btermite

Thank you all so much for your kind words yesterday after I got my first, and likely only acceptance! It was quite an overwhelming day so I was logged off the forum for most of the day after I got the call. Congrats to everyone who has gotten good news in the meantime, and good luck to everyone still waiting it out! I have gotten literally only rejections until getting into my dream program, so don't lose hope!

Thank you so much!

I just got a call from the program director for Government & Social Policy at Harvard letting me know I've been accepted! Really can't believe it, I had completely given up hope for this cycle.

I had asked about it quite a while ago! I applied but have yet to hear back. The results page for past applicants seems super limited, so I don't have a clue when to expect to hear anything

I haven't gotten a formal NYU rejection, but I'm not holding my breath for good news

Did you mostly just use it for Quant? I just looked at the prices and it seems way more affordable than any other option I've seen.

I am in a pretty similar boat and am debating if I should try to retake it as well. Not sure where you're looking to improve, but here are some things that helped me. The that helped me by far the most was an online Princeton Review class (like all things standardized test related, it was a bit pricey).The teacher was wonderful, and having the class helped me hold myself accountable to actually studying. Beyond the class content itself (which varied in how helpful I found it) the class provided me with a lot of practice drills, tests etc. The class definitely helped me a lot, I ended up getting a 164V, 160Q and 6 AW, which going into this cycle I had thought was good enough but apparently not! Beyond that, I did a TON of flashcards for verbal. I got both of the sets of 500 high frequency cards from Manhattan Test Prep (they were maybe like $20 on Amazon or something) and those were a big help for me on the verbal section. But most people on here are likely to already know at least 2/3 of the words in their "starter" set, so might not be as worth the investment.

Is it probably still too early to hear from Yale this week? Wondering if I should try to take a break from email refreshing and actually be productive!

Presuming I am not admitted this cycle, I'm thinking about a few things that I've seen people on here mention. As painful as it sounds, I'm debating retaking the GRE. I have what I thought were pretty decent scores (164V, 160Q, 6.0AW), but the scores I am seeing people posting on the results page are often far better than mine. I've been having the same experience I've seen a lot of people having of the difficulty of finding really any opportunities to get some more concrete research experience, but that's probably another thing I would try to find a way to do. I also didn't reach out to and POI's this cycle because I was too nervous, but it seems like most the people having luck this year were in touch with them. Then obviously my SOP and writing sample can always be better. I might try to write a sample from scratch if I can muster the motivation (or more like avoiding the GRE). Also would love to stay in touch with people after the cycle is over since the forum will die down a bit. The community here has really made the whole process feel a bit less overwhelming.

Yale is by far my top choice, but I'm not overly optimistic about my chances.

Beyond Chicago, what other programs would you say are on the less quantitative side?

Is it probably safe to say that not hearing from NYU by now is a reject?

Did anyone here happen to also apply to the Social Policy PhD joint degree program at Harvard? I applied as a total crap shoot, but it seems like such a cool program I figured why not.

That's a good point, I honestly hadn't thought of the potential for the number of applications to be super high again next year as a result of this cycle. I'm really unsure what to do in the meantime regardless of if I apply again to try to improve my chances. I've been trying to find research assistant type gigs with very little success

I would love to reapply next year, but not sure if that will be feasible. As far as backup plans or even what to do in the meantime if I were to reapply, I haven't really gotten that far!