Welcome to the 2015-2016 Cycle!

[needavacation]

32 minutes ago, Syas said:

I had almost given up my hope from this cycle, and today I received an e-mail from Indiana University informing me of my admission with financial package. So excited  Anyone else here considering to enroll in Indiana's program?

Congrats! Time to celebrate!

[IndEnth]

20 minutes ago, Straussian Dogmatist said:

I can imagine. This isn't easy anywhere! I am beginning to sweat a little, as I've received rejections and implied rejections across the board with the exception of a waitlist. My dilemma is - do I accept the waitlist should I get off of it, even if I'm sure that another program would be better for me? Or do I not risk the opportunity I have and just get started? I'm still in undergrad but I feel ancient, like I need to get to work on the PhD ASAP. 

That's a highly personal decision of course. But as I said before on this forum: It's my second cycle, and last year I was admitted to only one school which turned out to be a bad fit for me (and my worst nightmare to live in). With  heavy heart, I turned it down, acknowledging that I just wouldn't be happy there. I was 28 at the time, so you can imagine it wasn't easy.

But I pulled myself together, and reapplied, and this time I have 7 admits, 4 of which are great fits, fully-funded and interesting places.

I'm not saying pass on it. I'm saying be honest with yourself about what you want. There's no shame in trying again.  And: it's never too late

[Birdie]

1 hour ago, IndEnth said:

I can tell you from personal experience that it's not any easier to balance the stress of an application cycle with a full-time job, especially one where people aren't supposed to know that you're applying (until it's settled)

And I thought I was the oldest here I've been out of my MA for four years now, and also had a gap between BSc and MA.

Oh, just for kicks and added stress, I was laid off in November without any warning. BOOM, clean out your desk, you're not employed here anymore! (utterly unrelated to any of my degrees and I HATED that job so much!) It's been a pretty stressful few months as a result. In the other hand, I snagged a part time job I enjoy and gives me the flexibility to job search without needing to take the first thing that comes my way. The rejection letters were a guy punch, but mentally I'm in a better place to deal with it then if I was still at that awful job, truth be told.

But, yeah, old lady here. Took me a while to decide going back to school was what I wanted to do.

[ezra123]

6 minutes ago, IndEnth said:

That's a highly personal decision of course. But as I said before on this forum: It's my second cycle, and last year I was admitted to only one school which turned out to be a bad fit for me (and my worst nightmare to live in). With  heavy heart, I turned it down, acknowledging that I just wouldn't be happy there. I was 28 at the time, so you can imagine it wasn't easy.

But I pulled myself together, and reapplied, and this time I have 7 admits, 4 of which are great fits, fully-funded and interesting places.

I'm not saying pass on it. I'm saying be honest with yourself about what you want. There's no shame in trying again.  And: it's never too late

Just out of curiosity from your signature, which program(s) that admitted you this time around are your favorite? P.S., those are some great schools, congrats!

[Sbrail2]

1 hour ago, Straussian Dogmatist said:

Out of curiosity - how many people here are applying to PhD programs as a senior in undergrad? It's been tough balancing my neuroticism over the process here with the workload of my final semester...

I'm doing the same

[elw]

Don't leave me hanging all by myself in ultraultra's wrap-up thread, guys! I feel conspicuous!

[VMcJ]

5 minutes ago, elw said:

Don't leave me hanging all by myself in ultraultra's wrap-up thread, guys! I feel conspicuous!

I am only waiting to get all my expected rejections so I can give much heeded advice of how you don't build applications.

Seriously, most of us still need to hear from several programs. I wanted to answer right now, but I think I should wait.

[elw]

9 minutes ago, VMcJ said:

I am only waiting to get all my expected rejections so I can give much heeded advice of how you don't build applications.

Seriously, most of us still need to hear from several programs. I wanted to answer right now, but I think I should wait.

I do consider myself fortunate in this respect. The first program I heard from in mid-January was a solid option.

Since the old folks are outing themselves here finally — I'm 31 and never considered academia/graduate school as an undergraduate. The best possible scenario when applying to doctoral programs is to have a choice of programs, and I would generally recommend people in their 20s considering a second round of applications for whatever reason to do just that. You'll have that much more time to weigh your options, and, if going another round, to create a stronger application.

Edited February 19, 2016 by elw

[ultraultra]

22 minutes ago, elw said:

Don't leave me hanging all by myself in ultraultra's wrap-up thread, guys! I feel conspicuous!

I have my response drafted! Just waiting to hear back from one last school before I post!

[Erpeno]

Since we're at it I'm 33. I applied - and briefly started - grad school back in 2005 straight from undergrad and it was one of the silliest decisions I made. I know lots of people who have done that and it's been great for them but I was not at a stage in my own interests, ambitions and temperament where I could do that. I got professional work in the field instead and have been doing that since. In a lot of ways that has made the application more tricky, and I find myself wondering whether admissions committees will look at what I've done and think I should be applying for the professional masters instead of the research PhD, even though this is what I've wanted to do since I was about 18. Add in that I'm not from the US and decided to only apply to, ahem, stretching schools since I was only crossing the Atlantic if I was getting a program noticeably better than what I could get on this side (especially since I can earn here from consulting alongside), So I guess where I'm leading is - Harvard and Yale, will you please hurry up!  

 

[ultraultra]

Oh re: this general discussion. I'm 23. My trajectory was high school --> gap year --> BA --> applying during MA. In general I think it's better for people to work a bit after their BA or MA before applying for PhD programs. But during my BA, in addition to getting research experience, I was involved in a lot of "real world" things including campaigns, alternative journalism, nonprofits, and community organizing (as well as service and administrative jobs). So I had a pretty good sense of what my life and career options would have been outside of academia, and it made me very sure about pursuing a PhD (especially the juxtaposition of my non-academic research projects with my academic research projects).

[dinhmoun]

I do not know if anyone here like me who has a physics BS and worked in a Electrics Lab before to apply for political science phd. I am not sure if it is a big weakness for my application...

[HardPromises]

I was just thinking about how at some point in the future, when we're all established successful scholars, I might think back to this time and wonder who was in this group with me and contributing to this forum. Some of us could end up working together and not realize it! We should all have a secret code that reveals we were part of the "Welcome to the 2015-2016 Cycle." ?

[IndEnth]

1 hour ago, HardPromises said:

I was just thinking about how at some point in the future, when we're all established successful scholars, I might think back to this time and wonder who was in this group with me and contributing to this forum. Some of us could end up working together and not realize it! We should all have a secret code that reveals we were part of the "Welcome to the 2015-2016 Cycle." ?

Hahahaha, totally. Like a safeword. Like, if you meet someone for the first time at a conference and they say "pineapple" - probably entirely out of context - you know it's one of us, or something

[IndEnth]

4 hours ago, elw said:

Since the old folks are outing themselves here finally

 

3 hours ago, Erpeno said:

Since we're at it I'm 33.

Who would have thought! I really thought I was gonna be far older than the rest here.

But, as I'd like to stress again at this point, so far in basically all talks with faculty I've had (interviews and after-admission-info-skype-calls), people have stressed that they appreciate the experience and maturity that I'll bring to the program, and that they expect me to be more focused and hit the ground running because of it. So don't think of you age as a hindrance - think of it as an advantage!

[IndEnth]

4 hours ago, ezra123 said:

Just out of curiosity from your signature, which program(s) that admitted you this time around are your favorite? P.S., those are some great schools, congrats!

Thank you! I am terribly excited, because they're basically all good fits (they have at least one person working in my area, which is a bit niche).

My definite front runners are NYU and UPenn, not just for the obivous reasons like prestige and funding, but also because they have amazing people in my field.

But I'm still talking to Emory and UMD as well. Funding looks a lot more dire there, but I don't want to discount the dynamic strength of a small department with one or two really great matches right away. Might go and visit all of them in the end.

The UCs unfortunately lack way behind in funding offers (which is a shame, because weather-wise that's definitely more of my comfort zone than the East Coast...).

[finalsenator]

5 hours ago, Erpeno said:

Since we're at it I'm 33.

And here I was at 30 and thinking I was probably the oldest here 

[Birdie]

35 on Sunday. I decided to audit some courses, partly to beef up my application, partly to make sure being back in the classroom was what I wanted. I laugh that I'm a full decade older than some of the people in there. The world events that defined my childhood are ancient history to them!

[CarefreeWritingsontheWall]

I'm in a similar boat as @ultraultra, though less so in terms of the real world experience. My trajectory was High School -> BA -> MA at the same institution as my BA, back to back. I've only have summers off as breaks. BUT I did flirt with the option to work in the public and private sector out of my BA. I applied everywhere, both in terms of jobs, internships and MPA programs, and I didn't get in anywhere. I was devastated. I pulled every string I had to try and work in policy and I fell flat but my experience in policy was very limited, and I had (without realizing it) built up a very academically oriented resume (RA work, independent projects, participating in academic affairs at my current institution). In the process of internalizing all of those rejections, I realized that what I really wanted to do was research, and driving my own research agenda was really important (as opposed to consulting and being told what to look up). I was lucky to stay on at my current institution, turning to political science more concretely, and 2 years later I've been doing RA work, and a thesis, along with pre-comp coursework in my current program with PhD students that really allowed me to figure out that this is what I wanted to do. I can't picture myself doing anything else. I love the work, I love the teaching (I've been a TA for four classes in 2 years). I love that I can travel with my work and, within certain constraints, work on my own time. I just see it. Two years ago, I wouldn't have dreamed that I would ever want to apply to PhD programs - far far less so when I started university period. It's been extremely difficult to sell this to my family as I will be the first on both sides of my family to ever attend a PhD program and finish an MA in the social sciences. They don't understand what I do, or why I would be funded to do it. But I love the work, I really do. Very excited for what comes next and in that respect my family is finally okay with it.

Edited February 20, 2016 by CarefreeWritingsontheWall

[Khaari]

My story is actually quite similar to the post above. I did my undergrad in a country where research is not encouraged, and debate and dissent is stifled. I went through undergrad without having written or read a single research paper. I was always interested in politics but frustrated that education back home meant only learning stuff out of a textbook and writing exams. I learnt what a bibliography was only when I got to UChicago for my MA. So when I was able to produce my own data for my thesis, I was so fascinated with being able to create content and new information on my own. My trajectory: 3 year BA --> 1 year MA --> one gap year doing survey research, and applied to schools during that gap year for a PhD. And it's worked out! I'm 21 and probably have the least amount of experience here, research and otherwise, so I'm apprehensive about this journey, but more hopeful than anything else  

[Determinedandnervous]

I think I'm the runt of the litter here  - I'm 20, and went straight from high school ---> BA ---> applying. I didn't put this on my SOP because no one would have believed me (and rightly so, so many people use it as a cliché) but I knew academia interested me starting at around the end of high school. Just like @ultraultra, I was also pretty heavily involved in the political world during my undergrad. I was vacillating between those two worlds until about a year ago, when I got more acquainted with the literature and found academic questions were much more interesting than applied questions.

[SeniorUnderGrad]

2 hours ago, Determinedandnervous said:

I think I'm the runt of the litter here  - I'm 20, and went straight from high school ---> BA ---> applying. I didn't put this on my SOP because no one would have believed me (and rightly so, so many people use it as a cliché) but I knew academia interested me starting at around the end of high school. Just like @ultraultra, I was also pretty heavily involved in the political world during my undergrad. I was vacillating between those two worlds until about a year ago, when I got more acquainted with the literature and found academic questions were much more interesting than applied questions.

No you're definitely not the only runt. I'm a 21 year old applying right out of my BA. I knew I wanted to continue on for my PhD by my sophomore year of undergrad. Nobody believed me until I started applying and getting accepted to schools! 

 

On the other hand I'm super excited to work for some people who might be older than me and have more and different experiences than I have. I think you can learn a lot from them! ☺️

[yasir8959]

On 2/19/2016 at 11:21 PM, kaneross said:

You people are extremely lucky that despite of having study gaps, you have this confidence of applying at Schools. I belong to a continent where normally visa-authorities do not allow entry to the applicant who has got huge study gaps or gaps of more than 2-3 years.

Where are you from? Sounds like pakistan. Hahahaha. Anyways, lets shake on "Pineapple". 

[yasir8959]

16 hours ago, Birdie said:

35 on Sunday. I decided to audit some courses, partly to beef up my application, partly to make sure being back in the classroom was what I wanted. I laugh that I'm a full decade older than some of the people in there. The world events that defined my childhood are ancient history to them!

Hows your applications holding up? Accepts, waitlists, rejects wise. 

[doubledyno]

3 hours ago, Determinedandnervous said:

I think I'm the runt of the litter here  - I'm 20, and went straight from high school ---> BA ---> applying.

Same here, only 21. I also knew I wanted to be a part of academia by the end of high school as well, but luckily I found a professor who supported me from essentially the beginning of sophomore year. Which was actually quite validating of my undergrad choices. I chose a lesser ranked school (UNC-Greensboro vs. UNC-Chapel Hill) because of finances, but the much smaller polsci department worked in my favor because it was really easy to establish personal relationships with professors who became my referees. Funnily enough, barring getting admitted to Harvard, I'm likely going to Chapel Hill for my Ph.D.