Dwar

That’s what I was wondering as well. The results pages from previous years show a big push of acceptances on a single day, followed by rejections on the following days. So I guess yesterday was that big acceptance day, and now we are getting into rejection days. My portal still says “pending” as well so at this point I’m just assuming a rejection and have already made my peace with it.

Awesome, thank you so much for answering! ill be sure to do that once that first rejection finally arrives.

Hey all, quick question. Is it appropriate to email the faculty member who signed your rejection letter and ask why you were rejected, or what you can to improve your application for future cycles?

Maybe? or it could just be as they enter the decisions into the database. Either way, CONGRATS!!!!

Did you just check the application portal? Mine still says "pending"

Thanks so much for the replies! I really appreciate it and will definitely take it into account when the decisions start to roll in.

Im sorry, I think you misunderstood my question, or I just didn't word it right. I am asking about it on the student end, should the ability to earn certificates or specialization factor into a students decision to attend one school over another? Im sorry if my wording was crappy before.

Thanks for the reply! So would you say that ability to receive a certificates or specializations at a certain school should go into one's admissions decisions?

Hey all, I am wondering what your thoughts are on any "certificates" or "specializations" within graduate programs? I am referring to those additional credentials that one can add in addition to the graduate degree that they receive. Are they useful in either industry or academia? Or do either hiring committees disregard or not really care about them? I am asking because during this nerve racking waiting time I've been scouring the program websites looking for additional information and have come across various certificates or specialization programs within schools, such as college teaching, conflict study, Middle East study, and countless others. They all look super interesting and for some a lot of work, so I am wondering if they actually bring in any real marketable skills or resume improvements, or if one should really only pursue them for intellectual fulfillment?

Sure thing!!

I Believe you are misinformed. I understand the confusion though. When they first posted about dates I believe that they messed up the dates, they meant to say that decisions will come out in late Jan and funding will come out in late Feb. however they posted saying that decisions will come out in late Feb. they have since edited their answer and corrected it. The OSU grad rep also said that they may be sending out interview requests this cycle, but that it was general dependent on the faculty member assigned to the applicant. And since those are generally before the admission decisions, in theory they would be reaching out to students around this time.

Oh wow, thats great to know for any potential interviews in the future. And congratulations on the news!!!!

Ive read on here that OSU may be interviewing or sending out their interview requests around this time. Has anyone heard anything from them? Ive been checking the results page religiously to see if anyone has posted updates on it.

I don't think you need to worry about that, 148 is leagues ahead of 138.

If you don't mind my asking, what kind of work are you interested in doing?

Thanks for your response! and thats my thinking as well, that they are more focused either on professional or academia. Thats not saying that someone with a political science degree can't work in industry or vice versa, but I agree that they seem to put a different emphasis on stuff like that. Although I would kinda disagree with your point about easier acceptance to public policy programs for PhD ones at least. A few of the programs that I looked at (WWS and Goldman), both said that they only admit like 3 or 6 students or some number like that. For masters degrees I assume that the acceptance rates are much higher, but generally speaking those cost an ungodly amount of money and besides WWS they offer limited to no financial aid for the majority of the students.

Hey Guys! I know that this is a bit late for this application season, but I was wondering if you guys had any insight into the main differences between a PhD from a Public Policy School (WWS, HKS, Sanford, Harris, Goldman, Etc) and a PhD from a Political Science department? I mean besides the obvious difference in major, as the Public Policy schools seem to be more focused on specific topics (security studies or development). But besides the difference in major, is there a major difference in the curriculum or the outcome of the students? They seem to have pretty similar placements either in universities or in the non-academic field. Thanks!

oh wow, thanks for that website! that data is so much more informative than what I was looking at. I guess now that I think about it the CU-Boulder data was a bit sketchy, like it didn't seem like they were putting out all of the grad data that they had. those few flashy schools just caught my attention.

Thanks for letting me know! That is what I thought, I guess I was just a bit surprised when I saw that CU-Boulder had placed people at places like UCSD, U-Chicago, and UCLA while they are ranked around 20 places behind UT-Austin. Im not saying that UT-Austin has poor placement, just that from that I saw they didn't have those types of flashy names that I had noticed at CU-Boulder. (Where I found my data) CU-Boulder: https://www.colorado.edu/polisci/graduate/about UT-Austin: https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/government/graduate/job-placement-services/Job Placement.php

Hey all, Does rank correlate with placement? by that I am asking if on average does the higher ranking of a program correlate with better placement of its grads? In theory this should be true, right? like the obvious thinking is that the higher ranked a program is, the better placement its grads will have. But then there are cases that I've noticed where top 20 programs have fairly poor placement, or lower ranked schools have pretty high placement, so does it really matter? Also, I realize that you can obviously get great placement even if you go to a lower ranked program, I am talking more about on average. While I'm sure there are other examples of this, I am referring specifically to two cases, UT-Austin being ranked in the top 20 and having a fairly poor placement record and CU-Boulder being in the 40 range while having a pretty good placement record.

Thanks for answering! I really appreciate it!

Worries: My main worry is my REALLY poor GRE Q score, I studied with a tutor for about a month and a half before the exam, but still managed to screw it up. Im in political science so I was hoping that the Q score wouldn’t matter as much as the other ones, but now I am starting to think that it does and am freaking out over it. It’s obviously too late to retake the test as all of the application dates have passed, and honestly I am not sure I would do any better. During undergrad I did take two different methods courses and performed pretty well in them, I also really enjoyed it. Im really hoping that those courses will help to offset the poor Q score. With that in mind, I am worried that I have let myself become too attached to one of the schools that I applied to, granted I thought it was more of a match score, but now I am afraid that if I get rejected ill be crushed. I am also afraid that I applied to schools way out of my league. I tried to be realistic with where I applied, by looking at the various schools and their average scores. I though that I applied to a good mix of schools, with some reach, some match, and two safety schools. But after looking at the results page on this website and the forums in general I am starting to freak out and am afraid that I won’t get in anywhere! When looking at the stats it seems that everyone has higher GRE scores than I do, higher GPA’s, and publications. Another thing that I am worried about is the viability of one of my schools. I applied to two safety schools, and one of them is ranked in the upper 80’s and I am afraid that if I get in it won’t be worth it to go to that School. They don’t publish a full list of their placements so I am afraid that if I go then after 5+ years I’ll have very little to show for it. The last thing that I am worried about is the stipends given out. Only one program actually says how much money they give to grad students as a stipend, but the other ones are all very vague about it. I am afraid that even if I do get into a school than I won’t be given enough money to live on and be forced to turn it down. Excitement: I am excited to leave my undergrad program and start somewhere fresh. I’ve never really lived alone and I hope to come next year. I am also really excited because besides that one aforementioned program that I am worried about, all fo the other programs look awesome and I would be absolutely thrilled to go to any of those schools! I have some ideas about papers to write that I am really excited about and I hope to research them while in grad school. I am also excited about living somewhere else, I’ve spent my entire life living in the same state and the idea of leaving it and going somewhere else all by myself is so exciting!

Do you know if they will be conducting interviews at all?

Oh, cool, cool. I was about to say that its a bit too late for some programs if you were looking at a fall 2019 start. but for fall 2020 start its all good.

What cycle are you looking at? this current one that would lead to starting school in the upcoming fall 2019 semester? or the next one that would lead to a fall 2020 start?