eve2008

LOL! Anyway, I'm stickin' with my story, that it's worth it to try twice if you didn't get into a top program (or more importantly, your top program) and think you can improve some part of your application or could benefit from a master's degree...

Did you visit Chicago yet? I'm sure things will be much more clear once you have seen both schools. (At least, that's what I'm hoping for in my case.) Congrats on your fabulous options.

It might not be easy, but I think you should always go to the most prestigious institution with the most resources, if you can. It was a difficult adjustment for me to make, and it's still difficult, but I've benefited personally and professionally to an immeasurable degree by pushing those boundaries. The world is ruled by people born into privilege, and if you are a talented person from a humble background, the only way to change the world, make it a bit more humane and open, I think, is to become a person with access and influence, even if that means stepping outside your comfort zone. (And congrats on Temple!)

hey sundaymonday. i think we are saying almost the same thing.

I disagree that the statement must be devoid of creativity. I did use a hook in my personal statement at just one of the places I applied to (and I did get in, even though it may have been a bit risky). But you have to know yourself and know that you are good enough of a writer to pull that off and that it serves a very specific purpose, that it communicates something important about you. Rather than comment specifically on the statements of purpose posted here, I'd like to make a few general comments about what I think ought to go into a statement of purpose. This is not the only way to do it, but this is probably the advice I'll give my undergraduates someday when they are applying to graduate school. Spend one, short paragraph talking about the school you're applying to and why it's a great fit, given the research interests you just elaborated. That should probably be the last paragraph. Spend the penultimate paragraph talking about your qualifications, which is really just a way to highlight what you think are the most persuasive arguments about your profile. These should be arguments that support your academic promise and research potential. Don't spend any more time than that since the rest of your application should speak for you. The balance--probably 90%--should be spent talking about your research interests, with reference to past research and experiences only where it relates to those research interests. When you articulate those interests, you don't need to go into too much detail, but you should establish your specific theoretical and substantive interests, linking them to larger questions (questions that might are relevant not just people who are really interested in political parties in Mexico, but colleagues with interests in other regions, or colleagues in other subfields, or perhaps even people outside the discipline). The entire point of this is not to lock yourself in, because your interests will change, but to 1) establish fit and 2) show that you know how to think like a political scientist, how to frame questions like one. You should show off your ability to think. There is only one correct answer to the "why I want to be a Ph.D question" and it can be answered in exactly one sentence. It should be some variation of, "I want to be an academic forever and ever and ever." Even if you're not sure, this is the only answer to that question you want to put in a statement of purpose. I disagree with Peter that you should spend time talking about how hard the profession or that you know what your getting yourself into. Hopefully all those As on your transcript and the blood and sweat you've put into your research should speak to that. And at any rate, your letter writers will speak to your maturity and preparation. The grad student statement of purpose is completely different from a college application essay. They really don't care about your personal story, they want to look inside your brain and know whether you're a good fit for them. If for some reason your personal story has a bearing on your academic interests or career promise, for example, you worked 3 jobs to finance your college education or are a former child soldier, you should definitely write a separate diversity essay. I think if you are unusual, there are some things committees ought to know if they are to evaluate your application in its proper light. But tread carefully. Lastly, I just have to say that I am a bit weary of trying to give advice on this forum because some people have pointed out, albeit rightly, that we are all applicants, similarly ignorant of grad school. Still, that doesn't automatically make the advice wrong. I got incredibly good advising throughout the application process and I had my advisers look over my statement and say some pretty blunt things until I got the idea. Not everyone is as lucky, and so I think that it's only right to share this sort of information.... Good luck to everyone!

Yeah, I do agree that Stanford seems ridiculously spread out. I often wondered, while visiting, where all the people were! Harvard seems to have a pretty vibrant campus life, although I'm not really certain how graduate students fit into the picture. I suppose a visit there will clarify things. Anyway, thanks all for your advice. I'm so psyched!

i'd like to solicit your advice about applying to anthropology ph.d programs. what are the most important components of an application? is field experience essential? also, are there any terminal master's degrees in anthro? thanks!

A car makes grocery shopping easier, but if you have a bike, you can easily ride it to Wild Oats (large health food store not too far down Nassau Street). There is also a grocery store at the Princeton Shopping Center, which is also bikable. However, Wegmans is definitely the best grocery store ever, so it's nice to have a car to be able to drive there (as wel as Target, Walmart, Best Buy, Linens 'n' Things, etc.). I have ridden my bike to Wegman's before, but it probably takes a good 20-25 minutes from campus; I'm a slow biker. I personally wouldn't get a meal plan if you like cooking. I'd try my hardest to get into apartment-style housing and then just buy as I go at the various on-campus eateries.

Berkeley is a big tent! There are still places that privilege the qualitative method, but you are right, they are shrinking in number. Still, I thought geography would be pretty quantitative...

I think naming helps them figure out who to send your files to during the admission process. At some schools where I applied, I was told that after surviving the first cut, the committee sent my application to the faculty I explicitly named in my statement for further review. I also communicated with faculty before I applied, but this felt a little awkward. In some situations, they were incredibly enthusiastic. Others had an attitude of, "get in first, then we'll talk." Still others never replied. I think contacting faculty in advance can be a good thing if you're brief and ask good questions. But yes, I think you should definitely mention specific faculty in your statement! Even better, be familiar with their work. However, this should not form the bulk of your statement. I saved it for one of the final paragraphs, where I elaborated why I wanted to attend program X and which faculty had research interests that I felt meshed with mine.

Yes! I completely agree. That is exactly what I meant to say. And it's true of just about any endeavor in life.

Lol. Almost was once. Sorry if I overreacted. Sometimes boredom gets the better of me...

All advice offered on anonymous message boards should be filtered through your own common sense, but no need to feel irked. What I've written here is simply what I've learned; right or not, it's information I wish I would have known when I was starting college. It comes with the best intentions of helping out applicants in future cycles and quashing a bit of the fatalism that has gripped this board. There are some things that are gone and over that you can't control or change, like your undergraduate GPA, but there are still other things you can do to become a more competitive applicant. I apologize for my forthright tone offends, but I don't believe in the passive voice. Of course if you think what I've written is grossly inaccurate, that's another story. I'm surprised to learn a JD could hurt you in the past, considering how JD/PhD programs have become much more common in recent years. I'm sure you'll be able to leverage what you learned in law school in exciting ways in your future learning and research. Personally, I wouldn't get a JD as a PhD application strategy, as another poster suggested. Get a JD if you want to study American law and become an American lawyer, or someday train other American lawyers. If you want to get a Ph.D, it's much better (and probably much cheaper) to get an MA in your field, develop your interests and produce some great research. * * * Even if all anecdotal, I think when you add up what you've been told, what you've directly experienced, and what you have observed, you probably get at something approaching the truth.

congrats on princeton. go there!

economists and political scientists are loving using geography to explain political and economic outcomes these days...come on over!

30. You have a friend, currently taking a seminar course with your dream adviser at your dream Ph.D program, sending said dream adviser subliminal, telepathic messages under the assumption that "every little bit helps." (Folks, this really works!)

I think it's hard to know before you get in. I applied to several plausible options (based on contacting faculty and reading websites), but it wasn't until after I was accepted and that I visited that I really knew. People die or move or retire, and what I once thought was my first choice turned out not to be the best choice. Also, I think that there are probably most definitely people working on your interests, but that they might be at policy schools rather than in political science departments. If you want to do policy work eventually, a policy school may be a better choice for you; of course it is more difficult to get an academic teaching/research job with a policy PhD. What exactly interests you about identification/surveillance and national security? (Feel free to PM me.) If you want to look at which surveillance policies best balance national security and the protection of civil liberties, then you're probably asking a policy question, and you may even have a hard time getting into political science programs. If you're a comparativist, and you're comparing say, the effects of increases in ethnolinguistic and religious fractionalization over time on public support of surveillance policies in Canada, the US, UK and Europe (with the hypothesis that members of heterogeneous communities are more likely to support spying on their neighbors) that would be a political science question. There are any number of different ways to approach this from theory, American, comparative or IR. What is your subfield? I think if you worry less about the specific substance of your research question (national security and surveillance) and think more about how the questions that interest you fit into larger theoretical debates, you will probably find faculty who fit your interests. So, for the example I just gave above, there's lots of people who have studied migration in Europe, social capital, the concept of racial threat and its effects on policy choice, the determinants of public support of X policy in advanced industrialized democracies, etc., even if they are not explicitly researching your substantive area. There is not a single faculty at any of the schools I applied researching my specific topic. However, I framed my topic in the context of large, important, ongoing debates in the discipline. Getting too specific, or rather discussing your specific substantive interests without connecting them to larger questions, can hurt you. So you're interested in national security, civil liberties, and surveillance. So what? What about the interplay of those interests, and the possible questions you might ask about them (and you can include a few), will help leverage larger insights and attract the interest of others around the discipline, and outside it? Good luck with your MA!

Whatever the rank of your program, if you have full funding and they have a decent placement record, strong faculty, and you think you can get the kind of training you want, then go. If not, then for the love of God, apply again! But first, do one or more of the following: 1) Get an MA at the best program you can possibly get into. This is especially true for those people with weak recommendation letters or no research experience. I was shocked to hear people griping on the other thread about submitting a 30-page writing sample. Didn't everyone here write a thesis? If you have never have done any poli sci research, or any research at all for that matter, how on earth can you convince anyone you're cut out for this or, more to the point, how do you know this is what you want to do? Whether you have stellar letters and demonstrate research potential will make or break your application, says this applicant, who rocked a 2.7 at one point in her college career. If you didn't get into a school of your choice, these are likely the weakest parts of your application, and if you do really well in your MA, I think it can make a huge difference. 2) Unless you're a theory person, take math and stats classes and get As in them. Pol sci departments are eating up applicants with Econ BAs and job candidates with Econ PhDs. You may not like it, but that's what's trendy. You'll be a stronger candidate for having that background. 3) Learn a foreign language. 4) Retake the GREs (no, they really won't get you into grad school, but below a 650 or 600 for most top programs, they will start to worry about you, especially if you also have low grades) 5) Rock your statement of purpose. My advisers told me again and again that 90% of applicants "don't know what a social science research question looks like" and if you can show that you do in your statement of purpose, you are ahead of the game. I still don't know what that means exactly, but make sure your statement of purpose is about your research interests, that you tailor your statement a bit to each program, that you talk about which faculty you want to work with and why, that you show some degree of savvy and sophistication. It might even help to read your potential advisers' research, or demonstrate some familiarity with the research that has most influenced you and how that has helped to frame the questions that interest you. 6) Email the professors you really wanted to work with at the programs where your application was not successful (but do keep it short!) and say that you plan on improving your application and reapplying, and what were the weakest components of your file? 7) You should also think about who wrote your letters of recommendation and if you would like to use all of the same letters again. How well did you really know them and how enthusiastic were they about you? You really want letters written by people who are gunning for you. (If they themselves are famous, that helps, too!) I stayed in touch with faculty long after I graduated, and when it came time to apply, sent them all my latest CV and resent my old research and papers, just in case they needed those extra materials to make their recommendation concrete and vivid. You might even directly ask them how strong of a recommendation they were able to write you, and how they think you could improve your application. I really think everyone can improve their application, and if you're serious about pursuing an academic career, I am of the mind you have to get into the highest-ranked program you possibly can. This is easy for me to say because I've done well this cycle, but I also fully intended on applying twice, and psychologically prepared myself for that from the outset. Why? Because I have friends who are smarter than I am, with higher grades and test scores, and more awards who, for whatever reason, did not get into a single school the year they applied. I'm pretty sure it had nothing to do with their grades or how "random" the process is, and everything to do with the quality of their applications and their application strategy. Some of them gave up, others learned what they could from the experience, applied again and did quite well. Professors tell you all sorts of things to be nice. They say you didn't meet the GPA cut-off (when maybe you were just all around a weak applicant), they say the process is random and they try to temper expectations. From what I've seen, the process is far from random at the top 5 programs. Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, Yale, Princeton and Michigan admit some subset of the same 60 or 70 applicants. At Stanford, maybe a third or more of the applicants (not to mention the current students) were deciding between Harvard, Stanford and Berkeley, while others it was Stanford, Princeton and Michigan, or Stanford, Harvard, and Yale. I think many of the applicants who got into one of those schools got into almost all of them. What I mean to say, is that the top schools all looked for the same something and they determined, independently, that these same students all had that something. This is not to say that if you did not get into a top 5, top 10, or top 25 program, it was because you don't deserve to or could not do exceptionally well in one. Rather, there is probably more of a logic to this than you might like to think. That shouldn't dishearten you; on the contrary, most people, if they can find ways to demonstrate more of those qualities top programs are looking for, can probably do better in the application process on a second go. So no, I don't think it is simply a lottery, although it can sometimes feel like that. Lottery implies that you, the applicant, have no control over the process--far from true!--and so might as well carpet bomb the top 30 in the hopes your application will "stick" somewhere--a surefire way to get yourself universally rejected. Finally, and this may sound harsh, I'd rather try to alter a negative outcome than rationalize it. I've received exactly two grades in my life, one in high school and one in college, that were unfair. Every single other grade--and there were plenty of Bs and Cs on my transcript--I more than deserved. It was figuring out what I did to merit the C and figuring out what I needed to do to merit an A (and deciding it was worth the required pain) that made the difference. Again, whatever the rank of your program, if you have full funding and they have a decent placement record, strong faculty, and you think you can get the kind of training you want, then go. Unless you think you can do better.

That's not entirely true. Of course there is a correlation between the quality of the undergraduate institution and a) the quality of the student and the quality of the student's training! This does not mean that there aren't very many very bright and qualified students outside the Ivy League, but you have to remember that admitting a student--even one with top scores, top grades, and great recommendations--is always risky. The most selective programs give a full, five-year tuition waiver + funding package. In other words, they are investing $300,000 in each student. Give how glutted Ph.D admissions are, those top programs can fill their 20 slots with the safest bets. If an applicant went to a top-ranked program, they have already in a sense been pre-screened, and if the faculty writing that student's letters of recommendation are also top-ranked superstars, who probably went to graduate school with, collaborated with, or were former colleagues of members of the committee, then of course the committee is going to look favorably on that applicant. It might be unfair, but given the amount of money and time (which far exceeds in opportunity cost the explicit $300,000 layout), can you really blame them? More to the point, if this is the way the world works, what choice do you have but to do what you can to compete? I went to a top top-ranked undergraduate program, but was poor, and so it was almost free. It was still a constant struggle, but I knew it would be worth the pain and the large amount of debt I will still have when I'm 30. If there is any possible way to make it work, always, always choose the highest-ranked program you can. And if you really think there's an academic superstar inside you, just waiting to bust out, you should not go to a low-ranked Ph.D program! GRE scores *really* don't matter. Your GPA doesn't even matter all that much (although, you should definitely have at least a 3.0, if not a 3.5 or higher). Recommendations are everything. So suck it up, take out some loans, and get a master's degree at Columbia, or SIPA, or KSG, or WWS, or LSE, or wherever some truly top profs congregate it reasonable numbers. Stand out, distinguish yourself, and get some kick-ass letters of rec from people committees at the top 20 or top 10 programs will recognize. Getting some quant or econ skills (or truly fabulous language skills) while you're at it won't hurt. Also, I have been meeting admits and current grad students from public schools. Granted, these are schools like UCLA or Michigan, or UW-Madison, or UVA, or UC Berkeley, or UCSD--schools I'm pretty sure most of the students attended without a clue how good the poli sci programs were or how much they would benefit from having the profs there write their letters. Life is unfair, but there are always second chances. Be strategic!

hi guys. not sure why i posted in the other subforum. Hoping you might weigh in: viewtopic.php?f=29&t=13285

Hello. I'm trying to decide between Stanford and Harvard, and thought I might solicit the opinion of the members of this forum who might be a bit more objective than any of the faculty or graduate students trying to recruit their admits! I'd rather not go into the details of my interests, which I suppose handicaps your ability to offer advice. But any comments on the general strengths and weaknesses of the comparative programs, the quality of life in Palo Alto v. Cambridge would be appreciated...hell, at this point, I'm even interested in what your Ouija board has to say. I guess I can't go wrong at either. Harvard is Harvard, but they are huge and haven't been doing that well with placement the last few cycles, while Stanford has been cleaning up. Since I will be on the job market in 6+ years, I don't really know the value of those data...

Decisions have been made (I think). You will probably be hearing this week.

congrats on columbia!!!!

Were you admitted to Ann Arbor? Go to Ann Arbor!

They didn't give two sh**s. Good advice was readily available. They ignored for the sake of an agenda. Lucky for them, a sizable minority of the public was rabid for war. But that's why, as I've said, I'm not really concerned about the leadership--they will seek out expert opinion, or not, depending on their own whims and prerogatives. I'm saying we should engage directly with and educate the public...