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coffeeman123

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Posts posted by coffeeman123

    2023-2024 Application Thread

    in Political Science Forum

    Posted

    5 hours ago, Samzz said:

    Just wondering--has Madison released all their decisions? Have applied for CP track, have not heard back. Many thanks!

    Unfortunately I couldn’t say, have no clue of what’s going on with admissions. Last year they did release rejections after acceptances though 

    2023-2024 Application Thread

    in Political Science Forum

    Posted

    Hi everyone, 

     

    Not a prospective student anymore, but if anyone that is coming to UW-Madison for the visit days would like to ask any questions please feel free to message me. I’m happy to answer anything in advance. Also if some people want to know why I chose where I chose (feel free to check my profile to see), I’m happy to talk. I won’t be much help outside IR though. 

    2022/23 Cycle Profile/Results/Lessons

    in Political Science Forum

    Posted

    So, after two years of heavy stalking, I am glad to finally be putting my own profile up! GradCafe was super helpful for me and I hope it can be helpful for other people as well. If anyone else is coming to UW-Madison or has similar research interests, please PM me I would be happy to talk! I also want to wish all the future applicants the best of luck with your applications. 
     

    PROFILE:
    Type of Undergrad Institution: Community College -> Large public R1 – T40

    Major(s)/Minor(s): Poli Sci | Stats and Econ Minor

    Undergrad GPA:  3.76 (upper division 3.9, make sure you try in gen eds a few years of lower grades are hard to bring up!)

    Research Interests: IPE/IOs/Electoral Regimes

    SOP: All business. First paragraph states what I broadly am interested in and how my current training has prepared me for a PhD. Paragraph on my RA work, paragraph on my thesis, paragraph on my coursework, paragraph on my future research ideas and a conclusion/fit paragraph to end it. PM me if you'd like to see it. 

    GRE:  161 (Q), 164 (V), 5.5 (W)

    Any Special Courses: Regression analysis, couple of courses for data analysis, econometrics, extra poli sci research course. A stats minor typically takes 4 courses, one of which is an intro-type course. If you can pass 3 other stats courses you can put stats minor on your CV and get a pretty significant boost for an insignificant amount of coursework. I highly recommend it and believe that it can help compensate for lower GRE scores (like mine). 

    Letters of Recommendation: 3 –– a) Undergraduate thesis advisor, b) Thesis Committee Member c) Professor from the Community College I went to. Two DGSs said that the LORs I have were a key reason for my admission. Don't underestimate the power of a good letter to assuage some Adcom fears. 

    Teaching/Research Experience: OLS and probit honors thesis, nothing special. Semi-original data collection. 2 years of RAing mostly for a business school prof. 

    RESULTS:
    Acceptances: UVA, OSU, UPenn, Rochester, Vanderbilt, and UW-Madison
    Rejections: Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, UChicago, MIT, Duke, Cornell, Emory, University of Minnesota, Georgetown, and Brown. 

    Attending: UW-Madison

    LESSONS LEARNED: 

    • My application was very weird. I attended 4 different undergraduate institutions in total and worked multiple years for a professor that I did not receive a rec letter from. Could this have gotten me an immediate trash pile for looking flakey? Possibly, I guess I will never know but a lot of things in my profile looked strange on paper. I recommend really trying to provide context for anything that may be off-putting. Adcomms are looking at hundreds of applications, and the likelihood that they will reach out to clarify the minutia of your profile is highly unlikely. Do it for them, or ask your letter writers to do it for you. 
    • Do not stress too much about your applications. It is easy to say that looking back, but it is harder to do during the waiting season. I got a very early rejection from Emory (a school I really thought I had a good shot of getting into), and I was very concerned about how the rest of my applications would go. It all works out, and if it doesn't work for out for you one year just take another year to beef up your GRE scores and writing. 
    • I spent about two years altogether getting my profile ready. I took my GRE last year of undergrad and scored poorly on it. I did not leave myself enough time to retake it. I heard from an advisor that it is much easier to move up the rankings on the front end (as an applicant) than it is to move up on the back end (as a graduate). This really stuck with me. My biggest piece of advice is to not downplay the gap year. I had a polished thesis and SOP as well as months to study for the GRE which I am sure worked wonders for my application. My original application probably would have been about normal at a T50 school, one year of dedicated work was able to move me towards T20 acceptances. I cannot recommend it enough, take a year to work, study, and polish your materials! 
    • As I am sure you can see, I applied very broadly, mostly because I did not know how my non-traditional profile would sit with admissions committees. A couple of things to consider for future applicants. In my experience, public schools are more likely to admit applicants from public schools than private schools are. I came from one of the top 10 public schools in political science and typically came from the lowest-ranking public school at all of my private school visits. My private school visits consisted overwhelmingly of undergrads from other prestigious, private undergraduate institutions. Of course this was a very small sample size, but this was my experience at least this year. 
    • I think finding your niche on where your application will be most competitive is important. I (pretty correctly, luckily) predicted that my application would do best in the 15-20 range. All but 1 of my acceptances came from this range. This gives you the opportunity to negotiate offers and choose between programs based on fit and interest rather than just picking the one school you were admitted to that is higher ranked/in a better location/has a better fit etc. 
    • Apply to private schools! Private schools have more money and can generally offer more fellowship years which is a serious help when it comes to negotiating offers. Having (better) competing offers from peer institutions will really help your future stipend by giving you some negotiating power. 
    • Visits are very important, find out how many grad students your advisor currently has, what their reputation is, and if they have time to take on any more grad students. Also, ask about how plentiful funding is past the 5th year, PhDs are taking longer and the sixth year may be needed to complete your dissertation. 
    • Please decline your offers as soon as you know you are not interested. I declined one offer back in February and a couple in Mid-March. If you know you are not interested in going to the other institutions, please decline so that the dept. can provide offers to individuals who are interested in the school. I was not on any waitlists, but I am sure folks that were on the waitlist would certainly second this. 
    • I remember looking at some of these cycles in the past and seeing where people decided and thinking "What, why would they choose that place out of all their acceptances??" When you are admitted and start looking at how the department is organized, how grad students feel, what fellowship/stipends/COL are offered, it becomes a much tougher decision. I chose UW-Madison because it was my best fit and there were multiple people there that could easily advise my dissertation. In some departments, you only realize after meeting faculty that there is not the fit you thought there was when you applied. I am lucky because UW-Madison was also my highest-ranked acceptance, but even if the school was 5 places lower I would still go because I believe it is the institution where I will be supported in writing my best possible dissertation. 

    2022-2023 Application Thread

    in Political Science Forum

    Posted

    13 minutes ago, Kiwi_293 said:

    What makes you believe mit is this early this year? I checked last year and it was by late February. 

    I should stop holding out hope I guess lol. A few years back they released in early February and it seems like many schools are releasing early this year so I figured it may go back to pre-pandemic response times. 

    2022-2023 Application Thread

    in Political Science Forum

    Posted

    36 minutes ago, QuantPoliSci said:

    Can't speak to Georgetown, but I had radio silence from Vanderbilt (no interview invites, nothing) before getting outright accepted on Friday, so while it is a different school there is definitely a precedent of accepting someone who didn't get an interview while others are being interviewed. 

    Same experience here. Radio silence from OSU and Vanderbilt and then na admit. I’d say don’t stress too much about interviews 

    2022-2023 Application Thread

    in Political Science Forum

    Posted

    1 hour ago, MooseTracks said:

    Did anyone else find the MIT application really weird and old school? For well... MIT, it was surprising that they made us copy paste our statements, individually send rec letter requests, and click on separate opening windows to complete each section

    It was by far the most inconvenient one I used, I’m hoping they update it for the next batch of admits soon 

    2022-2023 Application Thread

    in Political Science Forum

    Posted

    40 minutes ago, PolGrad said:

    I think Columbia might announced its results, based on the last year results (I assume rejection, though). Also, Georgetown or Michigan might send its results.

    I believe we may also hear from MIT. It seems like every week from now till the end of February will be decently busy ?

    2022-2023 Application Thread

    in Political Science Forum

    Posted

    1 hour ago, iskander said:

    I called and got an email back telling me my app was under review and that i should receive results in the next two weeks.

     

    Also just wondering, is anyone here getting accepted to some higher ranked places and rejected from lower ranked? I've only received 2/11 results so far, but neither is a straight acceptance and these were my mid tier/fallback schools; one of them even had a Prof who studies exactly what interests me and put in a word for me with the admin committee. Don't want to be melodramatic but it makes me think i was an idiot to even have applied to the higher ranked places, even though I feel like i have a pretty strong, if maybe unusual, profile.

    Definitely happening to me. I applied really heavily in the 10-20 range because I thought it’s where my profile would be most competitive. 4 of my 5 acceptances are in this range and I’ve heard radio silence from programs in the 20s, 30s, and 40s (as well as the 10s of course, but fingers crossed that changes).

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