frankentheory

Congratulations to everyone that received a great admission this cycle. To the rest, chin up and good luck with whatever you take on next.

Some costs are not measurable, but then I've always been more of a poststructuralist (my IR nerds will understand me here). 

If you get rejected the first time around and you don't want to apply again, then it is a sure sign that you do not belong in academia. Getting into a PhD program is tough and the difficulties do not end there (for example, everyone can expect to have their articles rejected from journals). However, most of us are well aware of the downsides of doing a PhD and we accept it and continue with our studies. To get through a PhD program, and life in general, does not only require being smart, but persistent. 

Most students at admit weekends feel exactly how you are all feeling now. Having gone through the process with no idea with what was going on, here is what I think would be useful to ask now that I am in a grad program:
 
1. What classes will be offered next year?
 
2. What classes will you be teaching next year?
 
3. How have students you advised faired on the job market in recent years (this is very important)?
 
4. What is your philosophy for the types of courses grad students should be taking in their first couple years (i.e. methods classes vs. seminars, etc.)? There is a surprisingly large amount of variation on this and it will be useful to know where your potential advisers stand.
 
5. What do you think I should know about your program? What are your strengths and weaknesses compared to other programs?
 
I would also recommend talking to grad students about all of these things. They will often provide a different picture of the department than profs will. I think the best information I received about programs was talking to current grad students.

Congrats to all the awesome (and really diverse, no?) set of admits from yesterday!
 
Today will likely be eventful.....hold the line, keep strong.

My dad just said this to me - "People your age, go to the Hard Rock Cafe and here you are glued to Grad Cafe." 
 
This is what this cycle has done to me. Sigh. 

Ugh, no word from Stanford or Yale, but scanning my junk folder, I see I'm being heavily recruited by the University of Phoenix :-) I'll take what I can get!

I'll be going to both as well.  I look forward to meeting you then!  Best of luck on the rest of your apps!

And where the hey is UVa? (dude, that rhymed)

And congrats to the theory person who got admitted to UC Berkeley!  Color me jealous.

Boy am I with you on that one - seems like they're doing it by subfield so knowing the members of our future subfield, it may take them forever to decide....

I had a similar reaction when I got Minnesota's call.  I'm sure I sounded like an idiot on the phone, but the DGS didn't let on if he thought so.  Congrats on your admits!

haha yeah, when i got the call from Minnesota I said "wow, really? I really didn't think this would happen. Wow, i'm just so surprised!" He was laughing and said it sounded like I'd just won the lottery to which I said "I kinda feel like I just did." The whole time I was shaking and jumping up and down and just wanted to hang up, call my parents, and then call him back.

Thanks everyone! I sounded pretty dumb on the phone. He asked me if I had any questions and I responded with "Thank you."

Dear Berkeley: I haven't met you (and this is crazy), but here's my number (so CALL ME MAYBE). 

Food for thought if you are slowly becoming a shuddering, weeping ball of human with a serious fear of rejection and an "email checking" complex.
 
Last year at about 1:00am on a lonely tuesday in late February, I was sitting in my room checking law school entrance requirements and trying not to allow the feeling of depression over being rejected at every top 10 program get to me. Needless to say... my efforts were in vain.
 
At around 1:15am I noticed an email in my inbox saying "Information about ___" (enter name of amazing school that I had lost all hope of being accepted to...). Unable to face another spam email or another rejection, I opted to ignore the email (after all, decisions by admissions committees are not released at 1:15am PST). Instead I went on amazon and, predicting a soul sucking career as a corporate lawyer, bought a 40$ LSAT prep book. I then went back to my email, opened the one from "dream school" and immediately started crying. Turns out my potential PI was emailing me during a break in her fieldwork in S.E. Asia, and that I had indeed been accepted.
 
There are two morals to this story. First, do not overreact to rejections. I applied to PhD programmes twice and though I was admitted to an MA (which I completed and quite enjoyed) in the first round, it was otherwise a total bust. The second time I applied I was rejected at every other top program (though accepted to some pretty great second-tier schools) but accepted at my absolute dream school. I seriously overreacted to all of those rejections -- case and point: the LSAT book that arrived at my house a week after I started picking out "dream school" branded sweatshirts. Second, what goes for others in the admissions process may not go for you. Someone you know (or at least see on these boards) may get accepted to every program they apply to. They may go on visits to CHYMPS, they may be courted, they may even get better funding offers. You may not. This is not the end of the world! Trust me, you only need to get accepted to 1 good program - and "good" is loosely defined!
 
The bottom line... well, Douglas Adams said it best: DON'T PANIC!

"My top schools where I want to apply to are Oxford and the Sorbonne. My safety's Harvard."

"My top schools where I want to apply to are Oxford and the Sorbonne. My safety's Harvard."

"My top schools where I want to apply to are Oxford and the Sorbonne. My safety's Harvard."

It's one thing to say "well, I applied here because given X, I thought I had probability Y chance of acceptance." It's another thing entirely to invoke the phrase "safety school" with all of its associated undertones in a process which demands intellectual maturity.

Am I the only one who finds the occasional "safety school" references on the results board to be kind of a bummer for everyone else? 

This is especially true if your undergrad was not in political science and you are (unknowingly) framing your very interesting research question poorly for consumption by political scientists.
 
 
To my understanding, both fit and yield concerns will sometimes cause schools to reject obviously qualified candidates.
 
For example, I assume that Duke hasn't gotten a hold of me because they know I'm a lock for Stanford.  kidding

Congrats to U Chicago!!!  Did my M.A. there.  Awesome program, awesome people.

I thought I was the only one who received the "Hey, remember when we rejected your application last week?  Yeah, we still feel the same about you this week." message from UCSD.  Glad to hear I wasn't the only one to get the special treatment.