news2yous

lol oh man can't remember the last time I saw one of these things (IRL or on TV)

I'm haven't heard anything from Michigan, UCLA, Chicago, MIT, etc. etc. etc. NOTHING from anyone. I'm guessing Chicago means a rejection from the PhD program, but the rest make no sense unless I'm on a waitlist. This is killing me.

Thanks! You just saved me from logging in to their system every 5 seconds... niw I'm just checking my email every 5 seconds

Does this suggest that all admits have been sent already?

To the UCLA application who found out about their rejection via the website - first of all sorry, and I hope you get into your other schools. Did you receive an email to check the website?

This is totally true. I have seen programmers argue about how legit they are for using more and more bare-bones systems. I've written reports for humanities classes with terminal programs (which actually have much more powerful editing capabilities in terms of pure content, though superscript/footnote citations obviously become a problem.)

As someone who used to be part of the same culture, that made me laugh hard. It makes perfect sense from that point of view: 1. Zero possibility of screwups, glitches, failures, etc. unless the applicants themselves screwed up, leaving no possibility of them blaming the school. 2. No blaming the school if an automated email from them ends up in the spam box. And if the student's emails end up in the spam box? lol 3. The whole email-tag game isn't necessarily safer or more guaranteed in terms of preventing fraud. It's so easy to register a fake email, and believe it or not it's pretty easy to fake .edu addresses. 4. The link system is surprisingly solid. 5. I had complaints about how awkward it was to pass that on, but no teacher had any complaints about problems registering or uploading, whereas Harvard's system for example was universally complained about. It took a professor a full month of complaining to get his letter in, and one professor actually gave up and asked for a paper form because he was out of the country and didn't have anyone to help him with it. Simple and straightforward. 6. Flashy design and feel are data-heavy and aren't actually any more "advanced" in the view of this culture, and some people in this culture really emphasize efficiency (pretty much what engineering is actually about.)

I don't want to out myself but I'm familiar with computer science, engineering, and hacker culture. This is EXACTLY what I expected from MIT's website. Especially the part where they made you copy and paste your recommendations. I actually laughed when I saw that. Really "techy" people are usually opposed to a lot of data-heavy fluff, and hell, the most extreme ones use stapled scratch paper as their planner, use 20 year old vintage computers patched together with random "computer graveyard" parts, etc. etc.

God this is torture

I haven't heard back from ANYONE at all. Even schools that already put out rejections. This is torture. This has me thinking of all the possibilities: 1. Low-priority rejection 2. Waitlist 3. "No funding" (torturous rejection) 4. They all just LOL'd hard at my application and forgot what they were doing afterwards

Why can't schools be merciful and just straight up reject us with a notification if they're going to reject us?

Someone said in the results page that the assistant said if you didn't get notified on the 5th, it means you were rejected. Also, the mail went to spam for some reason.

Oh god I wish I hadn't checked gradcafe out of boredom today. I thought they wouldn't release this stuff until February 15th. I would have been so much happier not knowing they already started, and that each second means an exponential drop in the likelihood I was accepted.

Oh god I wish I hadn't checked gradcafe out of boredom today. I thought they wouldn't release this stuff until February 15th. I would have been so much happier not knowing they already started, and that each second means an exponential drop in the likelihood I was accepted.

I applied to IR and I didn't get anything, either acceptance or rejection. No idea what to make of it other than to freak out.

I had no idea these things were released so early. I'm really freaking out now. Crap.

Oh man, all the notifications have me really freaked out. I've heard absolutely nothing from my schools. Does anyone have a list of who's already sent acceptances? And who's sent out both acceptances and rejections? Have Chicago, Michigan, or Princeton said anything yet? Has UCLA sent rejections?

What's the reputation of this program? Is it well ranked? How well does it place (job-wise)? I really like their director and the program's location in DC, but I'm not sure how it stacks up as an alternative to say Georgetown or one of the higher-ranked schools.

Hi everyone, I see that Middle East and North African studies are kind of scattered throughout the forum, and not many people have started threads about contemporary studies. I'm very interested in Georgetown's program, and I've seen that a lot of people on here have applied and been accepted. I would be interested in seeing what it takes to get into the program with full funding, and so I'm starting this thread. Hopefully this can serve as a reference point for future applicants of this and other, comparable programs. Please type your info and stats below. Thanks and good luck! !بالتوفيق PROFILE: Type of Undergrad Institution: Major(s)/Minor(s): Relevant Coursework: Undergrad GPA: GRE: Other Tests (TOEFL, etc.): Letters of Recommendation: Relevant Work/Internships/Volunteer Experience: Relevant Experience Abroad: Research/Teaching Experience: Language skills (Arabic level, other languages): Subfield/Research Interests/Concentration: Scholarhips/Grants/Aid Applications Submitted (FLAS, departmental, etc.) RESULTS: Acceptanced/Waitlisted/Rejected/Pending: Other programs applied to:

I would like to necro this topic, since this may become an issue for me if I don't receive funding. Does anyone have advice on what to do if you don't get any scholarships, fellowships, scholarships, or other offers?

Thanks everyone, this is good info! The letter in that last link is exactly the type of letter I'm planning to send. I'm going to go through a batch of professors - could anyone look it over for me if I PM it? I'm a little nervous since I know that having professors root for you makes all the difference in acceptances, and these are some great professors that I really want to work with.

First off - thank you all for your replies! I'm pretty nervous going in, so any advice or information really helps! adblanche - thanks for your response! I sent you a PM. It's good to see a young scholar in the field! jsclar - WOW you have almost the same undergrad background as me! I also took multivariable calc, linear algebra, and discrete math (not to mention some advanced physics) - but I haven't taken any methods or stats either, so it's encouraging to know that I can take care of that in my first year. adaptations - I would eventually like to work in policy analysis and especially advisory (in the far future) but none of the MA programs I looked at seemed like they really gave people the opportunity to do research with the type of depth that I would like. I want to spend at least a year in the field of the areas that I'm focusing on, if not several years, and I would like to drastically improve my language skills to the point of superior fluency in the formal dialect (i.e. I can give a four hour speech on a wide variety of specific topics in my research and in the informal dialect I can pass as a native speaker on the phone). I feel that the lack of area specialization has led to weak analysis in the field, and that is something I would like to address in my method of research. Sitting in the US while studying a country like Egypt which has a serious wealth gap, educational problems, and debatably high illiteracy doesn't sit well with me. My own experience abroad has shown that this is insufficient to understand the issues that the average citizen faces, and my research would focus on the "masses", who I feel were neglected in research, rather than the elites, many of whom actually speak a fair amount of English. However, I have been told that there are multiple ways of doing this, and that getting an MA and then spending years in a field position for a think tank or some other organization will serve me better than a PhD. I have been debating this a little bit, and I have looked at some strong MA programs. If you or anyone else knows about the opportunities for field work after an MA program like Georgetown's MA in Arab Studies, NYU's MA in MES, Chicago's MA in MES, Michigan's AM in Modern MES, and GWU's MA in MES. I've also been debating a broader MA like JHU-SAIS's MA in IR with a MES concentration, Georgetown's MSFS (I think they look for mid-career students, though), or some other highly regarded PoliSci/IR MA. I was also debating using one of these programs as a stepping stone to the PhD, which would be nice except for the general lack of funding, except for a couple top candidates funding. Megan - that's definitely an issue I'm exploring right now. I am looking at more journals and reading articles by potential advisors and seeing if I can confidently jump in or if I should explore other steps to take. Thank you for your advice - my SoP is definitely going to take a lot of work. Thank you all for your replies! Please let me know if any other issues come to mind (I am debating the MA-first option), and if anyone else has some advice or insight please post!

I am interested in applying for a Political Science/International Relations PhD program this fall and I've been going through hundreds (literally) of faculty profiles to see where I would be a good fit based on my research interests. I have and I was hoping that hearing from a potential advisor could help inform my application preparation and decisions. It would also be nice if I knew before applying that at least one professor is interested in my research interests and would like to take me on as an advisor, which I hear is really the deciding factor in acceptances. However, I have heard mixed things about contacting professors before applying. Someone told me that they might find it useless or even annoying, while others said that they could be a good source of advice and may even root for me when I apply. I have seen it said on this site that contacting them is recommendable if not necessary, but it wasn't clear if that meant before applying or while applying. And a few people have said that it was inadvisable since it could be a double-edged sword - they might express little to no interest, and then my application could be hurt or doomed by their pre-application dismissal. I have a few professors at a few of universities I would be interested in working with - should I contact them and ask them for advice (as I did in the post linked above)? Should I contact them just to see if they'd be interested in advising me? Should I avoid contacting them at all and just ask department offices about applying? (They usually give very vague answers.) I've searched around the forum but I mainly saw advice on contacting them after applying, so sorry if this has been discussed before. Thank you in advance; any and all advice would be appreciated.

Hi everyone, I'm interested in applying for a Political Science/IR/Government PhD this fall, but I'm coming from a different background so I need to make sure that my focus and research interests are correctly stated, and that opting out of a Master's program is really the best decision for me to make here. I would really appreciate some guidance and advice. I'm interested in researching the relationship between IR (especially US foreign policy and the UN) and the local mass opinion in Middle Eastern and African countries, and how the interaction of the two affects the local governments' domestic and foreign policies (especially in terms of human rights, democratization, rule of law, etc.) I want to emphasize the need for area specialization and the use of Arabic and other original source materials and field work in my research. I feel that the use of Arabic language sources and field experience is lacking especially now that people think they can just read translations or English versions of different articles and think they're getting the whole picture, which is not true based on my experience. In the long run, I hope that my work can help bring a greater understanding of the effects that international actors have on local mass opinion and domestic policies, and thus better inform policymaking and decisions, which I feel have been shortsighted and focused on the elites and opinion leaders rather than the "street"-level. Of course, my opinions may and probably will evolve and develop as I actually carry out my research. I'm not sure about my first step after undergrad since I do not have much of a background in political science. As it stands now, I am a graduating senior in Arabic studies, and with a background (~2 years) in computer science (major change.) I did take four IR courses (Human Rights, Migration, American Foreign Policy, and Public Opinion and IR) during a university-sponsored study abroad, and even though they were excellent courses, I'm not sure how they will be viewed since I didn't take them during a study-abroad. Next quarter and *possibly* in the summer I will try to enroll in as many relevant polisci courses as I can, along with stats and microeconomics, but this may not happen depending on how the wave of enrollments goes (polisci and other majors get first pick.) Now I can get a good letter of rec from at least one polisci professor, but the rest will be from Arabic and NELC majors. As far as my writing sample, I am currently working on a paper on the differences in Arabic and English-language media coverage of the Arab Spring, which definitely has implications for polisci and IR research, but I'm not sure if it's what polisci departments will want or expect for my sample. It will obviously be mostly qualitative analysis. As for softs/experience, I am currently a reader/grader for the beginning Arabic class, I did a legal internship in Cairo last summer, and for next year, I am waiting to hear back for my Fulbright results (so far I've been recommended *fingers crossed*) but if I don't do that, I will probably dedicate the time to language study and some self-study. Either way, I'm planning to apply this fall and won't have much else to put on my application. I would appreciate the advice of people who know this field better: 1. Based on my research interests, would you say that they are more related to IR or to comparative politics? I assume IR, but some people say that I need to check and make sure it's not actually more of a comparative politics issue since many people make that mistake. 2. Assuming I can't enroll in any more polisci or stats or econ courses, do you think I have a sufficient background to directly apply for a polisci program? I have heard varied responses on the importance of previous polisci coursework. As for my quantative skills, I do have a lot of math and science courses from my time as a computer science major, and I am fairly confident in my ability to get a high GRE score, but I saw that some programs *require* a course in stats and microeconomics. Would it matter if I took those courses at a community college after I graduate? Would polisci departments care where I took them as long as I get an A? 3. Should I even apply directly to a PhD program, or should I do something else for a while (Master's, internships, odd-jobs) and then apply? I have been told by several admissions departments that MAs don't really make a difference and that they take students from all different majors, backgrounds, and levels of experience, so I'm not sure how much it will help. If I do get a Master's, though, I would hope that writing a good thesis and getting something published/presented would at least get me a good writing sample and maybe run across some potential advisors at talks/events. My main apprehension about getting a Master's in funding, which is virtually nonexistent, and the programs I'm interested in are very expensive. 4. Some people have told me that based on my interests, I would be better off with a MPP/MPA. However, I want to be able to do serious research and fieldwork in the MENA region, and I want to include qualitative research into political climates and attitudes, and it seems to me that a lot of public policy programs don't look much at that. Do you think that I would be better off just getting a master's in polisci/MPP/area studies, or does it sound like a PhD is what I need? Should I get a PhD in area studies or policy, or am I correct in pursuing a PhD in polisci/IR? I know that this is an extremely long post; any piece of advice or guidance would be extremely appreciated. Thank you all in advance.

I'm not sure if this is the right section to post this question - please let me know if it isn't. I'm a graduating senior (undergrad). I got a notice from my undergrad about the FAFSA. Should I submit one right now and list the graduate programs that I applied to/will apply to? Should I wait until I've been accepted to a program and then submit a FAFSA? Also, I will be 24 by the time I enter grad school, but as of now I am 23. I receive nothing from my parents and I file my taxes independently, with no one claiming me, but due to the way undergrad financial aid works my aid was calculated as a dependent. Someone told me that for grad school I am automatically considered independent, but I am hearing some contradictory anecdotes - could anyone tell me how it works for MA and PhD programs?