PoliSci 2008-2009 Cycle

[tim]

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:

i got the same letter. very strange, indeed.

[optimisticPOLITICS]

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.

I officially give up. Remember I told you guys about that email but nothing yet. I also emailed a proff I spoke with before but nothing from him either.

I am not sure what is taking them so long.............

[jamesmadison]

Email rejection from Minnesota at 3:30pm today.

[julianashe]

I officially give up. Remember I told you guys about that email but nothing yet. I also emailed a proff I spoke with before but nothing from him either.

I am not sure what is taking them so long.............

It's really strange for Northwestern to take so long......Nearly 3 weeks ago I was hoping that Northwestern will be the first school I would hear from, because they said they would give out decisions that week. :roll:

[spark25]

I am one of those people who are still waiting to hear back from Northwestern as well. My gut feeling is that they've already admitted everyone that wanted. I hope I am wrong but it really is late to be notifying people at this stage.

[IRdreams]

Speaking of program rankings. At this point, I'm leaning heavily Cornell. However, I recently had a conversation with a professor at my undergrad that has left me really unsettled. I was working with him on securing a DC placement for the summer when my parent's firm slashed salaries in lieu of firing people making it now prohibitively difficult to absorb the cost of an internship. I thanked him for his time and thoughts and mentioned his insights would be helpful when I did this in the future (and it was my own money and not my parents). He got very weird and then said, "I'm going to say something mean. I imagine C. wasn't your first choice. The reason you didn't get into HYP is you've done nothing of distinction." This in combination with that job market signal article someone posted has left me wondering if I'm making a mistake in going through with it this year. I had a very rushed application process. I knew since freshman year I wanted to go to grad school, but I was going to take a year off before applying. I decided in October to get everything together so I'm sure that didn't help...but is this man just out of line?

Or should I wait and try again even with a funded offer in hand (Bird in hand and all that)? I've felt really small since having this conversation because it already confirmed some of my fears about gradschool...there is a thread on impostor syndrome in the Decisions section that I feel applies. I didn't cry in front of him, but this conversation has definitely left in me in tears for the last few days because I feel like it really invalidated what I have accomplished. I don't mean to be pompous or anything like that to be people who've had it rougher than me in a very rough year. I just feel like I don't know how to process this interaction. So what is his deal? Legitimate critique or legitimately a douchebag?

[fenderpete]

Columbia rejections are up on ApplyYourself - got notified to check via email.

[procrastinatrice]

Speaking of program rankings. At this point, I'm leaning heavily Cornell. However, I recently had a conversation with a professor at my undergrad that has left me really unsettled. I was working with him on securing a DC placement for the summer when my parent's firm slashed salaries in lieu of firing people making it now prohibitively difficult to absorb the cost of an internship. I thanked him for his time and thoughts and mentioned his insights would be helpful when I did this in the future (and it was my own money and not my parents). He got very weird and then said, "I'm going to say something mean. I imagine C. wasn't your first choice. The reason you didn't get into HYP is you've done nothing of distinction." This in combination with that job market signal article someone posted has left me wondering if I'm making a mistake in going through with it this year. I had a very rushed application process. I knew since freshman year I wanted to go to grad school, but I was going to take a year off before applying. I decided in October to get everything together so I'm sure that didn't help...but is this man just out of line?

Or should I wait and try again even with a funded offer in hand (Bird in hand and all that)? I've felt really small since having this conversation because it already confirmed some of my fears about gradschool...there is a thread on impostor syndrome in the Decisions section that I feel applies. I didn't cry in front of him, but this conversation has definitely left in me in tears for the last few days because I feel like it really invalidated what I have accomplished. I don't mean to be pompous or anything like that to be people who've had it rougher than me in a very rough year. I just feel like I don't know how to process this interaction. So what is his deal? Legitimate critique or legitimately a douchebag?

Legitimately a douchebag. I am sorry, but there is no excuse for his behavior. This is not honesty, it is just some kind of pathological, self-congratulatory crap (I am assuming he went to H, Y, or P to actually say this, if not he needs treatment even more than I thought). Not everybody has to go (or will thrive at) HYP. And they will still be successful, in many cases.

There is absolutely no reason for you to pass on a funded offer from Cornell. It is an excellent department, and the fact that you got in straight out of undergrad shows that you are a scholar of distinction (I don't mean to say those who didn't are not scholars of distinction, but I don't think the Ph.D. admissions process is entirely arbitrary either). The only reason to wait another year and reapply is not feeling ready for graduate school. The fact that one of your professors decided to undermine your achievements should not affect your decision. And this is coming from someone who suffers from impostor syndrome a little bit. I still feel that everyone at grad school will be so much more well-read than me, I fear that I will not live up to my potential advisors' expectations come fall. But I also recognize that my fears are probably slightly exaggerated and if I continue to work hard, I should be just fine. And I am sure you'll be great. I am so pissed at your professor!!! Arghh! Please don't cry, he is not worth it.

[CatallaxisOfEvil]

Speaking of program rankings. At this point, I'm leaning heavily Cornell. However, I recently had a conversation with a professor at my undergrad that has left me really unsettled. I was working with him on securing a DC placement for the summer when my parent's firm slashed salaries in lieu of firing people making it now prohibitively difficult to absorb the cost of an internship. I thanked him for his time and thoughts and mentioned his insights would be helpful when I did this in the future (and it was my own money and not my parents). He got very weird and then said, "I'm going to say something mean. I imagine C. wasn't your first choice. The reason you didn't get into HYP is you've done nothing of distinction." This in combination with that job market signal article someone posted has left me wondering if I'm making a mistake in going through with it this year. I had a very rushed application process. I knew since freshman year I wanted to go to grad school, but I was going to take a year off before applying. I decided in October to get everything together so I'm sure that didn't help...but is this man just out of line?

Or should I wait and try again even with a funded offer in hand (Bird in hand and all that)? I've felt really small since having this conversation because it already confirmed some of my fears about gradschool...there is a thread on impostor syndrome in the Decisions section that I feel applies. I didn't cry in front of him, but this conversation has definitely left in me in tears for the last few days because I feel like it really invalidated what I have accomplished. I don't mean to be pompous or anything like that to be people who've had it rougher than me in a very rough year. I just feel like I don't know how to process this interaction. So what is his deal? Legitimate critique or legitimately a douchebag?

I hope you don't mind if I weigh in?

I'm afraid that you've encountered one of the many emotionally stunted people who take refuge in academia. I'm sure your undergrad prof. is a fantastic thinker, researcher, teacher and all the rest of it. But many, many people stay at school for the shelter it provides, as much as for the intellectual opportunities it offers. It can be a bubble, and the bubble can preserve people in amber, emotionally. This man is one such case, I'd stake my life on it.

He was disappointed that your mutual efforts would come to nothing, and he reacted like a child. It was unprofessional and unneccessary, even if he means the best for you.

My only advice is that you should not allow him to infect you with his irrationalism. A PhD at Cornell would be a remarkable achievement and I think you must pursue it. Then go back to this guy in five or six years and tell him all about your real 'achievements of distinction'.

[Lex]

Speaking of program rankings. At this point, I'm leaning heavily Cornell. However, I recently had a conversation with a professor at my undergrad that has left me really unsettled. I was working with him on securing a DC placement for the summer when my parent's firm slashed salaries in lieu of firing people making it now prohibitively difficult to absorb the cost of an internship. I thanked him for his time and thoughts and mentioned his insights would be helpful when I did this in the future (and it was my own money and not my parents). He got very weird and then said, "I'm going to say something mean. I imagine C. wasn't your first choice. The reason you didn't get into HYP is you've done nothing of distinction." This in combination with that job market signal article someone posted has left me wondering if I'm making a mistake in going through with it this year. I had a very rushed application process. I knew since freshman year I wanted to go to grad school, but I was going to take a year off before applying. I decided in October to get everything together so I'm sure that didn't help...but is this man just out of line?

Or should I wait and try again even with a funded offer in hand (Bird in hand and all that)? I've felt really small since having this conversation because it already confirmed some of my fears about gradschool...there is a thread on impostor syndrome in the Decisions section that I feel applies. I didn't cry in front of him, but this conversation has definitely left in me in tears for the last few days because I feel like it really invalidated what I have accomplished. I don't mean to be pompous or anything like that to be people who've had it rougher than me in a very rough year. I just feel like I don't know how to process this interaction. So what is his deal? Legitimate critique or legitimately a douchebag?

He knew this was mean and said it anyway - the only excuse for being mean that way is in order to be helpful, and what he said is definitely not helpful. Ergo, douchebag.

Good reasons not to go to Cornell this year: the department really doesn't match your interests, you decide you really don't want to go to grad school, you'd like (for your own reasons) to try for better offers, or you feel like you need time away from academia. Bad reasons: because your professor's a jerk. I originally read this as being a prof at Cornell, in which case I was going to advise you to NOT go to Cornell, because working with someone who's a jerk for the next 6 years would really undermine the value of the program. But seeing as you're leaving him behind, I'd advise you not to worry about it.

[silencio1982]

Speaking of program rankings. At this point, I'm leaning heavily Cornell. However, I recently had a conversation with a professor at my undergrad that has left me really unsettled. I was working with him on securing a DC placement for the summer when my parent's firm slashed salaries in lieu of firing people making it now prohibitively difficult to absorb the cost of an internship. I thanked him for his time and thoughts and mentioned his insights would be helpful when I did this in the future (and it was my own money and not my parents). He got very weird and then said, "I'm going to say something mean. I imagine C. wasn't your first choice. The reason you didn't get into HYP is you've done nothing of distinction." This in combination with that job market signal article someone posted has left me wondering if I'm making a mistake in going through with it this year. I had a very rushed application process. I knew since freshman year I wanted to go to grad school, but I was going to take a year off before applying. I decided in October to get everything together so I'm sure that didn't help...but is this man just out of line?

hey there- current first year student at a less prestigious program than cornell. i am a comparative student so i don't know that much about cornell's IR people but they have some amazing comparative politics people. i mean, peter katzenstein is going to be chair of APSA, tarrow, bunce, etc.... cornell is a great dept. in my opinion. i would take the offer for sure. HYP are not the be all, end all of political science. are they great programs? yes, of course. but cornell is a wonderful opportunity. take the offer and enjoy

[AllFiredUp]

Has anyone else gotten the Columbia rejection email?

[fenderpete]

Has anyone else gotten the Columbia rejection email?

Yup - posted on Results board and on the last page of this topic. Princeton is my last chance, and tbh I've already started applying to internships and am on the verge of rebooking a GRE test slot.

[BigCheese]

Yup - posted on Results board and on the last page of this topic. Princeton is my last chance, and tbh I've already started applying to internships and am on the verge of rebooking a GRE test slot.

Rejected here also... my last hope is Georgetown, hopefully they admit some more people around the 20th as they did two years ago... :roll:

[rlayla]

Rejected here also... my last hope is Georgetown, hopefully they admit some more people around the 20th as they did two years ago... :roll:

Once again, schools don't even bother telling me I'm rejected.

Big Cheese -- I'm rooting for you!!!

[PoliSci Guy]

Ummmm...I didn't get a Columbia rejection. Is it possible that I'm waitlisted? WTF?!?! I get outright rejected by schools far less prestigious and might be waitlisted at Columbia? This whole process is screwed. The only thing that I can think of is that Columbia is the one school that perfectly matches my research interests. Maybe that really is the most important thing. Or maybe they just mistyped my email :shock:

[AllFiredUp]

Ummmm...I didn't get a Columbia rejection. Is it possible that I'm waitlisted? WTF?!?! I get outright rejected by schools far less prestigious and might be waitlisted at Columbia? This whole process is screwed. The only thing that I can think of is that Columbia is the one school that perfectly matches my research interests. Maybe that really is the most important thing. Or maybe they just mistyped my email :shock:

I haven't gotten an email yet either...holding my breath. They could be doing these in waves. If we're in the clear Monday afternoon, we may be in good shape.

[BigCheese]

awww thanks rlayla

[hotep]

anybody else NOT get the columbia rejection email yet? i'm not terribly optimistic (i suspect they're doing rejections in rounds), but if most everyone else who didn't get accepted yet did get a rejection email already, maybe the rest of us are indeed on a waitlist? though that doesn't make sense...wouldn't they notify waitlisted folks with all the admits?

[PoliSci Guy]

Not if there is no "official" waitlist. I've heard that many programs just keep an internal waitlist that they can tap into as their admits refuse the offers. That might be what is happening, or there could be many rounds of rejections, or (like I said above) we misspelled our email addresses.

[oscarwildebeest]

To weigh in on the debate from a few pages back - turning down Cornell because it is "not HYP" would be absurd. To be blunt: the amount of respect that those three names carry in the field is unwarranted by their effectiveness at placing PhDs and the substance of their research programs.

I understand the idea: that "pedigree" matters when you go on the market, so its best to start at the top. And there, Harvard is exceptional - it sits at the top of the last NRC ranking, and one study of political science placement found that it actually does do better at placing its PhDs than any other department. But the same study ranked Yale #12 in terms of placement, and Princeton at #13. Schools like Stanford, Michigan, Rochester, Chicago, Berkeley, Duke, Northwestern, UCLA, UCSD and Northwestern appear to be better bets than the much-vaunted "YP". For the record, Cornell is #14 for placement. Doing fine work at Cornell will make you competitive with PhDs from the (other) Ivies.

As to the research, some are going to disagree, but my view is that the established departments don't tend to be much interested in novel scholarship. They want big name authors who have often already done their most important work because that's what will draw students. I'm a theorist, so I can defend my argument better on the grounds of the theory departments. Princeton does little of interest to anyone who isn't interested in Rawlsian liberalism; Harvard focuses heavily on state- and institution-centered theories of government; Yale has a lot of theorists doing contemporary democratic theory and equality. There are some exceptions: Tamshin Shaw at Princeton wrote a very good book on Nietzsche last year, Seyla Benhabib at Yale is still doing very provocative work on critical theory. But if you have more eclectic interests, maybe in continental theory since Nietzsche, or in more critical approaches to political theory, or in some of the less-canonical authors, you'd find more fellow-travelers at Chicago, JHU, Northwestern, Notre Dame, UVA, etc. Maybe the consensus is different in the other subfields, but in theory the world hardly orbits around the work being done at "HYP".

[milkbaba]

I haven't gotten an email yet either...holding my breath. They could be doing these in waves. If we're in the clear Monday afternoon, we may be in good shape.

This whole process is a circus show. Someone claiming to be in the know (I've heard that before on this site, only to be misinformed) said that Columbia had notified all of its admits. That was well over two weeks ago. Now there is a new wave of rejections. I have not yet received a rejection email, but I am awaiting the falling axe any day now. Monday?

[hotep]

i dunno...i don't buy columbia not being done. i don't see why they wouldn't have notified their wait-list much earlier. my guess is they're doing rejections in waves.

[AllFiredUp]

i dunno...i don't buy columbia not being done. i don't see why they wouldn't have notified their wait-list much earlier. my guess is they're doing rejections in waves.

According to last year's results, some wait-listers didn't find out until the third week of March. And it seems in previous years the "executions" (rejections) have occured in one fell swoop. So there's that.

I'm becoming more disinclined though to think this means the wait list is comprised of those not cut today. Too many people on here still have no answer.

[hotep]

According to last year's results, some wait-listers didn't find out until the third week of March. And it seems in previous years the "executions" (rejections) have occured in one fell swoop. So there's that.

I'm becoming more disinclined though to think this means the wait list is comprised of those not cut today. Too many people on here still have no answer.

hmmm...didn't realize that about last year. still, seems weird to me. are there others this board who haven't heard from columbia either way, in particular folks who honestly thought they would have been competitive (ie high GPA, high GRE scores, great match with faculty, great LORs from well-known profs, great SOP - i of course realize determining who is probably highly competitive for top programs is not exactly easy, but seeing backgrounds of people on this board who got into great places should give us some sort of an idea)? if lots here who honestly think they didn't have a shot at getting in still haven't heard, then, yes, they're probably rejecting in waves this year. but if the only ones who haven't heard do really think they had a great shot at getting into columbia haven't heard, then maybe you're right. i have my doubts, but who knows.