Melian

First off, you should all be really proud to be at this juncture of having a choice between programs. It doesn't get said often enough, but, you will make the right decision for yourself and will have a bright future ahead. So keep this in mind as April 15th approaches. I can only speak about my experience so take from this what you may. I was deciding between three top programs (the names are irrelevant for this purpose), and I would have unhesitatingly accepted any one of the offers if that was all I had. I made pro/con lists and talked to my advisors and POIs fairly honestly about my choices and reservations. I visited the prospective student visits and asked quite a few of the questions outlined here. All good information gathering. I went back and forth between different rankings and placement records and gut-checks about reputation. I made potential budgets for each school based on the stipend and living expenses. I threw dart-like objects at the wall. However, as the deadline approached, I started thinking more about the kind of research I would do at each school. Particularly, I became interested in where I would do my most creative work. As I thought about different dissertation committee combinations and exposure to research centers, I came to the conclusion that there would be very little variation in quality of training and placement between the schools (otherwise the choice would have been much easier). The criteria that would actually be significant would be what kind of possibilities would exist for my research. I valued forward-thinking, innovative, and interdisciplinary research and was convinced that one school out of the three was better positioned to offer such an environment. So that's where I went. In the day-to-day life of graduate school, in between reading three books per week, in between countless hours of problem sets, in between mind-numbing grading, in between crippling anxiety about your impending future, in between not writing enough publishable material, in between an always growing reading list and always dwindling hours, in between living on less than minmum wage, in between seeing your college friends make three times as much, in between recognizing a very small amount of people will know (and appreciate) what you do, in between holding together a family or a relationship, in between all of this is your research motivating you to keep at it. Because if you don't, who will? And you want to be at a school that makes it easier for you to imagine the fullest possibilities of your work so that the rest is noise.

Long time lurker, first time poster, already attending, etc. I wanted to talk more about "fit" and the role of the statement of purpose. It is my understanding that the there are at least two components of the SOP that signal fit to the ad-com. First, the substantive focus of your research; and second, the presentation of that research focus. There has been quite a lot of information on the forums on the former but not nearly as much attention to the latter. What I mean by presentation of research focus is the way you formulate your questions, display an awareness of the significant debates in your field, and your ability to situate yourself within these debates with your questions. In addition, the specific terms you use to phrase your research is also a critical element of research presentation. Now, why would this matter? Keep in mind that you are proposing to study a certain set of questions and ad-coms are aware that the chances of you actually carrying out that specific research is very slim. Applicants are known to exaggerate or just plain manufacture interests in certain substantive issues to just get their foot in the door. This is standard practice. In many programs with well-known specializations or specialists, a plethora of applicants will claim to be interested in the same sorts of research focus. Provided that at this stage, the applicants have comparable numbers and/or experience, how do you determine the "best fit" in these cases? It may come down to whether ad-coms judge your approach to the research focus to be interesting and situated enough. Of course, what it means to be "interesting" and "situated" is incredibly subjective. Given the eclectic composition of ad-coms, this means that the same SOP may "speak to" one member and not another, depending on how they conduct their own research inquiry. Some are averse to the "this is when I became interested in politics" anecdotes, some don't mind. Some care about how you use loaded concepts, some may give you a pass. Some care if you integrate faculty names throughout rather than just in the last paragraph, some don't. However, all pay attention to how you ask questions and what that says about your potential to do research (regardless of your actual substantive interest). The point is not that your substantive focus does not matter. Clearly, it does. But if you are wondering why certain schools where you have a substantive match may have passed you up, I submit: this process is incredibly random and a lot has to align for one to edge out similarly qualified applicants to make the cut. One such variable is your ability to signal your fit not just with the content of your research but the contextualizing of your research.