saltlakecity2012
-
Posts
265 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
1
Posts posted by saltlakecity2012
-
-
Congrats to all the acceptances today! That's awesome. Hopefully good news will grace all grad cafe posters (and lurkers, I know you're out there) this year.
Edit: for those of you who are curious, the weirdest question I got at the interview (which went amazingly well) was, "How many times have you found yourself smarter than the people you work for?" A bit tricky, but I hope I got through it with grace.
-
1. Grantman, thank you! I appreciate your feedback, and I am certain that any school would be lucky to have you and will look forward to coming across you in the field in the future!
2. Coach - thanks for playing moderator. I don't think "brat" ever came up - I do recognize that this was probably a contentious topic and should probably have been dealt with more discreetly. However, I hope that this will prove useful to anyone else in the same boat, as it already has to me.
3. Brent09 - good to know. Your suggestions are quite helpful.
4. kalapocska - no hurt feelings! Your point of view is as valid and useful as anyone else's.
5. jonrob - I had no idea about this. That would be the perfect solution, if down the line it did seem as if my academic needs were not 100% fulfilled at my institution.
Thanks again.
-
All very good points. This was my initial thinking as well - thank you very much for the feedback. And yes, it's true that the program I'm most interested in has not yet sent out letters, but I've gotten some less than encouraging info through backchannels mostly having to do with areas that I would need more preparation in. Also, I'm highly neurotic.
But the point that they may not want me for a reason is very valid.Again, I don't mean to tread on anyone's toes or to suggest that I'm not incredibly honored and grateful to have the acceptances I already do. Thanks!
Edit: also, re: the training aspect - the program I'm thinking of is highly interdisciplinary in nature, and is thus somewhat unique. But the argument stands - I know I can do what I want at the schools I applied to, which is why I applied to them. I'm really curious about whether or not people do transfer once in grad school, and I now am receiving info that basically says that people do not unless it is a necessity.
Good information to have. Hopefully this will be useful to someone else.
Moral of the story: make sure you go to a place where you'll be happy, well-trained, and productive.
-
Congrats on UCSD! As far as the Hix ranking; it has some serious methodological flaws, and pretty much no-one takes it seriously. Some of the relative rankings it produces are just nuts; the USNews and NRC rankings are considered more reliable.
Thanks! Yeah, it was kind of weird. I read through the methodology and wasn't too impressed, I just thought I'd post it as I've put a few others up here.
-
Has anyone else started to consider fields other than academia after reading the comments threads on poliscijobrumors.com? Those people are f*ing vicious. Almost as bad as investment bankers in terms of plain rudeness (of course only from the safety of the internet).
-
Oh yeah - I'm comparative with a focus on comp pol econ and IPE.
-
Also, just found this - ranking of global poli sci institutions based on "impact" of research, essentially.
http://www.political...pdf/psr/hix.pdf
Edit: Thank you! I'm excited to check it out, I think it's a great fit with my interests.
-
A UCSD acceptance has been posted. Would anyone like to claim that?
I now wait with much anxiety for UCSD, Northwestern, and Pitt. I would not mind so much being rejected at each of those schools, but I would very much like to know one way or another. If only schools notified en masse . . .
I claim the UCSD posting. I just got an email from the head of graduate studies - no update on the website and no info on funding yet. Yay for San Diego weather, at least for the visiting weekend!
-
So I haven't heard back from most of my schools yet, but I'm wondering about something. If I don't get into my dream school (and prefer it significantly above my existing options) but I think I would have a good shot if I tried again, knowing a bit more about the specific program, would it be better to wait a year and continue working and then reapply, or to try to transfer?
Luckily I've been accepted into some great programs, so if I went off to Michigan and did excellent work there for a year and still decided I wanted to go elsewhere, I'm guessing that getting into another top-level program would be easier than trying to transfer in from University #72 on the NRC rankings. I just don't know if transferring once in a PhD program is frowned upon, or if there are even really procedures in place. I'm sure I'd have to redo a lot of coursework, but other than that I have no information on the process.
Any thoughts?
-
When you receive an offer letter by email, do you write a response to the faculty member? If you already have better offers, what do you do?
I would wait until you have most of your offers in, and information about funding, and have done some serious research into the schools you're comparing to make sure the other offer is truly better for you, in all the key dimensions (fit, rankings, coursework, funding, support for grad research - both financial and intellectual, placement, etc.).
It's always a good idea to send a polite thank you note to any school, regardless of whether you intend to attend. You never know when you might need that person's or department's goodwill!
Edit: see http://thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php?q=political+science&t=a&pp=100&o=&p=13
-
Good point, but it would also depend on where my center of gravity was wrt my vertical axis. Also - if I didn't lose any mass, being shrunk by a factor of ~100 would lead to an equal increase in density, which would probably lead to me exploding. Which would make it challenging to concentrate on scaling the wall of the blender in order to reach a point in the curvature of the wall where my mass would be sufficient to destabilize it. So you see, this gets very complicated very quickly...
-
In other words, "If you were admitted to grad school, how would you graduate?"
Good luck...and that question. Ummm yeah good luck!
Yes to the first, and also yes to the second - ummmmmm is probably about what I would manage. My first instinct was to ask if I could have someone larger than me help me, and then I thought if that wouldn't work I would take a look at what I was wearing... hopefully I won't have to tax my already exhausted brain with bizarre questions. Too tired for this sh*t.
Thanks for the good luck wishes! -
Yale's website still doesn't say anything about an interview process (the poli sci department's) - it could be out of date, I suppose, but I would think that such a major change would be noted.
Also, I have a final-round job interview tomorrow with a company known for asking candidates, "if you were shrunk to the size of a pencil and put in a blender, how would you get out?" Not looking forward to it.
Edit: looked at the yaledaily thing. Wow - I had no clue. Do we (collective rather than royal) have any info on when they might notify about interviews (unless, of course, they already have and I'm outing myself...)?
-
Yale's website still doesn't say anything about an interview process (the poli sci department's) - it could be out of date, I suppose, but I would think that such a major change would be noted.
-
OK. Stanford today! It is gonna happen.
Ha. The one certain way to make sure it won't. I'm itching for Berkeley and Yale, but I'm pretty sure they ain't coming.
-
Just talked to the admissions director at Berkeley to check on one of my letters (the fourth) - she said it hadn't come in, but that "none of the comments on my file so far mention it, or anything else they would want to see." I have no idea whether this means I've already been tossed and therefore it's completely irrelevant or that I am in the running and my three letters are good enough...
Sorry to be bitching after getting admitted to places, I don't mean to be inconsiderate!
-
According to a response from an email to Berkeley mentioned a few pages back, the end of February. ughhhhh
Ughhhh indeed... I feel like I might be fossilized by then. Tragically, the acceptances that I have already don't seem to assuage my need to agonize over my top choices.
-
Any other Berkeley applicants have any thoughts on when we're going to get the first wave of acceptances?
-
Looks like the news will be slow in coming and less than exciting for those of us who didn't get into U Chicago yet, based on the last few years.
http://thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php?q=chicago+political+science&t=a&pp=100
-
I don't have any details (should have asked my POI when I spoke to him), but I was told that there is a significant probability of getting funding later in the application cycle (potentially very close to April 15). I would say that if UCLA is your top choice, make that very clear to them - they will probably only offer funding later in the cycle to people they are 100% sure will come.
-
Congrats to the OSU, UVA, and ND admits!!!
-
Has anyone else heard anything from Berkeley (other than the one post that was claimed here, I mean)?
-
I wonder if the "U" on the results survey that indicates international with American degree is actually the union symbol...
And I'd appreciate any data on whether the Chicago people are all theorists, as mentioned above.
-
Ugh. Berkeley, Chicago... here's where I insert lyrics from the Beatle's Love Me Do
And huuuuuuuge ups to the Stanford, Berkeley, Boulder and Chicago acceptances!
Welcome to the 2011-2012 Cycle
in Political Science Forum
Posted
Yeah, my funding package letter (same as yours) specifically states that medical insurance will be provided, although it's a good idea, especially if you're supporting other family members, to get as much detail as possible about all the different elements of the funding package, i.e. what exactly medical insurance means.