Will Top 10 Schools Be Taking Applications?

[wga1]

After Columbia and Brown and Penn's decision to pause PhD admissions for the upcoming cycle, is it likely that other top schools (Yale, Chicago, Harvard) will be following suit? It just feels like an ominous track record and now I'm thinking about whether it is even worth putting in the mental effort to prepare to apply if it is unlikely there will even be top programs to apply to.

[PoliSciGuy00]

To be honest, I'm not sure anyone on this forum has a good answer for you, unless they have inside information that I don't.  This whole thing has been a huge bummer for everyone involved.  I assume that places like Harvard, with massive endowments, wouldn't cancel admissions.  But Columbia, Brown, and Penn are all wealthy schools, too.  I'm not sure there's anyway to predict who will cancel and who won't.  

One thing to consider is that as we get later into the application season I assume schools will be less likely to cancel their admissions process altogether.  This isn't an iron-clad rule, as Duke cancelled their admissions last year, I believe after apps were already submitted, but I don't think schools would go thru the trouble of opening up admissions into October and November only to cancel them.

Best of luck to you and I'm sorry this is happening.     

[munch22]

It has less to do with endowments and more to do with the impending issue of current students going on the academic job market that is now virtually non existent. Schools are suspending admissions to provide further funding for current students in many cases, although budget issues are making this problem even worse. And more programs will be coming with suspending admissions. Almost all will be cutting cohort sizes. Departments are presumably still make decisions on this and well have a better picture come late October. 

[smug-face]

Most programs have opened applications so frankly I don't believe that there will be a lot of surprises come October. 

[munch22]

On 9/21/2020 at 5:41 AM, smug-face said:

Most programs have opened applications so frankly I don't believe that there will be a lot of surprises come October. 

Applications open at the graduate school level. Decisions on admissions/how many to take For each subfield/whether to take students are all at the department level. The two may not happen at the same time. Pretty sure Duke made the decision last year in October.