BobBobBob

For all of us looking for motivations/confidence boost:
https://www.princeton.edu/~joha/Johannes_Haushofer_CV_of_Failures.pdf
https://twitter.com/mwalibali/status/960882000163897345
 

Looks like you are pretty set on coming to MAPSS. Then a lot of your questions will be answered once you are in the program.
Workload is pretty heavy. I took two substantive and one method class every quarter. That's usually two 20-page papers and one final exam/project for finals. If you are in theory then you will probably write three papers every quarter. I think this is generally how heavy it is for Masters/pre-candidacy PhD.
I didn't choose graduate housing. There are plenty of housing options in Hyde Park. I would say housing here ranges from $500-$900/person in a 2b2b. 
I took a lot of classes with the same people and we got to know each other pretty well as the year went along. I think this is generally true for other people as well. The graduate students here are really nice, didn't treat me any differently.
I'm not sure what you want to know about workshops. I'm not in theory so I can't say much about theory workshops.
 
I think it's probably more important to know that MAPSS is a fairly large program so it's possible that one can just ride along/not put in as much effort.  It's a very good program but you have to bring the best out of you to stand out/be successful in PhD application. For those that stick to the end and apply for PhDs, MAPSS has a 90% placement record for funded offers. I know this year there are CP people who got into schools like Princeton/Berkeley/MIT/UChicago. Maybe those familiar with theory can jump in on this.
Good luck!

Looks like you are pretty set on coming to MAPSS. Then a lot of your questions will be answered once you are in the program.
Workload is pretty heavy. I took two substantive and one method class every quarter. That's usually two 20-page papers and one final exam/project for finals. If you are in theory then you will probably write three papers every quarter. I think this is generally how heavy it is for Masters/pre-candidacy PhD.
I didn't choose graduate housing. There are plenty of housing options in Hyde Park. I would say housing here ranges from $500-$900/person in a 2b2b. 
I took a lot of classes with the same people and we got to know each other pretty well as the year went along. I think this is generally true for other people as well. The graduate students here are really nice, didn't treat me any differently.
I'm not sure what you want to know about workshops. I'm not in theory so I can't say much about theory workshops.
 
I think it's probably more important to know that MAPSS is a fairly large program so it's possible that one can just ride along/not put in as much effort.  It's a very good program but you have to bring the best out of you to stand out/be successful in PhD application. For those that stick to the end and apply for PhDs, MAPSS has a 90% placement record for funded offers. I know this year there are CP people who got into schools like Princeton/Berkeley/MIT/UChicago. Maybe those familiar with theory can jump in on this.
Good luck!

Advice from Lego G. Student:
 

We bring in a lot of people from CIR, actually. Terrific program.

Jumping in, FWIW: The main purpose for a waitlist is to manage the risk of having a class that's too small, and it takes a fair number of early responses before you can meaningfully assess that risk. So a DGS who does go to the waitlist often does so late in the game and is hoping that the invitee will say "yes." If you truly know that you would come if accepted, therefore, it can be to your advantage to tell the DGS. If you're not sure, letting the DGS know where you stand can't hurt.

@BobBobBob it really depends on your lifestyle but rent goes around 700 if you live with a roommate (at least in my case). Food + entertainment is around 500 k. And other expenses around 300. (Aside from expenses, monthly income tax will be around 300). As I have said, summer funding really adds up so I am sure you will survive.
But yeah, Duke's funding, from what I heard, is probably the most generous you will find.

There's a great deal of variation. For example, NYU has no teaching requirements and students get paid extra on top of their funding to TA. Most private (and some public) programs have some combination of X years fellowship and X years TA responsibilities, but they vary in those combinations (some programs you may not have to TA at all, some programs only one year, some a couple of years, others multiple or all). Usually, when you have X amount of years of TA service, you don't get paid any differently than the fellowship years, but again, every program is different. 
RA work has no real logic to it. It can be supplemental, can be funded through the professor's grant, or could replace TA responsibilities. 

She said Yes!!! She is Yale. Claiming an admit, slightly hysterically. 
Edit: notified by POI email. 

Dear Mr.,
It is with delight I inform you,
The submitted application is under review.
Acceptance it is not,
As you may have first thought.
In fact,
Decision will be due,
In a month or two.
But we may place you on a waitlist,
Just to see if we are the school,
You really wanted to go to.

Dear Mr.,
It is with delight I inform you,
The submitted application is under review.
Acceptance it is not,
As you may have first thought.
In fact,
Decision will be due,
In a month or two.
But we may place you on a waitlist,
Just to see if we are the school,
You really wanted to go to.

Unfortunately
Unfortunately, we cannot... Unfortunately
Are unable to recommend... 
We attract the best: brighter, younger things. 
We cannot extend
An invitation to you, unfortunately. 
Many thousands of qualified applicants — 
And then there’s you.
What’s a committee to do? 
Dossiers on dossiers, friends of friends
Commend them to us in the millions:
The quickest, steeliest, wiliest applicants you’ve ever seen, 
Sharp-elbowed and ravenous.
They’ve got the stuff, and what it takes. 
But not you.
We can’t say yes, and them’s the brakes. 
Somewhere else you’d do — 
Just not with us. Unfortunately.  
 

Dear Mr.,
It is with delight I inform you,
The submitted application is under review.
Acceptance it is not,
As you may have first thought.
In fact,
Decision will be due,
In a month or two.
But we may place you on a waitlist,
Just to see if we are the school,
You really wanted to go to.

Dear Mr.,
It is with delight I inform you,
The submitted application is under review.
Acceptance it is not,
As you may have first thought.
In fact,
Decision will be due,
In a month or two.
But we may place you on a waitlist,
Just to see if we are the school,
You really wanted to go to.

Dear Mr.,
It is with delight I inform you,
The submitted application is under review.
Acceptance it is not,
As you may have first thought.
In fact,
Decision will be due,
In a month or two.
But we may place you on a waitlist,
Just to see if we are the school,
You really wanted to go to.

Dear Mr.,
It is with delight I inform you,
The submitted application is under review.
Acceptance it is not,
As you may have first thought.
In fact,
Decision will be due,
In a month or two.
But we may place you on a waitlist,
Just to see if we are the school,
You really wanted to go to.

Much kudos to you. Another legend on this forum, second only to @CambridgeHeismanLord

Compared to IPE/CPE, I believe Michigan has more/better faculty in IR/Security and political psychology for sure, so it may not be my top choices. 

Things that I think prospective students who are visiting programs should avoid discussing:
- Starting arguments about politics or things not really relevant to the program (I see that you are in political science, so maybe some topics are more appropriate than others)
- Harassing other visiting students or current students
- Speak disparagingly or inappropriately about other students, faculty members, other schools you've visited, etc.
- Boast about your other accomplishments or other acceptances (for some reason, I seem to notice sometimes there are one or two prospective students are often trying to one-up the others)
- Go on and on about how much another place (whether it's another school you visited or your current school) is better than the school you're currently visiting
I hope the above is all common sense and falls under basic etiquette! 
There are also things that I think one should be careful while discussing but not necessarily avoid completely. It's a matter of discussing it in the right way or with the right person.
- Finances are okay to talk about but it is tricky and you have to find the right way to do it. I think it's more appropriate to discuss this with a current grad student than it is to discuss this with another prospective student. But you kind of have to judge it yourself: some people are going to be more comfortable discussing specifics than others. I think if you are comparing packages just to figure out if you have the best one or not, then that might make people uncomfortable (or if it seems like you are doing that). But if you are asking and discussing finances from the perspective of trying to figure out if you have enough to live on, then that's usually more acceptable. It might also be easier to have this discussion after the visit is nearly over and you have heard from people like the department head or the graduate coordinator. This is because these people might explain how the funding structure in the department works. For example, at my PhD school, it is very simple: everyone gets exactly the same stipend and funding package.
- Negative aspects of the program. It's important to learn about what makes people unhappy as well as what makes them happy. While I am always happy to be honest with visiting students because I want them to make the best choice for them, rather than just get them to come here, there are right ways to ask this as well as wrong ways! Sometimes people just point-blank ask me something like, "What is something you hate about your department?" and they won't get a useful answer out of me. Instead, I think it's better to talk to current students to get to know them first and they will usually share more as they get to know you. Also, if you have specific concerns, you can ask them a neutral question about the topic (e.g. instead of "Is the teaching load too high?" you can ask, "how do you find the teaching load? is it manageable?" etc.)
- Similarly, if you want to know about the bad attributes of various faculty members, don't ask it upfront. It's better to have these discussions privately with students since you will be more likely to get a sincere and useful answer if the student isn't worried that what they tell you will end up hurting them. So, they won't say the most candid things if they don't know you at all and maybe not while they are in the department / during the day (i.e. wait until the social events). Also, in the list of "don'ts" above, don't repeat what they said to other people or other schools. If students hear you telling people about all the negative things you learned about School X or Prof Y then they will correctly assume that you'll be just as indiscrete with the information they might provide you.
Overall, make sure you balance the tricky topics with things that are easier to talk about and leave a more positive impression of you. Try to keep the sensitive topics only to things that are critical to your decision making. This is going to be the first impression you leave on many other people and then they won't see you again for months, so if you leave a really bad impression, it has months for the impression to solidify in people's minds. So, stay professional, stay positive!

Much kudos to you. Another legend on this forum, second only to @CambridgeHeismanLord

Hey all, claiming an informal phone admit this morning to Harvard Kennedy Political Economy and Government, applying for the political science track. Don't know if anyone else here applied but feel free to PM me if you did. I applied for both this and the GSAS Gov. program which I haven't heard back from yet. Best of luck to other applicants.

As usual, n=1. So take this with a grain of salt. I committed to School A, only to get off the waitlist at School B on maybe April 16. A couple of weeks later I asked to be let off the hook from School A and committed to School B. Everyone at School A (and at School B, for that matter) was extremely gracious, kind, and understanding. The program administrator at School B liaised with their counterpart at School A so that I wouldn't have to worry about the bureaucracy and could focus instead on making my decision and talking to my POIs at both schools. When I decided to go to School B, I contacted the people I had met with at School A. I didn't go into too much detail, but I did say where I was going, I thanked them profusely, I said I was genuinely sad that I wasn't joining their program, and I noted that personal factors played an important role. I said I hoped we could stay in touch. All of that was sincere.  Every single person wrote back. Like I said, every single person was gracious, kind, and understanding.
So that's my story.* Maybe I got really lucky with the folks I met at School A. Maybe I was also lucky in the sense that, given my profile, the switch made a lot of sense. Maybe. But I still think the things I did right are transferable: Act in good faith. Be honest. Be forthcoming. Get help from administrators. And know that, as I said above, faculty and administrators everywhere know that this is just how the game is played. Try to worry less about pissing someone off and more about making sure that you make the right decision. It's one of the most important you'll ever make.
By the way: if there are other people, not at School A or B, who have been supporting you / following you in this crazy adventure, make sure to keep them in the loop too if you decide to make a last-minute switch. They'll appreciate it. 
*I'm not super comfortable publicly sharing more than what I've already said, but feel free to message me if you want to chat more. 
 

For those who like different rankings than US News, Foreign Policy along with TRIP released their 2018 Inside the Ivory Tower rankings for those of us interested in IR. Variance between this and US News is actually pretty high, specifically outside the usual suspects.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/02/20/top-fifty-schools-international-relations-foreign-policy/

Thank you @encyclopediabrown! This is the most informative piece I've read in a while. It sounds like there isn't one thing that can make all the difference for an applicant. So in the end do applicants simply get a score based on GRE/GPA/SOP etc. and the top x percent get in?

Hi everyone! I’m a junior faculty member who served on an admissions committee this semester. While it's fresh in my mind I thought I might share some thoughts in case it's helpful for future applicants. Of course, this is just my limited perspective. (And much of what’s useful has been said before by others.) For some context, I’m at a highly selective program that accepts around 5 percent of applications. I’m sorry not to be more specific but since I’m untenured I’d rather stay anonymous for now!
First and foremost, you are an extremely accomplished and well-qualified group! It was a real pleasure reading the applications. There were around two dozen applicants who had perfect or close to perfect GRE scores and around 100 applicants who had GPAs of 3.9 or above. More impressive than the numbers, to me, were the many applicants who had compelling research agendas, interesting work or research experience, strong technical and language skills, strong writing skills, or who overcame significant barriers to get where they are.
1. Numbers: We didn’t have a strict cutoff for the GRE. Many made it to the second round and received careful consideration with low GRE scores. However, our admitted students mostly had scores in the 160s in both sections. Similarly, GPAs were generally high. But we admitted a number of people with GPAs below 3.5 and by necessity could not take the vast majority of applications with near-perfect GPAs.
2. Recommendation letters: The content of the letters is out of your control, but the strongest files have three letters from writers who are all professors of political science and who taught the applicant in a seminar in which she got an A (not an A- or below). It often helped if the professor had significant contact with the applicant outside of class in office hours or, more rarely, RA work. By the way, if the course is not complete yet (for example, you are applying in Fall 2018 and taking your first course with that professor in Fall 2018) I would suggest you don’t ask unless you really need to. These letters are sometimes pretty weak.
3. Statements: In my case, I was looking at two things. First, I wanted to know your research interests. You don’t need one specific question, and in fact introducing a broad set of questions or general research area is most realistic since we know your interests will change in graduate school. It is important that you show you know what political science research is. It helps if you can tie that to previous academic work, professional experiences, or skills you’ve developed. Second, I wanted to get a sense if you’re a good writer. This is really important in our profession. By the way, so many statements start out with some kind of anecdote. There is nothing wrong with this, but most of the time I did not find these compelling so in my view you can skip these. Starting out with a set of research questions is a safe alternative. Finally, please help us out by flagging at the end of your statement who you’d like to work with. Not sure who is an active mentor in your area? Look at the Ph.D. placements page and check who is serving on committees. (Downside: some of these people are overburdened and some good advisers have joined the department too recently to have advisees on the market.)
4. Writing sample: I looked at the abstract and intro to see if you are a good writer, the tables and figures to get a sense of technical skills, and I glanced at the rest to see if you have language/area skills (I was mostly reading files in comparative).
5. Subfield: The subfield you select in your application can have a big impact on who sees your file and who you're compared to. So think carefully about your primary and secondary subfields.
Hope this is helpful! Good luck to all, you are an impressive group!
EDIT: Forgot to mention subfield.