2024-2025 Application Thread

[polisci119]

57 minutes ago, jaliren said:

Also checking in as someone still on a waitlist -- do we think that movement off the waitlist seems particularly unlikely this year across the board? 

Sadly I think yes, given that Harvard, a top-notch uni with diverse funding resources just announced that, I expect things can be worse for public ones, while I'm not an insider, things can be different across schools. As a waitlisted applicant by 4 programs, I hope all the waitlisted candidates in similar scenarios can at least have one secure place to go

[Omkar Poojari]

2 hours ago, jaliren said:

Also checking in as someone still on a waitlist -- do we think that movement off the waitlist seems particularly unlikely this year across the board? 

This might be wishful thinking on my part but this could in some schools work well. I think most schools have been conservative in making initial offers. They have probably not over admitted or only marginally over admitted. Maybe even the waitlists are shorter. So, this could mean there is decent chance for those on the waitlist.

[1251pl]

5 hours ago, polisci119 said:

I’m sorry to bring some sad news - Harvard school of Arts&Science officially announced that it will reject all waitlisted applicants due to short of funding, which means no one will be off the list and offered a position. What a brutal situation

Wow, did anyone on the Harvard waitlist actually get a rejection because of this?

[polisci119]

4 hours ago, 1251pl said:

Wow, did anyone on the Harvard waitlist actually get a rejection because of this?

The announcement was quite new so I expect rejections are on the way.

5 hours ago, Omkar Poojari said:

This might be wishful thinking on my part but this could in some schools work well. I think most schools have been conservative in making initial offers. They have probably not over admitted or only marginally over admitted. Maybe even the waitlists are shorter. So, this could mean there is decent chance for those on the waitlist.

I second that, while I’m not sure about the whole picture. I was waitlisted by one Uni and I was informed by email, from which I saw 17 waitlisted candidates, this could be a large pool given that previous cohorts are 8~10. But you’re definitely making a good point, let’s be hopeful and wish all of us best of luck!

[jacksmith98798]

Hello everybody. When are we creating the next year's application thread?

[lala11]

On 3/12/2025 at 10:24 PM, 1251pl said:

Wow, did anyone on the Harvard waitlist actually get a rejection because of this?

I received a (very kind) personal email notifying me that Harvard leadership had decided not to admit any waitlisted students and that official letters would be posted to the portal for the waitlisted students over the next few weeks.

[Omkar Poojari]

Anyone here who has accepted or rejected a Brown offer - especially for CP?

On the waitlist for CP and would  greatly appreciate any information that helps asses chances.  Thank you very much!

[Heffalump27]

Still nothing from Pitt, wild

[TAN93]

So I am a bit concerned about the state of affairs in the US and even if by the end of cycle I get rejected by last two universities I have applied to, I have doubts as to whether I should try again next year now.

I applied to only US universities this application season so far, largely because of the competitive funding opportunities and the general reputation of the academic and political freedoms there.

I am somebody who has a history of being involved in progressive activism, and even the nature of my past work have been very political. Now with brutal funding cuts and the crackdown on pro-Palestinian students there (especially after a private and well-funded uni like Columbia suspending and revoking degrees) it would be mildly put to say that I have concerns.

What do people in the academia in the US and prospective students feel about the situation right now? Is there hope for it to get better by next cycle, or should I look for whatever opportunities are available in say Europe or Canada or Asia for graduate school?

[smoothoperator77]

4 hours ago, Anish93 said:

So I am a bit concerned about the state of affairs in the US and even if by the end of cycle I get rejected by last two universities I have applied to, I have doubts as to whether I should try again next year now.

I applied to only US universities this application season so far, largely because of the competitive funding opportunities and the general reputation of the academic and political freedoms there.

I am somebody who has a history of being involved in progressive activism, and even the nature of my past work have been very political. Now with brutal funding cuts and the crackdown on pro-Palestinian students there (especially after a private and well-funded uni like Columbia suspending and revoking degrees) it would be mildly put to say that I have concerns.

What do people in the academia in the US and prospective students feel about the situation right now? Is there hope for it to get better by next cycle, or should I look for whatever opportunities are available in say Europe or Canada or Asia for graduate school?

For me personally, as much as I am disgusted by some of the things you described, it's more of an issue that the political chaos in the US has been and is lowering the standard of the US academia as the No.1, than an issue that the US has necessarily stopped being the best location for academics. I think there is still a long way to go before we can consider the US worse than Europe if there would ever be a day of that, especially in terms of funding. Also, a big momentum for the increasing competitiveness of getting into a good program is the trend of stipend raises for PhD students, so in some way, you could consider the financial situation in the US academia is getting better, as long as you can get into a program. But I could understand your concern as a former progressive activist. However, it's not a perfect world. I am sure there are flaws in Europe concerning progressive values and academic freedom as well, let alone in Asia. If you just cannot stand Trumpism, then I guess you can't stand it. But as you said, we can always hope and contribute to a better future. I think one of the privileges of being a graduate student is that, compared with many other jobs, you can often find enough room for yourself to be yourself while making contributions to the changes you want to make, at least, that's how I want it to be. 

[mobstinko]

Anyone know if UMich or Yale visit days have happened already?

[01anonymous]

3 hours ago, mobstinko said:

Anyone know if UMich or Yale visit days have happened already?

Hi, I know the UMich one is 20-22 March so it will be done this weekend! I am on the WL and hoping to hear more this coming week or the first week of April. Honestly, I am praying that people will reject their offers by next week if they attend the admit day and decide not to go to UMich. Would really help us in these uncertain times. I am planning to reject one of mine that I am not going to attend by next week as well - which I hope will help others get their offers. 

[PoliSciAm1512]

Laughably I still have not heard from Georgetown after a very off-putting interview in January with the American Government faculty. I am planning to commit to a school next week and I just think it's in poor taste to not at least let students know they're on the waitlist if I am indeed in some sort of unnamed waitlist purgatory. 

Additionally - I am hearing about an increasing number of schools rescinding funding guarantees to students who have not yet committed. This is certainly expediting my own process and others may want to think about making a formal decision sooner rather than later. I'm not banking on many schools digging into their waitlists this year. 

[Omkar Poojari]

Sorry to hear about the Georgetown situation. Frankly quite unprofessional. May I know which schools are rescinding offers? 

[01anonymous]

I just saw that UMich is rescinding offers for unaccepted seats in their Biomedical Sciences Program and it's really worrying me! Should we panic accept, at our second best options even if we are waiting for our waitlists to come through? If you go to the reddit thread call r/gradadmission, it's the one titled "UMich Rescinding unaccepted offers" !!!!!

Edited March 20 by 01anonymous

[Omkar Poojari]

I saw that too but I guess rescinding of offers is happening mostly for biomedical programs. So, I think other disciplines do not need too worry much. Smaller cohort sizes across departments (including Political Science) has been the indirect effect of NIH cuts. I don't think we would witness a direct effect i.e. rescinding offers. Maybe only biomedical programs would face this problem.

 

(Definitely better if any faculty members here can confirm.)

Edited March 20 by Omkar Poojari

[PolPsychGal11]

15 hours ago, Omkar Poojari said:

I saw that too but I guess rescinding of offers is happening mostly for biomedical programs. So, I think other disciplines do not need too worry much. Smaller cohort sizes across departments (including Political Science) has been the indirect effect of NIH cuts. I don't think we would witness a direct effect i.e. rescinding offers. Maybe only biomedical programs would face this problem.

 

(Definitely better if any faculty members here can confirm.)

Ehhh, I think this misunderstands university funding. We're all in outright panic right now. Acceptances to MA programs may be increasing, because students pay for those. But we're hard up to be able to guarantee PhD funding because of how uncertain everything is. The overhead/IDC costs from NIH, NSF, USDA, etc support the entire university. So while biomed and STEM are being directly hit right now, it's going to have effects on all of us. 

As I think I've said before, waitlists are not frequently used, and I think in this funding environment and uncertainty, it is very unlikely that programs will go to their waitlists, EVEN if they have a much lower yield than normal. We're looking at potentially really significant budget cuts, and the prevailing wisdom is that it is better to only have 5 students in an incoming cohort -- and not take anyone from the waitlist -- than to accept a couple from the waitlist and end up in an awful scenario where we run out of money in a year or two. Cohorts were already trending smaller. They are going to get even smaller. I hope we don't get to the point of having to rescind offers, but everything is very uncertain.

If any of you folks have an offer you are happy with, I think you should accept it. Don't count on waitlists (good advice in normal years, but especially this year). 

[TAN93]

Seeing some Pittsburgh acceptances. Have they given out all of the acceptances at once (meaning the rest of us should wait for rejections)? Also anything new happening with Rutgers or have they filled up their cohort by now?

[polisci119]

Has someone received acceptance from Boston College this round? Thank you!

[1251pl]

Claiming University of Notre Dame acceptance off the waitlist. To everyone waiting--stay strong.

[Omkar Poojari]

3 hours ago, 1251pl said:

Claiming University of Notre Dame acceptance off the waitlist. To everyone waiting--stay strong.

 Congratulations!!! Thanks for sharing this here!!

[PoliSciAm1512]

FYI - my offer from Northwestern was deferred to Fall 2026 this afternoon. I was not planning to accept, regardless, but I do really urge people with offers to accept one as soon as absolutely possible - it doesn't yet seem like schools have pulled funding or offers from students who have already committed. 

[TAN93]

On 3/19/2025 at 7:23 PM, smoothoperator77 said:

For me personally, as much as I am disgusted by some of the things you described, it's more of an issue that the political chaos in the US has been and is lowering the standard of the US academia as the No.1, than an issue that the US has necessarily stopped being the best location for academics. I think there is still a long way to go before we can consider the US worse than Europe if there would ever be a day of that, especially in terms of funding. Also, a big momentum for the increasing competitiveness of getting into a good program is the trend of stipend raises for PhD students, so in some way, you could consider the financial situation in the US academia is getting better, as long as you can get into a program. But I could understand your concern as a former progressive activist. However, it's not a perfect world. I am sure there are flaws in Europe concerning progressive values and academic freedom as well, let alone in Asia. If you just cannot stand Trumpism, then I guess you can't stand it. But as you said, we can always hope and contribute to a better future. I think one of the privileges of being a graduate student is that, compared with many other jobs, you can often find enough room for yourself to be yourself while making contributions to the changes you want to make, at least, that's how I want it to be. 

I would say the US has definitely nosedived in its reputation when compared to Europe at this point. When it starts holding federal funding hostage to pressure universities into a political crackdown, when we know that federal agencies are scouring through social media to hunt for students having a political opinion or participating in demos, when international students can have their visa terminated right out of the blue with no notice and are in danger of being whisked away by a gang of masked federal agents just for singing opeds, when congresspersons are seriously debating banning entire nationality of students, I think we can safely assume by now that US is no longer a place that can be seen as "worse than Europe" and that day is definitely here.

I wouldnt be this livid if this were just a matter of deportations (as atrocious as they are) but we are looking at people being at risk of being held in secret prisons for god-knows-how-long in defiance to the courts of the land with no repercussions to the administration, and ALL such cases are that of students from Third World countries where our governments can not be trusted to come to our aid when we need them to either because of how supine they are to the US right now.

And saying it's just a Trump problem when the courts or the political opposition are hardly moving a finger over this, I dont think international students can trust the system at all. Yes we all need to contribute to changes and a better future, but THIS is a battle that people in the US needs to fight and not a burden international students need to take. We have our own set of homegrown fascists to take care of, thank you.

[pepema]

I would like to share my experience, and ask how you see the situation in my case. In January I was admitted to a PhD in political science, with full funding. I accepted the offer quickly because it was my top choice and the truth is that I got a lot ahead of all the paperwork. At the end of February I was able to process the I-20 and my F-1 visa was approved in just one week and I even got my airline ticket ready. Then things started to get complicated, and recently I received an email from my program director to schedule a call with me as he wants to share with me “some concerns” but he says that “there is no reason to panic”. I have read here that some rescinded offers are focused on students who have not accepted the offer yet, but I don't know what to expect in a case like mine. What are the potential scenarios? I know in my program they are recommending to use a one year deferral but that “would not be my case”. 

[Helpingboy]

2 hours ago, pepema said:

I would like to share my experience, and ask how you see the situation in my case. In January I was admitted to a PhD in political science, with full funding. I accepted the offer quickly because it was my top choice and the truth is that I got a lot ahead of all the paperwork. At the end of February I was able to process the I-20 and my F-1 visa was approved in just one week and I even got my airline ticket ready. Then things started to get complicated, and recently I received an email from my program director to schedule a call with me as he wants to share with me “some concerns” but he says that “there is no reason to panic”. I have read here that some rescinded offers are focused on students who have not accepted the offer yet, but I don't know what to expect in a case like mine. What are the potential scenarios? I know in my program they are recommending to use a one year deferral but that “would not be my case”. 

Hey, congrats on the offer! I think it may be that your DGS wants to clear some concerns around international students in the US today, and also give advice and hear from you. International students at my school were requested to meet with the DGS so that they could address concerns, understand their personal difficulties and think of ways (in advance) of how to support them and protect them.

 

See this call request from your DGS as a positive sign! As it shows they're someone who's engaged and active! Best of luck with everything!