polisci applicant

When I was trying to decide what departments to apply to, I was directed to a few articles on placement of graduate students by different programs: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~chin ... _paper.pdf http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm? ... id=1008028 I'm not sure how to fully interpret the rankings, and I'm sure that there are a lot of problems with either methodology. But it does seems that there is a similar set of schools at the top of both lists (say 10-20), and below those schools, the odds of placement are pretty low. Something like 1-10% compared to 20-50%. Once again, I could be reading this wrong though.

The email did use my first name after "Dear", but nothing else personal. Take that for what it's worth.

FYI: Harvard emails just went out. It notes that they accepted 29 people this year. Good luck to everyone.

I just received the Columbia email a few minutes ago, so they must be going out staggered and still going. Good luck everyone.

Just as an FYI for those waiting on Princeton, I received an acceptance email about an hour ago, so they must now be going out. Good luck.

I just wanted to offer some comfort to those waiting on news from Yale, since I was one of the people waiting throughout the weekend. At about 4:00 today I received an email telling me to check the website for a decision, which was an acceptance. A few minutes later I received a call from Jon Butler, the graduate school dean to tell me. When I mentioned I had just received the email, he said "I had hoped to notify you myself." I would not be surprised if they are spacing acceptances so that he can make calls. So for those still waiting, good luck.