readeatsleep

In at Notre Dame for theory! Stipend for 5 and a half years, tuition, visitation weekend March 25th.

honestly though - the beach is a huge selling point for ucsd. i have some friends in grad school there now, and they are serious students and everything, but are absolutely loving the weather and beach related aspects of their stay in SD, which is a tremendously nice place.

isn't it! Luckily, I have an acceptance to get excited about. I believe Hegel called this reconciliation. P.S., it does indeed seem likely that a number or schools will continue to offer admission, not only because they are not finished with their original offering, but also because more room may open up as students' decisions come in, not to mention that a number of schools seem to be accepting by subfield.

thanks Tan!

I wouldn't place all those programs above northwestern, actually, all of them are doubtful except Chicago. While usnwr ranks NU around 20, the schmidt and chingos ranking places it in the top ten. I don't think the usnwr general rankings are very reliable - it places alot of emphasis on general prestige that makes undergrad rankings make sense, but not so much sense for graduate school. Additionally, alot of the rejects are theorists, a field in which NU definitely has a serious edge. ...but this is coming from a theorist who will be attending NU, so take it with a grain of salt!

did you get admitted? What's your subfield?

I feel this way about Chicago, though no official rejections have been posted. Have you tried checking the online application for a 'view decision' button?

well, I imagine that some department can xpect more than 50 percent yield. And no, I think 10 percent is a bit high for top departments. Northwestern apparently had a 5 percent acceptance rate this year.

only 400? That makes my presumed rejection even more painful! I was expecting to have lost out to more competition. Oh well...

Interesting - I've been rejected from both my worst fit (duke) and my by far best fit (Chicago, presumably) and accepted to a near-best fit school (northwestern). I suppose I wasn't invited to join Chicago because of a lack of qualifications - just goes to show you need both a good fit and the qualifications to make you an attractive candidate! And, yes, Austin is a really, really great city - you all should be really excited! P.S. I received the note from chicago twice - once for polisci andonce for the committee on social thought. So it's not just the polisci department being strange, but the social science division sending out a generic "please be patient" note to all applicants (there must be thousands...)

I'm upset that I haven't heard anything from Chicago. And sad!

congratulations tan, that's an honor. i hope they haven't finished sending out acceptances - chicago is my top choice. ill be standing by my email...

...I wish I hadn't read that.

I want to hear from Chicago so badly. It's either chicago or northwestern for me (pretty good options for a theorist), and I am starting to get a bit loopy waiting to hear back from Chicago so I can get excited about northwestern.

But there are indeed really good schools that aren't ivy league, both in terms of instruction and placement. WUSTL and Northwestern, to name a couple. You should take a serious look at programs without dismissing them as 'not ivy' and therefore not worth your time. Princeton and Yale did not fair very well according to a few of these studies being linked to. Although I completely agree with respect only applying to study at top notch schools - the job market is nasty and one should not expect to be an exception to general placement trends. I just don't think it's appropriate to refer to this tier as 'HYPC ivy league type' schools.

to the original poster, please do not take this silliness as indicative of our field. the key to studying for the GRE is consistency. you want to build up a pattern so that, when you take the actual test, you are totally in the zone and used to sitting for 3 or more hours straight and concentrating. for this reason, begin studying several months before the GRE. study everyday, and take a practice test once a week. if you do this for several months, you will be totally ready for the test! 6 months may be excessive, unless your score really needs improvement. buy a GRE study book and take the 'diagnostic test' to see where youre at. if youre doing well already, you dont need 6 months. i would say somewhere between 6 and 3 months is plenty of time to study and practice. but rememebr - an hour a day will NOT prepare you for the test, which require more endurance. practice tests are crucial!!

Also in at Northwestern! Very excited.

someone posted a duke rejection on the 'results search' page, but my application status on the website doesn't seem to have changed. anyone get news from duke?

from the magnificent tina slater: The review is completed in stages, so the confirmation of applicants that are being admitted does not happen until March. They do not do this case by case, but eliminate files as they proceed through the stages. The applicants are selected and then a meeting is held to make final decisions that have to be okayed by all of the Grad Field Faculty Members. Sometimes files that are refused in early stages can be resurrected. So we can never notify anyone early.

subfield: theory/philosophy interests: HPT (esp. Rousseau and Hegel), will formation and legitimacy, democratic theory, recognition/identity, critical theory, agency/action.

i got that email 2 days ago, on monday. i did send my GRE and transcript, but the birthday on the GRE was wrong so they didn't think they received it (my fault), and apparently, they never got my transcript!

i got a really nice email from cornell, saying that i had passed to the "second stage" of the process and that they needed a bunch of stuff from me, GRE scores and a transcript (oops).

my advice is to treat each element of your application with the utmost care. that is, make every part of your application as good as it could possibly be. 1. the GRE - begin studying 3 months in advance. take as many practice tests as you can, at least 5, and score above 700 on both sections. 2. SOP - give yourself plenty of time so that you can write it, edit it, take a long break from it, and begin again. do not spend too much time talking about your past accomplishments; try to focus on your future goals. 3. writing sample - I agree that using part of your thesis is a great idea. include a short abstract describing the project in whole and where the part your are submitting fits in. and, yes, writing a senior thesis is essential. 4. classes - focus on keeping your GPA as high as possible these last few semesters, round out your math/econ classes, and learn a foreign language.

no school is as well off as it was before the crash, including the ivies - the sports conference of ivy league does not secure a school from financial strife. the harvard endowment, for example, lost 27% - over 10 billion dollars - between the summers of 2008 and 2009. however, it is the UC schools, i believe, that are in the most difficult circumstances. im not expecting those programs to be able to offer much funding this year. im interested in seeing how the uc Davis funding situation works out. am i right that they have only guaranteed instate tuition and $5k for the first year? i doubt berkeley, ucla, or ucsd will be able to offer much more support. though, i could be wrong, and i hope i am. fingers crossed... i haven't received anything from any schools yet.

there are many successful students who graduate from NSSR, particularly from the philosophy and political science departments. my undergraduate advisor, for example, did his Ph.D at NSSR, and now works in the political science department at Notre Dame. political science in particular has had alot of success over the years placing their Ph.D students, particularly the theory students. additionally, there is alot of success placing m.a. students into Ph.D programs. last year, TWO students were accepted to chicago. you will find, however, that many m.a. students who plan to apply elsewhere end up loving NSSR so much that they choose to stay. one student, a few years ago, got into Berkeley, went for a year, and then came back to NSSR because the atmosphere was much more to his or her liking. now, here is the rub. because NSSR is strapped for cash, two problems occur. 1. students are not properly funded. this has several implications, not the least of which is that students need to find outside jobs, which distracts from their studies. this mostly only applies to m.a. students, since most Ph.D students are better funded and also able to find jobs teaching at one of the many colleges in brooklyn, manhattan, or new jersey. however, the lack of funding does prevent a certain level of studying sometimes. 2. because m.a. students fund Ph.D students, NSSR lets in alot of m.a. students, few of which are accepted into the Ph.D program. many, many of these students are excellent students, and will get into the Ph.D program at the NSSR or elsewhere. however, some of these students are not at the same level as other students. for this reason, sometimes classes are taught at a slightly lower level, or are not as intense or rigorous as they *could* be. but this is a problem for all classes, even at harvard. from these problems, a third implication arises. 3. the Ph.Ds that come out of the NSSR are inconsistent. some of the scholars are bar none the best. some are not as strong. for this reason, i believe, some schools might be a bit wary of hiring NSSR students. finally, NSSR does not do as good a job 'prepping' their Ph.Ds for jobs as other schools do. this 'prep' includes grooming for interviews, going over job talks, etc. there are some really excellent scholars at the new school, and political theory is taken VERY seriously in the department. the community is very close, very active, and very intelligent. i highly recommend applying to the program, but students should know that the funding is not as good as some other 'top tier' schools.