intapp001 Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 Anyone want to own up as theGWU admit? Just wondering when the rest of us will hear something..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hondo19 Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 What are typical fees for funded doctoral students? I mean that we still have to pay, despite funding. s a $350 one time fee, plus $700 per semester reasonable? (With a 15k stipend, every cent counts) Is this reasonable? What are other folks paying? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrRockso Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 What are typical fees for funded doctoral students? I mean that we still have to pay, despite funding. s a $350 one time fee, plus $700 per semester reasonable? (With a 15k stipend, every cent counts) Is this reasonable? What are other folks paying? $700 per semester in fees, or is that the nominal tuition costs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plisar Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 ^ That's a ton of money in fees! Yikes. I would honestly say that's fairly uncommon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hondo19 Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 Yes, this did seem steep. Pardon my ignorance, but what is nominal tuition? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theorygirl Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 What are typical fees for funded doctoral students? I mean that we still have to pay, despite funding. s a $350 one time fee, plus $700 per semester reasonable? (With a 15k stipend, every cent counts) Is this reasonable? What are other folks paying? For one school I'm considering it's around $250 per quarter in "local fees" - which covers access to the recreation center, etc. The other school covers all my fees. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrRockso Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 Yes, this did seem steep. Pardon my ignorance, but what is nominal tuition? A few in-state tuition hours. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ivyreject Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 You're in, go for it. There's nothing wrong with an honest inquiry, and I doubt the feathers of any reasonable person would be ruffled over a simple question on an issue that's of great consequence to every grad student. Who do I ask? The prof I talked to in December, who presumably helped me get in? Or the person who sent the acceptance? Or someone else? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeftCoast Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 I went to the U of Oregon website and apparently I was not accepted. WTF? I did my undergraduate degree there and did very well, granted I graduated over 10 years ago. Any thoughts on whether the fact I did undergrad degree at this school may have actually hurt my chances of being accepted? This one hurts. Was not my first choice by any means but I thought that acceptance was almost certain. If I can't get in to U of O what chance do I have at Maryland...damn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theorygirl Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 I went to the U of Oregon website and apparently I was not accepted. WTF? I did my undergraduate degree there and did very well, granted I graduated over 10 years ago. Any thoughts on whether the fact I did undergrad degree at this school may have actually hurt my chances of being accepted? This one hurts. Was not my first choice by any means but I thought that acceptance was almost certain. If I can't get in to U of O what chance do I have at Maryland...damn From what I've heard, a lot of grad schools are hesitant to admit one of their former undergrads - not sure why. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aria880 Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 OK. UT-Austin is officially weird. I got my rejection letter via email way back on February 17. Today, I check my postal mail and there's a letter from the department dated February 6 informing me that I've been rejected. Um, I already knew that, thanks. What's more, the letter indicated that I can expect ANOTHER letter from the grad school confirming once again that I've been rejected. If there's anyone who got into that program unfunded, I think I've found the reason why there is no funding for you: that institution wastes buckets of money on postage! :roll: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poststructuralist Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 I also have extremely diverse interests, but for the SOP, I narrowed it down to the areas I liked the most (currently) and that the school specialized it. Honestly, I think its hard for some to accept the rejections because they were so sure that with their stats, they had to get in. But looking at your siggy, Poststruct and Big Cheese, it seems that you only applied to top schools. Of course your chances of rejection are much higher there. Yeah, I narrowed my SOP down to the interests of the schools I applied to as well. There are some areas where I could have strengthened my app,so I'm not complaining too much. I realize that a lot of it rests on my shoulders and the fact that I am obviously competing with a lot of other extremely qualified people, yourself included. So I'll work on boosting my stats for next year. Just a word about only applying to top schools. I had a long talk with a few profs (with Ph.D.'s from Harvard, Yale and Chicago) who frankly told me that if I want to be a theorist it's kind of useless to get your Ph.D. from somewhere that isn't a top school if I want to be a professional academic. Unfortunately, most of the jobs in theory go to people who have Ph.D.'s from top places, and pedigree matters a lot. Fair or not (personally I don't think it is), that's the reality. So I made the decision that I want to give myself the best possible chance of getting a job after graduate school if I am basically going to give up disposable income for 5-7 years in my twenties. Getting a Ph.D. and being an academic is definitely something I want to do, but I don't just want to do it for the experience of going to graduate school. Whether that was a good decision remains to be seen. I hoped that I would get in somewhere, but came in to the process realizing that its extremely selective and there was a real chance I wouldn't get accepted anywhere. While obviously I'm not dancing and singing that I got rejections, it's not like I thought I was entitled to acceptances all around either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natofone Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 Just out of curiousity, how did you find out? I've been told "unofficially" that I'm probably on the waitlist by a current grad student in the department, but have yet to hear anything official. Did you find out online through the application system? Email? They updated the website with a rejection letter. No emails or anything. I just stumbled upon it randomly...so I'm not sure why I'm the only one rejected. I couldn't have been THAT bad compared to other candidates. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeftCoast Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 From what I've heard, a lot of grad schools are hesitant to admit one of their former undergrads - not sure why. I have heard that too and am a bit perplexed. Hopefully this played a part in my rejection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreatMix Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 Yeah, I narrowed my SOP down to the interests of the schools I applied to as well. There are some areas where I could have strengthened my app,so I'm not complaining too much. I realize that a lot of it rests on my shoulders and the fact that I am obviously competing with a lot of other extremely qualified people, yourself included. So I'll work on boosting my stats for next year. Just a word about only applying to top schools. I had a long talk with a few profs (with Ph.D.'s from Harvard, Yale and Chicago) who frankly told me that if I want to be a theorist it's kind of useless to get your Ph.D. from somewhere that isn't a top school if I want to be a professional academic. Unfortunately, most of the jobs in theory go to people who have Ph.D.'s from top places, and pedigree matters a lot. Fair or not (personally I don't think it is), that's the reality. So I made the decision that I want to give myself the best possible chance of getting a job after graduate school if I am basically going to give up disposable income for 5-7 years in my twenties. Getting a Ph.D. and being an academic is definitely something I want to do, but I don't just want to do it for the experience of going to graduate school. Whether that was a good decision remains to be seen. I hoped that I would get in somewhere, but came in to the process realizing that its extremely selective and there was a real chance I wouldn't get accepted anywhere. While obviously I'm not dancing and singing that I got rejections, it's not like I thought I was entitled to acceptances all around either. Is this true of all areas of poli sci, or more focused on theorists? And do you think that means, you couldn't an academic job generally, or just not one at a top school? And by top schools, do you mean top 10, top 20, top 30....? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ivyreject Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 by top schools, do you mean top 10, top 20, top 30....? Ignorant question of the day: Top 10, 25, etc... according to what? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poststructuralist Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 Is this true of all areas of poli sci, or more focused on theorists? And do you think that means, you couldn't an academic job generally, or just not one at a top school? And by top schools, do you mean top 10, top 20, top 30....? It's true more for theorists, as far as I know. From what I've been told and researched, it's hard to find a job in general as a theorist, and especially so if your Ph.D. comes from somewhere that's not a well regarded dept. overall or a very good dept. in theory. I worked as an office aide at my school and was in charge of organizing the cv's and stuff for the theorists and IR guys. The IR people got looked at from a wider variety of schools than did the theory people. I think that's generally true across the board. Of course, the people who told me this had PhDs from top schools and were teaching in the ivy league, so the info is probably skewed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hondo19 Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 Emailed the grad sec., heard back from the DGS. They expect to finalize decisions "early next week". Just in case anyone cares. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PollyTheory Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 So I just got rejected from Notre Dame. Then, 15 minutes later, I get this -- "Just moments ago you likely received a letter from Political Science at Notre Dame stating that your application for admission had been denied. Please accept my sincere apology. The letter was sent by me, and in error, without the authorization of Dr. Keys, the Director of Graduate Studies. Please be assured that your application has NOT been denied and is still being considered. Again I wish to offer my sincere apology for the error." Then, in response to another email inquiring further into my status, "We expect that final decisions will be made by April 20th. Again, my sincere apology for the error." WTF?!? Get it together, South Bend!! I wonder if the Zuckerts & Co. are worth this.... Also, just to weigh in a bit on the below debate, I think that is very sound advice. I also think there is plenty of discrepancy over what the "top" programs are within a lot of fields, particularly theory, and even Poli Sci overall. The NCR rankings are debated. An important thing to look at is placement record and even THAT can be deceiving. Minnesota placed a few theorists last year, but then lost several people. UVA (a lower-ranked program) made an incredibly impressive placement last year with Ryan Pevnick to NYU. Hopkins traditionally does really well with placement. The point is, the HYPs place incredibly well, but it's not to say that a PhD from anywhere else is pointless. I think you're wise, though, to decide that you shouldn't spend 6-7 years on something you are unsure about. For some of us, the pursuit of learning isn't a waste, regardless of whether or not we end up with R-1 jobs. Also, this is a good source (not sure how inclusive it is) for theory placements: http://www.political-theory.org/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twright Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 Does anyone else agree with me that Notre Dame is one of the most overrated programs both in terms of the number and quality of applications it receives? From my perspective, none of Notre Dame's doctorate programs are terribly strong, including its Political Science department ... but maybe I'm wrong... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polisci applicant Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 When I was trying to decide what departments to apply to, I was directed to a few articles on placement of graduate students by different programs: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~chin ... _paper.pdf http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm? ... id=1008028 I'm not sure how to fully interpret the rankings, and I'm sure that there are a lot of problems with either methodology. But it does seems that there is a similar set of schools at the top of both lists (say 10-20), and below those schools, the odds of placement are pretty low. Something like 1-10% compared to 20-50%. Once again, I could be reading this wrong though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
g_mac15 Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 Anyone want to own up as theGWU admit? Just wondering when the rest of us will hear something..... I'm wondering too. Could the GWU admit post something so the rest of us know the situation? It seems strange that they would only tell one person. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ivyreject Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 I'm wondering too. Could the GWU admit post something so the rest of us know the situation? It seems strange that they would only tell one person. My guess is that it's someone who is being offered a fellowship. Depts. seem to contact those folks way early. For instance, I was anxiously awaiting to hear from Georgetown. Several people got in 3 weeks ago, presumably w/ funding. Another wave of acceptances came two days ago, this time w/ no funding. So I am assuming that the GW admit from the big board is a funded person, and the rest of us will get our acceptances next week in a letter that, however diplomatically it may be stated, means: "We don't want you very badly, but we'll take your money." We'll see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigCheese Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 i can't figure out georgetown... the last couple of years they notified around mid-march...are they just notifying early this year? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LackLuster Posted March 6, 2009 Share Posted March 6, 2009 Psst. GW's admissions are on the ApplyYourself site. I'm only an M.A. though. Just thought I'd pass the news along. Maybe ya'll might have word on ApplyYourself, too? I didn't get an e-mail yet, but a buddy from my school who applied was apparently checking the site obsessively and told me as soon as he saw his acceptance. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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