Welcome to the 2016-17 cycle!

[guest56436]

So, late next week I am guessing we hear from Chicago, Berkeley, and Princeton. It's nice to know that some of the bigger programs are going to start dropping.

[Monody]

I asked this earlier but got swamped: Shouldn't we hear from PSU later today or early next week judging from last year?

[resDQ]

9 minutes ago, Monody said:

I asked this earlier but got swamped: Shouldn't we hear from PSU later today or early next week judging from last year?

We should hear from them soon. With the big schools coming out soon, I don't like going into next week with no acceptances. 

[Monody]

5 minutes ago, resDQ said:

We should hear from them soon. With the big schools coming out soon, I don't like going into next week with no acceptances. 

Indeed. Safety first, risk later.

[guest56436]

12 hours ago, 4Realist said:

Hey all - new to posting on here and this is my first time applying to PhD programs. Does anyone have a clear grasp of how decisions roll out? If a number of students are admitted (as is the case with UT Austin), should those of us still pending prepare for a rejection? Or do most schools roll out admits piecemeal? Just trying to make sense out of this mysterious process...

There's a lot of variation:

- Some programs send out all acceptances on one day. Then send rejections out later. Some send rejections and acceptances all together.

- Some are staggered, acceptances kind of roll in over the course of a couple days or a week (we just saw that with OSU and UT).

- Some send out in waves by field or some other metric (a bunch one day, then another bunch a couple of days later)

- Some you don't hear anything in way of a waitlist or rejection until a month later.

- Some don't even notify rejections.

- Then of course there is the variable of waitlists, which can be done in a variety of ways as well.

Impossible to tell, which kind of makes it annoying really. Best thing obviously is just to look if you got an acceptance or not then move on...no news does not necessarily mean bad news, but good news is what really counts. If that makes sense.

Edited January 27, 2017 by Comparativist

[waterloo715]

57 minutes ago, resDQ said:

We should hear from them soon. With the big schools coming out soon, I don't like going into next week with no acceptances. 

Yeah, no word for me yet on UT-Austin. I am losing hope there. Really need some good news from PSU before the big schools start rolling out decisions. 

[Kenga]

8 minutes ago, waterloo715 said:

I am losing hope there.

Same here. Not for UT-Austin, but for others. 
Horrible feeling, right? What I do to put my mind at ease is work and hang out with friends as much as possible. Do fun activities (eat chocolate ) or so.

[jej3]

Not sure how helpful / accurate this is but I had an phone interview with an OSU professor a couple weeks back. When I asked about funding at OSU he said that typically get X dollars from the University for PhDs and then depending on the class they'd like to admit, they attempt to scrounge up Y more dollars from the Poli Sci Department. Because of that somewhat haphazard process (this may just be standard procedure for most universities, I have no idea) it takes them a little bit after acceptances to know what the funding situation is going to be. I have no idea if this interpretation is correct, but depending on what Y ends up being, they may be able to fund more (or less I guess) students than they originally expected. 

[correlatesoftheory]

18 minutes ago, jej3 said:

Not sure how helpful / accurate this is but I had an phone interview with an OSU professor a couple weeks back. When I asked about funding at OSU he said that typically get X dollars from the University for PhDs and then depending on the class they'd like to admit, they attempt to scrounge up Y more dollars from the Poli Sci Department. Because of that somewhat haphazard process (this may just be standard procedure for most universities, I have no idea) it takes them a little bit after acceptances to know what the funding situation is going to be. I have no idea if this interpretation is correct, but depending on what Y ends up being, they may be able to fund more (or less I guess) students than they originally expected. 

Can confirm, was told the same information. Not sure if this is the orthodox procedure for funding across universities, but whatever. 

[Kenga]

3 minutes ago, correlatesoftheory said:

Can confirm, was told the same information. Not sure if this is the orthodox procedure for funding across universities, but whatever. 

As far as I know (through experience and friends' experience) funding is usually "save." So schools can tell you how much you can get almost directly after your official admission. What OSU is doing is therefore (probably) OSU-specific.

[Kenga]

In case you want to compare your funding offer with those of other students or you want to know how much you can expect (ball park estimates) you could simply visit the website phdstipends.com and search for your school and program. But be aware, those are self-reported funding offers. Yours may vary.

So the OSU funding from last year was around 24k. UT-Austin ranges between 17k and 27k. 

[correlatesoftheory]

2 minutes ago, Kenga said:

In case you want to compare your funding offer with those of other students or you want to know how much you can expect (ball park estimates) you could simply visit the website phdstipends.com and search for your school and program. But be aware, those are self-reported funding offers. Yours may vary.

So the OSU funding from last year was around 24k. UT-Austin ranges between 17k and 27k. 

Seems like funding across schools is about the same, but not completely uniform. NYU's website states they guarantee $26k for several years, but I imagine this gets adjusted each year to keep up with inflation and cost of living. 

[Kenga]

7 minutes ago, correlatesoftheory said:

but I imagine this gets adjusted each year to keep up with inflation and cost of living. 

From my knowledge it MAY get adjusted every couple of years to not completely lose touch with the cost of living and inflation. Especially in expensive places like NYC. But for example UWashington in Seattle only offers around 18k (which is not enough to cover cost of living), while Texas A&M offers around the same amount but there it is more than enough to cover cost of living. So funding is only loosely related to cost of living. 
I think the bigger question for schools is how much can they pay due to their endowment
 

Edited January 27, 2017 by Kenga

[ugurcanevci]

I pretty much lost my hopes for Northwestern, they don't seem to send admissions on different days. 12 American, 2 Canadian more to go. 

[Kenga]

3 minutes ago, ugurcanevci said:

I pretty much lost my hopes for Northwestern, they don't seem to send admissions on different days. 12 American, 2 Canadian more to go. 

Same, I take it in the L column (or is it the R column for applications?) and just focus on the the other schools that are left. 

As somebody who studies in Canada, what are your Canadian schools? UofT, UBC, McGill?

[ugurcanevci]

4 minutes ago, Kenga said:

Same, I take it in the L column (or is it the R column for applications?) and just focus on the the other schools that are left. 

As somebody who studies in Canada, what are your Canadian schools? UofT, UBC, McGill?

U Toronto and UBC. Toronto is a very good fit, UBC is not that much. But Vancouver is one of my and my wife's top choices to live in, so I wanted to try

[Kenga]

3 minutes ago, ugurcanevci said:

U Toronto and UBC. Toronto is a very good fit, UBC is not that much. But Vancouver is one of my and my wife's top choices to live in, so I wanted to try

UofT is notorious for not funding students and Vancouver is expensive while UBC is not in Vancouver per se (its outside, basically its own city) it is still the greater metropolitan area. But UBC is a really good school! 
Good luck!

[ugurcanevci]

6 minutes ago, Kenga said:

UofT is notorious for not funding students and Vancouver is expensive while UBC is not in Vancouver per se (its outside, basically its own city) it is still the greater metropolitan area. But UBC is a really good school! 
Good luck!

Thanks for the info, fingers crossed!

[correlatesoftheory]

In case anyone is interested, I was told UC Davis would be released at the beginning of February. 

[correlatesoftheory]

Claiming a Madison acceptance! Just received an email from a POI! 

[Monody]

5 minutes ago, correlatesoftheory said:

Claiming a Madison acceptance! Just received an email from a POI! 

Congrats

 

[krapp]

41 minutes ago, ugurcanevci said:

I pretty much lost my hopes for Northwestern, they don't seem to send admissions on different days. 12 American, 2 Canadian more to go. 

If this is the case than I'm at 1 rejection, 1 waitlist (GWU, which I figure to be about a rejection), and 5 to go

[correlatesoftheory]

5 minutes ago, Monody said:

Congrats

 

Thanks! It seems like Madison is a school that trickles out decisions, so who knows what's going to happen in the next week or so. 

[Kenga]

3 minutes ago, krapp said:

1 waitlist (GWU, which I figure to be about a rejection

Don't give up on GWU, I heard their waitlist is fairly active so it could still be that you get an offer. 

[krapp]

3 minutes ago, Kenga said:

Don't give up on GWU, I heard their waitlist is fairly active so it could still be that you get an offer. 

I'll take some solace in that then. And who knows, maybe we will all be happily proven wrong by NW!