kolja00

Berkeley rejections going out

Ivy League day of heartbreak with Columbia emails being sent out now too.

Received the official waitlist email from Princeton. Really nice.

Yup looks like it.

Anyone on the board claim a Berkeley admit yet? Dying here, sorry Im so obsessive over this guys haha.

I'm still waiting and I posted mine. I can't imagine any penalty??

I emailed one of my POI's at Berkeley and he said that admissions decisions have mostly been made and they were sent to the Dean for approval by the university.

PROFILE: Undergrad Institution: UChicago Major(s)/Minor(s): Political Science Undergrad GPA: 3.90 Type of Grad:N/A Grad GPA:N/A GRE: 163v 159q 5.5aw Any Special Courses:1st class of microeconomics sequence, stats, few grad classes in IR Letters of Recommendation: 2 from big IR profs, 1 from a visiting professor I had for 2 classes Research Experience: 3 years as an RA for a professor, Honors Thesis Teaching Experience: N/A Subfield/Research Interests: Substate Violence RESULTS: Acceptances: Chicago, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Madison Waitlists: Duke, Princeton Rejections: MIT, Stanford, Columbia Pending: Berkeley, Yale, Georgetown, and Maryland Going to: We'll see! SOP:(If I could re-do my SOP It would be much more about research I want to do in the future instead of things I have done in the past) My name is <> and I am applying to Columbia University as a candidate for your Ph.D program in Political Science, with a concentration in International Relations and Methodology. I believe that my passion and curiosity, along with my academic success and research experience in the field makes me a suitable candidate and valuable investment for your program over the next five years. My love of Political Science doesn’t stem from a lifelong desire to work for the CIA, or to teach at a prestigious university, but instead, it comes from something far closer and far deeper. In March 2007, my cousin enlisted with the Latvian Army and was shortly deployed to Afghanistan to assist with an American Provincial Reconstruction Team. Close to a year later, his convoy was struck by a roadside bomb in Khost Province and he lost his life serving the cause of freedom abroad. It is this circumstance that led me to my first introduction to the field of political science as a search for answers and understanding after losing a friend and beloved family member. A tragic situation guided me to the works of Waltz, Fearon, and Van Evera, among many others, in an effort to try and comprehend the complexities and causal logics of war and violence. In doing this critical research, I developed a love and passion for my field. The reason I study security issues and international politics is because my cousin’s death sparked in me a desire to look for answers, ask questions, and understand the sometimes violent world we live in. It is this crucial intellectual process that leads to enlightenment and answers to the questions we as political scientists seek. It is a process I wish to continue for the rest of my life; a process I wish to continue at Columbia. Over the last four years I have been lucky enough to attend the University of Chicago, an institution that prides itself on asking questions and looking for answers in a rigorous fashion. In my time here, I have taken a wide range of classes that deal with subjects from grand strategy to theoretical rational choice models and have been successful in my study of them. The great variety of classes I have taken has given me a very solid background in all subfields of Political Science- a backing I wish to expand in my graduate studies. These classes have let me explore numerous issues through research, discussion, and debate, which have all been integral in my development as a scholar. I have achieved a 4.00 GPA in my major and a 3.90 GPA overall, which places me in the top 5% of my class and which shows the time and dedication I put into my work and studies. This dedication to the field led to the privilege of being one of only three undergraduate fellows in the Program on International Security Policy (PISP), which is run by John Mearsheimer, Robert Pape, and Paul Staniland. PISP has given me an opportunity to discuss upcoming security studies articles and issues with graduate students and professors of political science here at Chicago in critical and in-depth ways and it has given me an idea of the process and logic that goes into creating scholarship. Beyond that, it has introduced me to the rigors of graduate studies and has made me extremely excited to continue pursuing an education in Political Science. Imaging that one-day I may have the opportunity to present my work to workshops like PISP and to groups of bright scholars is a motivation for me as I continue learning and researching. This year, I am undertaking a significant research project and honors thesis, advised by Professor Paul Staniland, that I hope to put forth for publication in the spring of 2012. The questions my paper looks to answer are as follows: Do Afghan Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) increase the legitimacy of the central government in the regions in which they are implemented? And, if so, what aspects of reconstruction cause population preferences to shift from the status quo (not accepting a central government) to acceptance of the central government? Despite the great wealth of counter-insurgency (COIN) literature, very little information exists on what actually causes the general populace in a province to switch allegiance during COIN operations. With Afghanistan, what causes people to move from status-quo support of the Taliban or neutrality to recognition of a central national government? My paper endeavors to find a causal logic that can explain shifts in population preferences in failed states. My paper will use PRTs in Afghanistan as a case study to look for the mechanism that creates government legitimacy in these types of states. PRTs are especially useful lenses at looking at COIN effectiveness because they use a combination of political, military, and economic mechanisms in differing regions all across Afghanistan. If we can locate when and under what conditions shifts towards accepting national governance occur, we may be able to better understand the nature of COIN strategy and the process of creating legitimacy in “failed” regions of the world. My experience with security issues and political science extends beyond the lecture hall and workshop room. My two years of work with the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism (CPOST), directed by Robert Pape, has given me in-depth experience with the process of academic research, writing, and publishing. One of the most challenging, yet exciting assignments I undertook was getting to work in-depth on Pape’s book, Cutting The Fuse: The Rise of Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It. I led the effort to update the CPOST suicide terrorism database, which catalogs every suicide terror attack since 1983. This required significant research not only of the attacks themselves, but also of attacker demographics, organizational information, along with many other metrics. I also played a crucial role researching, writing, and editing sections of the book on Chechen suicide terror campaigns against the Russian Federation. This process directly taught me the significance of theoretical academic writing, which greatly helped me think in critical and causal ways in my work afterward. Beyond that, I have researched and wrote on numerous security issues in my time at CPOST: from an analytical look at the effect of sanctions on Iran and an analysis of Afghan development projects and the creation of civil society, to more theoretical discussions of the anarchic world system we live in. These writings not only expanded my knowledge on certain arguments and issues in Political Science, but they also sparked in me an even greater interest to undertake my own critical academic research going forward and they created more questions that I wish to analyze and answer as I enter graduate school and pursue my career goal of becoming a professor. I believe that the purpose of graduate school is not only to become well versed in a specific area through the process of writing a dissertation, but to also become knowledgeable in the entire field that one is studying. My main research interest lies in studying terror groups from the aspect of operations and tactics, specifically using rational choice models and quantitative methods to explain actions and “grand” strategies of these non-state actors. A question I have great interest in exploring is why do insurgent groups and governments deliberately target religious sites and what impact does this have on the opposition groups after these operations? During the next two quarters of my undergraduate career, I plan on taking numerous statistics and quantitative methods courses to better prepare for graduate studies and to augment my knowledge of R, STATA and SPSS. I also hope to continue my study of statistics going forward at the graduate level and beyond which will be critical to the questions I want to ask in the future. Even though the study of terror may be a specific interest I have, I am extremely excited and committed to continue broadening my knowledge of political science in the great intellectual space at Columbia. My undergraduate career at the University of Chicago has instilled in me the desire for continued learning and inquiry and I want to remain on this quest for knowledge going forward. I want to explore a broad range of topics, alongside my dissertation and main research interests while engaging in critical discourse with my colleagues through classes, workshops, and writings. What intrigues me most about studying at Columbia is being able to work with some of the most respected scholars in the field of Political Science who constantly push the field forward and change the way that we all think about the world. Reading academic journals such as the APSR, International Security and International Organization, along with a wide variety of books and articles over the years, it is obvious that the department at Columbia is the leader in Security Studies and International Relations research today. Professors like Richard Betts, Robert Jervis, Michael Doyle, and Jack Snyder, along with the other distinguished faculty, are significant contributors to the field and push it forward to better help the world understand political phenomena. Reading works like The Cost of Empty Threats: A Penny, Not a Pound by Professor Snyder and getting to discuss Professor Doyle’s critical work on peace building at the Program on International Security Policy have been driving factors in leading me to apply to Columbia and have been hugely influential in the research that I have been doing and questions I have been asking. Getting the chance to work with the faculty here would be hugely helpful for the research that I want to do going forward. The quality of the research, writing, and discussion at this institution is something that I wish to take part in over the next five years. Being in this type of environment is exactly what I desire from a graduate program, because in many ways it is exactly what I want to do with my life. I want to push boundaries and challenge conceptions within the field. I want to be challenged by the best in the business and I want to challenge those same professors and students on ideas they hold, and be equally challenged in return. The stimulating environment at Columbia will allow me to grow professionally and intellectually over the next five years, a quality that is most important in my selection for a school. What started as a way to look for answers after losing a friend and family member has turned into something much more- it is something I wish to devote the rest of my life to. I hope that my introduction to you has been able to capture my passion and qualifications for the field of political science and for the Ph.D program at Columbia. I hope that I can share this passion, along with my desire to learn and question, next fall in New York and over the next five years and beyond.

So I guess those Berkeley acceptances were real on the results page.

BERKELEY WHY YOU TAKE SO LONG!

Ah I see. Will be a long wait then. ahhhhhhh

The email I received mentioned that it has happened before. It certainly will be an anxious 2 months as I wait to hear from Duke and Princeton. Even if I don't get pulled off I am really happy with how the cycle has went. To even be considered makes me feel really happy.

Thanks! It was a really nice email from the DGS. I think this means I can't make a decision until April though which kinda sucks.

Just got an email.. waitlist at Princeton :/ Dont have too much hope, but still cool I was considered.

Looks like Princeton only admitted people with 800 quant scores and 4.00 gpa's Congrats to everyone who got in!!!

Berkeley, please be today

Plenty of people have face palmed in real life too haha.

So is there anyone else going to grad school yet not interested in being a professor/academic afterwards? I'm in that boat. I've been told that going for a PhD is dumb unless you want to be a professor, but it has been a goal of mine since I was a little kid, so why the heck not

Lincoln and Eisenhower are my two favs.

Also, I would have thought we'd hear from someone on the board who was wait listed.

I think people from PSJR have realized it does make people anxious and continue to troll for that reason :/ Really sad.

It seems like everyone is way behind this year. Are apps up a lot or something?

Or just an American quant who can't spell

I emailed Berkeley two weeks ago with an update. No one ever got back to me :/ lol

Anyone call Yale to see if all acceptances are out? Seem like that's the case.