polisciphd

Not to be biased, but if you are interested in marrying quant with security studies, then you should look at UIUC. We have Vazquez, Diehl, Frazier, and Dai, all of whom do work in those areas. Frazier has done some formal theory, but there are formal theorists elsewhere in the department who can assist with integrating models into your research (and are usually more than willing to help).

Has anyone set the dates for their visit to UIUC yet?

You might want to think about continental Europe to do constructivism, although everyone has to read Wendt here in the states, not many people actually drink the cool aid.

Tuition remissions are absolutely taxable. You should receive a 1098 T form from your university, indicating how much your tuition waver was so that you can put it in your tax prep. This is a big motivation to establish in state residency as quickly as possible if you are an out of state student (which most grads are), which can make a substantial difference in how much your waiver is actually for (and therefore how much tax you will pay).

Have any of the admits set their visit dates yet?

15 of us in the 2008 cohort

Are there professors at any of those schools whose interests match those that you identified? This plays a big role in the admissions process.

Congratulations! Let me know if you have any questions about the program or about the CU area.

I was notified by email on Jan. 31st of last year. I know the adcom has met and several profs that came in for the process have now left (on sabbatical or to conferences, etc.) so I imagine it would be sooner than later

If anyone gets admitted to the U of I and is planning a visit, please let me know and I would be happy to meet with them, or answer any preliminary questions they may have.

Departments typically admit twice or three times as many students as they expect to actually attend with the expectation of a large portion will decided to go elsewhere. This is done at even some of the most competitive programs (lots of yale and princeton admits decide to go to harvard or stanford, and vice versa). Some schools do use a waitlist, so they will indeed have some late offers of admission, but this is usually done only after they perceive that the target class size for a given year might not be met with their remaining pending offers.

Svolik, fall 07, but it was taught through ITV last year.

Ethnography is like calculus 6 right?

You could get an african studies masters in addition to your phd, and count those classes as your electives, but the two departments have little to do with each other directly.

One of the things that I wish was made more apparent in the whole application process was an understanding of what different departments actually specialize in. You might think that this is easy info to come by, but it is surprisingly hard to find in some instances. So I thought I might start a thread for people to add to so that future applicants can be better informed as to what they are getting themselves into. University of Illinois - like all big ten schools, we are incredibly quantitatively oriented. The American folks specialize in behavior here, not many people working on institutions. The comparative guys are moving away completely from any form of area studies (so if you want to do africa studies, for example, don't come here), instead they are looking at common phenomena that exist across the int. system, more topically focused than anything else. The IR people are divided pretty evenly between conflict folks and IPE. The IPE people do lots of stuff, pretty wide ranging interests, but the conflict faculty, esp. Vasquez and Diehl, focus on territory and rivalry, respectively. Hope this helps

I can add to this discussion, my university, and most of those in the big ten, esp. those in wisconsin, illinois, and michigan, are facing serious budget shortfalls. My Dept. is not admitting as many applicants next year, and those that are admitted will not receive any funding in the form of fellowships. Instead, admitted students will have to pick up an additional TA section their first year to make up the difference in what they would have received in the form of fellowship money. Also, my dept. does not admit anyone without some sort of funding package, which in the past has been a combination of RA/TA positions and fellowship money. I have been told that this is the same at all of the big ten schools.

The way it works is that everyone is required to take "at least" five methods courses. If you already know stats at the level of an advanced graduate student, then there are more specialized classes you can take, such as hierarchical linear model, advanced bayesian stats, game theory, etc. so that you aren't wasting time taking classes you already know. on the other hand, you might just want to take the methods sequence and enjoy a class where you don't have to kill yourself trying to keep up.

Sorry I didn't respond sooner, have been crazy busy. Illinois does not, at this point, offer methods as a subfield. This may change in the not too distant future however. That being said, we are very methods heavy, as are most of the big ten schools. The IR program, for instance, requires 5 graduate classes in methods. This means you will take a methods class almost every semester until you start your dissertation. We are also members of the Committee on Insitutional Cooperation, a consortium of schools that among other things offers advanced methods classes via the web that poli sci students at any of the member institutions can take. So if U Michigan is offering a class in HLM or Advanced Bayesian, you can take it via the web. While comparative does not do as much methods training as we do, American certainly does. So either IR or American and you will get plenty of methods, I assure you. Please write me if you have any other questions about the school.

After visiting the schools, talking to the faculty, listening to what other grad students say the program is REALLY like, yes if Ohio State was a better fit than Harvard, I would not think twice before heading to Columbus. People on these boards make such a big deal of the name of their school, which i have found to be a load of crap. It is all about you and how you apply yourself and the kind of fit you have with your professors. If you come up with a dissertation that significantly adds to the way that we study Poli Sci (IR in my case), it is not going to matter where you go, I guarantee you are still going to get a job.

Wow, you are taking what I said way too literally. Yes you will get very good quant training at the iveys, but if ALL you want to do is quant stuff, then a big 10 school is the way to go, or Rochester maybe. If you want to do theory and methods, then by all means go to Princeton or Yale.

As someone who was in the exact same position as you are last cycle, I can say that if there is a valid reason that you have a low ugpa, I would WITHOUT A DOUBT mention it in your SOP. The adcoms are looking for markers to indicate that you are both a good fit with their program and that you can SUCCEED in their program. I would not spend alot of time on this, but a sentence saying that it doesn't reflect your potential cannot hurt. That being said, you should spend the majority of your time explaining to them your research interests and how, in particular, your current skill set and what you expect to learn in the particular program you are writing about will help you achieve your long-term goals. I spoke to the members of my adcom about this and they said, to a one, that they can tell if you just recycled the same SOP for twenty different schools. They want to see that you are applying to that particular school for a reason (and not that they are ranked 5th, or 12th, or 22nd in some ranking that doesn't mean a whole lot in the long run). Oh, and research programs as much as you can. You don't want to end up at a BIG 10 school if you don't want to do heavy quant stuff, or you don't want to end up at one of the iveys if you aren't keen on sitting around ruminating about theory for days and years on end.

If you want to do quant work, then Rochester is the place to be. However, I can vouch for Illinois, we have to take a ton of research methods courses, both quant and qual, and many students do even beyond what is required, including taking classes from the other CIC schools http://www.cic.uiuc.edu/ Comparative is also very strong, particularly if you are at all concerned with conflict issues.

If you have any specific questions about UIUC, which was on your list, feel free to ask. I am heading there in the fall. I am doing going to be doing ethnic conflict at Illinois, among other things, so I should be able to help. I can say that I am really excited to be going there.

September supposedly.

Publishing on your own in a known journal as a masters student will be hard. I would try for your school's journal. I did the same while at the Elliott School for my masters. If you can get on as an RA with a prof that likes you, mention to them that you are a big fan of their work and would be very interested in publishing with them in any capacity, this will demonstrate to them how much you like their work and how dedicated you are to the field, which will help come Rec letter time.