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

I wouldn't necessarily take the Emory acceptance at face value, @deutsch1997bw and @Qw23. Anyone who posts on the placements page is likely to have stopped by here, and would be unlikely to leave you in the dark. In the same vein, a PSR troll who stops by here would notice that you're really on tenterhooks about Emory... Back to the rankings discussion. I love @StrengthandHonor's response. One of my faculty recommenders (top LAC) served a few stints as provost, and stressed to me that prestige is important, but isn't everything. A mix of probabilistic and deterministic factors are at work: Probabilistic: By virtue of their selectivity, top programs have exceptional students who place well by merit, not by the program's doing. Deterministic: (1) Top programs tend to have more funding, which allows students to attend more conferences and devote more time to research; (2) the quality of one's peers and teachers has an effect on the quality of one's own work; (3) in job searches, name brand might get a candidate past the first round of cuts. Note that only one of the deterministic variables is a direct result of prestige. If you can get ample funding and excellent training in your subfield at a non-CHYMPS school, then a good chunk of elite tier's advantage has been controlled for. I'll also note that it's worthwhile thinking about goals. @StrengthandHonor's comments about happiness apply here. My search was limited to the mid-Atlantic, since my fiancee is tied down in law school for another two years. We're getting hitched this summer, and political science just isn't important enough to ditch my wife. Moreover, if my be-all-end-all was to become the greatest political scientist of a generation, then I would have cast the net further, but as it is, my goals are more modest. I'd be happy teaching 3/2 or 3/3 at a mid-tier public or semi-selective LAC, and make a few worthwhile contributions to my subfield. While Harvard would be amazing, mine is a feasible goal anywhere in the top 30 or 40.

Wouldn't go so far as to say "admissions gold," but yes, it's likely a sign of their interest in you. Well done and good luck!

98% chance the CHYMPS posts are trolls. Those schools could make offers to several separate sets of students, with no discernible difference in quality. It's unlikely that anyone is a "superstar" among their eventual admits, and unlikelier still that adcomms 1) would have identified them as uniquely a superstar in mid-January, and that 2) would break from practice/decorum to extend an early offer. Positive news on my end: I can claim the Stony Brook interview. Really looking forward to it. I'm not sure if anyone else is applying there, given how "nichey" it is to political behavior, but I love the faculty's work and my impression is they treat students well.

I'm settling in for another few weeks of waiting. It's nerve-wracking, though, since so much pivots on what I hear back. I'm getting married in August, so I limited my apps to schools within a couple hours of home. Emotionally speaking, we only have one cross-country move in us, and decided it was best saved for an asst prof offer someday (fingers crossed). There are a couple Ivies nearby, and a few reasonably competitive state schools. My numbers are great, but there's a small but real chance that I could slip through the cracks everywhere. And what then? I'm lucky enough to have a tuition waiver to enroll at a mid-ranked MBA program, but it would be unpleasant shifting to business when I really want to enter the professoriate.

Regrettably, I learned about his letter-writing via illicit means, though none my own. One of those law students asked for an extra letter in a sealed envelope, and then told us about it at a college Dems party. Jerk. (Not that we weren't all curious what this odd duck prof would write.)

I've been keeping anxiety at bay by ignoring it and focusing on other things. But every once and a while -- bam! My grades and scores are more than enough for my safeties, but what if I "missed the mark" elsewhere in my app? I've avoided looking back at my SOPs. I realize I probably sent mixed signals designating American as my subfield, but expressing interest in a few IR profs' work. (My proposed research is foreign policy, so at least the connection makes sense.) I'm pretty sure I included at least one or two AP profs in each letter, but again, I'm afraid to look. And then, there's nothing to do about the recs, but my undergrad adviser was pretty idiosyncratic. Apparently his letters are very factual ("He received [] in my class, better than []% of other students"), so they might play poorly depending on the reader. Then again, he wrote for a few classmates who got into top law schools, so w/e idk etc...