2017-2018 Application Cycle

[DreamersDay]

Preemptively encouraging people to disregard the obviously fake Harvard polisci acceptance which was posted a month early, on a day the university is closed.  Yeah. Right.  

Try harder Polisci Rumors troll - or get a life!

[SerenityNow!]

@Cutaway congratulations! Hopefully you get an answer soon!

thank you, @DreamersDay! Already a pretty gullible person so I have been falling for these trolls since the Princeton admit.

Edited January 15, 2018 by SerenityNow!

[swampyankee]

I'm settling in for another few weeks of waiting. It's nerve-wracking, though, since so much pivots on what I hear back.

I'm getting married in August, so I limited my apps to schools within a couple hours of home. Emotionally speaking, we only have one cross-country move in us, and decided it was best saved for an asst prof offer someday (fingers crossed). 

There are a couple Ivies nearby, and a few reasonably competitive state schools. My numbers are great, but there's a small but real chance that I could slip through the cracks everywhere. And what then? I'm lucky enough to have a tuition waiver to enroll at a mid-ranked MBA program, but it would be unpleasant shifting to business when I really want to enter the professoriate.

[ComparativeStreak]

Hi all! Lurker here. Does anyone else have a feeling that GWU is coming out either today or tomorrow? They seem to come out pretty consistently the Tuesday or Wednesday after MLK weekend.I have been nervously checking the portal all day. 

[Hamb]

50 minutes ago, ComparativeStreak said:

Hi all! Lurker here. Does anyone else have a feeling that GWU is coming out either today or tomorrow? They seem to come out pretty consistently the Tuesday or Wednesday after MLK weekend.I have been nervously checking the portal all day. 

Yep, I'm on the lookout as well. Not feeling great about my chance but would be pretty exciting!

[huso]

On 13.01.2018 at 6:59 AM, buckinghamubadger said:

I can't claim the OSU admit, but I can claim the Mizzou admit.

 

I claim a Mizzou admit too, but waitlisted for funding.

[Cutaway]

On 1/15/2018 at 2:27 PM, deutsch1997bw said:

How did the interview go? Did you get the impression that you're likely to get accepted, or are you still in limbo?

It went pretty well. To be honest, it sounded like I was already selected and they just wanted to get to know me a little more.  That could be totally wrong =)

[styliane]

FWIW, as of last week, faculty were definitely still evaluating UCSD applications.

(I don’t know why there’s not more love for UCSD in these threads; we’re a perfectly respectable school with not-awful placement.)

Edited January 17, 2018 by styliane

[styliane]

also I feel like I’m losing my mind waiting tbh 

[CandyCanes]

11 hours ago, styliane said:

FWIW, as of last week, faculty were definitely still evaluating UCSD applications.

(I don’t know why there’s not more love for UCSD in these threads; we’re a perfectly respectable school with not-awful placement.)

How do you know?

 

Also, people are now claiming Harvard and Yale acceptances on this site... One was claimed today, the other two days ago. Are these trolls or are they actually legit?

https://thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php?q=(yale|ucsd|UCLA|berkeley|davis|harvard|stanford)+"political+science"&t=a

[megabee]

15 minutes ago, CandyCanes said:

Also, people are now claiming Harvard and Yale acceptances on this site... One was claimed today, the other two days ago. Are these trolls or are they actually legit?

Trolls. Historically, those schools seem to be mid-late February decisions. @DreamersDay pointed out that the Harvard "admit" came on MLK day. I have no personal investment in either school, though, so I've no specifics. 

Wondering how bored one has to be to troll a bunch of prospective students.

[boomah]

Would anyone like to claim the Yale acceptance?  

The Harvard one seems off (MLK day); but I think the Yale one could be legit. Yale does have a new DGS this year, so it's not unreasonable that he's doing things different by notifying outstanding applicants early, as the poster said.

Edited January 17, 2018 by boomah

[boomah]

1 hour ago, boomah said:

Would anyone like to claim the Yale acceptance?  

The Harvard one seems off (MLK day); but I think the Yale one could be legit. Yale does have a new DGS this year, so it's not unreasonable that he's doing things different by notifying outstanding applicants early, as the poster said.

There's another Yale acceptance out, with a similar story. Good luck to all the Yale applicants!

[Hamb]

17 minutes ago, boomah said:

There's another Yale acceptance out, with a similar story. Good luck to all the Yale applicants!

There's also 3 Columbia acceptances on the results page, but nobody claiming them either. More than likely still just a troll. The poor grammar in both of the Yale descriptions is eyebrow raising.

Personally I think for top 10 schools until someone comes in to claim their result in the thread the standard operating procedure until mid-February should be to ignore them and not even ask for anyone to claim it in these threads. While there is a small chance Yale decided to break the norm for every top 10 program and go a month earlier than previous years somehow, I think it's fairly unlikely.

Every time we talk about these more outlandish results on the board we're just feeding the troll more.

Edited January 18, 2018 by Hamb

[boomah]

18 minutes ago, Hamb said:

There's also 3 Columbia acceptances on the results page, but nobody claiming them either. More than likely still just a troll. The poor grammar in both of the Yale descriptions is eyebrow raising.

Personally I think for top 10 schools until someone comes in to claim their result in the thread the standard operating procedure until mid-February should be to ignore them and not even ask for anyone to claim it in these threads. While there is a small chance Yale decided to break the norm for every top 10 program and go a month earlier than previous years somehow, I think it's fairly unlikely.

Every time we talk about these more outlandish results on the board we're just feeding the troll more.

In hindsight, you're probably right--it does seem to be a troll based on the style of the two acceptances. (One further indication: "Deparment Of Political Science").

Ahh all this waiting is making me jittery and overly gullible   I think it's probably best practice that we don't check the results board until February, when the normal acceptances are out. No need feeding the trolls. Good luck everyone!

[Hamb]

22 minutes ago, boomah said:

In hindsight, you're probably right--it does seem to be a troll based on the style of the two acceptances. (One further indication: "Deparment Of Political Science").

Ahh all this waiting is making me jittery and overly gullible   I think it's probably best practice that we don't check the results board until February, when the normal acceptances are out. No need feeding the trolls. Good luck everyone!

Nice catch on "Deparment", both posts used it so that's a confirmed troll. edit - Princeton result, UGA result, and one of the two OSU results also misspelled "department" (though UGA/OSU this time of year isn't surprising, and cutaway has posted about their interview with OSU).

I definitely wouldn't want to discourage everyone from asking about other programs though! In that case, the results board is very useful in indicating that decisions are rolling out, but for the very top schools it's safe to say we have a couple of weeks to go.

Edited January 18, 2018 by Hamb

[swampyankee]

98% chance the CHYMPS posts are trolls. Those schools could make offers to several separate sets of students, with no discernible difference in quality. It's unlikely that anyone is a "superstar" among their eventual admits, and unlikelier still that adcomms 1) would have identified them as uniquely a superstar in mid-January, and that 2) would break from practice/decorum to extend an early offer.

Positive news on my end: I can claim the Stony Brook interview. Really looking forward to it. I'm not sure if anyone else is applying there, given how "nichey" it is to political behavior, but I love the faculty's work and my impression is they treat students well.

[Hamb]

6 minutes ago, swampyankee said:

Positive news on my end: I can claim the Stony Brook interview. Really looking forward to it. I'm not sure if anyone else is applying there, given how "nichey" it is to political behavior, but I love the faculty's work and my impression is they treat students well.

Congrats on the interview and good luck!

[Midwest_PoliNERD]

43 minutes ago, swampyankee said:

98% chance the CHYMPS posts are trolls. Those schools could make offers to several separate sets of students, with no discernible difference in quality. It's unlikely that anyone is a "superstar" among their eventual admits, and unlikelier still that adcomms 1) would have identified them as uniquely a superstar in mid-January, and that 2) would break from practice/decorum to extend an early offer.

Positive news on my end: I can claim the Stony Brook interview. Really looking forward to it. I'm not sure if anyone else is applying there, given how "nichey" it is to political behavior, but I love the faculty's work and my impression is they treat students well.

@swampyankee Hi there! I am also applying there and I have an interview tomorrow. I have been to Stony Brook and met and know the faculty pretty well. If you have any questions you can message me. If you want to chat about Stony Brook or anything, feel free to message me. Best to everybody!!!

[jnewcomb08]

5 hours ago, styliane said:

I go to UCSD; I was chatting with a professor and mentioned that I applied.  He said that because I applied IR, he likely wouldn’t see my file but thought it would be interesting.  There was a distinct implication that he was still reading files.

UCSD is my number one hope!    American Politics here.

[luminalcoin8]

There are already three Columbia "acceptances" as well...why would anyone waste their time writing these??

[megabee]

Claiming the Michigan State admit! I'm very excited about it. So much relief to hear from a school - particularly one with some great prospective advisors - and to be given at least one stick to beat back that impostor syndrome. 

If anyone else has a stake in this, it was an email telling me to check the grad portal, sent around 5 AM US Central. No info on funding or visits yet. 

Super hyped to know that I can throw out my backup plans, and ready to take on the rest of this application season.

[Gik]

Hey everyone! This is my second cycle, and I am hoping against hope that I get into one of the programs I've applied to (Though I did set myself to try one more time if all goes badly). 

The only thing that has helped with the waiting is now I am writing my Master's thesis and this is keeping me busy.  Lurking the forum sometimes also helps, and last cycle I met  amazing people who were very helpful and supportive. But I also learned last cycle that coming here too often just peaked my anxiety levels, so I've been more controled this year (or have tried to be, anyway haha). 

And congrats to everyone who already got an acceptance! 

 

[Sheldon2017]

Hello folks. What does it mean if you get an email from a department you have applied to, saying that the faculty admissions committee may request a Skype interview next week? Is it a kind of email that is automatically sent to every applicant??

Edited January 18, 2018 by Sheldon2017

[skhann]

@Sheldon2017 That you are going to strike admission gold. I don't think that kind of email is sent to every applicant. Many don't even receive one in the first place, only get their results on the application page.