funfetti

Props to the people going straight to the source on the results page >.<

Hate to revive the "IS IT REAL?!?!" debate, but is anyone here claiming one of the Berkeley admits? If so, can you drop us some POI initials? Phone calls seems out of the norm... but anything can happen.

This sleuthing is next level, and I am so here for it!!!

I'm about to get on Twitter to follow every professor I listed as a POI in my SOPs! Otherwise, I'd love recommendations about good folks to follow!

Agh... it's interesting that other fields have a culture of each poster creating a signature line listing all schools applied to color coded by status. Love that transparency but plagued by first-mover anxiety

Can you link to some threads?

I have no real insight, but I think it's safe to assume that if a school admits people via an email from the DGS, then the admits all come together.

I was also hoping for Berkeley today... I hate to reveal just how much energy I've put into analyzing gradcafe results, but I believe that UT and Berkeley announced on the same day the last two years. I was hoping that trend would continue. But it is still midday on the west coast, so I say we keep the dream alive for a few more hours ?

I am in IR! Thanks for the congrats!

Claiming one too.

First, in no way was it suggested to me that No GRE --> Not a Serious Applicant in the eyes of the department. I think there were serious applicants who didn't submit the GRE because 2020, and then there were just random people who applied and also didn't submit a GRE. I think they're understanding of the former category (and, ethically, they ought to be considering that they stated the GRE was optional!) and can very well distinguish between the serious applicant who couldn't take the GRE due to the circumstances and the person whose heart wasn't in it. Second, I don't know, so I'm entirely speculating. Still, I take it as a good sign that maybe the surge in applicants won't significantly delay the process as I'd imagine that irrelevant applications can be filtered out pretty quickly. Again, that's just me speculating.

I don't have specifics on that ? Sorry!

My advisors just informed me that their department did experience the widely-discussed huge increase in applications. They waived the GRE and saw a considerable number of applications from people who appear to have applied just because they could. In other words, a decent portion of this year's marginal applicants were unprepared for graduate study and seemed to lack an understanding of what it means to be a doctoral student and to conduct political science research. This is just one university, but it made me feel a little better. It affirms what someone on this thread previously noted: just because applications doubled does not mean that the competitiveness of admissions doubled. ETA: this info was given to me by people I trust but it was given in a general and vague sense... I don't have a super specific insider knowledge. I hope this info is encouraging to others as it was to me, but take my word with a grain of salt.

I am super thankful for the input of those who have seen this process through. Thank you, @HobbesianKant and others like @kestrel18 (I'm sure I missed posts from other current grad students, so please don't take offense) who have piped up to add some context to the results page.

I haven't been admitted anywhere and have no information to suggest that I will be admitted anywhere. Nevertheless, there is a part of me that is searching for any semblance of a silver lining to cope with this extremely stressful season... right now, I'm insisting on telling myself, "hey, maybe this means the job market will be less brutal in 5-6 year!" which is wishful thinking at best and delusion at worst!

I too am hoping Rice or UT will announce in January. Even seeing results from schools I didn't apply to trickle in makes me feel so much better.

I'm a bit confused by the Duke activity on the results page... There is chatter about Duke but I can't see why. Also, I see two interviews, but my understanding was that Duke had not done interviews in past years. Does anyone claim those/does anyone have any insight to Duke's process? Also, congrats @mypolisciguy on Northwestern! Glad to see success here :))

Haha, I love it. I'm relieved I didn't think of that because obsessively checking my web traffic is absolutely something I'd do.

In terms of ongoing impact, I'm curious to see what the impact of waiving the GRE requirement will be. I am interested that the two schools about which we've seen tweets mention a 2-fold increase in applicants, and both waived the GRE, I believe. Of course MIT and Yale are only two cases, and we don't have a counterfactual. Hopefully more faculty on adcoms will speak (tweet) out or admission decisions will divulge how much specific schools saw applications increase so that we can speculate more on how the GRE factor affected applicants. I wonder if this forced trial run will prove to have been beneficial for those schools (better and more diverse applicants) or if it was too logistically taxing (more applications with fewer metrics for culling).

I wondered the same thing... the decline of activity on gradcafe seems to hold in other fields, too. On another note, I also wonder if an election year compounded the covid effect. If so, that could be good, as candidates who apply because they are simply interested in current political events may not be able to demonstrate a sufficient understanding of the political science research process.

Would anyone be interested in doing a writing sample exchange? I'm happy to read your sample and provide feedback if you're willing to read and critique mine!

I am confused by the status check websites for a lot of the programs I've applied to already. Some of them, like that of Stanford, just confirm that LORs have been received. Is that normal? Others list the status as "submitted." At any point, is that supposed to say "in review" instead? I am most likely projecting my application anxiety onto this one issue, but any clarification about what status check websites should show/say would be reassuring.

I'm applying to 13 too... and I have been told by all of my letter writers that this is well above average. In our defense, this is a crazy year, and I personally felt the desire to apply to so many schools given that we still don't know exactly how this cycle will be affected by covid-imposed distress (e.g. will schools take smaller cohorts?).