styliane

Any IHEID alumni lurking around? Maybe?

I clearly agree; I'm mid-MS in physics and switching to IR.

Engineering masters degrees are not much more likely to be funded than IR masters degrees (and most IR candidates are not qualified for an engineering MS).

So is that confirmation that the results posted so far aren’t real?

Not a shock, still stings.

Is there a reason we're assuming admits don't come out over weekends?

With all due respect: the plural of anecdote is not data. The data shows that the GRE underpredicts the academic performance of minority students. Other fields are moving to GRE-optional applications for a reason (e.g. http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/199607/gender.cfm). Do forums overstate the importance of the GRE? Likely; it's the easy thing for us to compare. If schools are really using it heavily, I'm judging them pretty hard tbh. (... and this argument isn't because my GRE score is low; I have a 169V/168Q/5.0W. It's still a bad test that tests nothing. My last GRE required me to know the definition of quotidian on three separate questions; I am pretty damn sure that this indicates exactly nothing about my ability to conduct independent research.)

Not true: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/03/the-problem-with-the-gre/471633/, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5226333/, https://www.nature.com/naturejobs/science/articles/10.1038/nj7504-303a

Any news from UC Davis?

My method was googling the author(s) of every interesting paper I've read for the past year and noting where they work. (that being said: Michigan didn't make my list and probably should have, so like, Mistakes Were Made.)

(but my actual mostly top-10 list was determined by putting a blank piece of a paper in front of my rec letter writers and saying "you know my interests; where should I apply")

As has been remarked on before, there are at least 15 schools in the top 10 and at least 30 in the top 20.

I'm a weird mix of CP/IR/methods. [check your PMs for the rest of my comments; I realized I don't want to identify myself that much because I've already identified my school]

Yeah, top 20 seems fair. [comment redacted for identifying information]

FWIW, more than one of my professors basically told me that if you have any interest in a reasonable post-PhD job, it's top 10 or bust. One of them even straight told up if I didn't get into a top 10 school, I shouldn't go to any lower ranked school; I should work on my CV, rather than trying to make a career out of a [redacted] PhD. That prof is somewhat of a drama llama, but tbh, looking at placements/PSR, he doesn't seem that wrong. Even at the ~15 level, placements start looking worse. I applied to [redacted] because a prof there asked me to, but I'm... not sure I'll go if admitted.