2020-2021 Application Thread

[AHD]

11 minutes ago, drmantol said:

Re the disputed MIT acceptances: according to the results page, the department released acceptances and rejections simultaneously via email in the past few years.

10 minutes ago, spotted said:

so... trolls?

It is possible that the rejections will come in a few hours. According to this, the release wasn't always simultaneous and sometimes spanned a couple days: 

https://martindevaux.com/2020/11/political-science-phd-admission-decisions/

But I do hope they are trolls, so there will still be a chance for us   We will know sooner or later.

 

Edited February 9, 2021 by AHD

[peculiarindividual]

5 minutes ago, icemanyeo said:

I've previously seen people on twitter post about trolling the gradcafe results page for political science.

It feels like some sort of lightweight frat hazing ritual where they’re punishing us because they went through it too lmao. I’m not believing nothing until I see someone who seems real/not trolling say it on Twitter ?.

[plus]

My two cents: so far, all acceptances without corresponding forum claims have been fakes. I would bet MIT hasn't released results.

[rash_sulganni]

7 minutes ago, plus said:

My two cents: so far, all acceptances without corresponding forum claims have been fakes. I would bet MIT hasn't released results.

Yup, I'm sure we will have at lease one claim in this forum if it were real

 

 

...

Rejected: UCSD, Wisconsin-Madison, Princeton, Michigan Ann-Arbor (assumed), Texas A&M (assumed), Vanderbilt (assumed)

Pending: Notre Dame (Interview), UC Riverside (interviewed in Jan), MIT, Yale, Syracuse, Florida

Accepted: UMASS Amherst (w/funding)

 

[comradecommissar]

Just got a waitlist from NYU. 2/2 waitlists so far haha. Not too bad, given that Princeton and NYU were my weakest apps.

[guest789]

1 hour ago, NeedaMormon said:

For people who aren't proficient in LaTeX, I learned how to make my CV using LaTeX and that helped me out a lot.

...

Agreed with all of this.

I found it really helpful to have a research idea when I was learning R as well. I was learning it for a reason - it was the only way (given I didnt have access to Stata) to answer my research question. So I kind of had to learn it.

 

 

[Mad Scientist Malfrost]

To add to discussion of programming languages, if you are going to learn R you should become familiar with the tidyverse package; it is very useful and helpful and makes doing stuff in R much easier in my opinion. 

[jamesc6]

also, use R Studio! Really improves the user experience in R and easier to find and correct your mistakes

[spotted]

I am so glad my advisor pushed me to take the only R in political science classes offered at my uni, now I have a small head start! Odd how its such a necessary skill these days, but my department has only just started to teach it

Edited February 9, 2021 by spotted

[icemanyeo]

This may not console any of you but know that faculty empathize with this year's brutal cycle. Thread from twitter:

 

[Mad Scientist Malfrost]

1 minute ago, spotted said:

I am so glad my advisor pushed me to take the only R in political science classes offered at my uni, now I have a small head start! Odd how its such a necessary skill these days, but my department has only just started to teach it

You can get by with Stata but I feel like R is so much more flexible and can do a lot more work if you take the time to learn it. 

[Mad Scientist Malfrost]

3 minutes ago, icemanyeo said:

This may not console any of you but know that faculty empathize with this year's brutal cycle. Thread from twitter:

 

It's definitely nice to see and have confirmed that this cycle in particular is more brutal than others like we all expected. Yet more evidence to show why Capitalism as a whole is a failure and should be done away with! *steps off soapbox* I do really like the manufactured scarcity part though and its nice to have that acknowledged out loud.  

[rash_sulganni]

3 minutes ago, Mad Scientist Malfrost said:

You can get by with Stata but I feel like R is so much more flexible and can do a lot more work if you take the time to learn it. 

IMO...Either is enough to produce just about any quantitative analysis. Personally I find Stata more reliable, albeit expensive. R however has got better graphics. I may be biased though because I use STATA.

 

...

Rejected: UCSD, Wisconsin-Madison, Princeton, Michigan Ann-Arbor (assumed), Texas A&M (assumed), Vanderbilt (assumed)

Pending: Notre Dame (Interview), UC Riverside (interviewed in Jan), MIT, Yale, Syracuse, Florida

Accepted: UMASS Amherst (w/funding)

 

[Mad Scientist Malfrost]

Just now, rash_sulganni said:

IMO...Either is enough to produce just about any quantitative analysis. Personally I find Stata more reliable, albeit expensive. R however has got better graphics. I may be biased though because I use STATA.

 

...

Rejected: UCSD, Wisconsin-Madison, Princeton, Michigan Ann-Arbor (assumed), Texas A&M (assumed), Vanderbilt (assumed)

Pending: Notre Dame (Interview), UC Riverside (interviewed in Jan), MIT, Yale, Syracuse, Florida

Accepted: UMASS Amherst (w/funding)

 

Fair point! I'm definitely biased towards R given that is what I do most of my work in. I'm pretty sure people just develop biases towards whatever they use more often...I'm sure there is a study on that somewhere if I go looking for it lol

[icemanyeo]

1 minute ago, Mad Scientist Malfrost said:

It's definitely nice to see and have confirmed that this cycle in particular is more brutal than others like we all expected. Yet more evidence to show why Capitalism as a whole is a failure and should be done away with! *steps off soapbox* I do really like the manufactured scarcity part though and its nice to have that acknowledged out loud.  

My biggest concerns this year:

1) Will universities permanently move forward with smaller PhD cohorts? I know some schools like Chicago have restructured and are increasing funding to PhD students but significantly reducing cohort size as a university-wide initiative.

2) With less graduate students available to teach introductory courses, does that extra labor fall on the smaller cohorts, will there be more adjunctification, or an increase in teaching loads at research-intensive universities for TT faculty?

[afjackie]

1 minute ago, icemanyeo said:

My biggest concerns this year:

1) Will universities permanently move forward with smaller PhD cohorts? I know some schools like Chicago have restructured and are increasing funding to PhD students but significantly reducing cohort size as a university-wide initiative.

2) With less graduate students available to teach introductory courses, does that extra labor fall on the smaller cohorts, will there be more adjunctification, or an increase in teaching loads at research-intensive universities for TT faculty?

I was told by my POI at Northwestern back in November that there was a good chance they and many other programs would have smaller cohort sizes going forward as PhD programs are having to come to terms with changing realities. 

[polisci_gal]

1 minute ago, afjackie said:

I was told by my POI at Northwestern back in November that there was a good chance they and many other programs would have smaller cohort sizes going forward as PhD programs are having to come to terms with changing realities. 

Wow. I feel like the admissions process is just going to get tougher and tougher as the years go on if this is the case. It's also interesting to see how some programs have completely paused admissions this year because they want to focus on their current students (ex., Columbia, UNC Chapel Hill, etc...)

Edited February 9, 2021 by polisci_gal

[Mad Scientist Malfrost]

1 minute ago, icemanyeo said:

My biggest concerns this year:

1) Will universities permanently move forward with smaller PhD cohorts? I know some schools like Chicago have restructured and are increasing funding to PhD students but significantly reducing cohort size as a university-wide initiative.

2) With less graduate students available to teach introductory courses, does that extra labor fall on the smaller cohorts, will there be more adjunctification, or an increase in teaching loads at research-intensive universities for TT faculty?

The first one isn't really a factor we as potential students or even eventual students have much control over sadly. While it is good that top tier universities are increasing stipends it should go without saying that doesn't mean the cohorts HAVE to decrease in size as they can rein in budgets in better ways.

 

As for the second one, that is certainly a valid fear but I think future students at least have some say in that because if teaching loads DO get out of hand, students can always attempt to unionize to get the admin to knock that crap off. Both cases just go to show how academia as a whole is starting to be mirror more corporate bullshit jobs to quote David Graeber (rest in power, comrade). If you all haven't read Bullshit Jobs by Graeber I would highly recommend it; while it mostly focuses on the private sector he does talk about academia quite a bit too. 

[Uberfloweret]

3 minutes ago, icemanyeo said:

My biggest concerns this year:

1) Will universities permanently move forward with smaller PhD cohorts? I know some schools like Chicago have restructured and are increasing funding to PhD students but significantly reducing cohort size as a university-wide initiative.

2) With less graduate students available to teach introductory courses, does that extra labor fall on the smaller cohorts, will there be more adjunctification, or an increase in teaching loads at research-intensive universities for TT faculty?

Reminded me of this piece https://www.chronicle.com/article/social-justice-austerity-and-the-humanities-death-spiral?cid2=gen_login_refresh&cid=gen_sign_in however speculative the article may sound, the general message speaks to my heart and mind 

[afjackie]

1 minute ago, polisci_gal said:

Wow. I feel like the admissions process is just going to get tougher and tougher as the years go on if this is the case. It's also interesting to see how some programs have completely paused admissions this year because they want to focus on their current students (ex., Columbia, UNC Chapel Hill, etc...)

Yeah when I realized Columbia and MN weren't taking applicants this year I almost considered waiting until next year to apply, but after speaking with the POI at Northwestern and some others I realized there is no guarantee it is going to get easier in the coming years and it might actually get progressively harder. But hey, maybe some unis won't change their cohort size! Only time will tell!

[AHD]

Can the person from the results page who says he contacted MIT and they haven't released any decisions identify here? Otherwise we can't know who is the troll and who speaks the truth 

[guest789]

Woops, didn't read - I thought you were talking about "admittances" to MIT.

Edited February 9, 2021 by timeseries

[Polisci-IR]

Just now, timeseries said:

they are all trolls in my opinion...

What is their benefit? What they aim to get out of it? I just do not understand why would they confuse us in this tensed time!

[The Converse]

Standing offer.  If anyone wants to reach out Michigan, Berkeley, or MIT that did not apply there, I would be willing to call admissions for a school that I didn't apply to.  We are getting trolled hard, so I would be game to stop the insanity.

[StarkDark1]

My roommate introduced me to this music recently.  A fusion of Persian and West African music.  I've been listening to it today, and it's helped take the edge off my anxiety.  Very relaxing.