PolPsychGal11

Hey. I think your issue was not applying to better programs... often what happens is admissions committees reject applicants they think are likely to go elsewhere. It's not worth the time and effort to recruit someone who isn't likely to show up. I'm assuming you're interested in IR/comparative? Apply to better programs! Columbia, Penn, Stanford, Minnesota, Madison, Princeton, Washington, MIT, Syracuse, Northwestern (I know some of these were on your list). Make sure your personal/research statement is tailored to the school, and highlights your research interests. I would not change your writing sample, but make sure that it is original research from one of your master's degrees, and not a lit review-type paper. Having references that know people at the schools you're applying to can certainly help, but it's not a requirement. Your GRE scores should help. Highlight any language skills you have and if you have data (inc. qual) experience.

Someone rejecting an offer ≠ someone getting off the waitlist. Programs accept more students than they know will attend, so there's really no point in pressuring people to reject offers. Let folks get all of their offers, consider funding, even go on visits to places they aren't sure about. Rejecting an offer does not guarantee a waitlist, and programs are very, very unlikely to admit people off the waitlist until AFTER their first waves of admits have had to give a decision. This comes up every year, and every year people here try to say to decline offers asap. It's just wrong, and it's also not fair to folks who might be on the fence or not totally sure. I'm sorry to say that at most programs, maybe 1 or 2 students get admitted from the waitlist. MAYBE.

Yes and no. Teaching-focused schools need people who can teach across the curriculum, which means they need the broad training. Carbondale doesn't really offer that, and because of the overproduction of PhDs, and the people making lateral moves, we are increasingly seeing R2, SLAC, directional, and teaching-focused jobs being taken by people at top programs. If a person is not interested in academia at all, then Carbondale is fine. But I'd encourage folks who are even considering academia not to get their PhD at an R2 or a low-ranked R1. Resources, networks, reputation, and the quality of your research all matter. Yes, there are unicorns that come out of low-ranked/R2 programs, but it is not very common. Academia is already a tough gig, and you have to move to where the jobs are. There's no reason to give yourself any more of an uphill battle by attending a meh program.

I would not attend that program. Very small faculty, and programs that don't fund all of their graduate students are programs that don't have a business having a PhD program. Either fund all of the PhD students or don't have a program. Otherwise it sets up a caste system of the haves and have-nots, and can lead to a really crappy competitive environment. They also are not a full-service department, which means that PhD students coming out of that program will not be broadly trained in the subfields, and will have a hard time making the case that they can teach -- thoroughly -- the classes that most universities will want them to teach. The benefit of US PhD programs is that you spend the first few years taking classes and get broad exposure to ideas and core research in the subfield, especially those ideas that are not going to be directly included in their dissertation. But when a department has a limited number of faculty, and in very niche areas, they can't really do the broad teaching that we expect US PhD graduates to have. It is also quite concerning that they don't list their recent placements. Google "Harvard PhD political science placement" and you'll see what you should expect from every PhD program. Places that don't have this usually have poor placement records. If you want to stay in academia, I would not go to Carbondale. You really need to go to a top school, and barring that, a school that is a full service political science program and guarantees funding to every student. But even then, it's a risk to go to a place like Carbondale (or Buffalo). That's my honest opinion. There are a lot of schools that get mentioned on this sub each year that I think do a wild disservice by continuing to admit PhD students, and I always hesitate whether or not to warn students. So I hope this doesn't come off as too harsh or mean, but I do think that students -- especially those coming from outside of the US -- need to have a stronger understanding of the problems with mediocre PhD programs.

I would wait. Because if you don't get funding it doesn't matter at all, since you should not attend a program that doesn't commit to you fully for at least 5 years. And honestly even then, I don't think this is a program you should consider attending. By placements, I don't mean "careers" -- there should be a page on the Political Science PhD site that says "recent graduate placements" or "placement history" and it should list every graduate and where they landed. On the "careers in political science page" they are claiming Mark Huddleston as a "recent graduate". He is the RETIRED former president of the University of New Hampshire. The dude is old. He is 73!!!, and in no way a recent graduate. Listing him there is really shady and sketchy. Look, I hate to be incredibly blunt, especially as people are celebrating acceptances. But even if they gave you full funding for 5 years, there's no way I would recommend anyone attend this program.

I would wait. Because if you don't get funding it doesn't matter at all, since you should not attend a program that doesn't commit to you fully for at least 5 years. And honestly even then, I don't think this is a program you should consider attending. By placements, I don't mean "careers" -- there should be a page on the Political Science PhD site that says "recent graduate placements" or "placement history" and it should list every graduate and where they landed. On the "careers in political science page" they are claiming Mark Huddleston as a "recent graduate". He is the RETIRED former president of the University of New Hampshire. The dude is old. He is 73!!!, and in no way a recent graduate. Listing him there is really shady and sketchy. Look, I hate to be incredibly blunt, especially as people are celebrating acceptances. But even if they gave you full funding for 5 years, there's no way I would recommend anyone attend this program.

Congrats on your acceptance. I would do A TON of research into Buffalo's program before you accept, even if a funding package comes through. Programs should be incredibly transparent -- on their websites -- about their recent graduate placement record. Any halfway decent program will have, in its grad student directory, a description of the student's research, and places for them to list awards and publications. And all programs should have a list of graduate students on the market. Buffalo has none of these things, AND they're admitting students without a guarantee of funding. If your interest is staying in academia, you're in for an uphill battle. Sorry to be the downer and bearer of bad news, but it is not ok for programs to admit students without a guarantee of funding (and you should treat this like a waitlist rather than acceptance), and it's also not ok for programs to half-ass their student directory. If your interest is in earning a PhD and looking for government, think tank, or other industry jobs, that's a different calculation, but I still would not attend unless you are fully funded. Since your decision letter made it clear that you will only receive funding if others decline, I do not think you should email right now. Most decisions have not been released. If they have not gotten back in touch by mid-March, you can email and ask for a timeline about decisions re: funding, but otherwise it's just going to make them question if you understood the offer letter or not.

Hey all. I'm a faculty member at a lower-tier R1, and just wanted to comment on this because I see it repeatedly coming up on each year's admission thread. Please don't put pressure on people to decline offers they will not accept on the assumption that a waitlisted student will then get an offer. The vast majority of programs admit MORE students than they hope will enroll, so there is not a 1:1 decline --> waitlisted offer process. Once the decision deadline has passed, we (at both programs I have worked in) review who has committed and whether or not we have any funding left. Only then do we determine if we can make a waitlist offer. If for some flukey reason 90% of our initial offers decline within the first few weeks, sure, we'll turn to the waitlist with a few offers. But otherwise, the timing of declining doesn't matter, because we over admit. We know that not everyone admitted will attend, and so we wait until after acceptance deadlines to turn to the waitlist.

Hi - I'm a current assistant prof, and was on the market twice, both times I got a TT job (I moved up after my first job). This is patently not true. The market is tight, and people take whatever job they can get. Going to school on the east coast does not make it more likely that you'll get a job on the east coast. If anything, this works slightly in reverse: many schools in the middle of the country are skeptical of graduates of highly-ranked coastal schools. Sometimes this is an unfair assumption, other times it is based on making an offer and being burned. For those with multiple offers to consider: you need to have a good fit with your potential program, but you also need to go to a highly ranked program. I've lurked on this site for a while, and am always torn about weighing in when people are apply to poorly ranked and poorly regarded schools. Taking 5-6 years to do a PhD at a not great school might be an ok option if you want to go into industry (though there are significant opportunity costs), but it is just not a good idea if you have you dreams set on entering academia. I'd encourage you all to read this as you consider acceptances and what decisions to make: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/12/07/faculty-member-issues-dire-warning-grad-students-about-jobs

@sbidyanta - I wouldn't take that as the take-away from my post. I will admit to speaking mostly of US or equivalent-based applicants. For students who have had different opportunities, the GRE can matter, especially if folks on the adcomm are less familiar with universities in the applicant's home town. In that case, a strong GRE score can be a reassurance that the applicant has the potential to succeed. I'll also say that it doesn't matter as much WHO your letter writers are, as WHAT they can say. I'd much rather read a letter from a professor who I've never heard of, but who can speak to your skills, experiences, and potential, than read a letter written by a big name who can say very little. The more detailed letters are always more valuable, regardless of the stature of the person writing them. I hope that gives you some reassurance -- the debate I was wading in on was Theory007 insisting that the GRE really does matter and doesn't suffer from the same biases and issues as other standardized tests!

I lurk here occasionally, and am weighing in on this because I think this is a perfect example of how prospective and current grad students often have no clue what actually happens in faculty meetings and with ad comms. I've served on admissions committees at two different R1s. In each case, we didn't give one shit about the GRE. The GRE is not predictive of your success in graduate school (much as the SAT is a poor evaluator of college success). What we care about is your past research experience, letters, and whether you fit with our program/whoever is taking students that year. Just as the SAT is a better predictor of socioeconomic class than it is of college success, the only people that care about the GRE are administrators at the Graduate College. In cases where we want to admit someone with a low GRE, we have to fill out paperwork (the extent of paperwork varies) justifying why we are taking a person with a low score. The GRE is one of those administrative hoops that we all have to deal with, but that people who are actually involved with teaching graduate students think is burdensome and useless. The GRE is not predictive of grad school success, and is a better indicator of socioeconomic status and undergraduate institution (which are also correlated) than anything else. Don't get yourselves worked up over GRE scores or if/how they matter. From the inside: we honestly don't care.

I would choose Ohio, I think. Great university with good connections and alumni, good work in IR, and pretty good placement record. I think Maryland could be ok, but it would depend on your specific research interests and methodological approaches, and I would recommend trying to talk to grad students there about the culture. Maryland could be a good fit for you, but I'd recommend trying to get in touch with current or former students.

My two cents, as someone in the same subfield who has observed friends and colleagues at many of those schools try to navigate the market: 1) Fit matters. Make sure you are in a place where you will receive funding support, and where the environment of the program is not competitive but is supportive. 2) I would be cautious about JHU - their IR is very theory-heavy. SAIS is a plus, but most PhD students don't take classes down at SAIS. So in terms of "being in DC" I don't know that Hopkins will help a lot there. You do have the proximity, which is a benefit. Ohio is a great program. I know less about Rice. I second the advice to ask for placement data, and make sure that you get not just the first set of placements but try to see where people actually landed (even if this involves some googling on your part). Placement data often includes things like postdoc positions, but you never know if the person got a TT job after that or if they moved in a different direction. To keep the door open to policy or non-ac jobs, you should look at doing the summer internship program at RAND, and keep an eye out for similar programs at other places. To more directly answer your questions: name brand matters less than your advisor and your committee. Those will be the people working their networks to try to get people excited about you and your work. You want to have at least two people in the department who you think you could work closely with. Being in DC is a benefit because it can reduce the cost of summer policy experiences, but it is possible to find short-term summer rentals to make that happen. In terms of location, the most important thing in my mind is that you can imagine yourself being content for five to six years. If you hate the location, it will affect how you feel about grad school.

Hey - I'm a prof and occasionally lurk here. I've been on the market a number of times in the past five years. I think you should really consider working in a think tank - it will give you research skills and will be a good thing to have on your resume. The sad state of the field is that the theory market is even more abysmal than the market in the other subfields. I hope you get into a program, but you should be prepared to have about 15 backup plans when you're on the academic job market. Having think tank or government experience now could be extremely useful down the road. And frankly any theory program that looks down on you for having "practical" experience is not a theory program you want to be in. Sorry to be a downer, but I sometimes see comments like this and feel like it is a disservice not to bring up how shitty the market is.