GopherGrad

If it happens, remember the number of this cycle's admits that got canned everywhere their first time. Including me.

I will say, though, for anyone considering a MN admit: 1) Winters blow. Truly. 2) Minneapolis is maybe the best city in the country for grad student living. The cost of living is lower (far lower) than any major media market I can think of. But the arts and food scenes bat way above expectations for the size, and the economy is white collar, so there are a fair number of interesting, attractive 20 and 30 somethings meandering around.

One of my advisors mentioned that MN gives a boost to Midwest/Great Lakes applicants because they know the weather won't present an extra attrition risk in those cases.

MIT reject here. It was actually one of the places I thought I had the best shot, whereas my success was a see-if-it-sticks kinda school. There really is no telling.

I will celebrate by re-reading my favorite seminal texts of the political sciences. I will celebrate by attending classes and earning A's, which I will celebrate by reading more seminal texts and I will celebrate the reading of those texts by writing insightfully about them in both a classroom assignment context and in personal notes for later projects. Then I will celebrate by being offered a tenure track employment opportunity at the semi-elite university. I will then take myself to dinner at the Library, which is not a pithy name for a restuarant but an actual Library in which is stored seminal texts of the political science, which I will read over dinner. Then I will publish the thesis Chapter in the semi-elite journal and later stretch it into the book at the semi-elite press and my headstone shall read ALL HAIL GOPHERGRAD WHO ATE THE MOST PIE. Also I will drink the rye whisky.

Please keep in mind that we are all sort not knowledgable about this stuff, considering that we're applicants, too. 1) The competitiveness of a Fulbright is different in each country where it is awarded. Some people on committees may be vaguely familiar with your circumstances. Broadly speaking, my understanding is that having a major grant is helpful in admissions because it signals that someone else with experience in evaluating social science proposals was impressed with you. 2) If you haven't mentioned the chance that you will not teach, I would not. Common wisdom is that PhD programs, especially the high ranked ones, prefer to train scholars. The committee members may be aware that Fulbrights often require the grantee to leave the US, but some programs appreciate placements at elite foreign universities. I think your milage on this one may vary (if you follow the euphemism). 3) No. 4) I don't know, and I'm not sure anyone here would without knowing what country you're from. British first hono(u)rs are probably well known to be respectible; Kyrgyz ones may be seen as corruptible. 5) You will need to evaluate quantitative work in your program, so your Q score is relevant. Some people get in to great programs with middling quant scores. In many cases they have proven math ability in other ways; some are simply rock stars that don't do math well.

jazzrap, RWGB and adaptations, I am humbled and grateful that you all remember me from a couple of years ago. That kind of support is truly invaluable to me. I spent a fair amount of time discussing the specifics of my qualifications and goals with you and some others during that cycle and it was in no small part those conversations that led me to risk a couple years in a terminal master's. I'm elated that it's paid off. I hope the same happens for you, jazzrap. My story and lots of others here suggests that it could. I think the best thing that I've taken from my two years of intermittent posting at Gradcafe is that there passionate, compassionate, people in this field, whatever challenges lie ahead. To all my babies with me this cycle: rest up. We've got a busy week next week.

BY THE WAY: I was rejected everywhere two years ago, including UC-San Diego. So, more evidence for whatever proposition that stands for.

Anyone else think it's hilariously ironic that our cycle's Nate Silver is serving as the inspiration for "low" Q scores?

Comparative. So get ready for me to constantly and obnoxiously insist that "America" is just a comparative case study.

In at UCSD. Email with link to log-in, notification under the messaging tab.

Oh, I've been rehearsing my chat with Jeremy Wienstien for months now. Bring on the POI call!

Did you find this by logging in to your application? Mine still shows that the application is awaiting a decision.

I think there are a lot of people, myself included, that haven't heard anything official. Yes. And in Chicago. And apparently in San Diego a totally unexpected run of 75 degree sunny days has converted all the freeways into roving beach parties. Total gridlock. Those miserable SOBs.

I hate to say it, but I think it possible that UCSD will be a long time coming. They maybe just released the rejections for the students they know they couldn't place and are now deliberating the tougher decisions.

Pure speculation: you were at the very end of the waitlist and there was some concern about filling in the class. The "soft part means" that the department was willing to let you twist for a little longer without bothering to get you an official waitlist, and thus deserves a punch to its allegorical wiener. In terms of whether they will let you get farther this year, plenty of people have been accepted to programs that rejected them in the past, so... That basically leaves me the University of Tashkent's Ryrgyzyyvyzzynystan satellite campus. Damn you, felonslooking4love.com!!

I would never condone the use of the term "safety school" to disparage a program or the people attending and it's hard to imagine why it would be used here in any other way. A person's career aspirations are deeply personal and contextual. While I always, always counsel for a realistic apprasial of which investments will help meet those aspirations, it is not my place to question the validity of the goals themselves. If U of Bumblefuck's program offers you the opportunity to achieve a career and life that will make you happy, then your admission is to be celebrated and screw anyone that tells you otherwise. This applies equally to people who apply only to the top ten, though. Speaking as someone who applied only among the twenty schools that consider themselves top ten, I can say that few programs of lower rank offer a high enough chance at landing my dream job to justify leaving my lucrative and established career. If I were 25 again I would doubtless be more willing to take risks to get the dream job and more satisfied if I fell a little bit short. But I am not 25 again and the five years it takes to get a PhD will set back my retirement plan fifteen. I'd better fucking love that job. My application strategy reflects my willingness to forego a PhD if I don't get admitted. It also reflects the well-researched conclusion that I have a higher chance of admission at a top program than the straight statistics suggest. My strategy does not deny the stochastic nature of the application process. It also does not deny the extremely imperfect correlation between the rank or a program and the quality of the training it offers. And it absolutely does not pass judgment on the (hopefully well-considered) attempts of others to achieve the career objectives that are special to them. I think as long as we all assume that we have each chosen to compete for the opportunities that can provide the lives we want, we can be happy for those that get admitted and commiserate with those that don't.

This is especially true if your undergrad was not in political science and you are (unknowingly) framing your very interesting research question poorly for consumption by political scientists. To my understanding, both fit and yield concerns will sometimes cause schools to reject obviously qualified candidates. For example, I assume that Duke hasn't gotten a hold of me because they know I'm a lock for Stanford. kidding

It is absolutely, positively appropriate to ask both the department and grad students about the specifics, including how many students get denied, whether the funding stays consistent if it is re-awarded and what the rubrics are for evaluating students after the three year mark. The risk of losing funding should discount the value of an offer you receive and it is important to understand the nature of the risk to apply the right discount.

I haven't, but I don't think they have sent out any rejections (whether or not they are done admitting).

I haven't heard anywhere and had applied at Duke, Chicago and UCSD (plus a bunch that haven't moved at all). I am also generally considering myself out at Duke and Chicago and at least close to the cusp at UCSD.

Yeah. I applied at 12 and have no decisions. I think it will still easily be a week or more.

I would really love for UCSD to make some more moves today. Every day that my application remains "under review" it becomes harder to keep my expectations in check.

To the UCSD IR/PS letter-getters: I was rejected by UCSD two years ago and did not receive such an invitation. For this and several other reasons I highly doubt the message is sent to everyone. Something about your application caused the adcomm to believe you might be well-suited for that program. That said, please consider two things as you explore the option of IR/PS: 1) IR/PS is generally considered to be a policy school and the careers open to graduates are not really very similar to those available to PhDs. These sets of careers share little in common outside their broad engagement with political questions and lots of people who want or are well suited for one would not want or are not well suited for the other. Some people do make the jump from policy back into academics, but it academics is your end goal there might be better options. 2) IR/PS is a well-respected policy MA, but this degree is still highly over-subscribed. Lots of people from elite programs end up without relevant jobs or with entry-level positions with extremely low pay and responsibility. While this may be required to begin a policy career, these MAs are usually unfunded and quite expensive. If I recall (and it has been awhile since I have visited) College Confidential's government board is full of policy MAs concerned that thier school debt prices them out of most of the available jobs, should they be so lucky as to get one.

Maybe I'm totally missing the point here but ... isn't the way that most IR and comparative folks go abroad during graduate school research? My research interests lean more comparative, but most of the programs to which I applied all but require fieldwork. My current uni recently hired for a human security line and all of the candidates had spent multiple stretches of multiple months in the field collecting data.