Barry B. Benson

ah, at last, someone who applied to WashU too! I was a bit surprised to see that they usually send acceptances mid-February, when the application closes on Jan 15. But if it is already at that stage, it might be on track this year too!

Accepted: OSU Rejected: UTexas (not formally, but being almost a week since acceptances I lack faith) Pending: MIT, Chicago, NYU, Michigan, Harvard, WashU, Berkeley

I'm an applicant too, but I really like Hadley Wickham's R for Data Science (https://r4ds.had.co.nz/) and Urdinez & Cruz's R for Political Data Science (https://www.routledge.com/R-for-Political-Data-Science-A-Practical-Guide/Urdinez-Cruz/p/book/9780367818890) Hope it helps!

Super true. However, I mean, you can tell...

I would suggest just ignoring the guy

Congratulations to everyone that got admitted to UTexas! I'm still waiting for my email, so I guess that means that I did not get in (or maybe I did, who knows!).

From what I gather, it seems that OSU usually sends the official letter (w/ funding) mid-to-late February. I also read that they sometimes invite their admits to the open house with some of them still waitlisted for funding (I would appreciate it if someone in the know would correct me if I'm wrong), which sounds kinda bad. So I guess it's a matter of waiting.

I know emotions run high when important stuff is on the line, but I would advise everyone to take it down a notch with the mutual accusations. I (and I bet many others) would really appreciate a space to just wait it out and comment things as they happen, rather than to read through unpleasant comments (I do not wish to name anyone in particular).

Wow, that is super helpful to know! I just checked my portal and I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had been accepted (Comparative). It seems like I was the only one that had an interview hahahah, and I was super off with my perception that decisions were still ways off. Oh well, it is what it is. Congratulations to everyone else that got accepted, and good luck to all that haven't received any update yet!

Hello everyone! I wanted to share that I had an interview recently with my PI (OSU, comparative). I'm curious to know if anyone else that applied there has also had an interview, because it seems that I might the only one (which may or may not be good news hahahaha). Also, from our conversation it seemed that decisions there are not coming soon, so if you applied to OSU I advise you to not stress (yet).

Something that may help: I deleted the email that I used for the applications (my old undergrad email address) from my phone, leaving only my personal email. That way, I only ever can check if I have gotten any response if I use my PC. I thought this out specifically for February, as that will probably be the busiest month for decisions.

yeap, no point in stressing out too much (at least for now). Things will be what they will be! I originally told my family that I would hear back at best late february-to-early march (so as to not have them asking everyday if I had heard something late january-through-mid february), but now I'm thinking I should have told them late-march hahahah. Oh well, we'll have to see whether the review process is actually longer this year.

Yikes. A potential silver lining though, mentioned by someone in that thread: even if the amount of applicants doubles, that does not mean that the amount of competitive applicants has doubled. Due to the whole pandemic and the GRE being optional in a lot of places it is likely that a lot of people applied that otherwise would not have stood any chance of being admitted. One has to keep dreaming though!

Ditto! btw I love how most applications are due early to mid december, and then WashU is just hanging out at Jan 15

I'm applying this cycle! I literally just listed every course I have taken, which was such a chore (what are transcripts for, then?) I didn't really understand what they meant by "textbook", as during my undergraduate degree I mostly read papers and books, so I wrote that no textbook was used for every course. I would probably just list all of them, for both degrees.

I originally planned to apply to 7 (2 """safe""", 2 possible, 2 reaches, and 1 pipe dream), but I got scared and I added two more (which meant a nice 3-3-3). So, 9 in total.

hahaha that's wild. I mean it's just that no one seems to answer any emails, and my scores do not appear as of yet. But the deadline is not due until a couple of weeks from now, so I'm not really worried.

I'm sorry to hear that, and it is a bit scary that some application processes are still up in the air. I would have thought that by October polisci departments would have had a clearer image as to whether they were going to accept applicants. Let's hope that this is the last announcement of its kind.

Thank you for starting this thread! I look forward to hearing from other applicants this cycle. If I may, I will get the ball rolling: is someone else here applying to MIT? I do not know what is going on there, but they are just refusing to answer my emails. Other than that I am moving through applications rather smoothly, although one of my recommenders has gone silent, and the first batch of applications is due soon. I do really trust her, but I am getting a bit nervious.

Yeap, I agree. However, this is the first case in which it has been stated outrigth, I think. Other departments have not been as forthcoming, at least from what I've seen.

UPDATE: I have been reaching out to some departments I'm interested in applying, and most have told me that they will be moving forward with applications this year (if anyone is interested, those are WashU, UTexas, OSU, NYU and Michigan). However, the Michigan reply came with a caveat: "Thank you for reaching out. As of today, our department will be moving forward with 2021 admissions. I do not foresee this changing. We will, however, be accepting a smaller cohort than originally expected due to the COVID-19 pandemic".

Oh, I had not thought about A+s. That could explain it. I am still pretty skeptical about an average GPA that is as high as a 4.1. However, I really doubt that they are making it up, like, why would they do that?

Hello, so this is kind of a random question, but I was perusing through UNC's admission website (I don't think I'll be applying there, but a professor told me to at least check them out) and came upon this: "We typically have 185-200 applicants, for a target class of 13-15. The median GREs for students admitted for the fall 2018 semester were 92nd percentile (verbal), 75th percentile (quantitative) and 89th percentile (writing). The average undergraduate GPA is 4.1" (https://politicalscience.unc.edu/graduate/admissions/). The GRE percentiles seem normal enough, but I was confused by the average GPA. Now, I am an international applicant, so I'm not completely familiar with the US grading system. However, I was under the impression that the scale went from 0 to 4. So what gives? Is this a typo? How can someone have a GPA of 4.0+, let alone the mean be higher than an A?

Does that mean that people will still be able to apply, just they won't get offered any funding? That seems like a pretty scummy move huh

Yeah, like, it is getting a little bit old. He does not have anything new to add to the conversation, so I agree it is best to just ignore him. So which departments would you categorize as Columbia-esque? At first I thought the first ones to close down would be the big public ones, like Berkeley or Michigan. However, these admit many undergrads (in a normal year, of course) so they need a lot of graduate students. So maybe like Chicago? Pretty selective, and I've read that they have a funding structure that requires departments to admit a certain amount of people according to the current funds. Princeton also seems very likely, as their Sociology department has already done this. Maybe Yale also, although I'm not too familiar with their situation.