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Pancho Villa

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Everything posted by Pancho Villa

  1. Oops, I misinterpreted your initial post. Congratulations! Whichever school snatches you up is going to feel mighty proud! Maybe it's something like they've only sent out notifications for those in American, then it would make sense that there could be very few (and maybe just you active here). I suppose the rest of us will hear back before long. I have to admit, I agree with departments that don't send rejections on Valentine's Day?
  2. This does seem sort of odd, despite it being a small program. I figured the admit was you or trinityshot, since it lists a profile (American/Methods/3.9/164/170/5.5) that is an exact match with an admit to many of the other highest ranked programs. Clearly it is someone who is pretty active here, so seems unusual they wouldn't claim it. At any rate, I imagine we'll hear pretty soon.
  3. A generous message, and very well put. I’m so glad you got in. You sound like a dynamite (and unlucky) applicant. Congratulations, I hope today marks the tide changing for you.
  4. I meant to address the gradcafe community at large. To you, congratulations, what an accomplishment!
  5. Exactly. And congratulations!
  6. If you look at hundreds of (accepted) applications each year, over time you learn that (in poli sci and most programs) almost nothing is disqualifying. Truly. At least a handful of your classmates (non theory included) will not have completed a calculus class. Ever. So the one who fails, then gets a B-, often won’t be considered any worse off. Also, right, a B- can mean many things. In my story, for the student who eventually scored ok on the GRE and has a head for methods, it can even signal persistence.
  7. Sorry, I must have given the wrong impression. Plenty of applicants have linear algebra. I meant to say that I have not seen a situation in which it seemed like linear algebra had a strong impact on admission whereas a great letter from a professor who taught a grad quant methods course can be a different story. At any rate great for anyone who has an exceptionally strong math preparation. You will see, when you start your program, this is not the case for all of your classmates, even at top programs.
  8. As someone who has worked in graduate school admissions, and with undergraduate programs aimed at sending students to graduate school, at two tippy top schools (for all fields falling within arts and science), I can confidently say you are both overestimating the impact of math classes (for all but physical sciences, math, and economics), at least as it relates to admission to the Ph.D. You are probably also overestimating the importance of quant GRE, which is often overlooked if it meets some threshold - often around 155 - as long as some other evidence of quant skill is presented (I discuss forms this can take further down). Having a bunch of math will always look good. Still, if you have math but have difficulty forming an interesting research question, or if you're not able to elaborate at all on how that question might be answered, you will not be competitive. On the other hand, if you have almost no math (and I mean no math whatsoever in college, aside from maybe a semester of intro to stats), but you have a strong handle on how to develop and answer an interesting research question, and this comes across convincingly in your application, all things equal (GRE, GPA, letters, and sample), MOST departments, and MOST subdisciplines, will rather have you than the former. I have seen this over, and over (and over) - students accepted to all subfields of political science (and most disciplines in arts and science) at top 1-5 schools, and also at places like Caltec, MIT, NYU, WashU, etc. Still, it's important to note that it's somewhat uncommon to find someone with little math preparation (or interest) who can confidently put it all together. It's easier, probably, if you have at least a semester of calculus, and definitely you must be enthusiastic and thoughtful about methods either way. [Note: having two semesters of calc 1, earning an F the first time around and a B- the second, is not necessarily bad for your application (except for the ding to your GPA, though nobody cares much about GPA either). Tenacity is undervalued throughout most of the entries here. Like movie-goers, schools love a story about sticktoitiveness!] Doing well in a graduate methods class at a decent school, and securing from that professor a strong recommendation that compares you favorably to matriculated grad students? Now that is likely to provide you with a nice advantage, but calc 3 or even linear algebra? I haven't seen it. With regard to the GRE, it's not at all unusual to find someone scoring at or near 170 who has only had geometry. Surely those who get top scores often have more math, and that familiarity makes the test easier for them in general, but the test only actually calls upon your math knowledge up to geometry. If you're comfortable with algebra and basic geometry, studying the little idiotic tricks that the test for some reason includes could get you a long way. Finally, I do think, all else equal, great if you have a lot of math. You will be admired and dreaded all at once when you sail through math camp, and you might well be sought after as a coauthor for those of us who have pretty good questions but limited intuition when it comes to readily identifying techniques for answering them.
  9. I agree completely, even for those in American.
  10. I, too, thought the Magoosh math videos were very helpful, and I liked the way the curriculum was presented. Magoosh doesn't own most of the prep materials, they direct you to various outside resources according to your customized plan, then they guide you through utilizing these outside resources (official ETS prep, Manhattan Math, etc.). Their internal sample problems (they do have some of their own questions and full length exams) are generally harder than the test, which some people liked, but that wasn't my favorite. I think before you go the Kaplan route (which might be worthwhile), see what you think of Magoosh. I think they have a 1 week free trial? I did find ETS materials (brief prep and books with sample problems and past tests) to be by far the most similar to the real test. Magoosh willl help you navigate these. If you can get comfortable with the format of most of the quant questions in these materials, you should score well. I do think most competitive schools privilege a good GRE score (regardless of what they might say), or at least they punish heavily low scores. If you have the time and the determination, why not impress them (or at least not worry them) in this area? If your scores are already v & q = 167+, with a 5+ on the writing, never mind. It's hard to predictably move scores like those, just bc you never know if you'll get a weird version of the test (with respect to your preparation), etc. Good luck!
  11. I agree nobody should be pressured into withdrawing an application, and certainly it would rarely make sense to withdraw an application to a place that competes with the current preferred acceptance, whether in terms of rank, $, etc. I say "rarely" because there are situations in which withdrawing an application could have highly tangible benefits, and these might be comparable, or greater, in value to a candidate than either leveraging a new offer or gaining the satisfaction of seeing the application play out with a decision. The problem is that these possible benefits are often not known in advance. This was true for me, but my risk was very low. In my case (which I discuss in the post that someone linked earlier), I knew I wasn't going to prefer the schools from which I withdrew (one where I had already been admitted, one where my app was still pending). I also knew that the potential stipend from the pending school was very unlikely to be competitive with two offers I already had. My advisor suggested withdrawing my applications was thus reasonable (in his mind also advisable), and I agreed. But I place little value on learning the decision of a non-preferred school, whereas someone else might place a high value on this (despite the risk that the decision will be a rejection, while the prevailing assumption would be that the withdrawn application would surely be an admit). As an unexpected bonus, many benefits have accrued from my decision to do what some people are viewing as altruistic (i.e., I have received very positive attention from the DGS at each school - including an offer of coffee at MPSA with one - and other applicants and wait-listers appear to be grateful). My post was meant not to shame anyone but to call attention to an alternative accounting that some people might overlook when deciding whether to withdraw an application (or to decline a visit). As a side note, it seems like those with many early high-ranking admits and strong prospects are most bothered by the suggestion that withdrawing an application COULD BE beneficial for all, while those who are feeling more anxious about their prospects seem to appreciate the sentiment. This makes absolute sense, but I would argue that those with existing strong acceptances should be cautious about rejecting the idea outright and might instead consider altering their calculus ever so slightly. In essence, I am submitting that $75 dollars "wasted" on an application might not compare to the possible (tangible) benefits that could emerge from withdrawing an application. I should have been more clear in my original post. I had no idea this would become such a heated topic. Best of luck to all!
  12. Thanks! Any idea about UChicago?
  13. What kind of psychopath spends Friday night reading through the February 1st and 2nd entries in the applicant thread from last year's cycle? This one! It's actually strangely gratifying. If you have the time, it's maybe even more fun to look back several years at the late February posts, because back then many/most applicants would list the schools where they were, and were not, admitted (some still do this, but the practice seems to have died down). There's something strangely encouraging about seeing the whacky mix of acceptances and rejections that many people received. Enjoy!
  14. From phdstipends.com, Wisconsin's stipend looks about right (24k last year), but I don't see anything recent about fellowship time, RA/TA duties, summer money, etc., so maybe those things make it a bad option in comparison to similar schools?
  15. Yes, agree. It's also awkward to cancel a visit once the ticket is booked, meetings with faculty are set, etc. As long as a lot of competitive schools are making decisions late, obligatory visits to top, but not tiptop, schools will surely remain fairly common. Speaking of Wisconsin, I've been doing some homework, and I don't think it will be as easy to tear down as the media would have had us believe when the last (nutty) governor was around. After all, it's the clear flagship U in the state, it's big and long established, and there's a lot of community commitment behind it (even in more rural and conservative circles). Seems to have great faculty, at least in my area, but boy do folks here (and in rumors) enjoy sounding the alarms about it.
  16. Absolutely agree with all. As for my advisor, he can't have known whether any particular candidate had a genuine interest, but he basically said decisions that don't conform to expectation are extremely rare, while students who behave as if they might be about to make an unexpected decision are extremely common. From his perspective, some of the idiosyncrasy and inefficiency associated with the process can be reduced if students are more honest with themselves and/or if they are willing to put in a little more work into the process of making a decision. That said, he definitely acknowledges that the bulk of the freakiness of the process originates with programs, and the discipline itself, not with students. He, btw, seems to think gradcafe (and really anything that increases transparency) is probably good, though it might take pressure off the departments themselves in terms of providing information.
  17. Haha, most of us are total "affirmation junkies," and I'm pretty sure my advisor's main point was to suggest that I was/am definitely behaving like one. With the rest, I agree completely. Ok, almost completely ? I'm not sure that all schools will "get the cohort they want regardless of if you withdraw your application now or decline on April 14." And few of the schools to which I am applying maintain a formal (or from the looks of it even informal) waiting list. I know that, at several highly competitive schools (including more than one Ivy), the graduate school dictates the number of offers that can be made by each department annually, and the number of students accepting an offer can (and does) vary widely. Schools can somewhat control how many students accept the offer by coming up with more funding (summer money, RA vs TA, etc.), but there is a limit to this, and sometimes this method of management ends in an unexpectedly large, or unexpectedly small entering cohort. Over time, cohort sizes obviously approach the desired average, but in a given year this way of allocating admissions spots can have a fairly large impact on rate of enrollment. There probably isn't a way to rectify this at the most competitive schools (where applicants, for good reason, will never withdraw their applications), but perhaps there is a way to make the process more predictable and/or efficient at middle and lower ranked schools, if only more students were willing to admit when they have no intention of attending a trumped school. One important thing I realized in talking with my professor is that, for me, there is little-to-nothing to be gained in leaving my application open at a school I know I won't attend (even if, yes, those damn applications are pricey!). To start with, there is always the chance I will be rejected (since the process can be very quirky), whereas withdrawing an application is often seen more nearly as rejecting an offer. As for coming off as eager to let schools know, "I got in somewhere better," I don't think anyone could have construed it that way in my case. I think most professors have a pretty nuanced understanding of how their school ranks in the mind of the average student, and they're rarely surprised when a student decides to go to a school that has many more resources, much "better" placement, and 10+ higher ranking (in discipline and in subfield). With regard to the rankings, fancy undergraduate schools get extra points from students for name recognition. For example, schools like Northwestern, Brown, Cornell, and Vanderbilt will get more 'yes' responses, and more/stronger applicants than they otherwise might, because of their strong undergraduate reputation, and I would therefore hesitate to assume professors at schools like these would see the competitiveness of their program as aligned with the rankings. Likewise, strong programs that are remote or less well known (in terms of undergraduate study) will experience the opposite, and these are (for better or worse) probably easier to decline. My decision to withdraw applications took into consideration my impression of the level of insult I might be levying, and it especially took into consideration the perspective of my main advisor as well as my three other letter writers (who are all tenured at R1 institutions), each of whom either favored me withdrawing applications or was neutral to me doing so. [Yikes - sorry for carrying on ]
  18. I absolutely agree! I only meant to point out, as my advisor did for me, that if you already know you won't attend a school, you should consider withdrawing your application. No real judgement on how you decide, and anyone who decides strictly on rank is (in my mind) missing the point. That said, my advisor mentioned that, in his 25+ years as a professor, and 30+ in academia, he has been surprised by a student's decision once or twice (out of hundreds of decisions). Seeing it from his point of view made me look more closely at my own decision-making process and made me question whether I was being completely honest with myself. Am I likely to attend a school that seems to be an equal fit in terms of subfield and advising but that, in the end, places students in TT jobs about 20% of the time versus one that places them about 60% of the time, particularly given that the latter places in schools that offer much better research opportunities, resources, etc.? As much as I definitely believe the former school could provide just as good a setting for my PhD, I have to admit that there's little the former school could do in the process of a visit to attract me. That said, not everyone is aiming for a TT academic job, or for a research job, but for better or worse almost everyone acts like they are when applying to schools and accepting offers. All the best to you in your process!
  19. I agree with almost all. Certainly one should take time to consider personal priorities as well as "fit," and it sounds like you are taking the less traveled, more thoughtful route to your decision. That's great! The reality remains that the vast majority of students (while maybe talking up the complexity of their inner process, etc.) will ultimately decide based on a couple of very simple considerations, most notably rank (whether discipline rank, sub discipline rank, or overall reputation of the school). From the outside (or from the perspective of the lower ranked schools they visit), students who end up at higher ranked schools could be perceived as less conscientious in their process than some who withdraw their applications. I only meant to shine a light on this possibility, as it has just been illuminated for me. Best of luck to you!
  20. I'm sure this is a more complicated topic than presented here, so I look forward to hearing about the drawbacks of withdrawing an application. That said... I had a very enlightening, and ultimately incredibly rewarding (read on), talk with my advisor yesterday that resulted in withdrawing two of my applications to places that definitely rank lower for me than others to which I have been accepted (one school that has yet to make decisions and one school where I am accepted). I wasn’t sure about the recommended practice in such cases. When I see that someone has been accepted to both Princeton and Berkeley, and yet he [please forgive gender pronouns] seems to be eagerly anticipating a decision from UNC, Davis, Boulder, etc., I think that’s kind of strange, but then again I understand it. My advisor called such students “affirmation junkies” and warned me about the drawbacks of being one of them. He also advised me on the possible benefits of not being one of them (more on this in a sec). He said that I cannot use lower ranked acceptances in negotiations, and that withdrawing an application from a pending school would leave the impression to existing schools (if it comes up) that I would have been accepted. He did not demand that I withdraw any applications, but he did more or less forbid me from going on any visit to a school I knew I would not attend. He said that faculty at the schools where he has taught (poli sci, top 10-15 [Ivy] and top 25 [public R1]) end up doing some eye rolling every year over students who show up for the visit – on the stretched budget of the department - who are clearly going to attend a school that dominates. He did acknowledge that there are some cases in which students have irregular preferences (relating to geography, family, interdisciplinary interests, etc.) but that these are much more rare than are students who present these as important factors, and he claims that the difference is usually very obvious to faculty (who, btw, in the long run often come back into contact with said candidates via conferences, journal reviews, and the job market). This freaked me out enough to do some real soul-searching about why I still had applications at one pending school and one where I was accepted that (if honest with myself) I know I won’t be attending. So I (reluctantly and maybe awkwardly) emailed the DGS at each of the schools where I decided to withdraw, and guess what? Within an hour, in each case, I received a very appreciative email, thanking me and (more or less) commending my conscientious, collegial behavior! At the school where my application was still pending, the DGS was full of gratitude and said that they can spend upward of 3 or 4 hours (or more) putting together funding packages for EACH student because packages are tailored to student characteristics (I imagine this relates to subfield and/or institutional fellowships), and so it can save the department a lot of work when a student does as I have. Both emails indicated the DGS looked forward to meeting me in the future, and one was even specific about this (we are getting coffee at MPSA in April!). I feel so grateful for my advisor’s advice and wanted to pass it on, in case anyone else is dealing with similar decisions. Of course, it might not pan out for you exactly as it did for me, but I don’t see how anyone could feel anything but content after withdrawing an application to a place he definitely knows he will not attend. I felt such relief, even before receiving the great email responses. I will admit that, yes, you withdrawing an application could conceivably benefit me. But, given the schools to which I have been admitted already, this isn’t highly likely, so this message isn’t exactly self-serving. More likely, withdrawing will help someone (or more than one person) at a slightly lower-ranked school than where you will end up. My advisor also said that leaving decisions until April 15 is a very poor practice, for any school, even those that are top ranked. He said, as soon as I have had all of my visits, and my offers are all finalized (clearly no more negotiation on funding, etc.), I should make my decision as soon as possible, because it’s very unusual for most schools (especially top schools) to be able to bring in a funded student after 4/15. So far, all of my visits are before the last week of March, and I aim to make my decision as soon as I feel my offers are squared away. Hope this helps someone! Best of luck to all!
  21. Agree. I will add that she might get better letters, particularly for the PhD, if she weren't applying to both. Doing so sends mixed signals as to her ultimate motivation. This will inevitably affect the perspective of many faculty. If I were her letter writer, I would probably encourage her to restrict applications to MPP programs if she's unsure about the PhD. These are different tracks, in most cases, unless she's doing a PhD in policy. And if she's applying to PhD programs in policy, then I would strongly discourage her from applying to MPP programs at the same universities as PhD, unless the option is presented as a default, in which case application is only necessary to the PhD program.
  22. If your SOP is strong (and CV and writing sample, if applicable), I imagine you're probably in good shape to get in somewhere. That said, because the process is so unpredictable from cycle to cycle at any particular school (maybe extra true for smaller programs), it's possible you'll get unlucky. If you find yourself in the position of trying again next year, I would suggest applying to more schools. Also, it's possible that your stats could land you in a ~15-40 ranked program, if it were an extra good fit, so if you go another round keep that in mind. If applying to few schools relates to cost, see if you can get some application fee waivers (see discussions on obtaining these elsewhere). Finally, don't discount your experience in nonprofits and grant writing. Don't overstate these either, of course, but nonprofit work could build your research skills and familiarity with important concepts and topics in politic, and grant writing experience can be a clear advantage since it often calls on/develops three important skills: research, writing, and fundraising. Oh, and don't show schools your first set of GRE Score, even for the purpose of showing improvement. Better they don't think you are capable of ever scoring in the 130s on Q, and 5 is a much higher score than a 4 on the Analytical. The slightly higher score on verbal for the first test isn't worth sharing given the other low scores.
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