poscme

Waitlists suck...mostly.

Yeah, I am now off the hold list. I was gracefully transferred to the official waitlist. Damn. Now I know someone has to turn down an offer for me to get one.

Cool, me too. I think April 2nd is when they will announce the country placements. I definitely don't want Egypt as I got invited to be an AP Reader and there would be a scheduling conflict. I am hoping for Jordan, but will be happy wherever I guess.

Does anyone know the difference? Is there a difference? I was placed on a hold list at one of my schools.

I am looking forward to it. I am surprised that there are not more people here who have done/will do CLS. I have been to all of the possible countries except Jordan, so thats the one I am hoping for; but of course I can't choose. I actually had forgotten about this and acquired another grant for Arabic in Yemen, I am now trying to defer it until next year. If I may ask, were you out much money overall at the end of CLS? When they say they cover everything, do they mean it? Thanks.

Did anyone else apply for the CLS program? I was accepted for Arabic, just not sure where yet. It would be cool to meet some people who will going at the same time.

Anyone passing on TAMU before the visit? I will gladly slide in and take that spot.

I got one similar originally, but now I know more details. Option 3 would have been better on this one as the decisions had not been made yet. I couldn't wait, but it worked out ok. I do think expressing genuine interest is a good idea. Good luck!

If I got that e-mail, I would do one of three things: 1) E-mail back and say thanks for letting me no...but the email didn't mention details on funding. This is important to me and I am curious if the funding decisions have been finalized....but be courteous and appreciative. 2) I would ask around as you are and try to get some sort of pattern on the dept. and its typical packages over time and this year, if the data are available. 3) I would sit back and be happy for a "yes" and wait for the details from the admissions office. I would actually lean towards a combination of all three of these. Just my 2 cents.

This whole process is screwed if you ask me. I also had poor math scores, both in early classes and the GRE. However, I know that I want to be a political scientist. So, I aced the two undergrad and two MA Quant methods courses. My thesis is employing methods like HLM and Probit. I did a conference paper using logistic and several using OLS. What I am saying is that I can't compute or regress a model in my head or by hand, but I damn sure can use SPSS and STATA to plug things in and interpret the output. I leaned heavily Qual until I decided that buckling down and learning these techniques would be my only saving grace. Even with all of this plus LORS that explained how I have tutored in methods and worked on projects with profs in which I handled the analyses, I was still rejected out of hand at Emory. Like mormegil, I think this is because of my poor math background. Here is what I am getting at: sure go learn a language and do this or that, but you would be better served to either go to a MA program and shine in methods or go to ICPSR or something like this. I am fluent in Arabic, have a 4.0 (BA & MA, retook the math classes and made A's but didn't help GRE), studied abroad in ME three different times, taught 3 classes already, 2 pubs forthcoming, and 6 quantitative conference papers-these things didn't help at all at places that use GRE Quant for cutoff. I am not arguing against the GRE (as much as I would love to, its legit) as I understand that people have to draw lines somewhere, so if you can improve your math on it that may be your best shot. If you can't (I couldn't) then maybe you will want to try some of the above suggestions. People should know the trouble (with debt and lame pay) they may have if they have to pay for an MA or god forbid the PhD, but people who have it made shouldn't try to convince people who are less privileged not to do what they want, at least imo. No matter how this turns out, my scores and programs are way below many that are talked about on here. It hurts my pride and confidence to read through this sometimes, but it is also a good reality check. I may not end up in an endowed chair or even a R1 type place (highly extensive, very active or whatever it is these days), but my success thus far should be an indicator of my chances to be a productive political scientist-right? Besides, we need people at the bottom so the ones at the top can realize that while deciding between Harvard and Yale or UCB and UMich is quite tough, it could be much worse.

So to recap, today I e-mailed my remaining programs. I am waitlisted at one and the others haven't gotten finished with their reviews yet. So I still say it can't hurt.

I am batting .500 with this. I have received 2 rejections and 2 acceptances via e-mail replies. Either way, it didn't hurt to know. I have blitzed the others this morning in an effort to bring this whole shitty process to a close.

I hope you guys are right. I will wait on your letter, mormegil, and then try and establish contact with them by Friday or next Monday. This is the one that I really want. Publicpolicy79, thanks for the info. I hope I see both of you in a few weeks.

This is one of those what would you do questions: So I haven't heard anything from TAMU since February 10 when the DGS e-mailed me back and said that they were still considering my app and that decisions would be made as the month went along. Since then, several folks have been rejected. Should I contact them again? I am scared shitless to be a bother, but the waiting is paralyzing my productivity. Please advise...

Give them a shout and let us know...lol...I don't know. I feel the same way.