Cornell

[polisciphd]

I know that there have been several wait listed posts on the results page, but has anyone been accepted? For those who have been waitlisted, would you mind sharing the contents of the notification you received? Cornell is my remaining number 1 school, would love to work with Katzentsein and Carlson...

[anav]

I was wait-listed. Email said just that 12 out of 350 were offered admission and very small number are put on a wait-list. Hope it helps. Good luck!

[polisciphd]

Wow, that is only a 3% acceptance rate. I wonder if something has happened that is forcing them to reduce the number of students in this particular cohort?

[Peter]

And it is strange that someone received a rejection letter (via email), and people have received waitlist notifications, but as of yet no acceptances have been posted.

On my end I've heard nothing at all. At least it's not an outright rejection yet....

[polisciphd]

I know, I am beginning to think that the cold has gotten to their collective heads.

[mburgh]

Yeah, so, I'm wondering about this as well. Has anyone had an official rejection? Or an official acceptance, for that matter?

[anonymous84]

Hey guys:

I've been notified from a credible source (with email forwarded) that the department has not contacted admits yet and will do so probably tomorrow afternoon. One major caveat, I don't know if the department will send a mass email or if individual Prof's will send out emails. If Prof's are sending out individual emails, then it makes sense that rejects or waitlist notifications have been sent out via the department. I hope this helps...

[Peter]

Thanks for the info.

That's what I like about this forum--people have different insights /info etc. and it's very helpful.

Again, thanks.

[mburgh]

Yes, thanks so much for the info. Ah, the rollercoaster continues. Except if they haven't issued decisions yet - does that mean I no longer have an excuse for drinking away the pain last night?

[twinsfan]

I was accepted at Cornell. Received notification via email on Wednesday.

[mburgh]

Ah, well, I guess the bottom line here is that you don't really know until you know, and the The Grad Cafe, though enjoyable, should be taken with a very large grain of salt. And it might possibly drive you insane. Thanks for the info.

[silencio1982]

Ah, well, I guess the bottom line here is that you don't really know until you know, and the The Grad Cafe, though enjoyable, should be taken with a very large grain of salt. And it might possibly drive you insane. Thanks for the info.

totally true!! i was convinced i was rejected at northwestern, until someone on the board emailed and dept. said they had not made decisions on all applications. (also posted on the NW poli sci dept. website) so i would say for almost all the schools, until you actually have a confirmed rejection, there is still hope.

/threadjack

[polisciphd]

I was accepted at Cornell. Received notification via email on Wednesday.

Would you mind, then, providing the contents of the letter you received on this forum, if only to confirm the admission statistics that were offered earlier?

[spin]

Hello:

I posted the previous post under 'anonymous84' because a Prof. inquired for me and I was not allowed to know. But I received an official admit email early this morning, see below.

"Congratulations! I am pleased to announce that you have been admitted to graduate study in the Department of Government at Cornell University starting in the Fall 2008 academic term.

This year's application pool was even larger and more competitive than usual -- it was a truly remarkable group of applicants. Congratulations on being one of the select few to make it through our exhaustive process of evaluation.You will soon receive a formal letter describing your financial award along with other details. You'll also be hearing from members of the faculty in your area(s) of specialization over the coming days.

Again, my warmest congratulations; I hope you can join our program next year, and look forward to talking with you about the possibility of your joining us."

[polisciphd]

Hello:

I posted the previous post under 'anonymous84' because a Prof. inquired for me and I was not allowed to know. But I received an official admit email early this morning, see below.

"Congratulations! I am pleased to announce that you have been admitted to graduate study in the Department of Government at Cornell University starting in the Fall 2008 academic term.

This year's application pool was even larger and more competitive than usual -- it was a truly remarkable group of applicants. Congratulations on being one of the select few to make it through our exhaustive process of evaluation.You will soon receive a formal letter describing your financial award along with other details. You'll also be hearing from members of the faculty in your area(s) of specialization over the coming days.

Again, my warmest congratulations; I hope you can join our program next year, and look forward to talking with you about the possibility of your joining us."

So I am then assuming that the whole only 12 people out of 350 thing was bogus...

[anav]

Oh, no, the 12 out of 350 thing was real: it was in my wait-list email. It said "we offered admission to 12 out 350 applicants, and waitlisted a very short number" (not specific.)

[polisciphd]

Oh, no, the 12 out of 350 thing was real: it was in my wait-list email. It said "we offered admission to 12 out 350 applicants, and waitlisted a very short number" (not specific.)

Nothing personal, I just find it very hard to believe a program like Cornell would only have a 3% acceptance rate. That is CRAZY if that is actually the case. Again, I wonder if something is going on with that program, lack of funds, professors bailing, whatever, that would cause such low numbers...

[anav]

It is not that weird, actually. They have a very small program and I knew that when I applied. Twelve is still smaller than I thought.

It makes me more worried, too, since with such a small admitted class, who knows how many will actually turn it down and give us waitlists a chance. We'll see.

[polisciphd]

anav or spin, would you mind sharing your stats with me, I am just curious as to how far off my application was from getting consideration there...

[spin]

It's possible that someone received a personalized email with those details (12 out of 350). To be honest, those numbers seem utterly ridiculous, but I'm not in a position to verify. On the results page, someone noted that all emails were sent out yesterday; as my case demonstrates this is not true. So don't lose hope yet!

[anav]

Maybe it was personalized, it certainly was very nice. You are right, you never know.

Congrats to you, spin. It's great!

[spin]

Before I post my stats, I'll throw in the obvious caveat that 'stats,' i.e. numbers, aren't really indicative of the strength of an applicant; equally important is 'overall fit' with the department.

My undergrad was at a top 5 poli sci department, 3.87 GPA, high honors in my department, magna cum laude, and the 'outstanding honors' thesis award for my dept. GRE was 1280 combined (not so spectacular); had strong letters from well known faculty (including the 'expert' in my area of study). Did a lot of research during and after graduation with Prof's; recent grad (May 07). Interesting personal background, including dropping out of H.S.

Focus is on IR and comparative with a regional focus on East Asia.

I've been admitted to Berkeley, Michigan, Cornell, and UCSD

Officially rejected from Stanford and Yale

Unofficially rejected from Harvard, Columbia, and possibly Princeton

[spin]

I'll also add that I'm leaning towards Berkeley; if you're on the waitlist (and if the list is small, as has been suggested here) you'll have a decent chance (of course if Cornell is your top choice). But Cornell has some very strong people for what I'm interested in, and the department is a great fit for me. They also just hired a new person who's interests are perfectly aligned with mine. So I can't commit just yet until after visiting Ithaca.

[polisciphd]

What part of IR are you interested in? IPE, security? I was applying to work with Katzenstein and Carlson on east asian security stuff myself...

[spin]

What part of IR are you interested in? IPE, security? I was applying to work with Katzenstein and Carlson on east asian security stuff myself...

The odd thing is that I have dual competing interests, which of course I didn't note in my SOP (it would have made me look indecisive!) I did a lot of 'security' as an undergrad and, to be very honest, became pretty disenchanted with IR and security; in particular I feel strongly that, over the course of the last twenty years, the field has been driven by 'grand theorizing' rather than empiricism. Given this, I moved towards IPE and comparative (my honors thesis was on regional financial cooperation in East Asia following the financial crisis). In particular, integration and cooperation. On the comparative end, I'm interested in governance and foreign aid dependency (I'm currently working with a Prof. on this).