uncle_socks

I mean I don't buy the "perfect fit" stuff that much OTOH, like I had gotten into plenty of schools where in hindsight, knowing what I know now, have no idea what I'd do and who I'd work with if I went there. Not to mention, interests change as people progress in the program. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that there's this fit-potential kind of tradeoff that they're trying to maximize on, but how programs each evaluate fit or potential is kinda idiosyncratic.

Yield protection in polisci programs is much less severe than for law schools and undergrads. Law schools have crazy high incentives to keep their yield rate high because ranking is everything in that world, whereas political science rankings aren't based on yield rate (and aren't even updated yearly lol). Anecdotally, I have heard of professors from potential PhD programs asking an applicants' letter writers about where they had gotten in (and waitlisting instead of accepting based on that), but I think that's rare -- your letter writer and someone on the committee would have to be pretty close to get away with that, and it's not rejecting either. ETA: the post upthread is a great example of this too -- they want to know you have better offers before passing you over. In PhD admissions, things are somewhat random: like sure, some people get into 80%+ of the top schools they apply to, but a lot of other people at top schools also only got into that one program (or maybe more commonly, got into that one top program and then a couple like 20 ranks lower). Like if I saw someone get into like, Yale but rejected from Wisconsin, I wouldn't assume it's because of yield protection, but rather because committees just evaluated the applicants differently and valued different things. Unlike law schools especially, 90% of the admissions criterion isn't the LSAT/GPA, which are observable to us, so unless you get into all #1-10 but rejected at all #20-30, it's really hard to blame yield protection.

there's a few plausible reasons i think you're not considering. It's not like UCSD has admitted primarily from the WL before so I don't think it's reasonable to think that that's what they're doing now. 1. Someone much more fast (like a dept admin) sends the WL, while professors (notoriously slow) send acceptances 2. There are not a lot of acceptances, and those people aren't on this forum. 3. Acceptances need to go through more admin than waitlists (create funding packages, etc)

yeah uh it's unlikely it's coming out on a weekend

I don't doubt you have a friend that got rejected from a ton of schools, but it's definitely not because of a single B. Schools don't care ***that*** much about grades (I'm at a CHYMPS and have had multiple Bs in undergrad), and I know of people with ~3.5s who have gotten into top schools as well. His other parts of his application probably just weren't as strong as he though they were...ultimately grades are not even close to the most important thing when people make admissions decisions.

People like redemption stories, you'll be ok, especially if literally everything else proves that you're an awesome student.

No one's saying to refresh portals, I agree here, don't refresh portals. You'll get a "check your portal" email almost always right as the portal gets updated, if they update through portals at all. Most places I got into didn't really update portals -- in most cases even after you get accepted/rejected, the portal doesn't update for a little while. My rejections all came through email. I'm saying a "check your portal" email doesn't equal a rejection. The department won't always email you first.

I mean it's true in maybe 85%+ cases but it's not universally true. Stop telling people generalizations that can cause them a TON of anxiety.

This is not true. My cycle was a few years ago but iirc at least maybe Yale and definitely Columbia sent a "check your portal" situation where everyone learned at the same time. ETA: I got into both. That's how I know that the "check your portal" email didn't universally lead to rejection.

I mean no one here can give you the comfort that I think you're seeking. It's going to come down to how much particular schools (especially newly GRE optional schools) weigh the GRE and the explanation statement (let alone your particular own statement), which no one here knows/is willing to reveal. Obviously you know your academic record is good, and your GRE is (relatively) bad. If you don't succeed this year, obviously retake the GRE and get over 160/160 because that's probably what's holding you back. But yeah, I figured I might as well articulate what a lot of the non-response here implies. No one knows how much they'll weigh specific components for you, especially given the circumstances. If you're a total slam dunk aside from the GRE then you'll likely get in places. At the same time, we can't know if you're a total slam dunk because we're not reading your complete app (most importantly, not reading your rec letters) on here. Plenty of near-perfect GPAs apply from top schools to polisci phds every year, so your academic record alone doesn't guarantee that you're one of the tippy-toppest applicants (agnostic of the GRE).

No chance until the dissertation phase. They won't let you take classes online (if they're not mandated to be online, which schools are really trying to avoid), and your advisors will think you're not serious about things if you aren't usually there in person. Not to mention you have to teach at almost all programs, if not all. Once your teaching and coursework is done, yeah you could probably get away with it though you should seriously think about whether not being there in person when you could be (aka not away for literal fieldwork) could harm your friendships, reputation, and sense of community.

I don't think it hurts to reach out, though fair warning: I'm not sure what the GPA norms are in your country, but a "perfect" GPA in PhD programs in the US often doesn't mean too much. For most classes (methods sometimes being the exception), at least in the US, the scale is basically A = average, B = bad, C = drop out. If a perfect GPA is indeed meaningful in your country, I would reach out to departments and also try to mention that the grading standards are more meaningful than in the US. OTOH, if like 50%+ of your cohort is also getting a perfect GPA, I mean you could try updating departments, as this can't hurt. It just might not really make a difference. More broadly, I'm not completely sure how much of an impact really high GPAs have on admissions (esp in between going from a 3.7 to a 4.0 on the 4-scale). Of course it's hard to decorrelate because it's highly correlated with letter quality, GRE, etc., but anecdotally it's clear that there is reasonable variance even in top departments of past GPAs.

Virtually all of this research has a selection problem and is (mathematically) biased and causally useless. Additionally, while polisci encompasses both ends of the verbal-math spectrum with theorists on one side and methodologists on the other, the modal student studies CP and needs to be well-balanced in both being able to comprehend words and understand math. These are non-negotiable skills. This is in contrast to fields where a lot of this "empirical research" on the GRE has been conducted on -- mainly science -- where practical lab work, coding, grant writing, actual science knowledge are obviously more important than reading and math.

very confused about what a grad-level econometrics class that only has a prereq of calc 1 is supposed to be comprised of, but ok. only calc 1 is not really a weakness: in most programs, having had calc 1 in college puts you in above-average math skills coming in. that being said, calc 2 or linear algebra will basically not do you very much good: they're both mostly unnecessary (you'll be taught what you need to know of them in grad school, and there's a lot of stuff that is practically irrelevant unless you want to be a methodologist, in which case, you probably need a lot more than calc 2/linear algebra) and won't matter if you have an awesome quant score. Just focus on getting a high quant score, your coursework is good enough on the coursework side. Basically all top schools are mostly quantitatively-oriented. Quants still do lit reviews btw. Read new papers from faculty in departments, and you'll see how dominating quantitative work is in this field.

eh i disagree with the above. you only get one shot at a phd. you need to do what is best for you. this happens all the time when people get late offers at better places, especially when initial schools make you sign stuff so early. i'm sure you won't be the first or the last to reneg with the london school. they won't be super happy, but they're not going to sue you.

yeah this is normal. if you've already accepted the offer, it is unlikely there will be a visit day. it's very likely that you'll hear from admin once 4/15 has passed (or maybe a little bit later) once the cohort is settled, and they'll give everyone each other's emails and tell you what to expect.

I agree with the post at large but just wanted to highlight that schools are not in conversation in order to admit as efficiently as possible. If Princeton wants someone, and even if they know that person has say, a Harvard offer, Princeton will still make the offer. Likewise, admissions committees aren't constantly asking their colleagues at other schools "Has Bunnies accepted your offer yet? They haven't accepted ours."

NYU is very formal/econometric and is boutique with respect to that bent. They select heavily on demonstrated quantitative ability. When I visited they told me they admitted us all because we have the quant skills that it takes to succeed in their program. Read NYU's own FAQ or Samii's webpage (he also calls it a boutique program) to get some hard evidence of this: they care so much more about quant skills than anyone else. Of course most people with high quant skills don't just do pure methods; they often have substantive interests and go in the job market as an expert in that substantive field, not in pure methods. (And I'm not sure if this is causal, but people who do become methodologists tend to come from CHYMPS.)

They're definitely more "mainstream" than say rochester, but at emory you're still likely within this [political economy very broadly defined] framework. Likely not doing political theory, APD, qualitative stuff.

fwiw nyu and rochester are more boutique than full-service departments, which will hurt them in aggregate rankings. they each do a couple of things really good (and they largely recruit students in those areas so placement is fine), but they're not great once you move outside of those strengths. like in the top 10 schools you could do nearly whatever, from political theory to APD to formal theory to political economy and turn out okay, while the same cannot be said for nyu or rochester (or wustl or sorta emory for that matter).

Modern polling companies would kill for a response rate of 32%. Like if the 32% response rate is what makes you skeptical, you better be super skeptical of basically all survey and experimental inferences within our field.

Yes. You only have one shot to go to grad school. Even if it's mean to the school that first accepted you, if it's a step up, you should take the new opportunity.

yeah i've read every damn page of this thread and i can't think of anyone. people who i seriously thought would sweep this year (here and irl) have like 1 CHYMPS offer. unforunately i'm not very hopeful for waitlist offers, if there aren't a ton of cross-admits, yield is going to be insane everywhere.

I wouldn't say truly permanent. I think the brunt of the pain is on this year. Like, Columbia and UNC aren't closed shop forever, and the schools that are temporarily offering extra paid years for phd students due to covid will have that money back in the department ready to have normal cohort sizes within a couple of years. Departments don't want to get smaller and most will resist long-term downsizing if at all possible. That being said, it's quite normal to get shut out completely one year, and then get into a super top program the next year. It's not abnormal to apply to every top 10 program and only get into Harvard or something.

It's almost always not that students' goals were not to pursue that path, if they knew they reasonably could. The job market sucks. People from top 20 schools are thankful to get TT jobs at directional state schools. Some people really do realize that academic jobs are not for them. But most people who end up in industry (especially if we exclude the small sliver of industry that has starting pay in the six figures) would rather have an R1 job if they had the choice. Schools will very often say stuff like "oh they chose to be in industry, that's why they're not in academia" but it's very often not a true choice if you value getting paid, having a family, and living somewhere semi-desirable.