[Criminal Justice / Criminology 2011 Application Season]

Got rejected by SUNY Albany. My application there was about 3 weeks late due to delays in getting a transcript from the goons at my undergrad school, so I can't say I'm surprised.

U of Cincinnati is reviewing applications on Thursday, FYI.

[Rejected at lower ranked school]

The rankings aren't necessarily the best to go off of anyways. I think that people get sucked in by how schools are ranked and assume the higher the rank, the 'better' the school will be, but many of the attributes the schools are ranked on don't necessarily have a direct effect on the student in the long run. Also, not all schools provide certain information to the people creating the rankings, so that would leave us with some skewed results. I don't know... I just personally don't put too much emphasis on the rankings!

Keep your head up! Think more along the lines of 'fit' rather than rankings!

I have to say that I agree with you, now that my head is somewhat clear after receiving my first acceptance. Going purely off of the rankings, I saw that the "#1" program in my field has a professor with a Ph.D from the "#5" school. Perhaps the distance between #5 and #1 isn't very far or the rankings don't mean everything. If you're concerned about the ranking of your school, just check around to see what kinds of opportunities graduates from that program have. If you like what you see, then the ranking is just a meaningless number, right?

[State College, PA]

I got my first acceptance from Penn State and I've got to say that I don't see how any of the other schools can beat their offer. The "tiny program on a huge campus" setting sounds perfect to me.

They're paying to fly me out to visit the campus in about a month, and I was glad to find out that my wife is welcome to attend (though we have to fly her at our expense, obviously). So, it sounds like they're pretty family friendly in that respect. During the visit I'm supposed to have a few opportunities to hang out with the current students, so if I get any good tips on housing for "the marrieds" I'll post it here.

[Criminal Justice / Criminology 2011 Application Season]

So it's a new year for Criminal Justice / Criminology grad students, and I just wanted to see how everyone is doing. Are most of us getting in?

After about 6 weeks of nailbiting, I got my first reply and it was an acceptance from Penn State. They're only taking 9 people this year, so I was pretty happy. Still waiting for the 5 other schools to see where else I get in and what else they offer, but at least it won't be so bad now. I see some UMD results posted, so I'm starting to think I'm headed for rejection there.

How about you guys? What kinds of offers are you getting?