2017-2018 Application Cycle

[Clytemnahstra]

53 minutes ago, buckinghamubadger said:

I have just been admitted to the University of Colorado- Boulder

3a/0r (though Princeton looks like a reject)/ 0w, 7 pending (6 without Princeton)

Congrats!

[Midwest_PoliNERD]

15 hours ago, jnewcomb08 said:

i'll be going!

Great! I look forward to meeting you. I am chatting with some other people who will be there just to get to know them beforehand. Feel free to PM me if you want to talk. Best!

[toad1]

2 hours ago, komina12345 said:

My friend in South Korea has told me she just got into UChicago's PhD program so take that for what it's worth

 

2 hours ago, cpmethods said:

Are there any other applicants in this from waiting for Chicago that did not hear anything, or should I also cross off chicago from my list?

 

2 hours ago, not@prof_yet said:

I haven't heard anything yet either.

 

2 hours ago, Qw23 said:

I haven’t received anything from Chicago neither. I don’t know what to expect now. It’s the fourth schools that I haven’t heard anything from but others have been receiving acceptances. 

If Chicago had sent out acceptances, wouldn't we have seen more action on here than hearsay from @komina12345's friend in South Korea?

[csantamir]

1 hour ago, buckinghamubadger said:

I have just been admitted to the University of Colorado- Boulder

3a/0r (though Princeton looks like a reject)/ 0w, 7 pending (6 without Princeton)

Congrats!

[Albert01]

It seems that WashU do not announce today... UCSD maybe? and did anyone get an official rejection letter from Northwestern, Duke, and Princeton?

Edited February 1, 2018 by Albert01

[buckinghamubadger]

There is a lot of stress and everything going around right now, so to make you guys feel a little better I want to tell you my story. 

I was an AP scholar with distinction in high school and entered to one of the best public universities in the country with sophomore standing, but couldn't even get into my state's flagship (Cal is tough to get into). Once I got to college I struggled academically and put more focus on extra curriculars. At one point I had a 2.6 GPA. But I began to turn it around about the time I started interning in the state legislature. I thought my academic career would end with undergrad until I wanted to write a senior thesis and the Political Science department convinced me to take a grad seminar instead. I loved it, but I didn't do particularly well. I got an AB, which is like the B+/A- range at my undergrad institution. I realized that I wanted to go back to grad school, but thought that this was another 5 to 10 years or so away.

Then I graduated. My first job out of college was working on my last political campaign, and I hate campaign work, so I was miserable. I decided to move back home. I was unemployed for six months until I got a job in a law firm that I also hated. I decided to go back to grad school a lot sooner than I expected, but I knew what I wanted to do- teach undergrads.

So I enrolled in the closest MA program to my house. When I got there, I put in the work and I excelled. I earned a 3.9 GPA, presented work at seven different conferences and became the first student in the program's history to get an article under peer review (though I have yet to publish anything). 

Now, I'm 24. I'm have a master's. I have been admitted to three PhD programs already and I am starting a semester long job as an adjunct professor at a local Community College. If you had told me at basically any point in my undergrad career that I could achieve these things so quickly, I would not have believed you. Is my first job out of grad school going to be at NYU? Probably not. But I'm still proud of how far I have come and I know I have it in me to go farther.

So I know rejection stings. I hope no one strikes out on the cycle, but some of us may. But above all else, pick yourself up, lick your wounds and keep going! Maybe some of us will decide that we don't want to be academics after all. That's okay as long as you do what you love and go as far as you can with it. Your life isn't over because you didn't get into Princeton or even if you don't get in anywhere. If the latter is the case, work hard and either try again next cycle or go do something else you like. This is a particularly tough profession, but it's tough to do anything well. We have to be resilient. I want to remind people who are being rejected from top schools that there are plenty of good programs and those who see the rejections piling up without an acceptance that all it takes is one! So please, please, please, don't lose hope.

[izmir]

Kudos to @buckinghamubadger??? Thanks for that. Very much needed

Edited February 2, 2018 by izmir

[JMCrawfordNJ]

So I'm hoping to hear something by the end of next week from UCLA and Pittsburgh. Cornell week after that. I still have hope for UCLA because the odd 4 postings from earlier in the week didn't have any more to follow and nobody claimed, so maybe there's hope there. Northwestern though, I've chalked that up to rejection. Who knows, maybe something will come tomorrow though from one of the others!

[Cdevine9]

6 hours ago, sbs2018 said:

Are any of you Duke admits theory people? I suppose it's possible they aren't talking *any* theory folks this year, but I haven't given up yet.

I was admitted to Duke, and I'm in theory.  Good luck to you.  

 

 

[sbs2018]

22 minutes ago, Cdevine9 said:

I was admitted to Duke, and I'm in theory.  Good luck to you.  

 

 

Congrats to you--great program! Thanks for letting me know. I assume that means you'll be accepting their offer? Perhaps you're waiting for a more preferred program? 

Edited February 2, 2018 by sbs2018

[Cdevine9]

15 minutes ago, sbs2018 said:

Congrats to you--great program! Thanks for letting me know. I assume that means you'll be accepting their offer? Perhaps you're waiting for a more preferred program? 

Yes, I'm waiting to hear from some other programs before making my decision, but Duke is certainly a strong option.  I hope you're admitted to a program that you're excited about.  

[sbs2018]

3 minutes ago, Cdevine9 said:

Yes, I'm waiting to hear from some other programs before making my decision, but Duke is certainly a strong option.  I hope you're admitted to a program that you're excited about.  

Thanks! I was admitted at UNC-Chapel Hill late last week. So, I am in a good spot--they're an excellent department. Still have 11 schools to hear from as well. Glad you were accepted. Thanks for letting me know your plan, that's very helpful. Perhaps we'll be at neighboring departments! In any case, you can rest easy, Duke is a great option. 

[spcgsw96]

UCLA/Chicago may be hearsay but should I prepare myself for rejections if I haven't heard from Duke or Berkeley yet? Judging from the survey it looks like (especially with Berkeley) no news on the 1st seems to mean 99% chance of rejection...

[cpmethods]

6 minutes ago, BobBobBob said:

Mere speculation: I heard a while ago that a South Korean prof and a uchicago prof are friends. So the acceptance from our South Korean friend could be from internal sources.

I wish that internal resource could have told us when they are going to release the decision.. And out of curiosity, what do you guys think about UChicago's program? I heard that they were losing some blood but would you guys still consider it a solid one, like top10?

[cpmethods]

3 minutes ago, BobBobBob said:

Assuming you're interested in cpmethods, there are a lot of uncertainties now as to who's coming and who's leaving (as far as my knowledge goes) in those fields. But overall it's a little unimaginable to count UChicago out of the top10, especially when prestige is so important in ranking schools.

Thank you so much for sharing your opinion! Yes, my friend who did his MA there told me that its a bit uncertain but people also say well "its uchicago no matter what". How would you compare it with UCSD and Duke? 

[Chuck Mangione]

Tfw you expect to get rejected everywhere so you're beginning to apply to Japanese PhD programs.

[skhann]

2 hours ago, komina12345 said:

Tfw you expect to get rejected everywhere so you're beginning to apply to Japanese PhD programs.

Japan offers English language IR programs?

[guest56436]

9 hours ago, cpmethods said:

I wish that internal resource could have told us when they are going to release the decision.. And out of curiosity, what do you guys think about UChicago's program? I heard that they were losing some blood but would you guys still consider it a solid one, like top10?

I'd say it's dropped out of the top 10. Comparative is weak there. They aren't losing some blood, they already have lost blood. Chicago used to have one of the best comparative facilities in the country. Now it's a shadow of its former self.

That being said, it's still an excellent program. They have a great mix between qualitative, quantitative, and formal. I'd say their funding and placement are better than places like UCLA, UNC, and UCSD. Their placement is better than Duke. So yeah, it gets fuzzy in that 7-12 range, it doesn't really matter if it's 'top 10' or not.

[chi12345]

New to this forum. Does anyone know when approximately the decisions for Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, and Yale come out? (based off of either historical trends or information from this year)

[Salve]

11 minutes ago, chi12345 said:

New to this forum. Does anyone know when approximately the decisions for Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, and Yale come out? (based off of either historical trends or information from this year)

You can check it on the results page. Just type in the search box the name of the university and "political science" or "government":

http://www.thegradcafe.com/survey/

[ArcierePrudente]

11 hours ago, BobBobBob said:

Mere speculation: I heard a while ago that a South Korean prof and a uchicago prof are friends. So the acceptance from our South Korean friend could be from internal sources.

Yeah, based on the results forum, either UoC's poli-sci PhD only decided to admit the South Korean student this year, or it's a somehow erroneous report, or this ^ 

 

February 2 looks like it's been a hot day for them in years past, though, and doing a final conference/admit email blast on a Friday makes sense. So I'd say they're getting ready to release. 

[skhann]

The proverbial calm before the storm. Next week is gonna make or break the PhD dreams of many people.

[boomah]

2 hours ago, Comparativist said:

I'd say it's dropped out of the top 10. Comparative is weak there. They aren't losing some blood, they already have lost blood. Chicago used to have one of the best comparative facilities in the country. Now it's a shadow of its former self.

That being said, it's still an excellent program. They have a great mix between qualitative, quantitative, and formal. I'd say their funding and placement are better than places like UCLA, UNC, and UCSD. Their placement is better than Duke. So yeah, it gets fuzzy in that 7-12 range, it doesn't really matter if it's 'top 10' or not.

What's the current view on Berkeley? How is it doing in its various subfields?

[buckinghamubadger]

I expect WashU and Univ. of Washington any day now, perhaps even today. USC next week, Notre Dame and Michigan the following and Brandeis in the last week of Feb/first week of March

[Clytemnahstra]

1 hour ago, chi12345 said:

New to this forum. Does anyone know when approximately the decisions for Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, and Yale come out? (based off of either historical trends or information from this year)

I would expect Columbia and Yale between Feb. 16th and Feb. 25th