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yaddayadda

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  • Gender
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  • Location
    Canada
  • Application Season
    2016 Fall
  • Program
    Political Science

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  1. Hi BFB, thanks for all your responses here - it's been very useful for me throughout this process. I have a question about the SOP. In brief - how narrow/detailed should my interests be presented? I'm broadly interested in the relationship between cognitive biases, political communication, and the structure/durability of policy attitudes. There are many applications of this topic and many people I could work with, and there are lots of different sub-questions I am interested in. Would it be okay to list a few questions that I might be interested in (basically in the form: How does x heuristic effect opinions on y? repeat) and then list the methods I would generally use, or would ad comms be looking for me to pick one question and outline it in depth including a nod to previous scholars of the topic? I don't want to seem unfocused, but I also don't want to come across as narrowly interested in one specific type of effect (e.g. the negativity bias), and then be shut out on the basis of fit (even if I scour webpages, there could be things I don't know like faculty moving away from the school or topic or being overloaded with students, etc.). I've been scouring previous SOPs in this forum, but there seems to be a lot of variance. Also - what's your take on the whole "this is an event from my childhood that inspired my interest in political science" approach? If opposed, how do the best SOPs usually begin? Apologies if you've answered this question before -- grad cafe changed their forum interface or something so all the links on the earlier pages are now broken. Any advice you can give me would be much appreciated! Thanks
  2. If I were you I would try to get research experience
  3. might be able to get into a lower-tier funded Canadian MA program but you'd probably need to have other things going for you. Entrance into the top programs (U of T, McGill, UBC) is unlikely
  4. Hi folks, I'm finalizing my list of PhD programs to apply to and I was curious if anyone has information re: UC schools and whether they should be on my list. Some of the grad students I spoke to advised against applying to the UC schools, because apparently they are undergoing massive funding cuts (aren't all schools?). The students I spoke to seemed to think funding would be especially unlikely and/or volatile. There are a few UC schools for which I have pretty good fit, though, so I'm curious whether this checks out. I feel like I might have read something to this effect a long time ago, but it might have been for something else. If relevant, i'd count as an international student. Also, outside of UC but in the same area: any thoughts on Cal Tech? There seems to be some interesting work coming out of there, but I haven't heard much about it on here (which I guess is a bad sign). Thanks in advance!
  5. that SSHRC e-mail is tearing me apart basically 'hello, just so you know we've made a decision and have changed everything in the system and everything but you don't get to know 'til tomorrow, see ya!'
  6. Hi folks, I was hoping someone could give a bit of clarification on something. I've seen here and also heard externally that its good to be strategic about your LORs - not just choosing top scholars in your subfield, but also thinking about who has worked with who. So, in my case, one of my letter writers for next year had my #1 Princeton POI on their PhD committee and knows that person well, which works well for me. It all sounds logical, but I guess I'm a bit confused at how it works? From what I can tell, the ad comms are fairly insular at a lot of schools. Do all incoming students have to be "approved" by their potential POI, who sees their application (I would guess not, if people's interests often change)? Is this strategy just suggested in the hopes that your POI will be on the ad comm? How does it work? Thank you!
  7. Not sure if anyone else applied to Memorial but they just sent out their offers!
  8. this website had me convinced I didn't get in (since acceptances seemingly went out last week) but just got my acceptance to the U of T, ranked highly for SSHRC funding
  9. UBC won't be making MA decisions for at least another week and a half, decisions probably not out for another two weeks
  10. Hi, perpetual lurker here. Applied to the Political Science MA programs at UBC, McGill, U of T, and Memorial + SHHRC funding for all. My research interests are political psychology and political communication. Stats: cgpa is 3.9 or 4.0 depending on whether or not they include my first two years, experience as a research assistant for two profs and a PhD student, lots of extracurriculars (writing, electoral politics, activism, undergraduate academic journal), honours thesis, good references (though from faculty not in my subfield). I can only attend any program if its funded. As far as I can tell none of these programs have sent out any MA decisions yet (and from results search seems like it still might be a while) and the wait is killing me. Second-guessing myself like crazy - wish I'd spent more time revising my SOP.
  11. Thank you for the advice. I was hoping that I could work under a professor so that I'd learn techniques for collecting my own data as at this point all I've done is term papers (aka reading academic journals and going through statistical databases). I guess I'd better just take a swing at this on my own and figure out what to do.
  12. Hi there, I am a 2nd year political science student from Canada. I took a gap year and have done a lot of travelling and soul searching, so at this point I'd say I'm fairly sure that I want to go into academia. I am specifically interested in political theory, as well as the interplay between politics and culture. My question is this: Do you have any advice for an undergrad student? My GPA from my first year is 3.71 but I'm hoping to improve that. I've been finding it hard to get involved with research at my university because I'm not a graduate student and they don't accept volunteers. What can I do to make myself a competitive candidate for grad school when the time comes in 2 years? I am really hoping to get some funding so that I don't drown myself in student loans. If you were to redo your undergrad, what would you change? Thanks
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