Polisci882

Does anyone have any info on when the following schools may release decisions? These are my remaining decisions. I’m American Politics: UC Berkeley, UNC, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Michigan State, University of Pittsburgh, Georgetown

I would gently caution against doing a terminal MA program. You mentioned that you still have 10 applications remaining, so hopefully you’ll receive an PhD offer! In any case, terminal MA’s tend to not be funded, so you’d likely be paying a lot of money (for tuition, housing, etc) to attend a Master’s program. And in a PhD program, you’ll likely be awarded an MA degree along the way anyways. So, if you get a PhD offer, definitely take it. I just wanted to let you know of these downsides of terminal MA programs.

I see many people in here being accepted to many incredible schools and I’m so happy about that. But, I want to say that if there’s anyone in this chat who hasn’t gotten an offer yet, please don’t lose hope. I’ve gotten one offer, but I’ve also gotten many, many rejections. Six in fact. To those who have one or no offers, you’re not alone. I just wanted to say that because people might feel less inclined to speak in this chat if they aren’t getting good news.

Has anyone doing American Politics heard anything from UNC or Georgetown?

I’m AP, but I haven’t heard anything.

I don’t think Georgetown and UNC have sent out all their decisions yet. Relatively few posts from either school on the results page

has anyone gotten a decision from Georgetown? I saw someone post being waitlisted on the results page

I’m 21 currently, but will be 22 when I start my PhD program.

Rejected by both UMich and UChicago today lol

One of my favorite lines from these rejection emails is always “due to application volume, we are unable to provide information about why your application was rejected or provide suggestions on how to improve your application”. they say this because there is often nothing obviously wrong with an application. These committees are going through hundreds of applications, and if I had to guess, are denying applications that they simply don’t find quite as impressive as the ones they admit. And, of course, this is a very subjective review process

Also rejected from umich

Oh, so you do think UNC has released all acceptances? 😕

Oh, so you do think UNC has already released all acceptances? 😕

Do we think UNC has already released all of its offers? This early batch release is unlike how they’ve done it in previous years, so I’m not sure what to think

No activity on here for a little bit — I hope everyone has been able to get a little break from this stressful application process

Out of curiosity, when you all were creating your list of PhD programs to apply to, did you all include “safety” schools on your list? I use that term loosely, because I don’t really think there are safety schools in PhD admissions. It’s all fairly competitive. I’m just curious because it seems most posts on gradcafe tend to be about the same ~30 or so schools, but there are many more universities that offer PhD programs that don’t get posted about as much. It seems we are all vying for spots at a few very name-brand institutions.

Have UChicago and UNC sent out all their acceptances? The fact that just a few have been posted on grad cafe is a little confusing.

I sent a very carefully worded and kind email to the GDS yesterday asking about when decisions would be going out, because I saw people posting results on gradcafe, even though I had interviewed and heard nothing back. The GDS replied and told me that I was not being offered admission, and that official notices would go out in a few weeks. I got an early heads up, essentially. She mentioned less than 5% of applicants were admitted this year

Got rejected from Vanderbilt after having done an interview ~2 weeks ago, and I thought it was a strong interview. I won’t lie, it stings quite a lot to get rejected from a program that you were really excited and hopeful about. I’m grateful for the current offer that I have (Rice), because I do think I’d be going a little stir crazy without having any offers. This is my first round/cycle of Ph.D. applications, but the process is proving to be quite brutal in nature. Programs are very very selective and you can do nothing wrong and get rejected. I am proud of everyone who’s applied this cycle. Applying to Ph.D. programs is very tough and I hope we all get at least one offer that we can envision ourselves being happy with. I’m sending positive vibes to all who are feeling a little down currently

Did anyone else interview with Vanderbilt and not hear anything yet?

I think so too. Batches seem to be a trend

I’m holding out hope that not all acceptances to Vandy have been sent out. Those few reported from earlier certainly has me a little worried though.

I think the fact that there’s little uniformity regarding dates in this process (except the April 15th commitment day) makes this process very stressful. Programs release decisions when they want to, how they want to, and it is all around stressful

Unfortunately I have no chill at the moment

I’m losing my marbles because I interviewed with them and have no email or update yet 😕