vig180

Int'l Affairs and History Major from a large southern state school 1580 GRE (800v, 780q, 6.0 writing) 3.99 GPA Finalist for major national scholarship Best Paper in State Award, several conference papers, a few minor publications, lots of other academic and extracurricular awards Extensive study abroad including field research in Africa for thesis 3 glowing recs from the best professors in my field at my school. IR/Security Rejected: Stanford, MIT, Harvard, Yale, WashU Accepted: UCSD My take: The prestige of your school and professors matters more than we'd like to think. But I'll echo the above post and say that this forum has been wonderfully informative and very supportive, so I'm glad the people on here are getting into excellent schools as well.

I don't think stats have much play based on my experience thus far. I've got a 1580 GRE, 3.99 GPA, several minor publications, great recs., etc. and haven't had much luck this cycle (I'm 1 for 4). Grad school isn't like Law or Med School- stats are a much smaller part of the application. Who you know, work experience, research experience, and a strong and specific SOP seem to be more highly valued.

Just curious: Would anyone who got into Stanford or WashU mind sharing more about themselves? Apparently they don't care as much about the quantifiable parts of the applications, so I'm curious about the kind of experiences/background that these schools might be looking for.

In at UCSD as well! Congrats to everyone else, but yeah it's kind of weird to get an email with everyone else's emails displayed as well. Let's hope the CA budget crisis miraculously resolves itself so we'll all be assured of funding. I wonder how they'll determine who gets funded or not in this environment since historically I think they were committed to fully funding everyone. It's a relief to get in anywhere though.

Does "in the next week" mean by the end of this week or by the end of next week (For WashU)?

From the looks of last year's results is seems like Duke sent out one wave of rejections, waited a week, sent out acceptances, waited a day, sent out more rejections and finally after another week sent out the rest of the rejections. Let's hope they decide to get it all over with today.

Friend of mine with a 4.0 and high (1500ish) GRE scores just got turned down from Duke too, so I don't think this is some arbitrary cutoff line.

I see the first acceptance from UC-Davis on the list. The first of a tidal wave of notifications? Between this site and poliscijobrumors, I've been extremely unproductive every time I get online. Which is not good when the deadline for submitting an article I'm working on is Feb. 1st... and there's still that undergrad thesis to do as well. I might be getting a taste of grad school life over the next few weeks at this rate, especially with a methods course on the side. Good luck to all! It's an exciting, if nerve-wracking, time.

Last professor finally got the last recommendation in today after various adventures with finding recommendation forms in the spambox and being abroad in non-internet locations; then I find out GRE scores haven't arrived at several schools even though I ordered them in mid-Nov. Is it really that hard for electronic scores to arrive? I'll likely have to call and double check tomorrow at every school to make sure they got 'em (except for the kind few who have online status updates).

Hey y'all, just stumbled across this website today; wish I'd found it months ago. I keep hearing conflicting things about my chances: some people say it's a crapshoot anywhere, some people say I'm fine if the schools read my application (which I'm somewhat worried about because my undergrad school isn't highly ranked), some say I'm worrying too much and will be fine. We'll see. PhD PoliSci- IR/Security Studies/Conflict Large state school- Honors Program Undergrad Majors: Int'l Affairs (IR concentration), History UG GPA: 3.99 GRE: 800v, 780q, 5.5w 3 conference papers (1 best paper award), working on a few other publications, field research in Africa, several independent research classes, 4 strong recs with 2 well-known polisci profs, lots of extracurricular stuff and awards Applied to: Harvard Yale Stanford WashU UCSD (I'm surprised I haven't seen this school on too many peoples' lists- I've heard a lot of good things from here) MIT Hope I'm not over shooting...I've got some backup options too just in case, but they're masters programs/jobs.