What they care about/What the situation is like this year

[jacib]

When the head of the Grad Committee from Columbia called me, she really emphasized that it was fit that got me in. Though mentioned my "strong file", it was clear from the way she was talking that I got in specifically to work with her. In fact, she scolded me a little for not emailing her. She said something like, "When I got your file, I thought to myself 'Oh, why hasn't this boy emailed me! He would be such a great fit with me here.'" And then she emphasized also the other opportunities that would also fit my interest, but it really seemed like what school care about most is fit. I just wanted to reassure people that have gotten rejections and thought "well that's not really the best fit." I think you need first and foremost fit with one particular person in the department. I know we've said that all along, but some people just don't seem to believe it. Secondarily, it would be fit with the department, or other resources at the school (in the acceptance email and phone call, my POI pointed to two other people to work with, one in PoliSci and one a joint appointment in Religion and Sociology; I think I'd mentioned both in my SoP). I would also like to point out that I got in with 3.26 GPA, which is considerably lower than most of the rest of you. So don't fret yet, if you think you're still waiting to hear from the places with the best fits.

Also, I have a feeling that if my interests had been more in line with one of the "stars'" (like Sudhir Venkatesh's or some like that's), my chances of admittance would have been considerably lower. I mean, Columbia was one of the schools which I felt most confident about because Karen Barkey does Historical/Comparative Sociology of the Ottoman Empire, and does a lot with the intersection of Religion and Politics (something Columbia's been expanding on in recent years, apparently). So Religion/Politics plus Turkey, from a comparative and/or historical perspective.... couldn't get much closer to my own interests. Again, I got the impression that that excellent level of fit mattered more than my GPA, writing sample, etc. I also know that Prof. Barkey does not take a student every year (she said she has something like 5 or 6 students where she's the first or second person on the committee).

Also, for all of you people out there, I asked about Columbia's admits this year. They're still admitting 12-13 people (it seemed weird that neither the head of the adcomm nor the head of the department remembered the exact number...), which is the same number they've admitted the last few years (they had 290ish applicants). They normally yield 7-8 people, but because of the economy and other factors, they expect the yield to be slightly higher this year, possibly around 9-10. Everyone is still going to be fully funded (the head of the department told this meant that by the time I graduated they'd put more than a quarter of a million dollars into me...which seemed frightening). This leads me to believe that there are probably not significant cutbacks at private schools this year. I think my father said the same thing, though his school is a bit less prestigious than Columbia. I think they let in 2 people one year, and 3 people the next, and this is a 2 people year (it's a really small department), but they recently (within the past 5 years) added an extra year of funding in their standard offer and that's not going away.

Good luck to everyone else! If anyone has squeezed any more information from people after they got in, you should post it too! Anyone who has a phone call with the department could maybe try to figure out how many people they're admitting, how it compares to last year, what they expect for yield, if they'll let in people off the wait list to get the cohort up to a particular size, etc. for the other people on the boards. I didn't feel weird asking those questions, because asking about cohort size/funding should be pretty standard questions for admitted students. I felt a little weirder asking, "So did you already tell everyone? Are any of my internet friends going to get a call tomorrow or the next day?" so I didn't. But I got the impression that they'd gotten in touch with all, or almost all, of the people they're admitting.

[hip2btriangle]

I do think it's very important to consider fit with department's decisions, but now that you have been admitted...you need to be a little more careful about your thoughts on the process and try to distinguish what faculty tell you from what their exact process may have been like for adcom decisions. Consider that the department has now made its decisions and notified the people they really want to attend their department -- if the student decides not to come they lose an opportunity from the university to fund a grad student. Most departments are given, say, 15 students to fund and those that don't decide to come they don't necessarily get to reapply that funding to someone else. They will now do everything they can to make you feel special, to make you feel like they know a lot about your application and your interests, and to make you feel welcome. I'm not saying this is necessarily bad at ALL, but that when people go to visit the schools they have to realize that they are now being recruited, they are now in demand. I've heard of experiences where the DGS will bend the truth a little about the department to get the students to commit. Go in to this next stage of the process excited as ever, but try to hold on to reason, ask your questions and make your decisions carefully!

Congrats, again!

[newday123]

Hi, congratulations and thank you so much for sharing! I have a 4.0 in sociology but an overall GPA very similar to yours so I've been very concerned about my chances.

Edited February 8, 2010 by newday123

[jacib]

I do think it's very important to consider fit with department's decisions, but now that you have been admitted...you need to be a little more careful about your thoughts on the process and try to distinguish what faculty tell you from what their exact process may have been like for adcom decisions. Consider that the department has now made its decisions and notified the people they really want to attend their department -- if the student decides not to come they lose an opportunity from the university to fund a grad student. Most departments are given, say, 15 students to fund and those that don't decide to come they don't necessarily get to reapply that funding to someone else. They will now do everything they can to make you feel special, to make you feel like they know a lot about your application and your interests, and to make you feel welcome. I'm not saying this is necessarily bad at ALL, but that when people go to visit the schools they have to realize that they are now being recruited, they are now in demand. I've heard of experiences where the DGS will bend the truth a little about the department to get the students to commit. Go in to this next stage of the process excited as ever, but try to hold on to reason, ask your questions and make your decisions carefully!

Congrats, again!

Yeah, you're absolutely right. I was more just waiting for a long time to shove something in the face of those NUMBERS, NUMBERS, NUMBERS people. Just so I could be a little more, "Yo, son, FIT". They are definitely in "sell the students" mode, and politely asked about other offers, and really tried to make it possible to visit. That said, I am fairly sure that fit played a big role in this particular acceptance. If I had the same numbers and were interested in different things, I am not sure I would have gotten in is all.

[herself the elf]

Jacib, I had a similar conversation with someone in the Columbia department. Though not quite as personalized as your call, he also stressed my particular "fit" within the department. I'm impressed by your composure! I was so surprised to get the call (Friday, 5:30, still at the office which doesn't know I'm leaving), all that I remember is stammering something about attending one of Saskia Sassen's classes and sneaking around Knox Hall, and at some point, during a brief silence, saying "I am speechless." I certainly did not have the wherewithal to ask about any details. Embarrassing. Ha! At least I saved the tears until I hung up.

You brought up your undergrad GPA. I had a good GPA but I went to a school where certainly not everyone there was an academic and many people were just there to party, and it kind of has that reputation; I thought it might prevent me from attending a top program. I also think I overcame that with "fit."

Nevertheless, reviewing old posts regarding stats, it seems like all of the Columbia admits that have outed themselves had relatively high GRE scores. But of course it is possible that those with high scores are simply the ones that feel comfortable saying their scores. Should be interesting when Gradcafe gets its act together with stats on the results board.

I think this whole process is insane, by the way. Do you know I am sitting here looking at boxes of approximately 3,000 vocabulary words on flashcards? I have no doubt in my mind that, for my application, the GRE kept it out of the trash and perhaps got it a second look. I think, if I am right about this, they are, in fact, specifically seeking out those of us that are borderline crazy.

Oh! Another interesting thing, I think. I got rejected from Columbia Law School (and many other schools) back in 2002, same person, same brain, same GPA, but LSATs "only" in the 85th percentile. I was absolutely crushed. Of course, totally different application procedure for law school, etc., but to me interesting nonetheless. Just made this PhD acceptance more shocking, I think.

[jacib]

Jacib, I had a similar conversation with someone in the Columbia department. Though not quite as personalized as your call, he also stressed my particular "fit" within the department. I'm impressed by your composure! I was so surprised to get the call (Friday, 5:30, still at the office which doesn't know I'm leaving), all that I remember is stammering something about attending one of Saskia Sassen's classes and sneaking around Knox Hall, and at some point, during a brief silence, saying "I am speechless." I certainly did not have the wherewithal to ask about any details. Embarrassing. Ha! At least I saved the tears until I hung up.

You brought up your undergrad GPA. I had a good GPA but I went to a school where certainly not everyone there was an academic and many people were just there to party, and it kind of has that reputation; I thought it might prevent me from attending a top program. I also think I overcame that with "fit."

Nevertheless, reviewing old posts regarding stats, it seems like all of the Columbia admits that have outed themselves had relatively high GRE scores. But of course it is possible that those with high scores are simply the ones that feel comfortable saying their scores. Should be interesting when Gradcafe gets its act together with stats on the results board.

I think this whole process is insane, by the way. Do you know I am sitting here looking at boxes of approximately 3,000 vocabulary words on flashcards? I have no doubt in my mind that, for my application, the GRE kept it out of the trash and perhaps got it a second look. I think, if I am right about this, they are, in fact, specifically seeking out those of us that are borderline crazy.

Oh! Another interesting thing, I think. I got rejected from Columbia Law School (and many other schools) back in 2002, same person, same brain, same GPA, but LSATs "only" in the 85th percentile. I was absolutely crushed. Of course, totally different application procedure for law school, etc., but to me interesting nonetheless. Just made this PhD acceptance more shocking, I think.

Ha, the only way I was so composed was that they had been apparently trying to reach me for a day or two! I am in California visiting family but they were calling my Turkish cell phone. I hadn't expected anyone to call this early. My Turkish phone doesn't have voicemail even. They had emailed me and were like, "Uhh so we're recruiting you... got a number? Can we call you tomorrow?" So when I actually talked to them, I had had all night to prepare questions on little post-it notes, especially on rubrics that I would later use to compare it against other schools: number of students, teaching expectations, if students taught at other schools ever, how many students my POI has, where her graduates were placed, how interdisciplinary the department was, summer funding, language funding, etc. A lot of people on this board were wondering how the economy affects admissions so I wanted to put that to them, too. Plus, they said "recruiting" instead of "accepting" in the email and I wanted to sound pretty smart just in case it mattered. Regardless, I was still less than perfectly composed. At one point the adviser person was like, "I'm talking a lot, you know, you can ask questions too." I don't know, I talked with both of them for more than 20 minutes!

Yes, obviously GRE scores, etc. do play a role, but fit is really a thing that will make or break you, in my opinion. I really got the sense that my application was adopted by a faculty member. Perhaps it would be a little different at a bigger department, like Wisconsin or Berkeley or something, but I got the impression that one person in particular was very, very excited to work with me.

[deckard]

Did both of you get the call from the dept before you received an email confirmation of acceptance from Columbia GSAS? Or has the email acceptance not been sent out yet...

[maximus82]

Yes, obviously GRE scores, etc. do play a role, but fit is really a thing that will make or break you, in my opinion. I really got the sense that my application was adopted by a faculty member. Perhaps it would be a little different at a bigger department, like Wisconsin or Berkeley or something, but I got the impression that one person in particular was very, very excited to work with me.

I had a someone "adopt" my application last year at a very good program. I didn't have the best GRE scores and my GPA was good, but not from the best school ever. However, I did have a LOR from a guy who went to gradschool with one of the committee members.. and they happened to be very good friends (i didn't know this when i applied). So this guy in the committee was like "If my friend wrote such a good letter for X person, X person must be a really good student and deserves to get into school". And so I made it all the way to the top of the waitlist.

I am not the biggest fan of numbers and stats, but I know that they matter (especially the quantitative scores) in terms of funding. Some schools don't like to fund people with bad or mediocre quantitative scores. It isn't that the department doesn't like your application or anything, but that the University isn't willing to invest all that money on someone who didn't do so well in the only standardized part of the application.

It sucks, but the social scientist in me understands that if you have 200 files and only one thing is standard in all of them, you're going to pay a little bit of attention to it.

btw: congratulation on the Columbia admission.

[herself the elf]

Did both of you get the call from the dept before you received an email confirmation of acceptance from Columbia GSAS? Or has the email acceptance not been sent out yet...

I received a phone call on my cellphone from the Chair of the department on Friday 2/5, followed by an email from the chair of the adcom Sunday 2/7 with the same info. Today, Tuesday 2/9, I got an email from another professor about the recruitment days 3/1 and 3/2.

(Also, btw, my "application status form" under "downloadable forms" page has not changed, so all of my obsessive checking was a waste of time.)

[bb385]

I had a someone "adopt" my application last year at a very good program. I didn't have the best GRE scores and my GPA was good, but not from the best school ever. However, I did have a LOR from a guy who went to gradschool with one of the committee members.. and they happened to be very good friends (i didn't know this when i applied). So this guy in the committee was like "If my friend wrote such a good letter for X person, X person must be a really good student and deserves to get into school". And so I made it all the way to the top of the waitlist.

I am not the biggest fan of numbers and stats, but I know that they matter (especially the quantitative scores) in terms of funding. Some schools don't like to fund people with bad or mediocre quantitative scores. It isn't that the department doesn't like your application or anything, but that the University isn't willing to invest all that money on someone who didn't do so well in the only standardized part of the application.

It sucks, but the social scientist in me understands that if you have 200 files and only one thing is standard in all of them, you're going to pay a little bit of attention to it.

btw: congratulation on the Columbia admission.

This is true only to a limited extent. I've published two quantitative articles (one in econ and one in soc) and had extensive training in math as an undergrad, but scored a whopping 650 on the quant portion of the GRE. If you have solid quantitative publications or even a strong quantitative writing sample, I would think a low quant score on the GRE might mean diddly. I think a substantial math background kept my application out of the trash. I can imagine this would also apply for funding, given that a proven ability to do research is far and away more important than how well you remember high school geometry.

Of course you want to do as well as you can on the GRE, but don't despair if you didn't hit the mark you were looking for... all is not lost!

[coffeeandtoast]

This is true only to a limited extent. I've published two quantitative articles (one in econ and one in soc) and had extensive training in math as an undergrad, but scored a whopping 650 on the quant portion of the GRE. If you have solid quantitative publications or even a strong quantitative writing sample, I would think a low quant score on the GRE might mean diddly. I think a substantial math background kept my application out of the trash. I can imagine this would also apply for funding, given that a proven ability to do research is far and away more important than how well you remember high school geometry.

Of course you want to do as well as you can on the GRE, but don't despair if you didn't hit the mark you were looking for... all is not lost!

Same here. I scored a 670 in quantitative, but I sure as hell can do advanced thermodynamics and differential equations.

[peppermint.beatnik]

Congrats on your acceptance!! You must be SO happy

Are you going back to Turkey? I visited there last April when I was living in Hungary. I couldn't get enough of these pastries called "borek" (I think)

Edited February 9, 2010 by peppermint.beatnik

[jacib]

Congrats on your acceptance!! You must be SO happy

Are you going back to Turkey? I visited there last April when I was living in Hungary. I couldn't get enough of these pastries called "borek" (I think)

Oh man, how nice you noticed! Thank you. Yeah I am really really happy. I also like how people I respect on this board seem to respect me back, and then we all get really excited about each others success and blah blah blah. Good luck! Religion departments are getting back to people so much later than all the other fields, it seems!

And yeah, I just got back to Turkey last night. I haven't eaten borek yet, though I did have a really nice Turkish breakfast with eggs and sweet pastries and honey and kaymak (do they have kaymak in Hungary? I know they have it in Serbia and Bulgaria, and that they don't have it in Austria). I normally grab a borek or a simit on my way to work. So grood.

[bb385]

Being in Turkey right now sounds amazing... especially compared to dull, grey England

I just want to echo what everyone else said about fit. I got a call last night from a professor at UCLA. He emphasized that what made my application stand out was my interest in Latin America. He said my interests also made it a bit easier to potentially find funding for me, since UCLA has a strong Latin American Institute that could foot part of the bill.

I think this explains a trend I've noticed on here. It seems some people who are getting accepted with full funding to some top 10 departments are getting flat out rejected from others. The only possibly explanation for this is fit, and not individual credentials. I hope this dispels the neurotic obsession with numbers that is so easy to fall into.

[jacib]

Being in Turkey right now sounds amazing... especially compared to dull, grey England

I just want to echo what everyone else said about fit. I got a call last night from a professor at UCLA. He emphasized that what made my application stand out was my interest in Latin America. He said my interests also made it a bit easier to potentially find funding for me, since UCLA has a strong Latin American Institute that could foot part of the bill.

I think this explains a trend I've noticed on here. It seems some people who are getting accepted with full funding to some top 10 departments are getting flat out rejected from others. The only possibly explanation for this is fit, and not individual credentials. I hope this dispels the neurotic obsession with numbers that is so easy to fall into.

Oh yeah, this makes sense even more now, because at Columbia there is also this new "Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life" which I was assured would be able to help me fund things I wanted to do. I think fit matters especially strongly if you have a regional interest.