smoothoperator77

A piece of advice for you and others: with this attitude of yours, even if you get into a "top program" as you think, I guarantee you won't go as far in this field as you imagine. You need to respect your colleagues, your students, and even people you don't like.

Yea, I don't know if it's the reason that very successful and very depressed students are more likely to report their results, but I feel like results have gone more bipolar, like the people above the threshold would have multiple offers more, and people below would have very poor results. I guess it might also have to do with the fact that people are applying to more "safety" programs (which is a lousy concept to me, cuz there's really nothing safe now), so they're getting more offers. Maybe one implication is that people on waiting lists would generally have a better chance of getting an offer in the end. Or at least I hope so!

I was in the last two cycles, and so far this year feels more competitive than the last two, but not by much. Combined, I received 27 rejections, 3 wait-list decisions, and 2 offers. I knew many who had much better results than I had, but far more with worse results. It is just the reality that we are dealing with. Congratulations to those who have ideal offers, but for the others, try not to feel too sad and beat yourself down too much. If you really want this, do not stop trying. The reality we are facing is abnormal due to many reasons, but not necessarily because of your lack of competence or effort!

Are you the one with the 8 acceptances? If so, awesome and awesome!

It's always okay to ask for status, only that it wouldn't make much difference other than easing the nerves. If you are considered, you will be contacted eventually; if not, it is just rejections waiting to be sent. There is one possibility that is worth checking, though, which is that sometimes people are on a tacit waitlist, or people are waitlisted but are not notified, but this is rare. In this case, they would likely confirm that you are on the waitlist if you ask them. Sometimes, some schools do not even send rejections for some, so in this case, an email asking for status actually serves the purpose of making sure that you do not need to wait for this to make decisions on your plan, but this would be more meaningful in March or April.

They have been doing this for at least three years now. In the last two years, they would internally discuss the situation until this point or even later, to decide that they would drastically decrease their admitting cohort compared to the years before, without any alarm. Most likely, the process is essentially the political science department waiting for the university to decide on funding. In the last two years, they admitted 5 new students each, or some number around that, and apparently, this year it's 0. So I think they either have some funding problem as a university, or the university is strategically lowering the capacity of political science.

I tend to think that there are fewer applicants this year and in the years to come. I was in the last application cycle, and the one before, and I think the number really peaked in the last few years. With more programs cutting their cohort size, the funding drama related to the federal government, and the effect of Trumpism, I think the applicant pool is finally reacting to these trends. But yes, I guess it could also be that people use Gradcafe less, or simply this cohort is particularly quieter. I am very interested in this, so if anyone has some better opinions, please share them.

In the last few years, there were some Duke admissions who were not interviewed.

I was notified just now that I was moved off the Rutgers waiting list and offered admission! For all still waiting, things could still happen today and a few days after!

What are the quotation marks around the word "hoping" supposed to mean? This alone tells me the exact reason that you did not answer my question. And for your information, I am not litigating admitted vs. non-admitted students, for the reason that I know that multiple people, including me, on this thread, have offers, and some are current PhD students who want to choose a better program. As you said, we are trying to make the right decisions, as these decisions matter a lot, especially at this time.

Listen, we perfectly understand your point, we know people have the freedom to do whatever they want, we know our chances are slim, but this forum is specifically for people like us who are still waiting and hoping, and it is only natural that we have some kind of healthy expression of either frustration or hope, in here, because we are only expressing those to each other and those who might have information and are WILLING to share, not you, and @PolPsychGal11, (I am calling on you directly because you've expressing harsh negativity once already and is upvoting this latest one again, like wtf? And it seems that you are a professor, I can't imagine how your students would feel about your attitude) if you were just going to dismiss people. You are very welcome to leave if we bother you this much. One question for you and all alike: have you had no setbacks in your life, at all? Don't pretend to be some kind of successful dudes from the moment you were born and look down upon us like you do. You might be really successful, and we might be a bunch of idiots to you, so please share your successful stories and condescending attitude with those who could appreciate it.

With all due respect, I don't think Omkar is clogging up the threads and spreading inaccurate information. I wish people could understand students in this situation with more compassion. Some of us really want to do this, and this is not even a job that meets the minimum wage, which tells how much we want this, and things are pretty desperate for many. Being in the seat of an insider is not a good reason to discourage the right of an outsider to have concerns and ask questions.

For me personally, as much as I am disgusted by some of the things you described, it's more of an issue that the political chaos in the US has been and is lowering the standard of the US academia as the No.1, than an issue that the US has necessarily stopped being the best location for academics. I think there is still a long way to go before we can consider the US worse than Europe if there would ever be a day of that, especially in terms of funding. Also, a big momentum for the increasing competitiveness of getting into a good program is the trend of stipend raises for PhD students, so in some way, you could consider the financial situation in the US academia is getting better, as long as you can get into a program. But I could understand your concern as a former progressive activist. However, it's not a perfect world. I am sure there are flaws in Europe concerning progressive values and academic freedom as well, let alone in Asia. If you just cannot stand Trumpism, then I guess you can't stand it. But as you said, we can always hope and contribute to a better future. I think one of the privileges of being a graduate student is that, compared with many other jobs, you can often find enough room for yourself to be yourself while making contributions to the changes you want to make, at least, that's how I want it to be.

The situation we are facing as possible future scholars in academia is so ridiculous….

I think it 100% won't hurt as long as we keep it discretely and humbly. I mean, it should be only normal that we feel excited and look forward to being in good programs that are still interested in us. But yeah, I doubt it impacts their decisions much. I think our ranking on the waitlist is already set either way, so it should be solely dependent on whether there would be a spot opening up. But I also think not expressing interest is inappropriate because if they are ever going to make offers off of the waitlist, they need to know that this decision is worth it and that they give it to someone who would cherish this opportunity.