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BFB

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Everything posted by BFB

  1. As fun as all of this has been, folks, I should probably make this my last post here. I stepped down as DGS at Ohio State this past summer, and it's better for all of you to have input from different people who have more up-to-date perspectives on the application process. Thanks for the opportunity to offer whatever help I could, and best of luck to all of you in getting to the job of your dreams.
  2. Hi ? 1. Contact the registrar and try to get it off your transcript!! Many schools (I think) will allow that if you can demonstrate that you never attended. Failing that, you should probably address it in your statement, but not to the tune of more than a sentence or two. 2. I'd use a seminar paper rather than a coauthored paper, pretty much no matter what. They want to know how you write and how you think. You have no idea what conclusions people will draw from a coauthored sample. I'd say it's just not worth the gamble. Best of fortune to you!
  3. Just a quick message for everyone on this thread: This is my last year as DGS, so I won't have my finger on the pulse of admissions enough to answer your questions going forward. I'll tell my successor about this board and ask him or her to chime in as I have. Thanks for being such a welcoming community, and best of luck to all of you, wherever you end up. -Bear
  4. Hurt you? I really doubt it, if you've already been accepted. But I'm not sure how much it'd help, to be honest. Econ may already have made their decisions, or be very close, and their faculty don't really have any interest in making the political science department happy. But it's not impossible that it'd make some difference.
  5. I'm sorry to hear that you've been struggling. First, don't assume that you know the reason you were turned down. Write to them and ask. Second, for many programs it may be too late to do much of anything. But if your enquiries turn up actionable info, you might send a quick email to the DGSes at some places with later deadlines and say, "I found out that I didn't make the short list at place X because of reason Y, and I thought I should let you know the reasons for Y." It may not help much, if at all. But I'd be surprised if it hurt. Good luck.
  6. Such interviews are typical, though they might be two-on-one or something else, depending on scheduling. My own sense is that, if the professor is doing stuff that interests you, talking about research interests is a marginally better idea, just because you can always email to ask about program information and fit. If you have an interview with someone who wouldn't be central to your research program, I'd lean more toward department questions. But in the end, asking about the things that you're most curious about (and that that person can answer!) is likely to be best. You're the consumer. Gather the information that's most useful to you.
  7. Yes, but whether or not to call is up to the faculty member who's asked to review the file. So a call means you're on the medium list, but no news means no news.
  8. Ohio State's admissions decisions will come out in late January this year, with funding decisions probably around the third week in February.
  9. They're not rare, but they're not too common either. We get a handful every year. As to your reasons for applying and application strategy, I'm sorry to hear that your experience has been bad enough to prompt relocation. Having your advisor mention it is wise and is probably the most common strategy. As far as doing more is concerned, it depends on how open you want to be. One position I've seen people take is, "It's my private life, it's unlikely to come up, and I don't particularly want others to know about it." Another position I've seen is, "I don't want to go anywhere where people would have a problem with who I am." Both are reasonable decisions, and it's not really for me to say which is best for you. In any event, good luck.
  10. Simply put, the more people do it, the less possible it becomes.
  11. Speaking only for myself, it's never too soon, though I won't really be able to say much of anything until after most people have completed campus visits and had a chance to consider their options. My sense is that that's usually early April, but all of you know better than I do when your campus visits are.
  12. We bring in a lot of people from CIR, actually. Terrific program.
  13. Jumping in, FWIW: The main purpose for a waitlist is to manage the risk of having a class that's too small, and it takes a fair number of early responses before you can meaningfully assess that risk. So a DGS who does go to the waitlist often does so late in the game and is hoping that the invitee will say "yes." If you truly know that you would come if accepted, therefore, it can be to your advantage to tell the DGS. If you're not sure, letting the DGS know where you stand can't hurt.
  14. Interviews are a part of our typical process, but the POIs have considerable leeway when it comes to whether or not to reach out. Sometimes they find everything they need in the file, either to offer an enthusiastic thumbs-up or to say that we should probably pass. A fair number of people have been interviewed. A fair number who haven't will make the short list anyway. So not getting a call is not a very informative signal. As to how far along we are: pretty far. People who are being admitted should hear something by the end of the week. Because financial aid is allocated centrally (don't get me started...), financial aid decisions won't be out for another month or so. (The "or so" is because the Dean of the Graduate School left abruptly a couple of weeks ago, and I really don't know how that's going to affect their turnaround time.) One more thing: I've read over 160 files in the past few weeks, and I have to say, I'm immensely impressed with you people. You're smart as hell, and you're a lot more interesting than I was when I applied for graduate school. It's a real honor to get applications from people of your caliber, and I'm grateful to those of you who went to the time and trouble to send them in. Best of luck to all of you.
  15. Again, I can only speak for myself, but this strikes me as actually being better than three faculty members from 10 years ago. It's very helpful to have one more up-to-date reference, at least.
  16. Sorry, I just realized that I missed this one somehow! You should mention your current status as a Ph.D. student on your c.v., at a minimum; you'll also be asked to send transcripts, and I'd assume (?) that some of your letter-writers will be from this program, so I don't see any point in trying to hide it. Second, yes, you should definitely mention those things in your SOP.
  17. Why, thank you! The course is a lot of fun. And my condolences on the loss of your mother. Let me take these in order: 1. Publications are nice, but we don't expect them from our applicants. The profile you describe sounds competitive—conferences are generally a good sign that you understand what you're getting yourself into. 2. Not a problem. 3. If it's related to your proposed course of study, it'd be directly relevant; otherwise, it'd be indicative of your overall abilities. Counts for something either way. 4. A gap year in and of itself shouldn't hurt your chances anywhere. Lots of people sample the waters elsewhere before deciding to return to academia, and I don't think it's taken as an indicator of much of anything. As to the reason for your gap year, let me bundle it with the next answer. 5-6. Whether or not to discuss family is a really tricky question. I would love to say that you won't face discrimination in Ph.D. admissions due to family status. And most of the academics I know would, I'm pretty sure, bend over backward to avoid discrimination on that or any other basis. I can't make that guarantee, though, and I don't want to pretend that I can. I can promise you that anyone who raises it on our Admissions Committee will be informed in no uncertain terms that it's not an admissible criterion. That sort of thing really pisses me off. What does that imply for a general strategy? I've seen people go in a couple of different directions that make sense to me. The first is to set up a firewall between your professional and personal life during the admissions process and be extremely selective about what, if anything, gets through. Your personal life is personal—it isn't relevant to your application. You needn't mention your marital status at all, and in fact questions about marital status, number of children, sexual orientation, health, etc. are very likely illegal in an admissions process. (You typically do get asked about race for diversity purposes, but answering should always be optional.) You are well within your rights to answer such questions with "I don't believe you're allowed to ask that question." If you feel the need to explain the deficits that you perceive (though, per 1., I really don't think they're deficits and I doubt they'll hurt you much at all), having a letter-writer mention the suicide of your mother would most likely be sufficient to get people to cut you some slack. Other than that, you don't need to mention anything. You can even take your wedding ring off in advance and let the mark fade if it makes you feel more comfortable. Your marital status is none of anyone's business. The second is almost the reverse: to use information about your personal status as a screening mechanism to help you narrow down your choices. In this strategy, you make a point of mentioning the details of your personal life under the assumption that, if a department discriminates against you on that basis, it's not a department that you'd want to be a part of. If they go out of their way to help (by asking about whether they can help advise you about a position for your husband, about day care, etc.), you might be more inclined to go there. That said, I should emphasize that the people on the admissions committee are not always (or even usually) going to be the people on your dissertation committee. For that reason, a variant on this strategy is to mention your personal details only to your person or people of interest, in order to flush out their reaction. Set up a call or initiate an email exchange to discuss the department and ask how well you'd fit, and on your list of questions include the question of whether the city is family-friendly, or something along those lines. You can weigh the pros and cons of each strategy as it relates to your own situation. I've seen both work well. Either way, if you do face the sort of discrimination that you've faced in the past when it comes to research opportunities or anything else, do not hesitate to raise the issue with your advisor, your DGS, and/or your chair. The people in those positions should have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to such behavior.
  18. I don't think it's necessarily a hindrance, and it could well be a plus. If you're applying to political science Ph.D. programs in the hopes of getting a degree that'll help you in public policy, though, I'd be very careful—most programs aren't geared toward doing that, so I'd be sure that there's a strong public policy component to the programs you're exploring.
  19. It's not worth hiding your research interests if they're going to remain research interests. If you're going to continue to do X and Y, you should say that (while perhaps changing the order depending on a department's strengths). If you're willing to do X and totally drop Y while in graduate school or vice-versa, though, you should feel free to write about X to the schools that are strong in X and Y in the schools that are strong in Y.
  20. I'm afraid I can't speak to the way that other programs do things or what they see as a plus or a minus. In our case, the MA and Congressional work would probably help and the teaching would be neither here nor there. Statement and letters would weigh more heavily. Our system is a bit unusual (I think) in that we need waivers for anyone with an undergrad GPA below a 3.6, even if they subsequently got advanced degrees from top schools and earned a 4.0 GPA while doing so. It's a quirky holdover requirement that I frankly think should be taken off the books, but as long as it's there it limits our flexibility in such cases. In practice, it doesn't limit it too much, though, so if we liked the rest of your record we'd try to figure out a way to use the waiver.
  21. Honestly, I wouldn't worry too much. We tend to look at quant GRE as an indicator of potential to do well in stats courses. Actual stats courses are a bonus, but their absence doesn't really hurt your prospects.
  22. Might hurt you a little, but I doubt it'd hurt you much, especially not just a couple of years. I'd just explain the break succinctly and mention whatever prompted you to decide to come back.
  23. Only the last part is good news, and it's not great. The upshot is, if there's no one there to work with, don't go... and the "instead" gives me the distinct impression that there's no one there to work with.
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