politely_curious
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Posts posted by politely_curious
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21 hours ago, anxiouslywaiting100 said:
Just letting you all know I recently turned down the RAND offer. Hope that means movement on the waitlist for you all, best of luck!
Thank you! We were told that the waitlist wasn't ranked, but that e.g. policy area would be considered, so i think they're replacing admitted students turning down the offer w WL students specializing in similar topics. Could you roughly let us know which area you're in (eg. defense/security, tech, education, social policy) and perhaps also if you're international or domestic?
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Hi! Does anybody know how long the waitlist is?
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4 minutes ago, John.Liu said:
Thanks for your suggestion! I will try to keep myself busy today and not to think about the application. Have you received any information about admission decision from PRGS? I guess most of us will receive decisions on March 1st ?
Nope, no answer, same as you. I hope they won't push the date back a second time. I can't get anything done when I'm on my laptop since I'll just uselessly look at the webportal or stay on the forum, but today I made a to-do list of all the red tape and annoying errands I should run some day but that were never quite urgent enough to get done in the brouhaha of life... those are the kind of things I find work best for days when our mind really is elsewhere and at the end of the day I still got things done (works for me at least)
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1 hour ago, John.Liu said:
Hi, I really aporeciate your attitute. I waited and waited in the past 12 hours, but it seems like I did not receive anything on Feb.28 LA time. BTW Talking with other applicants here is really a good way to remain calm
Just 24 more hours then! Try to do something while waiting, otherwise time stretches out into what feels like eternity :)
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4 hours ago, blueskies58 said:
Did anyone here apply to the Harvard Ph.D. in Government and Social Policy? I know the Harvard offers for Government went out already, but haven’t heard anything from the SPOL program yet and curious whether anyone has received an application decision yet.
Hi BlueSkies58,
I applied to the very same program and haven't yet heard back either. It's tricky to know what to expect since, as you said, it mainly means taking classes with government students despite the diploma being from GSAS, so I expected accepts/rejects at the same time as HKS results, but it seems quite unpredictable.
The survey section shows a negligeable number of admissions over the past years (but more rejections), so it's tricky to come up with an educated guess as to their timeline. However, overall it doesn't seem unusual not to have a result (positive or negative) before the second week of March for this program.
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12 hours ago, John.Liu said:
Thank you so much @Scorpion! It seems like PRGS started to send out the admission decisions last week. I am still waiting anxiously beause I worry about that they will send rejections to applicants in the last minute?
Hi,
It's possible, but unfortunately we have no way of knowing for sure since PRGS seems to deviate significantly from their usual procedure this year. All we can do is wait and see and then leave notes here for future applicants to find
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Hi John.Liu,
Welcome! I'm applying to the RAD (Research, Analysis, And Design) stream (like most of us I think - it does appear to be the biggest stream with CPPA and TAI being more specialised). I've heard, however, that the cohort isn't separated too much by stream (perhaps for admissions, no idea, but not in terms of everyday life and classes later apart from varying requirements), so it would be lovely to stay in touch with anyone who has applied and, once we know, is admitted and forge some connections ahead of term
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Good to know! Do you think it'll be the same for Public Policy & Poli Sci? I still haven't understood which juries decide on applications to the joint track, whether there's a special public policy jury or whether they are all decided by the respective department (socio, poli sci, econ). Do you know?
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Same. Let's not panic yet. In the past years, there were always more than 3 reports of acceptances. Maybe they're bringing them out in batches this year. In the meantime, would the accepted person perhaps be okay with sharing your overall profile with us (research interests, experience, test scores etc)? That would be really great to sort of understand what they're looking for
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Congratulations! Either one sounds really great.
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Congratulations! So it's about USC vs Rand for you?
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My UC Berkeley Public Policy rejection just came in. Email, friendly. First I've heard back from any school. Not too disappointed as I expected it (they only seem to accept 1-2 people a year). I will still ask them if they can give me some feedback on weaker parts of my application (or on fit with faculty) to possibly improve my application for Berkeley and other schools next year should nothing work out.
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I understand. It's a truly stressful process. I'm having a hard time doing unrelated things I should do too, but I try to at least do related productive things (brush up on my maths, do readings) as well as steps to keep my mental health going by meeting friends, looking out for my health etc. That's what worked well for me for my MPP admissions back in the day too. If you check your email fifty times a day, it does tend to stress you out additionally. You probably can't help it to some extent, but maybe you can add in a few positive elements on the side - friends, sports, art, whatever helps :)
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9 hours ago, lil_caseworker said:
I applied to UMich, Syracuse, UChicago, and Cornell (also to MSU for a totally different ag-focused program). Have heard nothing back from any school, although I need to know in the next two weeks due to extenuating circumstances. I doubt I'll get in anywhere (great LOR, strong writing skills, and important prior research, everything else is below-average though) but it would be nice to know that I am denied. Honestly treating this cycle as a test run to calibrate my expectations, but it is frustrating that it takes this long, especially when I had everything wrapped up in November.
Oh yes, the long waiting is definitely grating! I think most programs had the Dec 1 deadline. It's crazy long, I agree
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13 hours ago, Confused-dodo said:
Oh just an update on pardee. The application portal decision tab says due to high volume of applications, decisions will be out by march 1 and they wont be holding any interviews.
best of luck to all fellow applicants!!!I saw it too, this explains why nobody seemed to get an interview this year. After realising that a few really highly qualified applicants never heard back, I suspected as much, but it's reassuring to know
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On 2/7/2022 at 5:49 AM, anxiouslywaiting100 said:
Sorry to hijack this thread, but there are so few people who applied to this type of program that I'm interested in talking with you all!
I am curious in others' opinions -- for those that are also interested in RAND: so I got into USC's Pub. Pol & Management PhD, fully funded and a very solid stipend (higher than what I understand RAND gives and full program commitment rather than piecemeal like RAND's). I guess what I'm wondering is -- is there any real...point in still keeping RAND's option going in my mind? I find their hybrid model interesting, but I have to say my major concerns are:
1. I often have to give a lot of explanation and backstory about what exactly this program is, which worries me about how universal it's value will be; and
2. So you get one year of guaranteed funding, and then the rest of your funding is contingent on finding work? I guess that aspect makes me nervous, because I am wondering if people ever *don't* get projects to staff on. Just don't want to be worried about making my rent during the program, if that makes sense. Especially in contrast to a traditional program like USC.
Just curious what your thoughts are!
Hi anxiouslywaiting100,
I think that Rand is stronger if you're mainly looking to work in applied policy and policy research and a traditional uni probably better for pure academia, although there is no clear-cut separation and doing either and crossing over the line to the other side later is obviously also possible. I would also expect another main difference to be that the coursework at Rand is far more quants-heavy than your average public policy PhD.
To my mind, although Rand's funding is obtained through assisting with research projects there (from Year 1 onwards, with more work days per year as the program progresses), funding at universities (correct me if I'm wrong or this particular program is different) is usually also projected and contingent on GSI and RA positions in years 3 and 4.
Hope this helps
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As somebody posted in the results section, Rand recently updated the deadline by which they'll notify applicants to March 1st
- Tiago Chan and Confused-dodo
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On 2/15/2022 at 6:35 AM, PolicyApplier said:
I obviously can’t speak to policy school curriculum, but if I had to venture a guess I’d say it likely has to do with the concept of “American Exceptionalism” or the US’s generally inflated ego. Anecdotally, I’ve also heard peeps say the diversity of cultures here makes all other comparisons moot.
There’s just some hubris in the States that prevents the general populace from learning from the mistakes or successes of others. ??♂️
I agree. I remember trying to watch less liberal news for some time, and it's so common to hear people confidently declare that the US is the best country because "[they] have the best doctors, the best education, the best healthcare (...)" despite many of these statements being blatantly untrue.
People of most countries have some pride in their nation, but the US is the only one I know whose inhabitants don't even feel like they need to know anything about other countries in order to be able to declare themselves best.
Caveat: All this being said, the other trend exists as well, à la "oh, Scandinavia does this, so let's import it", which is sometimes unrealistic because obviously context and path dependence matters a lot when it comes to policy. Get inspired, sure. Transpose 1:1, probably not.
- w-ht-w and PolicyApplier
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Interesting. I'm not sure about the US, but I don't think it's the same everywhere. I can certainly speak to Europe and say it doesn't hold true here. Women make up slightly more than half of the student body in most universities, but I don't see public policy as being particularly women-dominated at all. Social policy and, to a lesser extent, health policy, sure. But not generic public policy studies.
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Thank you! It wasn't me (haven't heard back yet), but congratulations on whoever got in :)
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13 hours ago, politely_curious said:
Sorry for the color issue, here's the text in black: For future reference (and possible readers in future years scouring the forum), I reached out to Duke in late Jan (I don't know what possessed me, I panicked) after seeing several reports of interviews asking if no interview invite meant an automatic rejection and they replied this:
"Dear xy,
The Ph.D. admissions committee is still in the process of reviewing applicants and extending offers for interviews. We often conduct interviews with students to continue reviewing their candidacy, but it is not an immediate indicator of a rejection from the program.
Best regards,
The Sanford PhD Program Admissions Office"
- bbrwin and Tiago Chan
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For future reference (and possible readers in future years scouring the forum), I reached out to Duke in late Jan (I don't know what possessed me, I panicked) after seeing several reports of interviews asking if no interview invite meant an automatic rejection and they replied this :
Dear xy,
The Ph.D. admissions committee is still in the process of reviewing applicants and extending offers for interviews. We often conduct interviews with students to continue reviewing their candidacy, but it is not an immediate indicator of a rejection from the program.
Best regards,
The Sanford PhD Program Admissions Office"
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Hasn't U Chicago started to release public policy results? Or do i remember that incorrectly from the results page?
Same for Duke for me, they said that not being asked to interview is "not a direct sign" of being rejected, but it still definitely feels like it points in that direction.
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I applied to a few programs too and am still waiting for responses. Answers on poli sci programs seem to be coming in earlier.
I'm an international applicant and have applied to 5 really selective programs (figuring that it's worth it to move across the world for these but that it might be wiser to work for a year and try again if it doesn't work). In Europe at least, the selectivity of academia/research doesn't stop with PhD admissions, so I figured it's safer to get into a good program, but I won't lie, sometimes I worry that I'm in over my head
Based on the results page and admission statistics issued by different programs, it is my impression that US schools are more reticent to admit international candidates with GRE and GPA scores equivalent to successful domestic applicants. That being said, the results page only tells us so much and there are many aspects we can't analyse based on the information we have available. I'm also a bit concerned that schools might have a hard time figuring out the relative reputation of international universities in a given subject as well as understand country-specific grading.
Anyways, best of luck to everyone!
Rand PhD Policy Analysis
in Waiting it Out
Posted · Edited by politely_curious
typo
@Kolcak, I got the same info. Apparently RAND just got accredited to offer a Master's program, which is essentially the same as the first two years of the PhD program (they've been calling the first two years a MA program for a while anyway if I'm not mistaken). They seem to still be working on coming up with all the details (if it will start this year; funding modalities; details on when/based on which criteria people can transition into the PhD track program).
The idea is obviously less attractive a) because of the unspecified, but almost certainly lower funding and b) because of the unclear conditions of whether we could transition into the PhD and when we would know if we can. Many of us already have one or more Master's and accumulating more would probably make us look like we're avoiding the job market rather than trying to gain more skills.
It didn't sound like they'd be able to let us know soon tbh. It's tough because many of us no doubt need to make work / study / relocation choices and having at least a 3-month notice would be useful, but I do appreciate that they are trying to work it out for this year, so I think it's better for us not to pressure them too much if we don't want to risk the program being pushed back to 2023.