puddle

I went on 1 recruiting visit because I had already decided to attend that school (I signed my commitment letter before I even got on the plane). I don't really have answers for most of those questions but I can say that they will reimbursed me for travel and paid for food & accommodation while I was there (probably all came to well over 1k as my flights alone were 750$+. I had a good time at my visit and I love my department (read above) so I guess it definitely was a good predictor in my case. For the most part I think you can tell if people are sincere... I spent most of my visit convincing the people I liked that they should also sign commitments... and they all did :).

Sadly GRE scores do matter at top programs. In my cohort, even political theorists had quant scores above 700 using the old grading system. Do what is best for you but seriously put some thought into retaking the test.

I remember the application process and how stressful it was. I've been through admissions, starting at a new school (inc moving across the continent), coursework, comprehensive exams, teaching, and advancing to candidacy. Happy to honestly answer any questions you might have during the dreaded "waiting period".

Apply widely - with your credentials you have potential to get in to top schools in the US and Canada. As a fellow Canadian, I would recommend applying to at least a few choice top-10 programs in the US as their stipend offerings are much more competitive than UofT, McGill, or UBC. Are you Canadian? If so, make sure you apply for SSHRC even if you are going abroad. If you are not Canadian, still apply with the possibility that you remain in Canada.

No. I got into Yale with a 4. Your performance on that test is not indicative of your ability to write at a high level. They have your SOP and in some cases a writing sample... These are much more important measures of your academic writing skills.

Reach or not, Yale has a strong group of OVC profs and a speaker series that spans this topic broadly.

It is obvious that you have a strong profile. Your admission will hinge on the strength of your letters (I.e. If those people actually know about you and write positive reviews), the strength of your personal statement (do you know what you want to study, who you will study with, why x school can help you achieve your goals etc.), and the overall quality of your application relative to other applicants (you can't control this so don't let it bother you too much).

Oh! Also don't forget that professors leave universities. One way to choose would be to imagine all of your potential PIs took jobs elsewhere and then to decide which school would have more resources & infrastructure to support you.

Here is what Macartan Humphreys told me when I was applying -- fit matters when you apply to schools. Once they have admitted you, they have decided that you are a good fit and you can rest assured that there will be people for you to work with. After all, a school that has a lot of people that work in your area of interest may also already have a lot of graduate students who study those things. Profs may have too many students already. A top ranked school will probably couver a wider range of topics and have fewer students concentrated in any one area. Top 10s (if they are top schools across the board and not just specialized political science schools) will also have a lot of appealing additional resources (I.e. Research foundations and institutes) and other top ranked departments that you can work with (I.e. You might be able to get an econ MA or to work with a Prof in the history department). Just my 2 cents.

Generally some Yale acceptances find out by informal email from their prospective PIs. Others dont find out until the university roll out a form email. Anyhoo - congrats to everyone who got in. Let me know if you have any questions about Bulldog life.

I'm not feeling up to a long, rambling post right now so I'll just keep it short and sweet. I love being a graduate student and I feel confident in my ability to find employment when I complete my PhD. This employment may not be in academia but I am not entirely sure that I want it to be. I have plenty of additional funding opportunities and am able to pursue interesting new research and professionalization opportunities that present themselves to me. Research assistant positions, fellowships, and paid work are fairly easily available. The department culture is engaging and supportive -- both academically and inter-personally. No matter how busy my professors are (and they are busy) I always feel like they have time to meet with me to discuss my work or to help me get through other struggles. Generally speaking, graduate school is "the good life". I am paid to study things I find interesting, work with the best and brightest in their respective fields, and explore the possibilities of academic life without committing fully to said life. Also I get a pretty good wage and everything in my town is heavily subsidized by the university so I get to go out for nice dinners (especially when my adviser pays), watch world class theater, and spend quality time with my friends down at our local watering hole. All this said and done - I think that the school I attend has a lot to do with my positive experiences. I didn't really think it out ahead of time so I got lucky... I honestly just went to the highest ranked school that admitted me. But in retrospect I would advise you to chose a school that has the resources to support you and a non-toxic department culture. Do not underestimate the importance of university/department prestige - your life will be made easier if opportunities to meet top academics, attend good conferences, and attain important fellowships are made available to you. Department culture can be hard to gauge but get a few grad students drunk on your visit weekend and see if they start effusively praising their department (apparently this is what I did 2 years ago). Certainly it is possible to get to the top without these things - they just seem to help a whole lot. Happy to answer any questions people may have -- but I'm not going to back my thoughts up with stats. We all know grad school is hard and getting a job is even harder... I'm just here to say that it may well be worth your effort. Darn... that was longer and ramblyer than I intended.

Oh I also wrote this quick summary of neighbourhoods for another friend who was moving to New Haven: Lots of housing available in New Haven - especially for Yale affiliates. There are 3 main areas (mainly housing for graduate students and staff as undergrads live on campus): (1) Downtown - which is South of campus and close to the Gym. This is where I live. There are lots of high-rise apartment buildings. Ideally (i.e. for safety and comfort reasons) you want to live no further west than Dwight street, no further south than George, and no further east than State. Chapel is a main shopping drag with lots of coffee shops, restaurants, bars etc. I live on Howe street. It is a very nice area with lots of appeal to people who want to be near but not directly in the heart of the city -- such as it is. Pretty quiet and rent is fairly reasonable. Personally I am a big fan of living downtown but it isn't for everyone. (2) East Rock - also known as the "Grad Student Ghetto". This is a large residential area east and north east of campus. To the north it is bordered by East Rock park which is a great little park with running trails. Most of the apartment buildings are converted houses. There are fewer shops & restaurants out there but lots of people like the quiet/more suburban environment. Many people find apartments out there through Elm Campus Partners http://www.elmcampus.com/ which also has apartments for rent downtown. You can also find housing here via. Craigslist. (3) Wooster Square. This is the area east of State Street and over the railroad tracks. It is a short ride to campus by car or bike and has some nice apartments for rent - a few old brownstone walkups. There are lots of restaurants and the area has its own charm & is a bit separate from new haven proper. Most rentals out there found through Craigslist.

I wrote up the following in an email for a friend of mine who was accepted to Yale (he ended up accepting the offer). Thought it might be useful to others moving to New Haven. As for the town itself – there are a lot of good features that I will mention in no particular order: 1) Nightlife – New Haven has a pretty good bar scene with a few places that serve craft beer, a few dive bars, a good number of cocktail bars etc. You can pretty much get what you want on any given night. Also… there’s GPSCY which is the graduate student bar and is HEAVILY subsidized by Yale (free beer Thursdays, 2 for 1 several nights a week, 3$ mixed drinks, 1$ PBR always, lots of craft beer on tap at a low cost etc). GPSCY is always open and has an awesome community feel. There are also big parties there 3-4 times a year and dance parties every Thursday night which are surprisingly fun. 2) Restaurants – Good Thai, lots of cheap junkfood places, a few upscale restaurants that are surprisingly reasonable, and the best pizza in North America (no lie… you will experience some of this when you visit here) 3) Arts & Culture – unparalleled. We have the largest university art gallery in the world and it is free. There are also the art school and architecture school galleries, the British art gallery, the museum of natural history and the Beineke (rare book library gallery). Plenty of bands come to play at local bars & at Toads Place. The Yale Rep theatre has world class theatre (i.e. I saw Paul Giamatti in Hamlet) and tickets are 7 for 60$ for students. Lots of clubs & groups around town so you can get involved in anything you want. 4) Sports & Rec – we are a stones throw from 3 nice parks (East Rock, West Rock & Sleeping Giant). There is a bike trail running out of town called the Farmington Canal. Nearby beaches are free and nice (good for summer months when we get 4 months of nice hot weather and sunshine. The Appalachian Trail is about 1.5 hours drive away and there are lots of hike in campsites. We are also a fairly easy drive to all of New England which is an outdoors paradise if you like that sort of thing (i.e. white mountains, green mountains). The gym is pretty decent and we are working on getting better hours… I get by and I go every day so it’s not terrible. 5) Safety – lots of people ask about this… don’t be an idiot and you won’t have any problems. Part of the panic comes from the fact that we get emails from the chief of police every time an incident involving a Yale student occurs (robberies etc). New Haven is a weird town because there has been a lot of gentrification and Yale is pushing the resident population to the outside of town. On the other hand, Yale employs a lot of people who live nearby so there is conflict over where this has all been a good thing. I have never had any problems and I don’t expect to. I feel as safe here as I would walking around any urban center at night. 6) Cost of living – really low, especially given our salary. We make more here than they do in NYC or Boston and it’s much less expensive to live. Don’t underestimate how important this is. If you want to, you could go out every night of the week to eat and drink and you would have no problem getting by on your stipend. Yale subsidizes every aspect of student life so there are tonnes of free drinking and socializing options and we have a catered lunch meeting in the department every day of the week. 7) Grad Student Life – Yale has the McDougal Center that offers lots of grad student life events so if you want to be involved at the uni or meet new people in different departments, you can. Lots of free events and fun opportunities to get out and do something other than sit in a room. This again should not be underestimated. We have an awesome week long orientation which seems like a drag but is actually a great way to meet people in other departments… I love having a group of friends that studies different things from me… means you aren’t always confined to shop talk. 8) Transportation – Yale has a shuttle service that runs a regular route during the day and then does door-to-door shuttles between 6pm and 6am. It’s kinda like having a free taxi service. It is awesome (esp if people visit you because as long as you have a Yale ID number you can call it and they won’t check that you are an actual student) 9) Proximity to other things – NYC is a 1.5-2 hour train ride away. I go into town 1-2 times a month for shopping or to hang out with friends or to go to an event. It is pretty convenient by Metro North (takes you straight to Grand Central) but you don’t have to deal with living in the busiest most hectic city in the world. Most times I am happy to come home. Boston is a 2 hour drive away and I also head there fairly regularly.

On grades: yours are fine, certainly sufficient to get you into any of the MA programs you have listed (one of which I attended). On Letters: I have been a TA/TF on and off for some time and I HATE when students ask me for letters of rec. I may be qualified to speak on your personality and performance on a few graded assessments but I am not yet an expert in the field and I am not able to compare your performance with more than 1-2 years of students. Professors will be able to remark on your ability to contribute academically to the field more broadly and in comparison with students over all the years they have been teaching the course. You are in your 4th year but applications for these MAs usually aren't due until the end of spring semester so you have time to think back to a couple of courses and go in to meet professors during their office hours. Explain to them that you are planning to apply to graduate programmes, that you want to spend some time talking to them, and that you hope they will agree to write you a letter of recommendation. I did this back in the day when I applied for MA degrees and most profs were happy to speak with me and happy to help as long as I was honest about why I was there. Sometimes it helped to contact a TA ahead of time and get them to write up a few sentences recommending my to my letter writer (I imagine a few of those sentences made it into the final letter!).

APSA has a Women and Politics Research Section. Check out the title-holders, chairs, council members etc. as well as panel members for different years - http://www.apsanet.org/content.asp?contentid=297. The sexuality and politics section may also be of interest to you.

Seriously consider what you are getting yourself into when you apply to a school under the top 20. The top 20 programs probably graduate 10-15 phds each per year. That means 200-300 people on the job market from these schools alone. The job market is already flooded with previous year graduates who haven't secured jobs yet and with non-tenure-track professors seeking tenure-track positions. Think seriously about whether applying to a school ranked out of the top-20 will really open the opportunities you need to get the kind of jobs you want when you graduate. That said, if you want to change your list of schools, don't hesitate to tell your letter writers. Generally your list should be constructed in consultation with professors who may be able to help you select things that are within the realm of possibility for you & include some that are "reaches". Good luck.

This is not quite true. Some students have been notified by profs but a few have not yet received informal acceptances yet and no formal acceptances or rejections are out. Each year a few people don't receive informal notification but only find out from the registrar. Also... trolls do exist so the numbers on these boards cannot necessarily be trusted. Good luck all.

Yale's funding usually goes up by a small amount every year (and all students receive the new amount including allready enrolled students). This year's amount is about 28,400 and there are lots of opportunities for topups etc.

No idea. It was 2 weeks between my unofficial email and official letter ...l thought for sure they had made a mistake because of the delay. Good luck, all.

The DGS is pretty busy. i would just wait it out (painful, i know). If you have been dealing with a specific professor or know a student in the department, go ahead and email them. lt does not seem right for me to tell strangers. Sorry!

Drink within your limits. Talk to grad students. Ask questions that you really want the answers to. After official recruitment events (esp. On a Friday or Saturday), ask grad students what they would normal do next and tag if they invite you! Ask about cost/ quality of life. Ask about health services. . . checkout the university health center and gym if you have the time. If you think you are going to go there... collect facebook friends and ask them questions ...the & department secretary are not your best resources for small details like where to live and how much rent is and what bars you should go to but things matter.

Some professors may not have contacted students yet... most are unlikely to until at least later in the day today. It's not over until the fat lady sings... some students only found out by official email from Yale last year. That Said, decisions have been made.

The Yale admit list is out (shared with the department) and many will receive emails from grad students or profs in their field. Official admits and rejections are handled by the university and will come later. Good luck to all.

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!