[How is Binghamton?]

Penelope Higgins is surely more qualified than me to comment on the NRC rankings. However, I'd take them with a grain (or several buckets full) of salt. In my mind, they are more useful when disaggregated. For instance, they contain interesting information about the % of students receiving funding, average GRE Q score, time to completion, etc. But the rankings are based on some questionable assumptions, in my mind.

Additionally, don't confuse departmental strength with strength in graduate training. A few programs to which I applied have great scholars but students who indicate that said scholars aren't interested in training graduates. I'm making my choice based on placement within my subfield. At the end of the day, I just want a decent job. The number of articles published by my adviser doesn't mean anything if he doesn't help his advisees secure decent positions.

agree. phd is a professional training for an academic career. job placement might be the most important factor we should take into account in considering a phd program. some well-known scholars can definitely derive up the ranking of a specific program, since the research quality weighs heavily in the ranking system. a good and responsible professor is supposed to spend more time on students' training and jobhunting. but I think job is a product of multiple causes. besides advisor's part, the student's performance, publication and subfield, the reputation of a given program in community of political scientists, market demand and budget constraint all play some role. maybe a longitudinal multivariate regression analysis can offer a better answer. the interesting thing there is a multicollinearity between publication and general reputation. according to a professor, importance of publication is negatively related to the reputation of a program, which means the better a program is, the less press for producing pulication a student is faced with. NRC's regression ranking is based on survey of faculties, who choose a score on 1-7 scale. And then, if we take an average of the highest and lowest rank for a program, we can get a result which should be closer to that done by usnews.

[How is Binghamton?]

Interesting faculty, not much placement, so it is hard to call it a top program. See the listings here which certainly do not include all the folks who finished but didn't get placed.

Oh, really? that's too weird and dishonest. But it is because this is a very small program.

[How is Binghamton?]

I see Binghamton ranks high in NRC ranking (S-based:5-20; R-based:23-49). But I have no idea about the real situation of their phd program. Any experiences, "rumors" or thoughts are greatly welcomed and appreciated.

[Political Science - Fall 2011 Cycle]

I'm claiming a Maryland rejection. I'm in Political Economy/ Comparative. I'm quite surprised because it was my safety school and I got into much better places. Oh well, good luck to you all.

Bases on previous results, Maryland seems already done with the admission. People who received offer in March (through mail) for the past years were international students living outside the states. will this year be different? hope so!