2024-2025 Application Thread

[sincebos11]

Claiming Harvard acceptance (contacted by the professor this morning)

[jaliren]

28 minutes ago, sincebos11 said:

Claiming Harvard acceptance (contacted by the professor this morning)

Congrats!

[mobstinko]

1 hour ago, sincebos11 said:

Claiming Harvard acceptance (contacted by the professor this morning)

Congrats! What subfield?

[OhMy READ THIS]

If you are sure where you want to go, please accept ASAP. Just heard that UT-Austin professors/departments in the (at least within the College of Natural Sciences) "can" rescind offers of *guaranteed* funding if you have not accepted yet. I do not know if this advice goes beyond CNS yet. This also happened at UCSD, except they DID rescind offers of guantanteed funding (for my kid this happened, maybe because she had not accepted). Please if you have an offer you are happy with, accept now, even before the visit. It is MUCH less likely they can/will rescind offers from "YESES."

[sincebos11]

3 hours ago, mobstinko said:

Congrats! What subfield?

Thank you! I applied to IR subfield

[edwardsaid]

Congrats to those who got into Harvard!

[garmit]

8 hours ago, OhMy READ THIS said:

If you are sure where you want to go, please accept ASAP. Just heard that UT-Austin professors/departments in the (at least within the College of Natural Sciences) "can" rescind offers of *guaranteed* funding if you have not accepted yet. I do not know if this advice goes beyond CNS yet. This also happened at UCSD, except they DID rescind offers of guantanteed funding (for my kid this happened, maybe because she had not accepted). Please if you have an offer you are happy with, accept now, even before the visit. It is MUCH less likely they can/will rescind offers from "YESES."

Do you have some other source other than personal connections to substantiate this? I am not saying what you are saying is false. But if it is not true and people quickly accept places without due diligence, that could have catastrophic consequences for their program experience and careers. Once again, I am not saying that you are necessarily wrong (but I pray to God you are), but I hope there is more evidence for what you are saying, given the advice you are offering. Unless what you are saying is true, accepting before the visiting day seems like a bad idea if you have several good offers.

[anonymous99]

Has anyone been interviewed and then rejected by Berkeley?

[polisci8989]

10 hours ago, edwardsaid said:

Congrats to those who got into Harvard!

My portal hasn't updated...

[PolSciComp]

Hi everyone, wish you a nice Wednesday 🙂 Is there anyone who applied to University of Maryland and get admitted to University of Maryland Political Science Phd program this year? I have some questions about the program and their admission Statistics, that's why I've wanted to ask.

Edited February 26 by PolSciComp

[jaliren]

29 minutes ago, polisci8989 said:

My portal hasn't updated...

Mine neither, so I'm assuming I haven't been accepted haha

[polisci001]

Do you think it's acceptable to email the Harvard DGS to ask for an update? The situation is that I am assuming a rejection but I can't wait another week for the official outcome, as I need to respond to some other offers (outside of the States) *very* soon. 

Edited February 26 by polisci001

[Heffalump27]

14 minutes ago, polisci001 said:

Do you think it's acceptable to email the Harvard DGS to ask for an update? The situation is that I am assuming a rejection but I can't wait another week for the official outcome, as I need to respond to some other offers (outside of the States) *very* soon. 

I think it would be fine. I would just tell them your situation. Sounds like you are doing the right thing. Good luck. 

[fishifuzzy]

1 hour ago, jaliren said:

Mine neither, so I'm assuming I haven't been accepted haha

I got notice of Harvard admission informally yesterday (via phone call), but my portal hasn’t updated either/haven’t received any official emails. I wouldn’t assume rejection just yet! 

Edited February 26 by fishifuzzy

[jaliren]

6 minutes ago, fishifuzzy said:

I got notice of Harvard admission informally yesterday (via phone call), but my portal hasn’t updated either/haven’t received any official emails. I wouldn’t assume rejection just yet! 

Fair enough! Thanks for sharing 

[polisci001]

1 hour ago, polisci001 said:

Do you think it's acceptable to email the Harvard DGS to ask for an update? The situation is that I am assuming a rejection but I can't wait another week for the official outcome, as I need to respond to some other offers (outside of the States) *very* soon. 

I guess this might be useful for everyone: I emailed the DGS assistant and he replied "We hope to have decisions available late tomorrow or, most likely, on Friday.". At least we have an ETA for the rejection email lol. 

Edited February 26 by polisci001

[sepia08]

8 hours ago, garmit said:

Do you have some other source other than personal connections to substantiate this? I am not saying what you are saying is false. But if it is not true and people quickly accept places without due diligence, that could have catastrophic consequences for their program experience and careers. Once again, I am not saying that you are necessarily wrong (but I pray to God you are), but I hope there is more evidence for what you are saying, given the advice you are offering. Unless what you are saying is true, accepting before the visiting day seems like a bad idea if you have several good offers.

Not the original poster but I have also heard this was being said at UT. Of course deans saying it doesn't mean departments individually don't have the funding so it might not be a concern. Accepting a place doesn't necessarily mean rejecting other offers in case more information comes at a later point. People get in off the waitlist to schools in June and then decline where they accepted. I don't know if you should still visit if you've committed but its not as definite as I think its frequently regarded

[PolSciComp]

Hello everyone, anyone has any knowledge about Syracuse University Political Science PhD program? I received offer from them, would probably be also attending to its admitted students day but any positive/negative feedback would be very useful for me because I have question marks in my mind due to its remote location, the City itself as well. I had applied there for Comparative politics subfield. Thanks in advance

[polisci233]

8 hours ago, anonymous99 said:

Has anyone been interviewed and then rejected by Berkeley?

@anonymous99 me I'm in CP field. I guess they only interviewed the marginal candidates. It seems that not everyone who got in was interviewed before a decision.

Edited February 26 by polisci233

[Heffalump27]

1 hour ago, PolSciComp said:

Hello everyone, anyone has any knowledge about Syracuse University Political Science PhD program? I received offer from them, would probably be also attending to its admitted students day but any positive/negative feedback would be very useful for me because I have question marks in my mind due to its remote location, the City itself as well. I had applied there for Comparative politics subfield. Thanks in advance

Syracuse is a cool city and it has a lot going for it. Downtown area is great, ton of new investment pouring into the city especially since CHIPS (though that may change), and the campus is nice. Central NY is kinda rural, but you're also pretty close to NYC, and really close to Cornell, Rochester... Buffalo isnt far. 

The dept is solid from what I know. In CP I'm only familiar with Jolly's and Taylor's work. If parties, representation, or social movements are your thing, I think you would be good. They also have that qualitative summer thing there, which they are well known for. Public policy is big there too, Maxwell is consistently ranked top policy program in country. 

Its brick up there though. Cold af and snows a ton. Ive lived there and have a ton of family there, if you have anymore questions, feel free to ask. 

[garmit]

Saw an article today saying Pitt unfroze their PhD admissions. Good news!

[OhMy READ THIS]

Sorry for not replying earlier to everyone's questions. Here are the sources for my information. My kid received a letter from UCSD on Friday, February 21, but the info about resciding the guarantee for funding was hidden in a footnote. On Monday, Feb 24, UCSD sent another email clearly spelling out what this means for students. My kid was disappointed because they'd planned to visit UCSD. My kid quickly accepted UC Berkeley (their first choice). My kid notified two of her advisors (recommenders) at two different universities who told her she did the right thing by accepting. Both advisors were apologetic that this is the state we are in this year. They advised her to notify UCSD that she was not going to visit and why, and she formally declined their offer. The UT-Austin information comes from a faculty member there who forwarded me the information about how they *could* rescind offers or rescind guaranteed funding for those students who had not yet accepted. They advised against rescinding funding guarantees for those students who had already accepted because that is both unethical and probably dicey leagally. Although, you may have read in the news that UPenn (a private ivy-league university) did rescind offers, though I do not know whether they rescinded anyone who had already accepted.

Indirect funding on NIH and NSF grants have been cut from ~55% to 15%. This is huge, and is reverberating throughout university budgets. Indirect costs go to the university as a whole, and this money can be spent on anything the university wants. The hiring freezes you are readling about are also a result of this. This is generally coming from the top of universities and the faculty are often unaware until they are told.

I apologize if anyone was upset by the negativity or strong wording in my first post. 

[jacksmith98798]

On 2/24/2025 at 11:53 PM, Heffalump27 said:

Does anyone have any info about stipend amounts, whats good, whats not. Are there ways to leverage more money?

I found this thread, but its a bit old. 

https://forum.thegradcafe.com/topic/28410-range-of-funding-for-polisci-programs/page/8/#comments
 

Take a look at these stipend amounts from the appendix of a 2024 Sage research paper:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/20531680241241131/suppl_file/sj-pdf-1-rap-10.1177_20531680241241131.pdf

You can get to the paper by extracting the DOI from this URL.

"PhD stipends and program placement success in political science" - Seth B. Warner, and Dominik A. Stecuła 

[jaliren]

To those with multiple pending applications left (I have four), are you more or less thinking that the acceptances you have at this point are basically it? I understand that you technically never really know until you have your decision, but it's my impression that the vast majority of acceptances are usually out by the end of February, and decisions that come later than that are typically just delayed rejections. But maybe I'm being overly pessimistic?

[PolSciComp]

8 minutes ago, jaliren said:

To those with multiple pending applications left (I have four), are you more or less thinking that the acceptances you have at this point are basically it? I understand that you technically never really know until you have your decision, but it's my impression that the vast majority of acceptances are usually out by the end of February, and decisions that come later than that are typically just delayed rejections. But maybe I'm being overly pessimistic?

You might be right, after the end of February except for the schools which still didn't announce any of its results like Pittsburgh, decisions that would be coming would be the ones for waitlisted applicants, as long as there would be rejections 😞