RWBG

There's definitely a fair bit of year to year variation. Probably more realistically, 3-4 of the schools on my list will send out admits, 1-2 won't, and you'll have 1-2 surprise schools to fill the gap.

Cool, did you e-mail them about this?

My guess is we hear from Michigan, Rochester, Duke, Stanford, and UCLA by the end of next week. Anyone else want to place bets?

Grantman, I wouldn't worry too much at this point, given the idiosyncratic nature of each admissions committee. More generally to everyone, even getting rejected everywhere is not the worst thing in the world; that's what happened to me last year, and this cycle is proving to be more of a success already.

Don't most departments provide funding for you to attend the campus visits?

Thanks, The Realist, your advice has consistently been amongst the most insightful on this forum. I hate to be the guy that pesters you with more questions, but given the quality of your advice in the past, I feel I would be remiss if I didn't. Do you have any insights into what schools are considered strongest on the job market for IPE? I have been fortunate enough to be admitted to Wisconsin, and there is some chance I may need to decide between Wisconsin and some others. Placement data is only so helpful in getting a sense of how schools are perceived by subfield, especially for a department like Wisconsin which has had a lot of faculty move around recently, given that placement is a lagging indicator. Anyways, even if you don't respond to this, thanks again for all the advice you've given now and in the past; I have taken it strongly into account when making grad school related decisions.

I only remember one school doing this, and it was a rejection that I think was expected given that acceptances had already gone out. Generally, weekends are still pretty safe.

I'll say the same thing I usually say in response to this: the degree to which it matters is heavily dependent on the kind of research you want to do. As a minimally sufficient score to show you'll be able to read (not produce) the more mathy literature, schools want you to get a 700ish, but beyond that it should only matter if your GREQ will actually signal something about your ability to do the kind of research you want to do (i.e. if you want to do stats stuff or formal theory).

Fair enough, although in that event I'm sure there would be clearly outlined preconditions given with your offer. This is true, but not really grade dependent. It's unlikely anyone is going to look closely at your final transcripts. You want to continue learning as much as possible over the next few months, but what grades you get in your courses is now basically irrelevant, except insofar as that is a reflection that you learned less or more from any given course, which is not usually a perfect correlation. Personally, I find myself more motivated to work, but a lot more focused on learning stuff from the work I'm doing than ensuring that my grade is as high as possible, which has resulted in a substantive shift in the way I've been studying.

No-one is going to rescind your admission because you got a B+ instead of an A-. Frankly, unless it's an offer with specific conditions, I don't even think they could if they wanted to. You could probably even quit your degree mid-way (not that I'm suggesting that) without having your offer rescinded.

I don't want to discourage anyone, but political science Ph.D admissions tend to try to avoid admitting students in waves, and instead start off by admitting more people than they expect to enroll using previous yield rates as a guide. A small number of waitlists go out each year, and if you are on a waitlist, you will likely be informed of it shortly. In the past two years, Wisconsin appears to have informed waitlisters at the same time as admitted applicants; three years ago, it looks like someone was waitlisted a few weeks after the main round of admissions. In any event, I wouldn't be too discouraged by any individual decision, as each committee has highly idiosyncratic ways of evaluating candidates. It is not uncommon for lower ranked schools to reject applicants who get accepted to schools in the top five. Edit: Re Kem140: As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm interested in formal IPE/methods.

Great! The more applicants who are on this board, the greater the likelihood that >=1 of us will be accepted and will be able to let the others know when offers have gone out.

Formal IPE/methods. Still no other Rochester applicants on the board?

Fantastic. Not exactly related, but this was pretty great: http://www.theonion.com/articles/time-traveler-from-the-year-1998-warns-nation-not,27178/

I don't think this is precisely true. To quote myself in a post from a year ago:

Oddly enough, getting accepted has had the opposite effect for me. I had resigned myself to reapplying next year; now that I know I'm going to Ph.D program next year, any rejection effectively ensures that I won't attend that program at any point in the future. That being said, it's a good kind of anxiety, given that all possible outcomes (including being rejected everywhere else) are fantastic.

Didn't apply for methods as a primarily field, but had formal theory and methods as a secondary field for some schools. Are you applying to Rochester? Edit: Actually, let me address that question more broadly; is anyone else on this forum applying to Rochester?

There are some decent looking hostels in the area around the hotel. I don't remember which ones specifically looked good, though.

I appreciate that, balthasar. All the best with your own applications.

Congrats balderdash! From what I've seen on this forum, you definitely deserved to be admitted.

Part of me still thinks this is some kind of computer error. I had resigned myself to applying next year after doing an economics MA. I even had my applications for the year after next year planned. I'm not sure exactly how to adapt to the fact I'm doing a Ph.D next year.

Yep just got it now. Pretty exciting.

My application for Madison says the same thing (recommended for admission.) I will remain skeptical until I get more official confirmation.

MPSA, right? I'd say see you guys there, but with thousands of people at the conference, that seems statistically unlikely.

I think it's also only a small subset of your cohort with whom you're actually in competition for the same jobs; the IR folks aren't really going to be applying for the same jobs as the Americanists. In any event, I think not being an awful person is likely to help you out more in the long-run; political science academia is a small enough field that you're going to be seeing many of these people plenty throughout the rest of your career, and it won't be in your interest to burn bridges. Good to hear things are going well for you, Tufnel!