irinmn

Claiming a University of Iowa acceptance. It looks like emails are being sent out on an individual basis.

I don't really think next cycle will be easier.  Everyone who decided to wait this cycle out, plus a lot of people who didn't get in this year, will be applying again next year, when cohorts will probably stay small.  I also think the ongoing effects of COVID are going to be devastating to doctoral programs for years.
So congrats on your acceptance during this year's brutal cycle!

(Can't believe I'm saying this)
Claiming a Northwestern acceptance!!! Political theory. I was sooo skeptical due to the 1% acceptance rate this year. Elated is an understatement 

Claiming a Northwestern accept! So happy, received an e-mail to check my application status and there it was!

I GOT INTO WUSTL OH MY GOSH

Just got an offer from UCLA! Apparently UC's just love sending out their decisions in the dead of night lol. IR Subfield
I'm so excited I don't think I'll be able to fall asleep any time soon but I hope you all wake up to good news ❤️
 

Respectfully, it is overpriced but Berkeley is anything but a "garbage town". I've got family that went to Cal and I grew up near there. It's a great city/area. The food, the bars, the nightlife, the proximity to everything else the Bay Area has to offer, the great public transportation, the redwood covered hills directly behind the campus. It's not Palo Alto but it sure is a beautiful place, and on most days from most of the eastern part of the campus, you've got a panoramic view of the Bay Area including downtown San Francisco, Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge. It's a beautiful place. I'm sorry for the folks that didn't get in, but no need to denigrate a great city. 

I used to live in the East Bay near Berkeley. This is accurate. One of the more affordable cities in the East Bay is Vallejo, just north of Berkeley. East of Vallejo, a lot of Berkeley grad students live in Fairfield and Davis, and my brother actually had grad TA's several times who were UC Davis students. I'm not sure how it works but I guess UC Davis students can accept TAships at Cal during the summer terms and they sometimes do and just commute every day on the Amtrak commuter. Davis is a lot closer than Sacramento and would at least put you in another college town. Also, if you're having trouble finding housing, consider International House. It's a bit more affordable and flexible housing than the grad student housing and it's on the Berkeley campus, next to the football stadium. 

For all y'all who got accepted into Berkeley, I watched a video from a Berkeley alumni about supercommuting (which is commuting 90+ minutes one-way for work). He mentioned that when he was in graduate school in Berkeley, he took the Amtrak Capitol Corridor line from Sacramento to Berkeley 4/5 times a week and that it was a 2 hour trip each way. Obviously 2 hours each way is insane but it was apparently a pretty nice commute all things considered, especially since there was free wifi, power outlets and a cafe on the train. The rent is a lot cheaper in Sacramento and the other towns on the Amtrak line so it's an option to consider if you're ok with a long commute and you want to stretch out your stipend. I also hear that the Piedmont Avenue neighborhood in Oakland and the city of El Cerrito are pretty good bang-for-your-buck options for living near UC Berkeley, especially since they're on transit lines that take you right to campus.
(here's the video if you're interested btw, this guy does a lot of good videos on cities and urban planning:)
 

Respectfully, it is overpriced but Berkeley is anything but a "garbage town". I've got family that went to Cal and I grew up near there. It's a great city/area. The food, the bars, the nightlife, the proximity to everything else the Bay Area has to offer, the great public transportation, the redwood covered hills directly behind the campus. It's not Palo Alto but it sure is a beautiful place, and on most days from most of the eastern part of the campus, you've got a panoramic view of the Bay Area including downtown San Francisco, Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge. It's a beautiful place. I'm sorry for the folks that didn't get in, but no need to denigrate a great city. 

Respectfully, it is overpriced but Berkeley is anything but a "garbage town". I've got family that went to Cal and I grew up near there. It's a great city/area. The food, the bars, the nightlife, the proximity to everything else the Bay Area has to offer, the great public transportation, the redwood covered hills directly behind the campus. It's not Palo Alto but it sure is a beautiful place, and on most days from most of the eastern part of the campus, you've got a panoramic view of the Bay Area including downtown San Francisco, Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge. It's a beautiful place. I'm sorry for the folks that didn't get in, but no need to denigrate a great city. 

Can't agree anymore. Life is very important!!!!!!! I am not ambitious and studying at Chicago just made me feel tortured lol

Hey, congrats to your admits! I just read some of your posts and want to give you some information as a Chicago alumni. If you feel you are creative, intelligent, and hardworking enough, then Chicago would definitely provide you with a lot of resources. They have a great platform for you to succeed. But the downside is that few professors would care about you. They are toooooo busy and most of time just focus on their own research and job. I don't know what your subfield is. Just take a look at their placement website and you will find many students end up in a place that looks unmatched with the prestige of the university. Also look at the CV of the current grad students and you will find some of the fifth, sixth, seventh year students even do not have a publication. Also, it is not easy to graduate in five years. As I know, graduating in six years is relatively fast. Professors there are great, but they are just too busy to teach and discuss with you unless you are coauthoring a paper. But as I see, most of the professors there like to work individually or with professors at other institutions. I don't know about UCS. Just give you some information and you might need to think about the tradeoff if you choose Chicago. I didn't apply to Chicago as I just don't want to stay in a cold place without any help for at least six years.

After reading the previous discussion, guys, here my 5 cents: Academia is not about money. No. It is about love-love to science, to the breathtaking feeling of discoveries and understanding that one is developing, doing something noble. It is about a fit between an inner (often innate) avid desire to learn and accumulating something that will always be with you. It is about a permanent journey and the spirit of the eternal youth. 
I'm not preaching, do not get me wrong: While having challenging stats classes, I'm asking myself quite often: " should I have swapped my highly paid job and quite relaxed way of life for the sleepless nights of a Ph.D. program?..." - But, when "that" paper is finally done, the semester is over, and I'm drinking a cup of coffee with a few sips of cognac, I feel fabulous. I feel I was right when I made a decision. And I understand that otherwise, I would be self-flagellating until the rest of the life if I did not try the taste of Academia.
Academia is tough, transformative, and quite often painful, but the majority of you, I believe, will love it too.
And yes, money...- In short: Be a good scholar, and you will have a well-paid job.

@BrownSugar I'll probably get trolled pretty bad on here for saying this but I think you should go to USC. Based on your stated goals, you don't really plan on trying for a TT job in the USA anyway, so ranking and networking/connections aren't nearly as important as it might otherwise be. Yes, Chicago is higher ranked by everyone in just about every metric. With that said, USC is no slouch. It's not like it's a bad school. You know what else? This is 5 years of your life that you'll never get back. It's a huge investment in time. Quality of life is so important. Chicago is a beautiful, great city, but it can't match the quality of life of Southern California. You'll never have to shovel snow in the winter or worry about slipping on ice covered streets, you can spend your Christmas break a few miles from the USC campus at the beach in Santa Monica or Malibu, and you'll be able to see palm trees from your classroom. You'll be living in a place where you can go skiing/snowboarding and surfing in the same day this time of year. You can't do either in a day anywhere near Chicago most of the time. 
I'm not trying to take away from what everyone else is saying on here because they're right. Chicago is the best choice if you plan on staying here and going into academia. If you don't, choose the place you want to spend 5 years of your life in the most. 

@BrownSugar I'll probably get trolled pretty bad on here for saying this but I think you should go to USC. Based on your stated goals, you don't really plan on trying for a TT job in the USA anyway, so ranking and networking/connections aren't nearly as important as it might otherwise be. Yes, Chicago is higher ranked by everyone in just about every metric. With that said, USC is no slouch. It's not like it's a bad school. You know what else? This is 5 years of your life that you'll never get back. It's a huge investment in time. Quality of life is so important. Chicago is a beautiful, great city, but it can't match the quality of life of Southern California. You'll never have to shovel snow in the winter or worry about slipping on ice covered streets, you can spend your Christmas break a few miles from the USC campus at the beach in Santa Monica or Malibu, and you'll be able to see palm trees from your classroom. You'll be living in a place where you can go skiing/snowboarding and surfing in the same day this time of year. You can't do either in a day anywhere near Chicago most of the time. 
I'm not trying to take away from what everyone else is saying on here because they're right. Chicago is the best choice if you plan on staying here and going into academia. If you don't, choose the place you want to spend 5 years of your life in the most. 

@BrownSugar I'll probably get trolled pretty bad on here for saying this but I think you should go to USC. Based on your stated goals, you don't really plan on trying for a TT job in the USA anyway, so ranking and networking/connections aren't nearly as important as it might otherwise be. Yes, Chicago is higher ranked by everyone in just about every metric. With that said, USC is no slouch. It's not like it's a bad school. You know what else? This is 5 years of your life that you'll never get back. It's a huge investment in time. Quality of life is so important. Chicago is a beautiful, great city, but it can't match the quality of life of Southern California. You'll never have to shovel snow in the winter or worry about slipping on ice covered streets, you can spend your Christmas break a few miles from the USC campus at the beach in Santa Monica or Malibu, and you'll be able to see palm trees from your classroom. You'll be living in a place where you can go skiing/snowboarding and surfing in the same day this time of year. You can't do either in a day anywhere near Chicago most of the time. 
I'm not trying to take away from what everyone else is saying on here because they're right. Chicago is the best choice if you plan on staying here and going into academia. If you don't, choose the place you want to spend 5 years of your life in the most. 

Everyone calm down, it's not a big deal. Seriously. Cal/GSPP is definitely more of a research MPP, but many others are not. It isn't enough of one or the other to really say "all MPP's are research based" or "all MPP's are professional/terminal degrees". Here in Canada, MPP's tend to be more professional based but we do have research-based MPP's too (see "The MPP is a research based degree" under courses at: https://www.schoolofpublicpolicy.sk.ca/programs/graduate-programs/master-of-public-policy.php). It really goes both ways. No need to argue so much about it. And personally, I'd rather have an MPP in the current economy, but if you'd asked me a year ago, I'd rather have had an MBA. If it's from a good school, MPP's are more marketable in recessions when there's a surplus of MBA's, and MBA's are more marketable when the economy is good. Don't believe me? There's literally tonnes on this right now...
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/09/elon-musk-on-the-problem-with-corporate-america-too-many-mbas-.html
https://www.ft.com/content/f2d91aca-8933-11ea-9dcb-fe6871f4145a
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/01/there-are-officially-too-many-mbas/266880/

1. My brother went to the Goldman school at UC Berkeley for his MPP and it was a 2-year research based degree that prepared him for policy PhD's. I'm sorry if I used a brush that was too broad with regards to the MPP but I noted that with the top schools, it's research based. I was basing that on Cal. This doesn't make what I said wrong.
2. So much of what you say in #2 is subjective, wrong and misleading. MBA's aren't exactly in high demand right now. From what I've seen in the private sector, MPP's are. 

Hey everybody. Echoing what others ave said on here, it's really important to recognize how stressful this time is and to find ways to cope with anxiety and nerves in a healthy way if possible. We're all stressed. Some of us have family members dying or recently passed that we're grieving on top of having to deal with the emotions of getting admissions decisions or waiting. Everyone on here is human (except for the bots). Unless you're a bot, please, take care of yourself and let's all treat each other with respect and dignity on here. 

+1. My brother has an MPP. If you get it from a good department in the US, it's worth a lot. Most top-tier American MPP's are 2-year research degrees, they are not professional "terminal" degrees. An MPP is like a research based master's degree but worth so much more because the professional world (particularly civil service, consulting and corporations) view MPP's significantly more favorably than an MA/MS degree. When everything else is equal, MPP's are actually becoming more valuable than MBA's. 
In your case @soep13 you should seriously consider this. UCSD is excellent both academically and in terms of quality of life (hello La Jolla). Getting an MPP there will allow you to network and make contacts if you want to try again for the PhD, and an MPP specifically will gear you towards pure public policy PhD's as well as polisci/government PhD's. I try to tell everyone to get an MPP over an MS in Political Science because at least with an MPP you can get a job easily if you don't stay in academia. 

You just made my night with that...

It depends on how hard the people pray. (jkwhydoimakethesejokesaboutmyownreligion)
In all seriousness, it snows pretty frequently. We get a couple serious snowfalls. Probably no more than 18in in a year.

I feel like you need a break from this forum after so many rejections. 
I will not learn how to treat people from you. 

Believe me, you're not someone of my caliber anyway. So, don't worry, you can never reach to a level to be in a cohort with me.