ArcierePrudente

1. Yes, that was an inappropriate response 2. Yes, you should discuss the incident with your advisor -- not so much to receive a spanking as to put your mind at ease and figure out any field/subfield-specific steps for going forward (I'm not sure how small your discipline's scholarly circle is, for instance, and different disciplines have different codes of decorum) 3. ...'A weasel and a scoundrel'? Personally, I would print that response, frame it, and possibly consider getting business cards made.

No. I went to Chicago for my MA and throughout the year worked with a handful of Committee faculty as well as students. I never received the impression that students were at all involved in evaluating applications.

It's a small program, and it's happened before that no CST admits have posted on GC -- just non-admits (check previous years and you'll find a few instances of this being the case). It's even more difficult to suss out whether admission notifications have been sent, since sometimes they notify everyone all at once, and sometimes they do a weird stagger-dance. Afraid I can't read between the lines on this one...

Clarification: did they mention they’d notified admitted students yet? Sorry about your news, though. Always a bummer.

Word. I’m still waiting to hear from them as well. They’re not typically this late in announcing admissions, so I’m not exceptionally optimistic, but then again they often notify admits and non-admits at the same time and the results board has been totally quiet for them thus far (o hi trolls reading this who will now post admission stats...) Guess we’ll see relatively soon, eh? Best of luck to both of us. Congratulations on putting yourself out there.

I'd defer to @scarseed. I want to classify it as more continental, but in some cases, it almost feels like evaluating analytic philosophy through a continental lens (or vice versa).

Ooh. My very limited knowledge of US Political Science programs writ large, and my only slightly less limited knowledge of new materialism, tells me Duke may still be a good bet for you. Depending on how different things play out over the next few years, both within and beyond the university, I can even see Chicago going more in this direction—maybe not department-wide, but you'd see more people specializing in it. Perhaps. I'm not sure about this final one—and it might be too outside political theory—but what about History of Consciousness at UCSD? Karen Barad might be doing something there. You'd know better than I.

Ran out of reactions for today (eek) but ^this. Aside from not having shrimp allergies (but I'm veggie, so shrimp is a non-starter anyhow) and wanting to know a little more about the 'power/respect' point (though I might still agree)... yes. Also, using emojis instead of words. There was actually a really freaky episode of the Ricky Gervais podcast ages and ages ago where Karl Pilkington 'predicts' the future, everyone balks at him, and now just about everything he talks about—including our regression to hieroglyphics via emojis—has since come to pass in one way or another.

Please don't take this as me trying to polish a cow turd (i.e., the fact that 'striking out' can be really devastating). I just wanted to say that maybe you're similar to me in that the actual creative/introspective elements of the application process were really fun. I dug writing my personal statements, it was fun to revise my writing sample, I got to admire my CV, say nice things about myself, and be grateful for how far I've come, regardless of where I go next. Hopefully you learned a lot about what you love, and thought about how to pursue those things through a variety of avenues—not just grad school, although this doesn't have to be the end of the road for you either as far as that's concerned. It's definitely sad when you put a lot of time, effort, energy, and faith into something and seemingly get nothing in return. In fact, that's universally really shitty and I'm sorry it happened to you this time (it may also happen to me—we'll see in a couple weeks). But I'd definitely try again this fall, if that still seems worthwhile to you. Personally, as I continue to wait, I'm trying to bring what I love to wherever I am/whatever I'm doing, and I hope you do the same.

First, congratulations again! Second, was it Kathy's name in the 'sender' line? I'm thinking of biting the bullet and checking my email this weekend, since a closer scrutiny of the results board reveals the other department I'd been waiting on sometimes doesn't notify until the tail end of the month. ...But since I haven't checked my email for about a week now, my inbox is bound to be pretty messy, and I'd like to expedite the process via the handy-dandy Search function. Do you mind me asking you for at least part of the sender's name, so I know what to look for? (I can't type 'Chicago'; having lived there, I still get too much crap from Groupon and Yelp.)

I just snorted. Audibly. At work. Everyone is looking at me.

If you're feeling gutsy, you can reach out to a POI, especially if you've made contact already. Technically, the Grad Admissions Office is right: acceptances/rejections are not official until early March, when offers are posted on portals, etc. This is because some departments have waiting lists, and there are random housekeeping issues/loose ends that need to be tied up/other technicalities I neither know nor understand nor care to, and they can't definitively tell you it's over—because they themselves don't know—until that date. So I'd say a POI is your best bet for the moment.

Unfortunately, this varies so much it's virtually impossible to say. Some departments will send them out all at once; others will 'stagger' them by subfield; still others will send out a wave of offers to their first tier of applicants, follow with a second, and so on. This can also change, within the same school, from year to year. The way this uncertainty--over how different universities notify applicants of admissions decisions--plays out on GradCafe has made me want to start trending the hashtag #maybetheyrestaggering

@Asaid It's more that I ask myself how I could bear with the decision letter NOT being in my inbox, and having to decide how much faith to place in Social Thought admitting me (a statistical near-impossibility, all things being equal). I'd prefer it all over and done with at once. @Ayerbender I'd expect the adcomm for MAPSS is different from the adcomm for the poli-sci PhD. And I'd also expect that no one is actually going to deny admission just because you asked a question. As I understand it, the individual who responds to queries is not responsible for candidates' admission. As for contact information, I don't have that handy, but the Social Sciences graduate admissions website should have an email address there.

Again, I'm not sure what their policy is on wait lists this year. It never hurts to ask! (Think of it this way: the decision is already made; you risk nothing by bugging them. )

"First two weeks of March" applies to official decisions/rejections. Most departments notify admits prior to that.

They don't usually stagger from what I've seen/heard. You never know, of course. (I'd like to be more helpful, but I haven't checked my account since before admits started posting, because I'm a coward and would like to know the Poli Sci and Social Thought results at the same time.) They've also had waitlists in prior years, but that was a while ago -- it may be worthwhile to check!

And that's my cue to not check my email until Social Thought follows suit. I don't want to risk two emotional rollercoasters. Congrats to those who did brave their inboxes and saw something good!

I mean, I guess we don't know, since that's kind of like saying 'raise your hand if you aren't here' ND technically does admissions until April, although those who receive an admit after a certain point were likely on the waiting list prior to that... not sure when that 'certain point' actually is. In other news, I propose that everyone waiting on Chicago makes it a point to actively expect acceptances NOT to be released this week. Otherwise we'll have to admit we can't actually control the outcome by ourselves, and I'm not ready to do that yet.

Gaah.

It's only just 4PM in Chicago... Heavens. I mean Purgatory. Maybe even the first circle, with all the virtuous Pagans. I wouldn't call it a rejection at all. Regardless of whether it was a sincere 'we haven't got the funding'—or a money-hungry attempt to gouge you for what you have left after all those application fees—they wouldn't admit someone they weren't interested in investing their time in (as well as, quite likely, at least some of their money). But this actually brings up a question I have on the subject of funding. On a couple of my apps, I was asked what I thought I'd be able to contribute financially toward my own PhD studies. I gave an honest projection (conservative, but not cringingly paltry) and have been second-guessing myself ever since. Could the amount I entered be used to take me out of the running, simply because an adcomm deemed me 'too expensive'? Or would they be more likely to send an offer of admission (if they dug me), state whatever funding they were willing to provide, and leave it up to me to determine whether or not I could afford it?

I want to say yes (we should) and no (you aren't), but we live in a world where Donald Trump is President, the Eagles won the Super Bowl, and an actress showed up to an awards show wearing a $300 shirt that said 'Poverty is Sexism.' So at this point, I'm willing to entertain the most absurd outcome for just about anything. Kidding-not-kidding aside, inexplicable waiting times are sort of par for the course in academia, so you can think of this as training, if that makes it any better. I have some Stoic meditations that really help during times like these. Social Thought tends to release admission decisions later than Poli-Sci (I think the earliest they've released has actually been the 9th), so I'm less confused about their timeline this year. That said, I've deliberately not reached out to anyone since applying, and am keeping my distance from my personal email account. At this point I'm liable to over-analyze any communication I have with anyone there, and that helps no one.

Alexandria is really wonderful -- it has a little bit of everything: Old Town, Carlyle, Del Ray, parks, water, and city life. Depending on how active you are, everything is pretty much within walking distance (which is rare considering the standard DMV sprawl!). If you know where to look, cost of living is also decent, and your neighbors will probably be pretty respectful/quiet, seeing as there are a lot of military and government workers who reside there (in addition to several academics). Certain parts of Arlington are also pretty rad.

If we don't hear from Chicago today, I think it's safe to assume that they hated everyone's applications and decided to admit 0 people this year. ...Kidding. Mostly. Kidding. Hah. (Edit: Of course, we did just invite a swarm of trolls with this, so.)

Hey -- while it's unfortunately pretty normal to feel directionless (and worse) in the event of total rejection (I want to make sure to normalize that piece), I also want to echo that if you're truly feeling like your life won't be worth living if you aren't admitted to a PhD program at the end of this particular cycle, it's really worth talking about with someone, face-to-face. This can be heartbreaking. And I believe you that a lot of shit has gone wrong in your life, and none of us knows your story or how that contributed to the feelings that you're having right now. You have triumphed, though, taking all that pain into account--you got an MA, you did research, you worked, and you put your heart into something that mattered so deeply to you with no guarantee of any type of reward. That's bold, and that indicates a real sense of meaning and power in spite of the dread and stagnation that you're feeling right now. No one can take that away from you. Do feel free to vent. And please be as good to yourself as you can right now.