swampyankee

NYU and Rutgers

Still waiting on NYU, as well, which is frustrating. I'm pretty far along with researching my other options, and want to make a decision soon!

Oh hey lookie there that probably doesn't mean anything right haha? Ah well.

Same here. Someone a page back was accepted to Columbia in the American subfield. So the deck is not stacked favorably. But with several rejections posted as well, hope springs eternal.

Me three.

I know it's not your main point, but I definitely feel this. I have two offers from good public programs, and with each rejection I get from an elite private, a little piece of me smiles. I acknowledge the benefits that an elite program confers, but feel like I'd do better and be happier in a lower-pressure environment.

Yessir. A few people have already claimed acceptances, so my expectations are tempered, but I'm eager to hear one way or another.

It ain't over til the fat lady sings. No, I wouldn't assume anything.

Nope. I spent three years in enrollment, recruiting for a SLAC and on the back-end for a large private university. By and large, the procedural parts of your application (portals, uploads, etc.) are not controlled by the people reading your application, and sometimes the two departments don't even communicate very much. It's really best to default to the "most likely explanation," and not worry too much. With Yale and Columbia, a systems administrator either left the upload option open by mistake, or perhaps in case the AdComm asks for an addendum from someone. Your file will be reviewed in its proper order with whatever materials you most recently uploaded at that time.

Got a "no" from Princeton, and eerily no word from NYU. Rejection sucks, but I'm getting in the habit of looking it in the eye. We're going to hear "no" a lot from journal editors and search committees. The time is ripe to perfect our defiant poses.

Not too great, pal. But like they say in baseball, "as long as you got a jersey, you got a shot." Disappointed not to have heard anything from Princeton. Obviously, it was my largest "reach," but I am anxious to get into a top-20 program. The first one (should it come) will be a huge relief. Placement is pretty good at my current offers (both around USNWR #30), but not nearly as strong as further up the ladder.

Also got a Penn State accept, as well as one of the Stony Brooks posted earlier in the week. Very excited to know grad school is for real now!

Agreed. The rankings discussion is consequential, and may be helpful to our soon-to-come decisions, whereas "who heard what from where and how by whom" is an IV drip of anxiety. Not that I blame anyone for being anxious! *wipes sweat from brow* @csantamir, my impression is "yes," though if you're applying to a lower-ranked program, I'd talk to some of the students and get a sense of their focus. Some don't provide much funding, or tie it to so much teaching that research becomes secondary.

I realize how anxious people are to hear about their specific programs, but I appreciate @DreamersDay's return to the rankings question. I actually think it's a valuable discussion as we decide where to enroll, and for anyone in future years who might stumble upon this thread. @Comparativist, thanks for linking to those articles. They cite two studies: Oprisko's on Politicial Science placement, and Clauset, Arbesman, and Larremore's on placement across Business, Computer Science, and History. Both attribute about half of tenure-track placement to the top dozen or so programs in their respective fields. But here's my problem: Oprisko focuses on the 116 institutions that granted PhDs at the time. Clauset, Arbesman, and Larremore look at faculty at 242 institutions. The number of four-year colleges in the U.S. is slightly over 3,000. Granted, I cannot imagine happily working at two-thirds of them. Many require an arduous teaching load and/or are in financial peril. I think there is a lot of dissonance between the fact that graduate school is all about research, and that the higher education market is primarily about... education... so, teaching. Hiring faculty to do research is, to be honest, somewhat philanthropic, and it makes sense that there are only 100-150 institutions where one can expect political science research to be half or more of their work. And that the top 10-15 programs would fill most of those institutions' positions. I agree, then, @Comparativist, that it is very difficult to become a big-name political scientist from outside the elite tier. Does that mean everyone else is doomed? Well, what is doomed? There are several hundred more institutions worth working at, so long as one is willing to balance research with a heavy dose of teaching. I linked to the FSU, Iowa, and George Washington placement pages, and you and @BigTenPoliSci questioned the trustworthiness of such lists. So, I verified the North American academic placements listed for each institution's graduates over the past five years. Out of 63, only four cases were overstated. The vast majority were perfectly accurate. I'd be happy to share specifics via PM. I happen to be friends with one of these institutions' graduates, whose placement was less impressive than the school's median. He has to live in a remote location, but gets paid decently at a well-run institution. He just finished a book and earned tenure. Overall, I'd trade places with him, and I agree with @toad1 that his students would be poorer if he'd listened to the naysaying. Of course, @toad1 alluded to the limits of this logic, and I agree wholeheartedly. APSA lists 131 PhD programs in Political Science. Attending programs in the bottom half of that list (however you want to cut it: productivity, funding, prestige, etc.) is unlikely to lead to a happy academic career. Looking at placements somewhere at the midpoint -- UConn, Temple, and Georgia -- we see a minority of good placements, but generally have to ask: how dissimilar are most of these jobs from teaching high school, and was it worth five to seven years of extra preparation? @DreamersDay also validly brings up the question of whether graduates from mid-ranked schools more frequently need to take visiting roles before entering the tenure-track. There definitely is a threshold below which it is unwise to attend. But "CHYMPS (or top 10 or top 20) or bust," as @toad1 stated, looks at academia through a very narrow, elite lens.

I agree with @toad1. Lots of excellent profs come out of programs that aren't in the top 20. Few top scholars, of course, because the programs don't attract the top talent and have fewer resources. But non-elite programs offer viable paths. I looked at the placement pages of three schools to which I'm not applying (so less self-investment), and which are a good cut under the top 20. Here's where we get the following gripes: "Placement pages are incomplete." --probably, but no intentional misinformation or omissions "Doesn't count how many people don't finish." --sure, but that number can vary anywhere Those points aside, we notice that more grads end up in government, consulting, or big data than at the top 20. That said, the jobs look pretty good -- probably in the six digits -- and so while grad school was an inefficient use of time, neither did they have to spend 50-120K earning an elite MPA. Among those in academia, the majority of placements are at directional schools and LACs. They won't be big-name political scientists, but will have happy careers as teacher-scholars. A few turkeys at for-profits, so watch out. But several more with very enviable, tenure-track jobs: Tulane, Johns Hopkins AIS, Naval War College, Missou, UMass-Boston, Georgia Tech, Cincinnati, Arkansas, Houston, Creighton, Kentucky, Texas A&M, West Point, Miami-Ohio, UNC-CH, Tennessee, Iowa State, ... Ultimately, no one is going to grad school for big bucks and job security. Take this journey because of the joys involved -- the intangible benefits. But this is not the MFA Creative Writing forum. A social science PhD has economic value. The academic job market is tight, but not impossible, and there are plenty of opportunities outside of it as well. I try to do very careful research about commitments as large as these, and I haven't seen any compelling evidence from the "CHYMPS or bust" crowd. https://clas.uiowa.edu/polisci/graduate/recent-placements https://coss.fsu.edu/polisci/ph-d-alumni https://politicalscience.columbian.gwu.edu/sites/politicalscience.columbian.gwu.edu/files/downloads/GW Political Science Placement Data.pdf For further review: the most recent graduate placement report from APSA http://www.apsanet.org/Portals/54/Users/220/92/28892/GPS.PlacementReport.FINAL.020817.pdf?ver=2017-02-08-161820-687