JMCrawfordNJ

Something I noticed yesterday, the Northwestern people that were admitted, one was international and the other two after submitted dates as admitted and informed on the 27th when it was still like 9pm EST on the 26th. So maybe Northwestern reached out to international students first? Seems surprising that out of the 4 that posted admit, 3 of them seem likely international, if not all 4. Just thinking out loud. Why else would somebody select a day in advance of the date?

Anybody want to claim that Northwestern acceptance?

Tell me about it. With each passing day this week I've been checking more and more. I'm at "do anything else to distract myself" levels.

Well, I'm not sure the older professors know just how rough it might be post 2008. I know generally the job market has finally started to recover from that, but I lived through the thick of 2008-2012 on the job market before going back to school, and if it's as bad in the academic job market as it was in the general market back then, it's no joke. But the older people who didn't go through it, probably didn't ever notice just how bad it really was.

To be fair to BigTenPoliSci- I had a professor who, while he wasn't one of my letter writers, I did have a lengthy skype call with because he was a much more recent PhD graduate who had a rough time of it as a lecturer before finally getting an associate professor spot, so I felt it would be good to get his input. He echoed a lot of what BigTen was saying in terms of just post 2008 academic world not being for the faint of heart. He offered a lot of words of caution and tempered expectations. I appreciated his frank advisement, but obviously I was going ahead with this anyway because the simple reality this is what I'm passionate about. You could pay me poverty wages and I'd still be happy to do this every day. (Hell, all the reading I've done the last year or two, nobody was paying me for anyway). But yeah, anybody who thinks once they've gotten their PhD that they are "in", best start looking at this the way Navy Seals look at their jobs- "the only easy day was yesterday".

Well yeah, basically I went through the entire department of each school, looking at their specializations. Any remotely related to what I felt I could benefit from I put into a list. Schools that had enough people that might be a fit, I went through all their CV's and looked for any interesting articles. Schools that had more than one person who had material I felt was engaging and might want to study under made the list. But I started out with schools that were recommended to me by letter writers. So out of the final list of 4 I came up with, two are ones that were recommended to me and thus have a bit more preference than the two that were not.

This too. The first thing I did was get school suggestions from my rec writers. Those were the schools I researched first and gave the most weight to. But I checked out every school that was ranked top 45, minus places like princeton, stanford, harvard, etc.

I also looked at it like this which is why my "top 10" exclusion was really more like the big name top 5-6 schools that will get slammed with applications. Also why I gave some wiggle room out to the top 40 because some of those programs might be really good at a specific subfield that I'm interested in. Like if I limited to top 20 US News ranking, I probably would have only applied to 2 schools. I wanted to apply to a minimum of 5, but 4 was all I came up with when looking for a good fit for my interests. That's how it goes.

I'd like to think so. I probably wouldn't have applied if I didn't think that was the case.

No doubt. My quant I would say is outright low at 153. And the verbal isn't much better at 160. But I simply didn't have the credit limit to go taking it again (let alone the actual money to afford it). I'm barely hitting the minimums listed on the site for Northwestern. I know the GRE is a weak spot in my application but hopefully as long as I made it past the initial cut, the rest of the application will stand out enough. If things go for the worst this application season for me, I just take it as an expensive lesson learn for the next round when 2018-2019 rolls around and I apply again.

I know what was said about the top 10 thing, but I think the reality probably shows that hustle will outperform where you went to school fairly consistently. It's just that those who tend to have the highest drive are more likely to end up at the top 10, and therefore more likely to get placed. I stuck with top 40 just because at some point, you do start to sacrifice good professors in the field if you go below a certain point. I stayed out of the top 10 because so many people apply that it becomes a crapshoot. Any little thing can ding you. GRE not being exceptional. Not having research experience. I tried to be economical and reasonable in my approach to where I applied. I'd be fine with any of the 4 schools I applied to because I know I'd put forth maximum effort and feel confident I could produce results in any of those institutions. Wouldn't have applied otherwise. Be confident in the course you took. You did the research. You spent the money. You executed a plan. No need to second guess it. After the results are in you can assess.

I ruled out top 10 because I lacked research experience (didn't realize I wanted to pursue this until my last semester of school because of a class I took), and my sub-par GRE score (160v 153q 4.5awa). I still felt I could shoot for top 10-40 though because my letters of recommendation should be pretty stellar. One said I was one of the brightest students he had in 18 years of teaching. Another is a distinguished prof in the sub-field I'm interested in, and he did an edit of my SOP without prompting saying it was really good and he made a few editorial changes to make it even better. So I'm hoping my strong letters and SOP will carry me in light of my lack of research and meh GRE's. (Oh, I had a 3.87 GPA with a 4.0 in poli sci). Figured I'd chime in since we applied to the same program. I'll be sure to post here the moment I hear anything.

Is it just me or does every day go by a little bit slower than the last? Really hoping Northwestern happens this week, we've waited long enough!

Hey, just made an account, been lurking here for a couple weeks now after failing to stop thinking about "what are my chances" and what I'll be doing for the next 5 to 6 years of my life. I see a couple acceptances are trickling in. I know I've got another week or two minimum before I hear anything from the schools I applied to. Best of luck to everybody and I hope you all get into your dream schools, unless it's my dream school of course, then I hope you choose somewhere else haha.