a dozen or something) you'd be sort of crazy to turn down the higher ranked offer. Being poor sucks, but live on raman a bit longer if that's what it takes. Now, if the lower ranked school can realistically provide the placement you want and offers better fit and a higher standard of living, then it's a no brainer to take the lower ranked offer.

BFB, Thanks for the response. Obviously, everyone here thinks your presence is helpful, and a BFD.

Thanks for all the frank answers; this post was particularly helpful for me. I have a clarifying question that may be applicable to several of the posters here: I finished my BA with a GPA below a 3.6, but I graduated ten years ago, did not study political science, and have finished two graduate degrees since then. My most recent, an MA in Political Science comes in well above a 3.6. Would your graduate school force you to use an exemption based on my undergrad GPA? Do you ever reject students because they would not receive funding based on the waiver rule? How common is this bifurcated funding / admissions set up?

Man, Princeton, Berkeley AND Duke rejects today. Looks like UCSD is the only school with its fact straight.

Professor of Interest. A faculty member with whom you are likely to work. Dudes, remember how those Yale "admits" lingered and there was all this out-freaking and then one day Yale accepted a bunch of people and several regular posters claimed admits and there was a full page of "Congrats!!"? Calm down about Princeton. We'll know.

I would be shocked if they didn't FedEx you a letter over night if you told them you needed it to get full funding from an outside source.

It has always seemed from your posting like you have a plan tailored to match the range of opportunities out there for you.

I'm really inclined to disagree with this. For a 22-year-old with the uncertain prospects of a social science BA and plenty of time to change course if the present one is unsatisfying, maybe. But I'm a single 30-something with a solid career and some debt left over from a previous round of grad school. I'm sorry, but joining the VAP circuit for four years hoping a liberal arts school in Podunk, Indiana will notice me is not a responsible or realistic way to pursue a good future. If I'm going to have a family, I need to find someone soon and I can't expect to drag her all over the country or subject her to years of separation. I need to think seriously about retirement planning. Etc. Lots of people posting on this board are older and have some reasonable constraints to the dream of studying the questions that animate them. The younger applicants will have fewer parts of the equation to fill in, so there's a lot more uncertainty and flexibility. But you would still do well to engage in the same calculus. Waving away disciplined decision-making because some random interventions make the results impossible to determine is foolish. Use the information you and think about probability.

Both good posts. There is an obvious middle ground that I've tried to harp on during my time at this board because I think it is SO crucial for applicants to understand. The very first thing you need to do when beginning a search into graduate programs is to define your goal coming out. Then determine which schools have placement records sufficient to (probabilistically) meet that goal. Do not apply to programs that offer you a poor chance of reaching that goal. Do not scoff at programs that do offer you a good chance because they are not top 10. Find good fit withing a variety of schools within that range and apply where the fit is best. Even if this doesn't maximize your chances (and it probably does) it will help assure that you land in a department that makes you happy. Rememeber that you don't always know precisely how you and a program will fit, so "fit reaches" are not always bad, especially if your goals have bounded you into very competitive programs. Setgree's results are obviously not typical; really well qualified candidates with mainstream research interests might have good luck tossing the top ten pasta at the fridge, but I think it's a bad strategy to assume that this is you. The take-away here is that your admissions strategy should not simply be about admissions. It should take into account what the degree means to your career and how your career fits in with your overall happiness. (This becomes more true the older you get.)

I still find it highly unlikely that Yale could admit the lion's share of its class and not one regular poster here would get admitted. We've got grips of candidates in at other top 10 programs and plenty of people who seem to have applied.

Has Berkeley sent out any rejections? I had kind of figured this horse had left the barn.

My understanding is that notification (or not) and admissions from the list are pretty school-dependent. Really what it boils down to is that nothing for you has changed. There is no decision and you just need to wait longer. It signals that the program considers you very well qualified, but we all know by now that's not enough.

No, you actually feel that way because so far every burst of admissions to programs widely admired by GradCafe junkies has included a relatively quick set of claims by established posters, and the lack of claims make these fakes easier to spot than a yellow-undersoled Christina Bouboutan. Your excellent insincts, by the way, are exactly the reason Yale is really considering admitting you right now. HTH. Seriously, I don't remember the last time I checked the results page. Everything good is worth working for, and that includes trolling. If these lazy assholes don't at least have the common courtesy to build an army of fake profiles, embed themselves in our community and eventually activate the sleepers at opportune moments, they don't deserve to get a rise out of me. Amatuer hour is what this is.

For starters, I'll agree with the posters who argue that applications are stochastic and competetive; the same application to the same school may be rejected one year and accepted the next. Now, if you apply widely to schools that would empower you to make the career goals that underlie your desire to get a PhD and get rejected everywhere, blaming it all on randomness might not be the smartest choice. As to the actual question: I did not have any political science training during my first application round, so I found a Master's program I could do for free and gave the career (and my polisci talents) a test drive. This allowed me to get letters that addressed my research capacity, signal that my interest in my research agenda was not a whim and better frame my SoP. My lack of qualification was so obvious that applying for a second time was kind of a no-brainer.

I'm on my second round. I gave it another go because I'm passionate about my research questions, I have loved teaching in the past and the academic lifestyle is attractive to me. I also sensed that I could improve my application significantly, and so far the results have shown the wisdom of this intuition. In terms of opportunity costs, it's hard to tell whether you're describing the opportunity cost of applying or attending, but I'm confused either way. The cost of a new round of applications is actually relatively low, in my opinion. The cost of attendence should equally dissuade applications in the first place. There are lots of adventures in life, but you always have to choose the ones most attractive to you, and any career will llimit opportunities in different ways. If the package of adventures seems vastly better to a person than a suite of attainable others, it makes perfect sense to try more than once.

Resist the urge to read the tea leaves. It's like trying to explain why some people are attracted to you and others aren't.

Yeah, no one likes to hear "no", but you've got a handful of great admits, so...

Rejected at Chicago by email.

Since the three admits here were all Americanists contacted by the same prof I'd be surprised if it were over.

No one has claimed the Yale, nor the Stanfords and the Stanfords came by different methods. I wouldn't get too excited yet.