dumbunny

Well, I heard back 4/11 from Rice (no) and 4/12 from Pittsburgh (no). On the 12th, I accepted Riverside's offer over Binghamton's based on Riverside having more comparative faculty specializing in countries outside of Europe. There are certainly enough faculty at UCR who still study European politics, but (a) I don't want to confine myself to working/studying only under experts on one part of the world, and (b) I want to research presidential systems & institutions, but Europe is much more fertile ground for researching parliamentary systems.

I'm not. This particular question comes up a lot in any field, though. What I was passing on is pretty broadly applicable, and though I've acknowledged that the situation will differ from field to field, I don't see that anything I've said is that out of the norm compared to any of the other replies.

Your quant score is amazing, but your verbal score ranks somewhere in the 50s. I wouldn't go so far as to say that your verbal score killed your chances - in fact, it might not even be the biggest factor here, and I'm only mentioning it because nobody else has so far. Scoring 4-5 points higher on the verbal section (and ranking somewhere in the 70s) could open some doors for you that right now are closed. Schools get a lot of students applying who scored in the 90s on the quantitative section, and putting together a more well-rounded performance can give you an added edge.

In general I get the impression that there are advantages to going to a top ~10/15/20 school in a given field. (The threshold can depend on the field). After that point, rankings become gradually less important - unless it's something really drastic like choosing between #30 and #100. The 33% response rate in SLP can indicate that the field isn't as ranking-sensitive as other fields, though. Overall, in your situation, I'd weigh the programs on their own merits: what do you know about faculty? course offerings? financial support? professional development/networking opportunities? Sometimes higher-ranked programs get there for very tangible reasons. Other times, those reasons have nothing to do with your needs, and you're better off going to a lower-ranked school that offers what you're looking for.

Is "Dear" the norm in academia? I ask from a position of ignorance. I've always avoided "Dear" in professional emails because it sounds too personal to my ear. As a result, I open my emails with "Professor ____," instead. Is this considered odd or a faux pas in academic settings, though?

I'm a coward and a failure and a burden to society.

Friendliness isn't really a factor at all - plenty of faculty at either department have been totally congenial. For me, it's a matter of finding somebody for whom my research interests align with, or are a direct extension of, the faculty's work and/or expertise. I've done a lot of digging through professors' research to scope out possibilities, so it's not like I'm picking people at random. However, In my ignorance as somebody with just a bachelor's degree, if I pick out somebody who's been teaching and researching in my field longer than I've been alive and they say that what they do doesn't align with what I'm looking for, I need to respect that. When I talk about somebody being "enthusiastic" about what I want to do, what I'm saying is that they've expressed an academic interest or are academically engaged in the kinds of questions that interest me. If they're unenthusiastic, it's something they don't work with and don't sound comfortable advising on. I don't want that kind of advisor.

I would give reputation but I'm capped at 5 a day.

I don't intend to put words in your mouth. My intent was to provide my rationale for agreeing with you. As a general life observation, relationships tend not to work out.

Agreed. Relationships don't work out.

If you were worried about the state of your relationship, why did you apply to Purdue in the first place? Might this be an unconscious sign that you're ready to move on?

Why was "far from family" a con for the second option? Just curious. For me it's a major pro.

I think you're right. The bit about the adcomm supports my suspicion that I got admitted because I was seen a great fit for the department in general. People on the adcomm must have thought I could work with a bunch of other people, without actually having any feedback from those other people. It's disappointing. I really wanted to go here originally and I've been nudging the department to give me a reason to say "yes," but it's hard when people don't answer your emails. Oh well. At least their funding offer is useful for negotiating with another school.

On February 6, the program director sent me an email to notify me that I had been admitted to the program. That was my first interaction with any faculty member. "It doesn't sound like either A or B is excited to take you on in a primary advising role—is that your impression? Or is each excited to have you but of the impression that you're an even better fit with the other?" - definitely the former. It wasn't "you should also talk with this other person" - it was "you should talk with ___ instead." (Direct quote). Re: adcomm - I noticed that a couple faculty members were able to recall details from my application with zero prompting on my part. I assume this means these faculty members were either on the adcomm, or at least the adcomm did a good job keeping the general faculty in the loop.

Legitimate red flag, or am I overreacting? I've been admitted to a political science PhD program, and met with some faculty members one-on-one. The program director (herself a faculty member) had suggested some people for me to meet, and her list matched the names I'd come up with based on CVs and reading past publications. When I finally got to meet faculty members, they all told me there wasn't much overlap between my research interests and what they do. One professor ("prof A") suggested I talk with "prof B"; I go talk with prof B, and he refers me to somebody else...prof A. Later, a pair of faculty members also told me I wasn't a fit with them, and used the rest of our scheduled meeting time to catch up with each other while I couldn't get an academic word in edgewise. Afterward, I told the program director how the in-person meetings went (she'd asked). She suggested some other people for me to reach out to, so I emailed four professors. I heard back from one person who's retiring next year, but I haven't heard a peep from the other three in the 2+ weeks since. (I've reached out to each professor twice). Overall, I'm feeling pretty discouraged about my fit with the department. It's a smaller program, and I've met or reached out to nearly half the faculty already. It seems like faculty sees me as a great match for the department in general, just working with somebody else. Aside from that, I'm just not feeling like I'm being taken seriously - which is kind of weird, because the department's offering me a research fellowship and ~4k more funding than other members of my prospective cohort.