balderdash

I have to disagree entirely with the idea that it's largely explained by luck. I'm not saying admissions is entirely a meritocratic, easily measurable, rational process - a lot of it is intangible, indeed. But it's not luck or whim. A candidate is never drawn out of a hat to be admitted, and it's never just drawing straws. Adcoms are looking for a specific community of incoming students with a specific range of interests and abilities, changing year to year. It may seem random to us, but that's because we're not inside their heads. I worked in undergrad admissions for years. We got about 25,000 apps for an incoming class of 1,500 (4,000 admitted). Not a single decision was made based on "whim" or "luck." On an entirely separate note, I am fed up with this process. My productivity has dropped to probably 20% of what it was last term. I'm supposed to be writing a short paper on a topic with which I'm very familiar, and I can't even get an outline written. Everything's so muddled...

Really doesn't matter at this point. Stanford was a no, and the blank from Chicago tells me I'm about to get a big fat rejection there as well. Since the latter was rather at the bottom of my list (not a safety, obviously, but one of the less competitive places, at least according to stats), it looks ever more like I'll be getting a blank this year.

Gotta say, I nearly shat myself for a second when I saw Yale at the top of the results page.

You mean the grad administrator (Kathy?)?

Yeah, echoing others, it was certainly not worth the extra 8 days of waiting on Stanford just to get rejected in the end. I'm hoping the same doesn't happen for Chicago...

Especially for whomever just posted the UVA rejection: 0-4, 3 on the same day. Ouch.

Well, it looks like it's another rejection for me, then. Psh, who wants to live in Chicago anyway.

First of all, I said "as one of their 4 or 5 areas," meaning a primary subfield and not a topic within a subfield. Second, Berkeley has it listed, but actually treats it as a specialization. From the letter from the Dep't Chair: Even according to them, it's not a subfield but rather an "area" that has "very substantial strength" in a subfield, ie Political Theory. Finally, even if we accept (and I don't) that it is a major subfield at Berkeley, then it's definitely an outlier. HYPS, Chicago, Columbia, MIT, Johns Hopkins, and on and on don't consider it a major subfield.

I applied to seven, others have applied to as many as fifteen, and no one can find a school that includes public law as a subfield.Find one that has it listed as one of their 4 or 5 areas. Go ahead, I'll wait.

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Wow, I had some friends visit for the weekend, and I come back to about 6 new pages of posts! Humanprovince, congratulations on Northwestern. As for the Harvard acceptance, I'm intrigued to see who the owner is.

Apologies, bruv. Fridays always freak me out for these application results, as it seems more likely that we'll hear something. Dunno about you guys, but I'm on edge all day.

There have been tons: http://www.thegradca...ical%29&t=a&o=d Also, guys, last year Princeton sent out admits on the Tuesday of the second week in February. Any guess as to when they'll come out this year?

I hear you. Whatever your application looked like this year, I'm sure you can improve it somehow. I've decided that if I go 0-for-7 or just don't get any good offers, I'll take a year out and rework the personal statement and writing sample. Perhaps even get a publication or two in. Who knows. Things are always on the up and up.

Will Reno is awesome. I take it you're an Africanist too?

I'm thinking 780 and 1500, respectively. Someone want to stake their stipend on it?

By the way, you know how it says Active Users on the forum page? I think we just passed 600 for the first time this app cycle. Last year's record - 687 - looks like it'll be broken easily soon.

Law school? That was in a NYT article recently about it being one great ponzi scheme, yes? I didn't apply to Northwestern or UT Austin, but the best of luck to you all - having been on edge about Stanford all of last week, I can empathize with you guys.

Yeah, love Almodovar. I'm also a huge fan of Inarritu (can't be bothered to insert the accents), so I'm hoping to catch his new film, Biutiful. Also, just for fun, Guy Ritchie's Snatch/Lock Stock/RocknRolla stuff. F'sho.

Don't forget, though: many PhDs from Europe tack on one or two post-docs to get the publishing experience before they apply for TT jobs. So instead of 5-7 years studying, they'll do 3 studying and then 2-3 of paid research and writing. It's kind of a wash, really. But I was told by all of my professors (at an American undergrad institution) to not do my PhD abroad, basically because "they way they do the degree is just not how we do things."

Ditto, I'm liking this group of applicants. Hopefully I'm holding my own. Breadmaking is a luxury which I look forward to when I can enjoy my own kitchen - living in student housing and sharing a common area with 7 other guys means most of my stuff goes missing. As for music, well, I'm more into films and cinematography. Last year I went through Akria Kurosawa classics, then some Ingmar Bergman over the summer, and I'm just now getting time to pick it back up. It's actually a great way of taking my mind off of waiting for apps - art is indeed therapy. But back onto the results stuff - anyone have a clue when Yale and/or Princeton will be notifying? I've pretty much accepted that Harvard will reject me for fit reasons, so I'm hoping one of the two will throw me a bone. Also, Columbia should be sometime this week, no?

I'm not passing judgement on you, but I'd want to get in on my own merits - I wouldn't make the connection known to the schools. I wouldn't "use it to my advantage."

VPN client.

It's one person with two logins. Both names were created around 2:45 am yesterday (my time zone), both are the same construct, ie, Steve in the Sac[ramento?] and Mike in the [Cincin]Natti. And both are for flaming. So don't take any insults too personally.

If you misspell "social" in your profile and resurrect a thread that was dead for over three years, then "you are clearly not ready for the rigors of graduate school."