iskander

I just finally got my first admit, to American University SIS. I'm happy but the stipend is only 25K which seems really hard to live on for DC area. Would people here generally expect a higher stipend than this or are you just supposed to make it work?

This is kind of random at this point, but I just want to vent a little and warn people about dealing with UT Austin's admission for future cycles. I had a minor issue with a transcript (something out of my control) when I applied to the LBJ School which I communicated about with admissions a bunch before application and was told should be fine. Since mid January (when people started getting UT Austin results) to last Friday I spent A MONTH calling and emailing the school to try to get in touch with someone and see if my app was being reviewed and if the transcript issue was resolved. An entire month with not a single person from the university getting back to me. I finally talked to admissions today and was told that my app was not reviewed, it's too late to change anything, if i had talked to admissions about it earlier then i might have been able to resolve the issue (as if I hadn't been trying), and that i can apply again next cycle. A complete nightmare and disgusting, unprofessional way to treat an applicant over a tiny issue in my app. Even if I did apply and get i to the school at this point I'm not sure if I'd want to go.

Did anyone ever get results from UT Austin? I've been trying to talk to someone from the admissions office about a question for literally a month and I never get an email or call back.

Did anybody get a rejection from Columbia? I'm trying to figure out if not hearing anything means wait listed or rejected.

Got rejection from UCSD political science dept. Did anyone get results for the joint program with GPS though? That app hasn't updated for me.

Just got wait-listed to American. I know being wait-listed is a good thing but damn can I get a single straight acceptance letter so i can stop worrying Jesus. Also for the person asking about UCSD, I was told I would get results by the end of this coming week so I assume that goes for most people.

Yep by email (responding to the MIT question, grad cafe won't let me quote on my phone for some reason).

Just got wait-listed to MIT.

Damn i hope it's not actually a seriously bad thing to reach out to PhD programs for updates. I have an issue with one of my apps which I completed but is still even now marked as incomplete (admissions said it should be reviewed regardless) even though it isn't really. I haven't heard anything from the program and it's still marked incomplete so I've been calling and sending emails repeatedly to the school (because they never respond) just to make sure that after all this time the app is being reviewed. Hope that doesn't come off as desperate

I see people getting rejections from Princeton. You guys are getting it from SPIA, right? Not some other political science department? I still haven't heard anything from SPIA.

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.

Just got wait-listed for University of Maryland :/. Only getting responses from lower ranked places i applied to and got one rejection and one wait-list, doesn't leave me very hopeful. Also what page are we supposed to update acceptance/rejections/wait-list on?

Just got rejection from GWU

I applied to Georgetown but also no response yet and not sure when they send out emails. For writing samples, I have a family member who has been on a lot of academic committees to distribute scholarships and stuff like that, so not the same as a PhD but I assume kind of similar in spirit. He basically told me that a committee looks at writing samples like you probably imagine, ie. they'll look at the abstract, first few pages, conclusion etc., but no one has time to read 20-30 pages to check if you have some spelling mistakes or typos in the body of the paper.

I also haven't gotten anything for Brown yet.