2024-2025 Application Thread

[jaliren]

14 minutes ago, PolSciComp said:

Any George Washington PhD admits here? Just seen an admission post a few minutes ago for Comparative politics.

I haven't received a decision yet. 

[garmit]

39 minutes ago, JPYSD said:

Fully agree! But I actually think most departments set their intensions while they are deciding who to take on and reviewing applications. I doubt that most committees sit together to discuss a direction ahead of the application opening or even deadline, sadly.

I'm thankful that Cornell said there were no IR admissions this year. It saved everyone a ton of time and money, though it's still sad for all the IR folks.

[nnb1]

1 hour ago, garmit said:

I'm thankful that Cornell said there were no IR admissions this year. It saved everyone a ton of time and money, though it's still sad for all the IR folks.

Does anyone have any information or updates about the selection process at Cornell this year? I only know that decisions are expected to be announced at the end of February.

[01anonymous]

I applied to the Peace Studies and Political Science Program at Notre Dame and interviewed with 14 others last week. 2 faculty meets went well, 1 interview went so-so. The reasoning they gave for rejecting me which I got today morning with my Northwestern rejection, was that I wasn't clear about my research topic/ methods. Honestly, if I was super clear why would I be doing a PhD at all with two years of coursework, after already having 2 masters, for a peanut pay? Thankfully, I have an acceptance so I will be fine, but I am mad.

1a/3r/6p

 

[smoothoperator77]

8 minutes ago, 01anonymous said:

I applied to the Peace Studies and Political Science Program at Notre Dame and interviewed with 14 others last week. 2 faculty meets went well, 1 interview went so-so. The reasoning they gave for rejecting me which I got today morning with my Northwestern rejection, was that I wasn't clear about my research topic/ methods. Honestly, if I was super clear why would I be doing a PhD at all with two years of coursework, after already having 2 masters, for a peanut pay? Thankfully, I have an acceptance so I will be fine, but I am mad.

1a/3r/6p

 

Totally agree. Maybe the best students looking at this conversation will laugh at us, but I really find it absurd. I tried my best to sharpen my research topic and method in the past few years, but I still expect most of it to be finished after a few years of coursework for my PhD. It almost feels like we are obliged to self-study PhD level stuff and triumph in order to get into the competitive programs. Also, research interest is subject to change. Rejecting people for unclear research topics, to me, is self-conflicting on the part of the provider of the education.

[01anonymous]

14 minutes ago, smoothoperator77 said:

Totally agree. Maybe the best students looking at this conversation will laugh at us, but I really find it absurd. I tried my best to sharpen my research topic and method in the past few years, but I still expect most of it to be finished after a few years of coursework for my PhD. It almost feels like we are obliged to self-study PhD level stuff and triumph in order to get into the competitive programs. Also, research interest is subject to change. Rejecting people for unclear research topics, to me, is self-conflicting on the part of the provider of the education.

Exactly. I wouldn't be doing this if I had nothing to learn, honestly. I bring a solid educational background, research experience, and generally a lot of diverse experience from across 4 continents. So what am I learning here if I am already up to knowing my topic in and out? Topics change like 95 percent of the time obviously. This is what a US PhD is known for right! 

[jaliren]

Claiming waitlist for GWU -- frustrating, but at least it's not a rejection? 

0a/1w/2r/6p

[smoothoperator77]

17 minutes ago, jaliren said:

Claiming waitlist for GWU -- frustrating, but at least it's not a rejection? 

0a/1w/2r/6p

Congrats! Through portal update?

[jaliren]

18 minutes ago, smoothoperator77 said:

Congrats! Through portal update?

No, I received an email from the DGS.

[01anonymous]

Claiming waitlist for Michigan, Please please please let them know if you are accepting another offer as soon as possible. 

[PolSciComp]

Asking for curiosity, I saw one post citing the University of Michigan:"The University of Michigan Political Science department received over 600 applications to our Ph.D. program this year."

Can this be correct? I couldnt be sure whether University of Michigan received such a high number of applications.

[Alfonso97]

Just now, PolSciComp said:

Asking for curiosity, I saw one post citing the University of Michigan:"The University of Michigan Political Science department received over 600 applications to our Ph.D. program this year."

Can this be correct? I couldnt be sure whether University of Michigan received such a high number of applications.

Claiming UMich rejection. I got that exact same email 

[01anonymous]

That's what I got 4 percent of 600 were admitted. I would really like to go here for both personal and professional reasons, so please let them know if you aren't accepting. 

[JPYSD]

42 minutes ago, PolSciComp said:

Asking for curiosity, I saw one post citing the University of Michigan:"The University of Michigan Political Science department received over 600 applications to our Ph.D. program this year."

Can this be correct? I couldnt be sure whether University of Michigan received such a high number of applications.

That is very likely. Most T15 PoliSci programs received between 500 and 700 applications during the past years. There are statistics about that from other schools too.

[PolPsychGal11]

1 hour ago, 01anonymous said:

Claiming waitlist for Michigan, Please please please let them know if you are accepting another offer as soon as possible. 

Guys - every year the few faculty who still lurk here have to remind you that admissions does not work this way. Do not pressure people into declining. Someone declining an offer does not mean someone on the waitlist suddenly gets an offer. It does not work that way: departments OVER admit. They know people will have competing offers, and they do NOT expect every person admitted to accept the offer. They expect many to decline. It is relatively rare to get in off of the wait list. So you should be pleased with a waitlist outcome, because it means you have chance, you need to understand that that chance is SMALL. And it will likely only turn into an offer if an unexpectedly large number of admits decline. 

Sorry if this sounds mean or like I am trying to dash your hopes. I am not. But you guys need to take a step back and understand how the waitlist works. Do not pressure folks into giving an answer sooner rather than later. It's best to treat a waitlist like a reject, so that you're pleasantly surprised in the rare cases it turns into an offer. 

(poli sci faculty)

[floatingworld]

Claiming acceptance for UM policy/polisci PhD! 

[Omkar Poojari]

10 minutes ago, PolPsychGal11 said:

Guys - every year the few faculty who still lurk here have to remind you that admissions does not work this way. Do not pressure people into declining. Someone declining an offer does not mean someone on the waitlist suddenly gets an offer. It does not work that way: departments OVER admit. They know people will have competing offers, and they do NOT expect every person admitted to accept the offer. They expect many to decline. It is relatively rare to get in off of the wait list. So you should be pleased with a waitlist outcome, because it means you have chance, you need to understand that that chance is SMALL. And it will likely only turn into an offer if an unexpectedly large number of admits decline. 

Sorry if this sounds mean or like I am trying to dash your hopes. I am not. But you guys need to take a step back and understand how the waitlist works. Do not pressure folks into giving an answer sooner rather than later. It's best to treat a waitlist like a reject, so that you're pleasantly surprised in the rare cases it turns into an offer. 

(poli sci faculty)

Thank you for sharing this here. May I ask if things could be a little different this year because of the indirect effects (if any) that PolSci departments might face due to the proposed grant cuts? Is it possible that this year the universities could be more conservative with rolling out initial offers- they might make fewer initial offers than a normal year which in turn could mean people on the waitlist (which would also probably be smaller this year) might have a bit more chance?

Thanks!

[Omkar Poojari]

30 minutes ago, JPYSD said:

That is very likely. Most T15 PoliSci programs received between 500 and 700 applications during the past years. There are statistics about that from other schools too.

Still a bit of a surprise. Yale and Princeton seem to have gotten 450-500 applications in the last two cycles. Maybe the bump at Michigan is also because it does not require the GRE- but even that is not a new change as such,

[PolPsychGal11]

5 minutes ago, Omkar Poojari said:

Thank you for sharing this here. May I ask if things could be a little different this year because of the indirect effects (if any) that PolSci departments might face due to the proposed grant cuts? Is it possible that this year the universities could be more conservative with rolling out initial offers- they might make fewer initial offers than a normal year which in turn could mean people on the waitlist (which would also probably be smaller this year) might have a bit more chance?

Thanks!

I doubt it just because of the uncertainty. If anything, cohorts are going to be even smaller this year, and the longer-term uncertainty means that smaller cohorts will be admitted. This means that programs are (a) admitting fewer students, and (b) going to err on the side of caution and accept few, if any, waitlisted students. If things go really wonky -- for example, because international students decline offers at higher rates than expected -- one student may get admitted off the waitlist. But we've seen an overall decrease in the number of PhD admits over the past few years (ultimately a good thing given the state of the job market). That, combined with the fuckery of Trump, means much smaller cohorts overall.

But, and this is important, even if all the Trump stuff were not going on, it still doesn't change the way the waitlist mechanism works. Student A declining an offer does not mean a department is going to quickly turn to Student E, on the waitlist, and extend an offer. Remember, there is always an over admit, even in the era of smaller cohorts. So all that's happening now is a smaller number of admits, an expected smaller cohort, and fewer students on the waitlist. 

[lala11]

29 minutes ago, JPYSD said:

That is very likely. Most T15 PoliSci programs received between 500 and 700 applications during the past years. There are statistics about that from other schools too.

According to UMich, they receive 320-375 applications and admit 5-10% in a typical year, so getting over 600 applications this year was quite an uptick.

[PoliSciAm1512]

28 minutes ago, lala11 said:

According to UMich, they receive 320-375 applications and admit 5-10% in a typical year, so getting over 600 applications this year was quite an uptick.

According to their admissions statistics, they received 595 apps in 2021, 505 in 2022, 474 in 2023, and 508 in 2024. So while it’s certainly an increase, it isn’t all that drastic. They’ve admitted between 3 and 5 percent of applicants in the past few years. 
 

I’m treating my Michigan waitlist as a rejection, as I have offers I’m happy with, but I do wish they’d be more transparent about the unlikeliness of getting off the waitlist instead of getting applicants’ hopes up. 

[JPYSD]

1 hour ago, PolPsychGal11 said:

Guys - every year the few faculty who still lurk here have to remind you that admissions does not work this way. Do not pressure people into declining. Someone declining an offer does not mean someone on the waitlist suddenly gets an offer. It does not work that way: departments OVER admit. They know people will have competing offers, and they do NOT expect every person admitted to accept the offer. They expect many to decline. It is relatively rare to get in off of the wait list. So you should be pleased with a waitlist outcome, because it means you have chance, you need to understand that that chance is SMALL. And it will likely only turn into an offer if an unexpectedly large number of admits decline. 

Sorry if this sounds mean or like I am trying to dash your hopes. I am not. But you guys need to take a step back and understand how the waitlist works. Do not pressure folks into giving an answer sooner rather than later. It's best to treat a waitlist like a reject, so that you're pleasantly surprised in the rare cases it turns into an offer. 

(poli sci faculty)

While you are certainly correct with the point of not pressuring admitted students to turn down their offer for the sake of waitlisted applicants, I made a different observation regarding the waitlists:

Many programs (including mine) matched the number of their admitted students exactly with the number of spots available for the year and have a waitlist. Meaning that every student that turns down a space in one particular subfield will be filled with someone from the waitlist. This has been communicated and I was able to see something similar happen at many other programs during the past years; personally know of several that got in via waitlists every year, even at top programs. It is true that many programs overadmit, don't have a waitlist at all or keep them very short. My experience has been, however, that the programs that strongly overadmit, usually don't have a waitlist. So one thing seems for certain: A (always subfield-specific) waitlist has its use and there are politics and clear thoughts behind it. It is not as grim as it seems.

[polsciAttempt]

Did anyone else apply to Michigan and not receive any email or portal updates?

[edwardsaid]

Claiming an R from UMich and a WL from Stanford! The best news I’ve had in a while 😭 

[Omkar Poojari]

Just now, edwardsaid said:

Claiming an R from UMich and a WL from Stanford! The best news I’ve had in a while 😭 

Congrats on the WL! Hoping that you can move from it.