adaptations

Please pardon the fact that I am re-posting part of an older post of mine, but I think it is still relevant: I'll focus on your question of whether or not to apply to a terminal masters to make yourself more competitive for a PhD program later. Given your background, you have a reasonable chance at getting into a strong PhD program, and so I would advise against the terminal MA as a first option. If you apply to places like Chicago and are denied to the PhD program, they will almost certainly consider you for one of their masters programs. The masters can certainly make you a stronger PhD applicant, but if you can skip that step and save a lot of money, there's not a lot of reasons to do the MA, assuming you are really confident you want to get a PhD and go into academia. Essentially, the MA is a great way to strengthen your credentials and get better LORs (it's what I ended up doing). But, if you are confident you want to earn a PhD, I would encourage you to apply directly to PhD programs, and some MA programs as backups. If you get into a good PhD program, you can save a lot of time and money. (The key is being confident you want to do the PhD)

There are a number of schools that require both the statement of purpose and personal statement. @troika: I think you are addressing the right types of things in the personal statement. I am of the opinion that you should also tie your personal narrative to your motivation to attend the specific school and pursue a PhD. You don't need to go to the level of detail of your SOP, but explicitly connecting the dots between your personal development and current goals seems like a good way to go.

Given that it's already November, any additional prep work you do will not be reflected in your applications, so I assume you are asking about what to do in order to succeed and get the most out of your future MA program. My first thought is that this depends largely on what type of program you go with and what you want to study. I know plenty of students who were in CIR at Chicago and didn't need any additional math/econ courses for their line of study. On the other hand, I took a more IPE approach and was glad to have taken a solid foundation of econ, stats, and calc. I also took lots of classes in the Harris school which had a more quant focus, but nothing that you could manage having taken basic micro econ and calculus. If you decide to take micro, macro, and a math course (I am assuming stats or calc) everything should be fresh in your mind when you start and you shouldn't have a problem. If you're going into a very quant heavy program you may want to try to get through multivariable calc, but I wouldn't expect that an IR MA programs would expect you to have taken this, and probably not even that many PP programs(which I am only somewhat familiar).

You should ask the specific program, but everything I have heard has said that schools do not accept coauthored papers.

I would focus on having the former professors write LORs. Given that they told you they will, it shouldn't be a problem. Make sure to send periodic reminders, such as two weeks before they are due and again right before they are due if they haven't been submitted. It certainly won't hurt to have your boss act as a backup, but a professional reference will not hold much weight when applying to PhD programs. At the very least, prepare a series of points for him to talk about that tie your current work experience into your academic goals and ability to succeed.

When I took the test is was clearly marked, and I just skipped the entire section. As has already been said, not everybody is so lucky and sometimes you have to take the experimental section because it is not identified as such.

First, I will say that it appears you are being deliberate and thinking about everything in a proper context. My advice is that a PhD is not something you do because you don't know what else to do with your life. You should feel very confident that you want to pursue the PhD, which it sounds like you are, but also that you want to pursue it at the school you end up choosing (or that chooses you). If it appears that a program will not provide the training and credentials needed to achieve your long term goals, then it is probably not worth attending, and hence not worth applying. Of course, there may be a persistent degree of uncertainty on this point, in which case you could apply, and if it is your only option, then you can seriously consider the value of attending after a visit and weighing all outside options. To your second question of how much time it takes for an additional application - I think it varies greatly. If you are "just" tweaking your SOP and entering the application information you could do it in a couple hours. On the other hand, if you are researching faculty, reading some of their articles, etc. to gauge fit and strengthen your SOP and application, it could take many more hours. I have already researched my schools fairly extensively, but I still figure it takes another 5-8 hours to fully revise my SOP and feel that the application is as strong as possible. That's my two cents. Good luck.

The advice to consider whether you would rather go to the "safety" school versus nowhere, or doing something else entirely is a good way to think about it. If you were only admitted to the safety and you would still want to enroll, then go ahead and apply there. Nobody is disputing that going to a top ranked school is beneficial, but that doesn't mean you can't succeed going to a lower ranked school - particularly if you have good faculty to work with and they have a proven record for securing good/acceptable job placement (I think this second point is very important).

Hopefully I can provide a few insights on the rankings although I am certainly not an expert. First, I wouldn't be overly worried about them. Instead focus on programs' placement records and the strength of your research match with faculty. Second, the NRC rankings have a ton of information and you need to be careful when looking at how to interpret it. There is both an S and R ranking, and within each schools are NOT provided a specific rank. Instead they are given a ranking range. This is the probable range of the school ranking based on a specific confidence interval (I can't remember the exact interval and am being lazy so am not going to look for it right now, but I would guess it is 5% or 10%). For example, since you mentioned Berkeley I looked at their rankings. Berkeley's R ranking is 2 to 17. This is still a very high ranking, which means there is a very strong probability that Berkeley is truly ranked between 2 and 17, but given the noisiness of the data a specific ranking can not be determined. I highly recommend reading the relevant sections of the National Academies' website to get a better sense of the meaning and usefulness of the bounty of data presented in the results.

Unless specifically noted as a requirement, I wouldn't worry about breaking any rules by being over two pages. (I wouldn't consider Stanford's statement to be an explicit rule, if it isn't on the department's website) That said, being concise and to the point is definitely a good idea and 2 pages is a good goal and should be enough space to convey your purpose..

If you are asking whether you can afford grad school as a couple, I really don't think it is too much different than if you are single. Although, there was just an article that said it is cheaper to me married (http://money.bundle.com/article/cost-being-single-why-shacking-leads-saving-money?gt1=33023). I post it here as kind of a joke, but it's an amusing read. If you are asking how to pay for the wedding, I feel your pain. My partner and I got engaged in September and are planning on getting married before we start grad school, which will be Fall 2011. We are planning for a May 2011 wedding. Thankfully we are getting some parental help, but there is no question a wedding can be super expensive. That said, I also had two friends who had a "wedding-Q". It was essentially a BBQ that doubled as their wedding. They were able to get married and celebrate with friends and family, but had a very informal low cost event. My suggestion is, if you're not getting parental help (and even if you are), you may find it easier to ditch the dream of the classic white-wedding and be creative with cheaper options.

It happens all the time that people reapply and are admitted to schools that previously rejected them. The first time I applied I received one admittance (no funding). I applied a year later (after starting an MA program) and was admitted to four programs, three of which I had previously applied to. Due to some personal reasons I did not end up enrolling, and here I am two years later reapplying to almost the same list of schools (two new ones), and am hoping to get accepted again, but am also hoping to get offers from schools that previously rejected me.

I can't add to the specifics about the programs you are looking for, but you certainly don't need a MA to apply.

When I was doing the admitted students visits, many of us quickly figured out who each other were from the gradcafe.

It appears I'm in the minority on this one, but that has rarely stopped me from sharing my thoughts. Assuming that your senior seminar involves you conducting research in close consultation with your advisor, I would think the seminar professor would provide a more meaningful assessment of your potential and abilities as an academic. I agree that the reputation of the recommender matters, but I do not agree that the reputation is necessarily tied to title. If your advisor is well known in the field, he/she may be more recognizable and pull more weight that an associate director of your school. In all honesty I do not think you will go wrong with either, but I don't think the title alone is justification for going with the associate director.

I assume you are applying to a professional MA programs, in which case I do not believe it reflects poorly on you to have two LORs come from the same workplace, especially if you have been there for a while. It is more important to have strong LORs, so choose people who can speak to your abilities and probability of success in graduate school.

I found my one year MA (CIR) to be useful for many reasons. It helped me get a better professional job, helped me get into PhD programs, and gave me a much better sense of what a career in academia would be like. I think CIR is particularly well suited for preparing people for a PhD, while still being versatile enough to be useful in the professional world. As for CIR merit funding, I know numerous students who received financial aid that ranged from 1/3 - 1/2 of tuition. I think a very very few students got more than that, but I don't have any update on current funding (I graduated in spring 2009). Good luck.

If you are applying to a school and claim to want to work in subfield X or issue X, your other schools should also be good at X. If the other schools you list are not good at X and are instead known for other areas, it might suggest that you either a) haven't identified good schools for your interest, or b ) actually have interests beyond X that you are considering pursuing at other schools. At least, that is how I would look at it if I was on an adcom. When I visited schools after being accepted, many of the faculty were very interested in where else I applied, had been accepted, and who I wanted to work with at other schools. I would imagine the adcom members are interested in similar questions and the list of other schools provides some insights.

The first time I applied I got into one unfunded PhD program and a MA. I went to the MA and during the program applied again and was accepted into 4 PhDs and wait listed at one. I ended up not enrolling for personal reasons and am now applying for my third time.

This is a pretty common question. After being accepted to schools, I was called by the director of admissions at one who wanted to know if I'd been accepted to other schools on my list and whether there was a good chance I would enroll at in his program. I think this question is just a preliminary way of seeing where they ran, and also to see where else you are interested in studying, which could provide insight into the other faculty with whom you want to work.

I think the advice that was already given is pretty spot on. Check individual application requirements regarding transcript submission. In general, you need to submit a transcript from any school you received a degree or you expect to receive a degree, and many schools require a transcript from all college/univ. level courses. In most cases you'll need to submit the transcript. I believe a cover note with a brief explanation should suffice to account for your circumstance. This could also be handled in about two sentences in your SOP (it needs to be addressed somewhere). Switching from PhD to MA is not that bad of a thing to have in your application file. Unpredictable and challenging life-events occur, and sometimes require people to change plans. Admissions committees should/will understand this.

I've also been told to write it out the first time, and perhaps the last time, but to abbreviate in between. I think it is OK to use acronyms, especially with schools like The Ohio State University or OSU that are commonly referred to by their acronym.

If you don't have a realistic option to have one of your professor's write a LOR, I think a PhD or other professor would suffice. They will have credibility when discussing the necessary skills to succeed in graduate school. Ideally the recommender should be familiar with some of your (academic style) work so they can comment on your academic ability. Good luck.

Thanks for the thought, but if anyone has any thoughts regarding more technology/business focused programs, I'd certainly appreciate it. Thanks.

If anyone has any thoughts on this, I'm still looking for more suggestions. Thanks.