flyingwalrus

Two questions: (1) Are you planning on going into academia and (2) how low is school A ranked?

Rejected by WashU.

Interviews? That's a bit strange. Their website doesn't say anything about that.

B.A. with honors 3.57 GPA, 3.77 in political science classes Numerous scholarships and awards and an honors thesis. One publication. Some stats background. GRE - 700Q/580V/5.5AW

I was told that decisions should be going out this week. Lets all hope for the best.

I was under the impression that UNC had made all of its decisions already. They made 26 offers and waitlisted a few people for funding. Maybe they haven't notified the waitlisted people, I don't know.

Fit and placement record. TAMU is guaranteeing more money, although I could get more at UNC. I think funding works differently at different places, but I know that if you get outside funding for a year or so, most departments will defer their own funding of you to the next year. Some will also hire you on as instructors when you become an ABD.

I'm in at UNC and TAMU. I've been guaranteed funding for five years at the former and four at the latter. UNC is also considering me for a fellowship. I'm primarily interested in American behavior, elections, parties, and methods, so I'm not suffering from much indecision right now; UNC is my choice for now and, since I doubt I get into WashU, will probably be the school I attend.

Good to hear!

Congratulations!

No. Professors are slow.

Rejected by Duke. Damn. Ah, well.

Congratulations!

I'm interested in information about Chapel Hill, too. Which buslines do I want to live near, what parts of town are good, and which areas are NOT infested with undergrads?

You should post your questions about Saint Louis in the city guide. WashU has a great department. St. Louis has a lot of good restaurants. They also have Forest Park which is a huge park with lots of free amenities.

Congrats! What are your fields of interest?

They may have to get their list approved by the graduate school and any number of other offices.

Same here.

Got a rejection via post by Wisconsin. I'm a little surprised, but oh well. I likely would have chosen UNC over them anyway.

Congratulations!

Congrats!

Congrats on WashU! It's got one of the best political science departments in the world.

That's part of what grad school is about; providing you with a methods background. Even if you don't take methods as a field, you'll still be required to take a few courses. Don't worry about it so much.

You'd better not tell that to psychologists. One thing you've got to understand is that a lot of the methods employed by political scientists aren't all that complex. You don't need a background in calculus to understand regression, probit, or logit. Then you've got cross tabs, which are an even more simple method of disaggregating and communicating data. I think it's fair to say that you'd need to learn some calc in order to use a lot of formal modeling, but not everyone uses it. I'm not sure I will. Good formal theorists (such as Randall Calvert from WashU) write well enough that their readers can understand their models even without a background in formal theory. We're already there. The discipline has been highly quantitative for some time now, so tech up as much as possible. It'll give you a broad understanding of a lot of the literature and will only help you in your own research endeavors. I know many departments aren't emphasizing theory as much as they used to. Indeed, some have cut it entirely out of their curriculums. My understanding is that this contributes to the already tough job market for theorists.