TerribleTowel

I received an informal acceptance at WUSTL via the department. The official acceptance will come from the graduate school, but it has yet to arrive. There is a lot of bureaucracy involved in university admissions, so it isn't necessarily the fault of the departments that decisions take so long to arrive. The fast decisions seem to come from departments that offer informal acceptances before the formal results come out later. Thanks for the update on Emory! Hope we get some additional results in the meantime

Yeah, I feel you. You should definitely get some good results given how many applications you put out! To everyone who submitted fewer apps - don't stress out too much, seems like @randomsinging and I are outliers. In the end, you only need one program to work out, right? So hopefully all those applications aren't necessary. In hindsight, I wish I had applied to fewer programs.

Ha, thanks! Well, I probably went overboard because I'm coming from an economics background - in econ it is typical to apply to at least 30 programs. Applying to 25 would be on the low end. ?

It depends on the program. Some programs, like Michigan, seem to send acceptances and rejections at the same time. Others, like Emory, send rejections first. Still others, like Duke, send acceptances first. Some programs have many rounds of rejections. Others have only one. You could look up the trends for your programs by going to https://www.thegradcafe.com/survey/?program=Political+Science Then click "advanced search" and search for the name of your universities. It looks like UT Austin calls their program "government", so adjust the search accordingly. I'm sorry to hear about the issues you had with Texas. That's definitely annoying. I hope things work out for you! It's stressful, I know. Fortunately, it seems like many programs haven't released yet, so good news could come soon. To put things in perspective, I applied to 19 programs and only heard from 2 (though I assume I was rejected at Duke based on the results here). The rest of this week and February should see more activity. Let's hope for the best!

@randomsinging, based on @FrickinPolisci's post on the results page, they applied to two programs. My guess is that the public affairs program just released results, and the P.A. program must've reached out to the political science department so that they could send a single result. If this year's results are released at about the same time as last year's results, we should expect UCSD political science results this week. @FrickinPolisci I'm sorry they didn't admit you. Admissions are really random, so you very likely could get into a better program. Don't worry, let's hope for the best in the next few weeks!

Thanks for sharing! Hope you get good results if you applied there!

That's interesting, I didn't know they interviewed their finalists. Where did you hear this?

I was notified of my acceptance at 1pm CT. I've heard that some schools release results in the early morning, and some in the evening. Yesterday Berkeley's econ department seems to have sent out rejections around 8pm! So unfortunately there is not a narrow time interval when results are released. My rule of thumb is that I only check my email once every two hours. It is a short enough time period that I can restrain myself from checking, but long enough that there is a reason to check. Perhaps this could work for you too.

Oh wow, that's nice! I see that there's variation in the stipend - did your classmate end up going to Wash U, or was that the offer they got last year?

@PippenRabbit no, still am waiting. I think it usually takes at least a week to hear back. Based on this site, I think the stipend will be about $27k. The department says we get 4 years of funding at least

@Realbadgal@Crossed_fingers how do you update your signature?

To those asking about Washington University St Louis - I was accepted with a declared interest in American politics.

Since we know Princeton usually gets trolled, and the objective of a troll is to mess with people, I suggest we refrain from discussing those results. Let the troll deal with the silence ?

It's hard to say for sure. For instance, last year Berkeley seems to have had 4 rounds of acceptances. At the same time, though, Wash U admitted all results at once last year. But keep in mind that last year they also sent out results two weeks later, so this year is different. I'm hoping for the best for you. If Wash U doesn't work out, I'm sure another good program will!

No, on the website it says that students are funded for at least 4 years. Likely what happened is that funding is decided by the college while admission is decided by the department. That's why there is a delay. (Not just for Wash U, but also for a lot of schools.) The email said, "You will soon receive a formal offer letter with financial information directly from the Graduate School."

I also got an unofficial acceptance from Washington St. Louis - funding email will come later. There is no change on the portal. The email was from the admissions director and was sent at exactly 1 pm central time.

Congrats! ? Hard work pays off! Any details on your funding package? Also, is this our first acceptance? Exciting!

Another thing to keep in mind - many schools on the semester system are just now getting back from break (e.g. Mizzou's first day of class was two days ago). Professors don't want to review applications over break and probably are only now reviewing materials.

I applied to Northwestern and Wash U. Haven't heard back from either, but that's not unusual. I believe we won't hear back until mid-February. I also applied to Vanderbilt, and they were kind enough to send out a timeline for admissions. Vanderbilt won't begin reviewing applications until next week, and they will release results during the week of February 6. Perhaps the timeline for other schools is similar. It's a stressful time, I know, but hang in there! We'll hear results soon enough. Hoping you hear some good news.

Thanks!

That's a good question. It's the same portal you used to apply. You should see a checklist. If there's a status update, then you'll see it at the top of the page

Thank you! Those are all good questions, thanks for sharing. To everyone on this forum, I hope you hear some good news soon as well.

Hi guys, I've been watching this forum but didn't have anything to post until now. After reading @MIAMia237's post, I decided to check the U Chicago Political Economy portal. I got a status update asking for a 15 min interview the week of Jan 23. No email, had to check the portal directly. Does anyone know what to expect? This will be my first interview (I also applied to Duke but haven't heard anything).