Welcome to the 2011-2012 Cycle

[balthasar]

The impossible scores are 136 for verbal, 165 and 162 for quant, according to the GRE conversion table. Though I don't recall seeing any such GRE scores on the Yale reports.

well my quant is 165 so it has better be possible

[midwest513]

I am interested in getting some drinks at MPSA, granted I am a teetotaler so I will be watching you all drink while I am sipping on water.

This sounds great. Let's make a thread a few weeks before. I'll be presenting at the Undergrad Posters on Saturday as well.

[PoliSci27]

Wait, what? What scores are impossible? I mean, obviously there are some that are impossible if you didn't write the new test, but is that what you meant?

http://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/concordance_information.pdf

The person claiming a Yale acceptance reported a 169V/170Q. I don't think that the quantitative score is possible.

[kolja00]

http://www.ets.org/s...information.pdf

The person claiming a Yale acceptance reported a 169V/170Q. I don't think that the quantitative score is possible.

it is. On the old test a perfect score was 94 percentile. The new test differentiates more at the top so a 170 is 99 percentile. That is just the conversion. A perfect score on the old system is a 166.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graduate_Record_Examinations

Edited February 15, 2012 by kolja00

[PoliSci27]

it is. On the old test a perfect score was 94 percentile. The new test differentiates more at the top so a 170 is 99 percentile. That is just the conversion. A perfect score on the old system is a 166.

Ok. That makes sense.

I know on the LSAT, there are certain scores that are impossible from one test to the next, depending on the distribution. I didn't know if the new GRE would work in a similar way.

So evidently, the reported scores are possible. There are certainly people on this board capable of getting such scores. I, however, am still skeptical of the Yale acceptance.

[RWBG]

OK, I'm just glad there wasn't something I was missing, especially given that I taught the GRE for a year.

Incidentally, because of the quant score conversion issue, the ETS cautions score users to take "special care" when evaluating test takers at the upper end of the quant range, particularly those who got an 800, given that those test takers could not score above a 166 on the converted scale.

[ginsburg]

Incidentally, because of the quant score conversion issue, the ETS cautions score users to take "special care" when evaluating test takers at the upper end of the quant range, particularly those who got an 800, given that those test takers could not score above a 166 on the converted scale.

That's interesting! Did ETS caution score users to take "special care" when evaluating test takers at the upper end of the verbal range, particularly those who got a 169/170, given that those test takers could not score above 740 on the old scale？

[ginsburg]

The two posts citing Dunning and Scheve seemed to make it more convincing that Yale has been taking actions. Though I still find it hard to explain that no one have ever posted anything about Yale in this thread. Chances are all those posts were all troll, but there were 8 of them....

[RWBG]

That's interesting! Did ETS caution score users to take "special care" when evaluating test takers at the upper end of the verbal range, particularly those who got a 169/170, given that those test takers could not score above 740 on the old scale？

No, I suspect for two reasons. (1) The conversion actually caps at 760, so that all verbal scores between 760-800 result in a converted 170. I suspect the ETS doesn't think the percentile differentiation within the top 0.5% of test-takers on the verbal is as important as the percentile differentiation between the top 6% of test-takers on the quant. (2) The ETS rescaled the test so that there would be more differentiation at the top for quant test takers and less for verbal precisely because they thought the verbal produced large score differences that weren't meaningfully informative, whereas meaningful differences between quant test takers were not represented. This became especially problematic in quant-oriented disciplines like economics, where basically everyone gets an 800. Thus, they favor a system in which the differentiation between 740-800 on the verbal is not emphasized.

Edit: OK, just to clarify how those are different points. Point #1 is it doesn't affect as many people, point #2 is that the ETS doesn't think the differences are important.

Edited February 15, 2012 by RWBG

[kolja00]

Ok, tomorrow should hopefully be news. please please please (looking at you Berkeley).

[grace246]

Hi all!

Another infrequent poster here - congrats to all, and thanks to everyone who has posted frequently incredibly helpful advice! It's made a really positive difference to my application experience!!

I got a letter yesterday from Boston College offering me a place, which is quite the relief and very exciting! I was rejected from WashU, and haven't heard back from Northwestern and Chicago (which I'm taking to mean that offers from either are highly unlikely). Given that, I wondered if anyone had any kind of insight into BC and it's programme? I applied somewhat late in the day, and not coming from the US, so my research and knowledge on programs its quite limited. If you'd prefer to PM me so as not to clog up this thread that'd be fine too, but I'd be really grateful if anyone does have any thoughts on the program/school! I think I'm probably going to accept the offer, but a part of me is also considering re-applying to more/better schools next year, since I'm sure I could improve my application with more time and better knowledge, so it would be good to have more information to weigh this against!

Many thanks, and good luck to all still waiting to hear from places!

[saltlakecity2012]

Yes, pulling for news from Berkeley, although it seems that we may be waiting a while on that one. Columbia should be Friday, I'm guessing. Sigh.

Re: Yale - thanks for the info. Yeah, it's very weird that no one else has posted being contacted by them... I'm going to optimistically take that to mean that I'm still in the running. Why not?

Congrats to the admits, which I am choosing to accept as non-troll! And to those still waiting on results, it seems that the end is in sight, so hang on!

[RWBG]

On 2/14/2012 at 11:14 PM, grace246 said:

Hi all!

Another infrequent poster here - congrats to all, and thanks to everyone who has posted frequently incredibly helpful advice! It's made a really positive difference to my application experience!!

I got a letter yesterday from Boston College offering me a place, which is quite the relief and very exciting! I was rejected from WashU, and haven't heard back from Northwestern and Chicago (which I'm taking to mean that offers from either are highly unlikely). Given that, I wondered if anyone had any kind of insight into BC and it's programme? I applied somewhat late in the day, and not coming from the US, so my research and knowledge on programs its quite limited. If you'd prefer to PM me so as not to clog up this thread that'd be fine too, but I'd be really grateful if anyone does have any thoughts on the program/school! I think I'm probably going to accept the offer, but a part of me is also considering re-applying to more/better schools next year, since I'm sure I could improve my application with more time and better knowledge, so it would be good to have more information to weigh this against!

Many thanks, and good luck to all still waiting to hear from places!

 

If you want to PM me a bit more about your stats/background, or create a separate advice thread, I'd be happy to give more targeted advice. Is your offer from Boston College funded?

[kolja00]

Yes, pulling for news from Berkeley, although it seems that we may be waiting a while on that one. Columbia should be Friday, I'm guessing. Sigh.

Re: Yale - thanks for the info. Yeah, it's very weird that no one else has posted being contacted by them... I'm going to optimistically take that to mean that I'm still in the running. Why not?

Congrats to the admits, which I am choosing to accept as non-troll! And to those still waiting on results, it seems that the end is in sight, so hang on!

Berkeley sent out decisions the 7th-14th last year, so there is a chance! I'd imagine for budgetary reasons they'd want to make their picks sooner rather than later.

[Megan]

http://polisci.fsu.e...nt_Rankings.pdf

To be fair, I only looked at the results table, but is it just me or is NYU not included in this analysis at all? Anybody know why? At first I thought maybe it just drops their rank so low, but they place pretty well, and these rankings go down pretty low. They seem to be the only school I applied to not included in that table.

[balderdash]

The two posts citing Dunning and Scheve seemed to make it more convincing that Yale has been taking actions. Though I still find it hard to explain that no one have ever posted anything about Yale in this thread. Chances are all those posts were all troll, but there were 8 of them....

My thoughts exactly.

[Megan]

True story. My dad told me last night that people in his department have talked about the impact of websites like this on their admissions process, and whether they need to adjust things based on the amount of communication between applicants. Specifically, he mentioned that they were dealing with students assuming they are rejected because other people were accepted and they hadn't heard anything. His department apparently regularly staggers admissions. I can't imagine top ten schools give a toss, but wouldn't it be funny if this was just some weird vicious circle of them responding to our behavior and us responding to their behavior and everybody trying to outthink everybody else? For context, he is in another social science discipline and teaching at a not top-notch state school, and they only have an MA, so it's different. I just thought it was interesting that it was so on the radar.

[balledematch]

Hope today brings good news for everyone! Yesterday sure was a buzz-kill as far as the volume of news was concerned

[balderdash]

Congrats on the UG acceptances. Let's hope other admits roll in today.

[shibalover]

On 2/14/2012 at 11:14 PM, grace246 said:

I got a letter yesterday from Boston College offering me a place, which is quite the relief and very exciting! I was rejected from WashU, and haven't heard back from Northwestern and Chicago (which I'm taking to mean that offers from either are highly unlikely). Given that, I wondered if anyone had any kind of insight into BC and it's programme?

I happen to know bc well. It's a great program if you're either a theorist of and americanist. They place these students pretty well. However, since they usually only admit extremely few ppl (4-6, not sure about this yr) with pretty generous funding, the majority of ur cohorts are gonna be ppl who study Plato. As far as I know there hasn't been ANY placement record of their IR or CP students. The faculty at BC is strong regardless of the field. But with that few students I'm guessing they can only put eggs in a certain baskets. Again, it all depends of your research interest.

good luck!!

[KremlinGremlin]

I would be interested in hearing someone's thoughts about the UGA PhD program?

[Ironheel!!]

Jesuit schools are tight. There appears to be a great number of Jesuit universities (and catholic schools in general) that hire from other Jesuit/catholic school. I went to a jesuit UG and we had multiple Profs. from other jesuit/catholic universities (not just in Political Science). I think part of the grat placement at BC must have something to do with that. A smaller catholic school probably loves getting phds from BC, Gtown, ND, Catholic U ect...

[kolja00]

Another slow day.

[RWBG]

I would be interested in hearing someone's thoughts about the UGA PhD program?

UGA's been getting really strong in methods, what with Keith Poole and Scott Ainsworth there. If you're doing formal/stats-heavy American, it's a really strong place to be right now, in a way that I don't think is yet reflected in the rankings.

[Adornopolisci2012]

Another slow day.

Calm before the storm.