Georgetown University

[zephyr]

bizzare about the money. considering some of the names they have there, plus their many famous alumni, you'd figure they'd have enough cash to keep their graduate programs, especially foreign service and government, running well.

[justpassingby]

As I mentioned in another thread, I have some knowledge of the government department at Georgetown.

It is a good program, with ambitions to be a top one in the near future. They have made some strong faculty hires lately and their PhD placement is vastly improved as compared with 5-10 years ago (according to their website, recent grads across the subfields have gone to UW-Madison, Cornell, UC-Riverside, UT-Austin and Oklahoma, and post-docs at a bunch of other decent places).

Grad student funding is clearly an issue, with only 2-3 per subfield fully funded in each incoming cohort. But this has lot to do with funding priorities decided upon at the university-wide level, and it's not necessarily the department's fault. It is true that Georgetown is a prestigious private school, but its endowment is quite low in comparison to peer institutions. Consequently, it has tended to be dependent on the tuition paid by the undergraduate student body to keep it running healthily. Moreover, the graduate school is relatively small, because Georgetown has traditionally been an "undergraduate-focused" research university. So graduate student funding has suffered.

I hear that things are greatly improving. The school's endowment has recently passed the $1 billion mark for the first time, and there are promising signs that more money will be used to shore up the grad programs.

[zephyr]

hmmm...very interesting info about endowment money. i'm still surprised they don't do better, given the number of political bigshots with degrees from georgetown.

so, anybody know when we might hear from them? last i heard admissions was trying to do another round of decisions later this week. anybody have any idea as to how many of those given funded offers so far (2 per subfield so far, apparently) might turn them down? i suspect 50%, but probably more.

[lenin333]

I called the department... voice recording. Then I emailed someone in the department who was listed as a contact in the recording. I am waiting that response. Exciting...

[AllFiredUp]

lenin, they probably went home for the day, perhaps eating dinner. Will you be able to sleep tonight?

[lenin333]

Oh, I am thrilled. More reading and political musings for me to go over. Maybe a view documentaries too.

[zephyr]

i've heard they're supposed to meet thursday and friday, but i'm not sure if this is true.

[iheartplato]

Um yeaaaahhh.......so if they could just go ahead and let me in now, that would be greeeeaaat. Thanks.

[lenin333]

Z,

That is what I heard too. Thursday to know by monday. A "massive number of applications" is causing the delay.

[zephyr]

Z,

That is what I heard too. Thursday to know by monday. A "massive number of applications" is causing the delay.

a massive number, huh. well, they usually have 600-700. still, i can't imagine they haven't sifted through a big chunk of the applications in order to admit their top 10 so far (the funded offers). my guess is they've already eliminated many applicants (maybe 300) in their initial run-through. they're probably going through the top 100-150 applicants left, and ranking them, with the top 70 or so left will be offered admission. based on the rankings, as funding becomes available (since i'm pretty sure most of those offered fellowships thus far have offers from higher-ranked places), they will go through these rankings to offer funding packages.

[iheartplato]

a massive number, huh. well, they usually have 600-700. still, i can't imagine they haven't sifted through a big chunk of the applications in order to admit their top 10 so far (the funded offers). my guess is they've already eliminated many applicants (maybe 300) in their initial run-through. they're probably going through the top 100-150 applicants left, and ranking them, with the top 70 or so left will be offered admission. based on the rankings, as funding becomes available (since i'm pretty sure most of those offered fellowships thus far have offers from higher-ranked places), they will go through these rankings to offer funding packages.

you know...i don't really get it. i realize that 600-700 apps is a lot, but i submitted my application last November--does it really take THAT long to go through all of them when you have a whole committee sifting through them?

this is more of a rant to the process in general as opposed to just Georgetown, but come ON--i submitted my app on time, is it so much to ask to get a definitive deadline as to when notices will go out so we're not all sitting around pulling our hair out with each passing week/day/hour?? if they're still figuring out funding--well, that's what a waitlist is for, right?? is it not possible to notify the rejects when they've made that decision, since Lord knows they did many of those right off the bat?

i realize the admissions process is difficult and dependent on many factors--including the admissions committee's other personal obligations, jobs and whatnot--but it still doesnt mean that i'm any less aggravated by it all!

[zephyr]

the waiting does suck, but it takes a while to go through applications. for the people they are considering, you have to figure everyone on the committee reads through SOPs, LORs, writing samples, transcripts, and GRE scores pretty closely. though i certainly see no reason to not send out rejections via email sooner for those who committee has decided are definitely not getting into the program.

[zephyr]

2 people per sub-discipline were offered funding, according to the gov dept admin.

just out of curiousity - did you find out about this directly from the department, or from somebody else? just wondering if this is really true or not. in previous years, it seems like they admitted 30+ w/ funding in early march, so that basically nobody who didn't hear in the first batch got funding. maybe they wanted to have much more control over their funding this year?

[sundaymonday]

just out of curiousity - did you find out about this directly from the department, or from somebody else? just wondering if this is really true or not. in previous years, it seems like they admitted 30+ w/ funding in early march, so that basically nobody who didn't hear in the first batch got funding. maybe they wanted to have much more control over their funding this year?

I spoke with her on the phone directly. It's true that I was told this by the dept admin, but could she have been lying? I guess anything is possible. Feel free to give her a call. She said 25+ were accepted, that only 2 people per sub-discipline were offered funding, and that those people had already been chosen. I don't know if they were contacted, or whether or not they had accepted the offer. My thought is they have some kind of back-up ranked waitlist for those they'll offer funding to, should those other folks reject the acceptance offer.

[zephyr]

I spoke with her on the phone directly. It's true that I was told this by the dept admin, but could she have been lying? I guess anything is possible. Again, she said 25+ were accepted, that only 2 people per sub-discipline were offered funding, and that those people had already been chosen. I don't know if they were contacted, or whether or not they had accepted the offer. My thought is they have some kind of back-up ranked waitlist for those they'll offer funding to, should those other folks reject the acceptance offer.

ah...but did she say whether all 25+ people were contacted already? seems like, according to those offered funding, only a very small number of people have been contacted up to this point. maybe they've only contacted the funded 8 thus far?

[sundaymonday]

ah...but did she say whether all 25+ people were contacted already? seems like, according to those offered funding, only a very small number of people have been contacted up to this point. maybe they've only contacted the funded 8 thus far?

Lol. If I don't know if the people who were offered funding were contacted, why would I know if the other 25 who were not were? You should give her a call. She'll probably be able to answer these questions for you. Do you need a contact name? I can PM it to you.

[zephyr]

Lol. If I don't know if the people who were offered funded were contacted, why would I know if the other 25 who were not were? You should give her a call. She'll probably be able to answer these questions for you. Do you need a contact name? I can PM it to you.

ah...my bad, misread your comment. i thought you were told they had been contacted. no worries...i might give them a ring tomorrow.

[lenin333]

KICK!!!

[zephyr]

they're supposedly meeting today from 12-7 to do final admits. didn't get a clear answer as to how many have been contacted already.

[iheartplato]

Thanks for the update.

[zephyr]

i suspect we'll probably hear about acceptances on monday, if they managed to finish up the process today.

[lenin333]

My head... ack.

[zephyr]

My head... ack.

on the positive side (sort of), it'll all be over soon. hopefully some of us hear some good news on monday or tuesday. i feel like the wait is killing me a little each day!

[lenin333]

I am going to pop! Can't they send my reject already?

[zephyr]

anybody hear anything? i called earlier, but nobody picked up. maybe they're still in meetings to decide?