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Welcome to the 2013-2014 Cycle


Cesare

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Guessing Yale admits are all out :( with almost no hope remaining there.

I am happy with the Northwestern admit, though a bit concerned about living in Evanston. Really wanted Columbia or Yale though..gotta live with it!

 

I know how you feel! I'm happy with my options etc., but getting rejected by my two top choices still stung. Didn't mind the other two rejections all that much!

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Yuppp... I definitely autocorrected my own ambitions too because of perceived inferiority. With my current knowledge, my CV was probably better positioned relative to my peers at that time than it is now. But I was risk averse. I corrected for it this round by having a lot of ambitious schools on my list. Even if the Ivys don't happen at least it will not have been out of a lack of effort or resolve on my part. 

 

That was almost certainly the case when applying for undergraduate for me. I tempered my application cycle a little this time, but next time...

 

tumblr_lopvdqzV4n1qlctfho1_500.gif

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Is there anyone here who still got no news from UCLA? The form on application status tracker says "Submitted - Pending Decision". Could that mean that I'm on the waitlist or they are just slow with updating rejections?

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It seems like a lot of people are waiting on Penn. A lot of people who got into amazing schools as well so I'm not feeling too great about my chances. Also, a large number of these people seem to be doing exactly what I'm doing and there are only 1-2 open spots per year for this focus. Oh well, I'll give it another shot next cycle.

 

Anyone have any idea on what I should do next year? Cane14, you might be onto something with the whole building a school in Cambodia thing. If I do that, someone HAS to take me next year, right? :lol:

Edited by Cazorla
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It seems like a lot of people are waiting on Penn. A lot of people who got into amazing schools as well so I'm not feeling too great about my chances. Also, a large number of these people seem to be doing exactly what I'm doing and there are only 1-2 open spots per year for this focus. Oh well, I'll give it another shot next year.

 

Anyone have any idea on what I should do next year? Cane14, you might be onto something with the whole building a school in Cambodia thing. If I do that, someone HAS to take me next year, right? :lol:

 

What's your subfield, limitations, etc? (You don't have to answer in here, you can do a PM, if you're comfortable!)

 

I'm going to keep on with what I'm doing, reach out to some of my professors (I got my Master's from a school here in DC, so I'm still local) and ask if I can volunteer to do research assistant work, try to develop some research into a publishable article, and study like crazy for GRE Round II. 

 

Then I'll apply to a slightly different and larger pool of programs, including a bunch I didn't even think to apply to this year. I've already got the spreadsheet up and going.

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I'm afraid that this is going to sound cranky when its really not--there seems to be a person waiting on Penn that keeps posting "other" asking if anyone has heard from the Department. If you're that anxious, give em' a call! No harm in that.

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Is there anyone here who still got no news from UCLA? The form on application status tracker says "Submitted - Pending Decision". Could that mean that I'm on the waitlist or they are just slow with updating rejections?

 

Yeah, I'm really not sure. I just woke up to an update from UCLA (rejection). You aren't able to log in to your normal account to check the status. They sent me to a completely different site and I had to create a new password and log in with it. 

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I am happy with the Northwestern admit, though a bit concerned about living in Evanston. Really wanted Columbia or Yale though..gotta live with it! 

 

 

 

What are your concerns about living in Evanston? I've a good friend who lives there (her husband is on faculty at NW), and they LOVE it! 

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What's your subfield, limitations, etc? (You don't have to answer in here, you can do a PM, if you're comfortable!)

 

I'm going to keep on with what I'm doing, reach out to some of my professors (I got my Master's from a school here in DC, so I'm still local) and ask if I can volunteer to do research assistant work, try to develop some research into a publishable article, and study like crazy for GRE Round II. 

 

Then I'll apply to a slightly different and larger pool of programs, including a bunch I didn't even think to apply to this year. I've already got the spreadsheet up and going.

 

Sent you a PM.

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What are your concerns about living in Evanston? I've a good friend who lives there (her husband is on faculty at NW), and they LOVE it! 

 

You can probably find more to do living in northern Chicago than in New Haven. At least that's what I tell myself to ease the sting. 

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It seems like a lot of people are waiting on Penn. A lot of people who got into amazing schools as well so I'm not feeling too great about my chances. Also, a large number of these people seem to be doing exactly what I'm doing and there are only 1-2 open spots per year for this focus. Oh well, I'll give it another shot next cycle.

 

Anyone have any idea on what I should do next year? Cane14, you might be onto something with the whole building a school in Cambodia thing. If I do that, someone HAS to take me next year, right? :lol:

Ha! I actually think that doing something you're passionate about that is not exactly related to polisci can help a lot if you spin it well in your SOP. You certainly don't have to build a school in Cambodia or live in a Vietnamese refugee camp, but if you get involved in volunteering, non-profit work, etc, and then relate your passion for that stuff to your academic interests, that might help. I'm sorry this cycle wasn't what you'd hoped for. 

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Yeah, I'm really not sure. I just woke up to an update from UCLA (rejection). You aren't able to log in to your normal account to check the status. They sent me to a completely different site and I had to create a new password and log in with it. 

 

Interesting, they seem to be doing it piecemeal and very slowly. Judging by the boards, most people have still probably heard nothing.

Edited by Zahar Berkut
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Has anyone been on College Confidential before? I just stumbled across it and #Good #Lord it is amazing what difference a few years of college makes in the maturity category. 

 

Yeah, I've been to CC before... interesting place.

 

Congrats to everyone who's gotten good news over the past few days :)

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Ha! I actually think that doing something you're passionate about that is not exactly related to polisci can help a lot if you spin it well in your SOP. You certainly don't have to build a school in Cambodia or live in a Vietnamese refugee camp, but if you get involved in volunteering, non-profit work, etc, and then relate your passion for that stuff to your academic interests, that might help. I'm sorry this cycle wasn't what you'd hoped for. 

Perhaps if you battled some sort of rebel group while you're there?

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Guessing Yale admits are all out :( with almost no hope remaining there.

I am happy with the Northwestern admit, though a bit concerned about living in Evanston. Really wanted Columbia or Yale though..gotta live with it!

 

I did my undergrad at NU and, on the whole, really loved it. There are definitely some downsides, like the fact that a number of the wealthier residents seem to hate the fact that they live in a college town (This is my favorite recent development. Beware the transient academics! http://evanstonnow.com/story/business/bill-smith/2014-01-30/61300/neighbors-said-to-fear-transient-academics) and the winters can be almost intolerable, but all the other wonderful things about being so close to Chicago more than made up for it.

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I did my undergrad at NU and, on the whole, really loved it. There are definitely some downsides, like the fact that a number of the wealthier residents seem to hate the fact that they live in a college town (This is my favorite recent development. Beware the transient academics! http://evanstonnow.com/story/business/bill-smith/2014-01-30/61300/neighbors-said-to-fear-transient-academics) and the winters can be almost intolerable, but all the other wonderful things about being so close to Chicago more than made up for it.

'The transient academics' sounds like 'a traveling circus'. 

 

Anyway, whyyy, why are they so against those poor academics? :D

 

P.S. I quite enjoyed the overarching discussion among "frequentists," "bayesians," "ontologists," and "deconstructionists" (with an occasional appearance of Derrida speaking from the Other Side) that followed the article.

Edited by jeudepaume
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Im still waiting.

 

Before I saw the quoted post above, I thought this was a strangely cryptic post. What would you be waiting for? What is happening!?

 

I'm sorry to everyone who's stuck waiting on Chicago and UCLA. You'd think they'd get on with it for their own sake, at least.

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:o Whoa... did anyone happen to see the slightly unhinged Brown University rejection post calling out the Chair? Yikes.

 

...oh dear. No, I didn't before, but now I see it. 

 

 

I... guess there's probably a few of those a year?

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