barthestow

all four of those acceptances (and waitlists on this thread) are from informal channels, i.e., interviewer reaching out with an email. those who did interviews may have a shot of getting accepted; but the chance that duke accepts someone without prior interviews may be slim.

they never do interviews; they always do phone calls to notify acceptance, and emails at the end of february to notify rejection. again - echoing what has been said earlier - tomorrow is probably the day to schedule your excitement/disappointment.

i'd always thought that the extra years of work experience after college would drastically change one's outlook alongside their research interests. during undergrad i was hyper-focused on democratic theory; but after doing policy work for a number of years (and getting disillusioned) i made a pivot to the financial/economic side of things, which served as a basis for my proposed research topics.

i think mid-february.

basically means you are admitted. congrats!

congrats! saw your earlier post regarding your decision to reapply this year. best luck to you in the future. those are solid schools!

UMN is out; received a rejection at the portal.

doubt a lot of people in the states are clamoring for a phd in humanities/social sciences; even fewer people are looking to improve their employment prospect by getting a terminal degree in said fields. international applicants always hold a steady majority in the candidate pool, who seek better socio-economic opportunities by way of an academic connection. i think a better explanation for the year-to-year explosion of applicants is that the socio-economic circumstances in countries like China or India have provoked out-migration on an ever-greater scale. this, combined with the fact that departments are looking to enroll fewer people because of a recent raise in grad stipend, pretty much means the process is getting increasingly more selective.

CP.

i did; knew someone who got an interview with the POI a while back. but decisions are not yet out.

chiming in to say that any rejection should not be seen as a negative reflection of your ability or your potential. the application process (and academia writ large) is a game where arbitrariness is a built-in element, and manufactured scarcity a dreadful constancy. a rejection is just a confluence that fails to materialize. hope you feel better.

only a handful of schools, e.g., Cornell, Harvard, Michigan, UT-Austin, Princeton, have qualitative-focused subfields ("APD" or American Political Development, Public Law, Law and Courts, etc.) besides theory. theory has been moribund for some time now.

"learn to code" - that's what biden told coal miners, and that's how i conclude my sop

i'll let others weigh in on the quant aspect as i have a decisively qualitative focus (old-school political economy; law & society type); but i think the lack of quant experience as evidenced through your coursework (or your sop/writing sample) would be quite unfavorable because there's only a handful of faculty who would be able to work with you. political science in the US is a siloed field that has strict methodological boundaries that distinguish itself from adjacent fields, say, political sociology.

definitely thinking duke, vandy, georgetown, and uwashington, as they've been doing some rounds of interviews a while back. maybe unc is around the corner as well? also expecting wisc to formally hand me a rejection.

grateful that northwestern don't ghost people!

hi! I was wait-listed by UT-Austin and was invited to an information session with students & faculties this Friday. will report back later if they have a timeline in mind.

northwestern's application closed on 12/21; usual timeline is around first/second week of february. but who knows, it's everybody's guess.

the worst is either University of Texas, MIT, or George Washington though. Wisconsin gets an honorable mention.

to shed a bit of light - i was waitlisted by UT-Austin and was told by the DGS that i was expected to hear back from them in late March/early April. they had also scheduled three virtual events (meet & greet with students & faculties) between early February to early March for waitlisted candidates. hope that helps!

still justified to send an inquiry asking when the funding status will be determined, but it seems that the department has to pay out stipends through their general reserve, which is not a good sign. could be a sign that they are expecting to enroll just a small handful of students.

absolutely reasonable to send an inquiry letter asking about the scholarship/fellowship status, though as fizzan has pointed out it may take some time for the department to sort out the exact package.

buffalo is one of the two flagships under SUNY, and (unlike CUNY) haven't had any funding problems thus far. you definitely will be considered for a fully-funded scholarship, though the offer letter might take some time! congrats!