polisciphd

1. Take as many research opportunities as you can get, one of the main things adcoms want to see is research experience and potential. 2. Work with three professors if you can, so that they can all write detail rec letters for you, saying how that you are in the top five students they have ever had, and that any school would be lucky to have you. 3. Funding for a self-designed project is fine, but the more important thing is coming out with something that you can possibly publish, either by yourself or with a prof 4. TA'ing is not so much of a big thing to adcoms in my experience, concentrate more on research and perfecting your writing 5. If you can publish 1 quality paper while in grad school, then you are ahead of the game. Any more than that is bonus in my opinion. As far as conferences go, if you are presenting at said conferences, then of course that is great. Just going to conferences won't get you any points. 6. Stats classes are important if that is what you are wanting to do in your ph.d. program. However, you can get into stats heavy programs with hardly any experience. 7. Have fun, figure out EXACTLY what it is that drove you to this field, and EXACTLY what it is that you want to spend the next 60 years studying, put this all in a kick butt personal statement, and you should be good to go.

By a smarttrip card, available to purchase at many of the metro stations or at metrocenter. you can use your debit/credit card to put money on the card in increments. if you put $100 on the card, you get extra money for free. Some employers also offer flex benefits, so that money for metro is taken out of your paycheck pre-tax. See if your school offers this.

I went to GW and loved it, go for it!

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for Political Science. Here's hoping this alabama boy doesn't stick out like a sore thumb in the great white north (anywhere above tennessee is the great white north where I'm from).

If you are not crazy about doing economics or monetary policy, then there is ABSOLUTELY no reason to go to SAIS. That is there biggest strength, by far. Go to KSG, once you get past the 40 or 50 k indebtedness mark, it doesn't really matter anyway. Just consolidate for 30 yrs and pay the 300 or so a month and be a Harvard graduate.

Thanks guys. I am discussing options with my wife right now. It may be that I have to go by myself for the first semester or two, which would SUCK, but it might be the only way to do it. I will let yall know what we decide.

So, my wife and I have just received some very bad family news, which may force us to have to stay where we are for the near future. The problem is that I just accepted an offer to the University of Illinois for the Fall semester. I very much want to go to the school, but I just don't think it will be possible now. Does anyone have any insight into the ramifications of withdrawing my application after accepting, both on future application to the school or other schools (poly sci is a small world). Or, is it common practice to ask to defer entry by a year, and what issues can/should I expect if I do ask such a thing? Will they say, sorry, this is your one shot, take it or leave it. I don't want to burn any bridges.

I second that. You can get some very nice studio apartments on the north end of the red line (by AU). There are not as many housing options near GW, foggy bottom is pretty much the campus and gov. buildings. However, if you live by a metro, particularly the orange and blue which both go to foggy bottom, anywhere in D.C. is doable, or northern virginia (I love the ballston area). I particularly enjoyed living on Capitol Hill, near the eastern market metro station. We had a 700 sq foot 1 bdrm apt. for $1100 a month.

Is there any possibility of funding after the first year?

I worked full time while a grad student at the Elliott School, as did most other people in my class. You should be fine. It might take an extra summer of classes if you aren't taking 10 hours per semester, but in the scheme of things that is not that bad. Just remember that when you sit down and work out your schedule, make sure that your reading/writing time has no interruptions, make it like a second job.

You are going to Princeton right? If so, best of luck. I'm sure we will cross paths at some point.

And how much money did 27 applications cost? I only did 7 and it was close to $800 (including gre costs).

So, am I the only one who frequents these boards going to U of I in the fall?

All I know is that their football team is lousy. ROLL TIDE! (Sorry, you will have to get used to this going to an SEC school)

Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for me. IR Major field with concentrations in IR theory and International Conflict. Comparative Minor field.

Oh, Fulbrights are awarded because of research interests. You have to argue that it is worth their money to send you to x place. You don't just apply and say I want to go because I think it would be cool.

Study abroad for a specialization in American courts? I would say that the reason for study abroad in grad school is not for the experience of living overseas, it is for research. You may want to look into the whole comparative thing, that way you could compare the legal systems of various countries, incl. USA if you wish, and you would have reason to travel abroad.

Can't believe I forgot NYU, you are right, they should be up there. I did think about Cornell after I said that and I believe you are probably right on that account too. It is amazing to me that there aren't more top ranked schools that have int. security folks. When I started looking at schools, I was going to apply to WashU, as they are the closest top ranked school to where I currently live (other than emory, but who wants to live in atlanta), but they do not have a single person who does anything even resembling int. security. As a GW grad, I have a personal bias against Georgetown, so I would put them a few spots down the list, but that is just me, and I can understand the argument for or against. The one thing I will say about them, just like the other schools in DC, is that their faculty is in large part transient.

Way to go!

I have actually been searching for a poll of Int. Security programs, but so far have not found one for poly sci phd programs. I think that the consensus among posters on this board is that for pure security theory, Columbia is #1, and for more security policy, #1 is MIT. I would probably give the edge to Columbia overall. After this though, things get pretty murky. I am headed to UIUC in the fall, and they are very strong in security studies, have two major security scholars, Diehl and Vasquez, as well as 5 or 6 other assistant and associate profs who do security stuff. Texas is strong as well, although they don't have as many faculty just doing security stuff. Georgetown also has lots of security folks, due to their close relationship with the SSP program. If I were going to rank programs for security (US only, their are some good ones in the UK too), it would look something like 1. Columbia 2. MIT 3. Stanford 4. Illinois 5. Chicago 6. Georgetown 7. Texas 8. Maybe Cornell (although most of their security folks are more closely aligned with comparative than IR) 9. WUSTL What does everyone think? Am I way off base? I know that Princeton has quality security folks in the WWS, but they aren't true "poly sci" departments. Yale is building their security faculty with their "new initiative." GW has some good security folks, but again they are aligned with the Elliott School.

I don't have the numbers but from my own application to those schools and talking to others in the field that they are both reasonably strong in IR. However, UT would be stronger in pure security studies in my opinion. Indiana does good work at the intersection of comparative and IR, like IR of east asia.

Let's see, MSU = more money, better placement record, higher ranked, I'm guessing a lower cost of living (lansing vs. bloomington), bigger job market (americanist vs. public policy jobs) Indiana = well, the campus is pretty

Your biggest task should be deciding what courses will help you do the kind of research you eventually want to do. If you want to do game theoretic modeling, then of course you want to do as much pure stats as you can get. However, if you are more of a political economy kind of person, then by extension the econ classes would better serve you. There is no magic number of classes. I can tell you that I am going to do some pretty heavy quant stuff and that having taken both an undergrad level and grad level stats class helped (according to my ad com members I met at the open house), as well as having taken up through cal 4 (differential equations). However, I should point out that I applied to seven schools and got accepted to one, which shows that this whole admission thing is as much of a crap shoot as going to vegas. In my opinion, it is all about spin. Show the adcom that you have done x and y to prepare you to do z kind of research as a grad student, and you should be as prepared as anyone. Then it will be all about matching your interests to a program and a facutly person (who will hopefully be serving on the adcom committee the year you happen to apply). Scoring great on the GRE quant section will be a big help too, try getting in the 90th percentile and above...

Thanks for the tip, I will surely try to find "The Beef House." Someone told me about another place called the ribeye that I am going to check out in August. My wife and I did check out the Amish settlements in Arthur and got some really good bread and apple butter, so that is going to be a regular field trip for us.

Coffee in DC is tricky, there are lots and lots of chains around, so that is what you mostly have to choose from. Starbucks and cosi are by default the ones I usually go to, but my favorite in the city was bread & chocolate's vanilla mocha. I think that there are a couple of locations, but the one I went to all of the time was by eastern market. There is another place on 8th & I SE that I loved, I can't remember the name but it was almost right next door to a restaurant called Marty's. I worked in Dupont for a while and there was another chain called corner bakery that had really good coffee. I think that there is one by the Lincoln Center as well. Hope this helps, if all else fails there is a starbucks on pretty much every corner. At one time when I was at the Elliott School at GW, there were three starbucks on the same block...