Welcome to the 2011-2012 Cycle

[Megan]

I actually don't think the GRE Verbal is a good screening tool at all, but I also think that if you look at the research on standardized testing the whole system is messed up. I don't feel that with an applicant's writing sample, SOP, and references from professors who have presumably been reading the applicant's writing and observing their ability to comprehend high level readings, the GRE verbal provides any additional information useful in measuring a candidate's potential for success in grad school. This is even more true for international applicants, but it applies across the board. Unfortunately, I think that there has to be a way to screen out a certain percentage of applications, because it is impossible to closely read every single one (for most high level programs), and I think the GRE functions as this screening tool in some situations.

[catchermiscount]

Exactly right, yes. But again...so, I can't speak for other departments, but the department I go to doesn't really cut the pool down with the overall GRE or the GRE Verbal---they only use the Quantitative. So that's good news.

...and an SoP and a writing sample can certainly tell a lot about overall command of english in job talk settings, but those can be revised again and again. You don't get to revise again and again at your job talk, and those Q&As get brutal FAST.

Edited February 9, 2012 by coachrjc

[Megan]

Yeah, I actually don't think interviews discriminate against international students. I was arguing earlier that interviews are actually a really good addition to the process, and I think that's true no matter your first language. You should be able to comfortably (well, as comfortable as one ever is in an interview) confront that situation in English if you hope to pursue graduate study in that language. The only part I really think is an issue is GRE Verbal for international students. The rest of the process is reflective of the type of work you'll need to do in graduate school and as a professor (writing well, speaking well, including speaking in high pressure situations, etc), and so I think that's completely fair.

[Ironheel!!]

Also, I have a final-round job interview tomorrow with a company known for asking candidates, "if you were shrunk to the size of a pencil and put in a blender, how would you get out?" Not looking forward to it.

Edit: looked at the yaledaily thing. Wow - I had no clue. Do we (collective rather than royal) have any info on when they might notify about interviews (unless, of course, they already have and I'm outing myself...)?

Paul McCartney just sat in an ashtray and wrapped himself up in a gum wrapper when he was shrunk in the movie "Help." Not sure this helps at all, but you could do what the Beatles did in Yellow Submarine when the Blue Mennies were attacking, "how you getting out of that blender?" "By SINGING!" Then sing a bar of All Together Now and walk out. Youre guaranteed to be selected for the "random" drug test in week one if you get the job.

Edited February 9, 2012 by Ironheel!!

[catchermiscount]

Adding an interview would definitely resolve informational problems without the need for the GRE Verbal, yes. And anything that can be done to help on that front is valuable.

But man, those job talks. Ugggggggly.

[Megan]

But man, those job talks. Ugggggggly.

I was one of the students who had to review job talks for my department senior year of undergrad. They have students attend and write evaluations that are a component of the decision making process, and there were times were I just felt terrible for the poor job candidate. I wanted to go up after and be like, "Listen...do you need a hug? Let me make you a nice cup of tea. Here's a warm blanket. It's going to be OK."

[Ironheel!!]

Exactly right, yes. But again...so, I can't speak for other departments, but the department I go to doesn't really cut the pool down with the overall GRE or the GRE Verbal---they only use the Quantitative. So that's good news.

...and an SoP and a writing sample can certainly tell a lot about overall command of english in job talk settings, but those can be revised again and again. You don't get to revise again and again at your job talk, and those Q&As get brutal FAST.

What is discriminating is the fact that it costs $160 to take the test and $23 to send score reports. The test is cash cow while also being one of the least predictable indicators of a students ability.

[catchermiscount]

By the by, some of the best advice a current grad student can give a proposective grad student is: go to the job talks. All of them. It doesn't matter if it's in your field or not. They are among the most important parts of your graduate education.

[potbellypete]

re: the Yale article, good news is that compared to last year (at least according to rejection letters), overall applications to all phd programs are down from about 10,500 to about 9,500 this year. Just playing the numbers, it is slightly more promising!!!!

Anyone else still waiting for ALL applications? None of the places I've applied have been mentioned in the survey.

[Megan]

Anyone else still waiting for ALL applications? None of the places I've applied have been mentioned in the survey.

Me. Well, there seems to have been a single admission to both Stanford and UNC but other than that, I'm still waiting on absolutely everybody.

[CooCooCachoo]

Yeah, I actually don't think interviews discriminate against international students. I was arguing earlier that interviews are actually a really good addition to the process, and I think that's true no matter your first language. You should be able to comfortably (well, as comfortable as one ever is in an interview) confront that situation in English if you hope to pursue graduate study in that language. The only part I really think is an issue is GRE Verbal for international students. The rest of the process is reflective of the type of work you'll need to do in graduate school and as a professor (writing well, speaking well, including speaking in high pressure situations, etc), and so I think that's completely fair.

I am highly skeptical about the GRE as a measuring rod in general, but, as a non-native speaker I feel that I should be held to the same language standards as any other applicant. If you are not sufficiently conversant in English to master the vocabulary that the GRE assesses, or lack the comprehensive reading skills that it tests, you have no business pursuing an academic career in English in my opinion. What constitutes 'sufficient' and 'lack' is of course subject to debate - and I'm pretty gung-ho against rigorous cut-off points - but I don't find the components of the verbal test to be problematic an sich.

I do take issue with the analytical writing part though, which seems to me a complete waste of time and detrimental to participants' concentration and confidence for the remainder of the GRE.

[CooCooCachoo]

re: the Yale article, good news is that compared to last year (at least according to rejection letters), overall applications to all phd programs are down from about 10,500 to about 9,500 this year. Just playing the numbers, it is slightly more promising!!!!

Anyone else still waiting for ALL applications? None of the places I've applied have been mentioned in the survey.

Apart from the anomalous Berkeley admission, I am also struggling through a dry notification spell.

[Calhoun]

When you receive an offer letter by email, do you write a response to the faculty member? If you already have better offers, what do you do?

[whirlibird]

UVA acceptances trickling in. Looks like that's just the norm for most schools this year.

Oh, the GRE...even if it were to be completely useless, there's no way we'd be able to convince departments of that. I think it's far too convenient a cut-off tool.

[Calhoun]

UVA acceptances trickling in. Looks like that's just the norm for most schools this year.

Oh, the GRE...even if it were to be completely useless, there's no way we'd be able to convince departments of that. I think it's far too convenient a cut-off tool.

Sorry -- I don't know how to use this board as efficiently as I should. Is there a central location (a board?) where people announce that they've received acceptances?

[saltlakecity2012]

When you receive an offer letter by email, do you write a response to the faculty member? If you already have better offers, what do you do?

I would wait until you have most of your offers in, and information about funding, and have done some serious research into the schools you're comparing to make sure the other offer is truly better for you, in all the key dimensions (fit, rankings, coursework, funding, support for grad research - both financial and intellectual, placement, etc.).

It's always a good idea to send a polite thank you note to any school, regardless of whether you intend to attend. You never know when you might need that person's or department's goodwill!

Edit: see http://thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php?q=political+science&t=a&pp=100&o=&p=13

Edited February 9, 2012 by tergellian

[Ironheel!!]

Apart from the anomalous Berkeley admission, I am also struggling through a dry notification spell.

I feel this pain. Other than my Vandy reject, I have heard nothing, and most of the schools I'm waiting on have had no representation on the survey board, so at least I can't go negative on just yet!

[Megan]

I am highly skeptical about the GRE as a measuring rod in general, but, as a non-native speaker I feel that I should be held to the same language standards as any other applicant. If you are not sufficiently conversant in English to master the vocabulary that the GRE assesses, or lack the comprehensive reading skills that it tests, you have no business pursuing an academic career in English in my opinion.

I do take issue with the analytical writing part though, which seems to me a complete waste of time and detrimental to participants' concentration and confidence for the remainder of the GRE.

My experience personally, and anecdotally from friends, is that everybody is slower in a second language and the GRE is a timed test. It isn't that I don't think that international students should have high level vocubularies and strong reading comprehension, but I do believe that it's slightly unfair to measure those components in a test that's timed is tightly as the GRE. Maybe the real problem is, I think the GRE is unfair in almost every way to practically everybody, and I can just see that it would be even worse if English isn't your first langauge. So...maybe it's more my personal hatred of standardized tests in general than anything else.

[chaetzli]

Here comes a post from a person who has sleepless nights because of her low verbal GRE score. So please apologize if I am too skeptical about this measure:

I am a Master's student from a world-class university and my program is taught in English. While my TOEFL is high 114 (iBT), the verbal GRE is very low (151). What does this tell you about my English skills? I am used to communicate in English and even though my English is not perfect (heeeeello typos) I am more than convinced that I am able to write decent papers and to have sophisticated conversations in English. When I participated in a summer school at Yale this summer together with 18 excellent students, I finished top of the class. Does the verbal GRE score indicate that ? No, not at all. Is it thus a good measure for someone's English skills? I don't think so.

So why did I not perform better on the GRE? The only reason that comes to my mind is that I am really bad at remembering words.

I totally understand why universities want to compare the English skills of different students (especially international students) but I really doubt that the verbal GRE is the right measure for that.

[blaspheming]

Anybody want to claim the Northwestern admit and tell us your subfield?

[CooCooCachoo]

Here comes a post from a person who has sleepless nights because of her low verbal GRE score. So please apologize if I am too skeptical about this measure:

I am a Master's student from a world-class university and my program is taught in English. While my TOEFL is high 114 (iBT), the verbal GRE is very low (151). What does this tell you about my English skills? I am used to communicate in English and even though my English is not perfect (heeeeello typos) I am more than convinced that I am able to write decent papers and to have sophisticated conversations in English. When I participated in a summer school at Yale this summer together with 18 excellent students, I finished top of the class. Does the verbal GRE score indicate that ? No, not at all. Is it thus a good measure for someone's English skills? I don't think so.

So why did I not perform better on the GRE? The only reason that comes to my mind is that I am really bad at remembering words.

I totally understand why universities want to compare the English skills of different students (especially international students) but I really doubt that the verbal GRE is the right measure for that.

But surely it's a much better measure than TOEFL, which tests extremely basic language skills that PhD students should far surpass. For the current GRE you also don't need to remember words to the same extent as under the old format. Of course the test will disadvantage some whose English is excellent (such as yourself), as much as it misrepresents the language skills of other test-takers as more advanced, but on average I would venture that the GRE can accurately estimate people's level of English relative to that of their peers. I'm really sorry that your score does not speak to your ability, but I can't think of a better means of assessment.

[blackcoffee64]

http://www.yaledaily...ver-interviews/

As someone who's already been through the pain of med school interviews (accepted to Mt. Sinai my sophomore year), I can say that the interview process is actually helpful for candidates as you get a chance to talk to your future colleagues and ask them any questions yourself..

[Megan]

I'm really sorry that your score does not speak to your ability, but I can't think of a better means of assessment.

For international students in particular, but for everybody else as well, this is exactly what the SOP and writing sample should be for, and what an interview could supplement. Those three things together would be a fair representation of almost anybody's skills, unless they just completely cheated and had somebody else do their work and phone in for their interview, and they are representative of that person's skills in an environment similar to the one in which they are hoping to work, rather than in an artificial testing environment which provides unfair advantage to some and unfair disadvantage to others. All that said, the reality is that the GRE is probably not going anywhere.

[brent09]

For international students in particular, but for everybody else as well, this is exactly what the SOP and writing sample should be for, and what an interview could supplement. Those three things together would be a fair representation of almost anybody's skills, unless they just completely cheated and had somebody else do their work and phone in for their interview, and they are representative of that person's skills in an environment similar to the one in which they are hoping to work, rather than in an artificial testing environment which provides unfair advantage to some and unfair disadvantage to others. All that said, the reality is that the GRE is probably not going anywhere.

Have to disagree. Writing samples and statements of purpose could communicate your skills (as a researcher, as a scholar and as an English speaker), but there is no guarantee that you wrote the paper, or didn't have it exhaustively edited. I personally would not want to admit someone based on a writing sample alone, for fear that it better represents the skills of an applicant's editors than those of the applicant him/herself.

[CooCooCachoo]

For international students in particular, but for everybody else as well, this is exactly what the SOP and writing sample should be for, and what an interview could supplement. Those three things together would be a fair representation of almost anybody's skills, unless they just completely cheated and had somebody else do their work and phone in for their interview, and they are representative of that person's skills in an environment similar to the one in which they are hoping to work, rather than in an artificial testing environment which provides unfair advantage to some and unfair disadvantage to others. All that said, the reality is that the GRE is probably not going anywhere.

I second brent09's comments. Your response to my post seems to suggest that I think GRE performance should be the sole criterion. The need for standardized tests seems pretty incontrovertible to me - there is simply not the capacity to scrutinize all applications in detail, so the number needs to be whittled down - and the GRE is, to my knowledge, the best way to do this. After an initial selection, the scores should no longer matter and those elements that you mention take center stage.