Thompson

PROFILE: Type of Undergrad Institution: Generic Small Liberal Arts Catholic College Major(s)/Minor(s): Political Science Undergrad GPA: 3.37 Type of Grad: Masters of Public Policy Grad GPA: 3.78 GRE: 169 V 158 Q 5.0 A Any Special Courses: Letters of Recommendation: 1 from undergraduate professor, 1 from graduate, one from current boss. I was told they were all very positive, but they were nothing special. I was not a research assistant for anyone, and had no demonstrable research experience. Research Experience: Produced some research at work Teaching Experience: Subfield/Research Interests: American Other: 3 years full time at a DC-based advocacy group, 2 years part time in campaigns/PAC/etc during grad school RESULTS: Acceptances($$ or no $$): GW (off wait list), UT-Austin, UC-Davis, UNC-Chapel Hill, George Mason Waitlists: GW (accepted) Rejections: Georgetown, Harvard, UCLA, UCSD, Maryland, Penn State Pending: Going to: Likely either UT or UNC, still deciding. LESSONS LEARNED: The past 12 months have been a huge learning process. My assumptions about graduate school and political science were challenged and changed constantly. While working a very busy full time job, I was forced to devote almost all of my free time for a full year to figure out what I wanted to study, strengthen my application, apply, and evaluate schools. Read a ton of political science. I probably read 30 articles and 3 or 4 books before applying. That helped me figure out what I did and did not want to study, nail down a solid research question, and figure out what schools would be a good fit. In the end, fit definitely got me in. I retook the GREs and got basically the same score. It was a huge waste of money and time. If your GREs are above the bar, just take the score and move on. Visit days after acceptance are key. After meeting with professors and students, I quickly narrowed down my list of schools. Also, every program offered me substantially more money after we got to know each other, which helped a lot. If I could do it again, I would be more aggressive about the schools I applied to. I limited myself to 11 applications, but had 17 schools that I was interested in. I knocked off some higher ranked schools and not the lower ranked schools out of fear of not getting in anywhere. In the end, my application was stronger than I perceived at the time. Given hindsight, I would have knocked off 6 lower ranked schools and applied to the higher ones. I spent a lot of time sprucing up my writing sample. I thought the paper I wrote in graduate school was top-notch, but three years later it was merely okay. I did not contact any professors beforehand. I did not know anyone at any of the schools. I stuck to my deadlines and got the work done steadily over 9 months. The only point that was really stressful was getting my professors to upload their recommendations. They needed a ton of prodding and reminding. One professor was 2-3 weeks late on most of the recommendations. Nail that shit down early. Send them all your recommendations at once, so once you get them to upload, it's done. I made the mistake of sending them in batches. Some schools will ask for information a little differently. Save time for weird applications. Fit was huge. Every school I got into was because I was a strong substantive or methodological fit to the department, although none of the departments were a 100% perfect fit. They cared more that I was in the same American neighborhood. I can't guarantee that I'll check my PMs in the future, but if I see any messages, I'd be happy to answer any questions. SOP: [Writing this took a long time. I didn't actually have anyone except for one friend look at it. My goals were pretty simple: Answer the "Why political science? Why a PhD" question, demonstrate dedication to the literature and an ability to think critically about it, and demonstrate how my work experience would be an asset in an academic setting. I had a longer version for schools that asked for it that told a story about why I became interested in politics and how the Iraq War affected my generation.] I knew that I wanted to be a political scientist when I took my first methods course at [Name of Undergrad]: Empirical Analysis in Political Science. It was the least popular course in the department. Many students were uncomfortable with quantitative analysis and scientific method. I, on the other hand, was fascinated, particularly after my professor taught us SPSS and linear regression, handed us data from the American Community Survey, and asked us to tinker around with it. I must have spent ten hours that weekend in the computer lab, looking for correlations between different independent and dependent variables. To this day, that was my favorite class at any level of education. In hindsight, I would have pursued a Masters of Political Science instead of Public Policy. I chose the program at [Name of Grad School] because I sought a rigorous analytical study of how public policy is crafted and implemented, and because I wanted to work in the field while studying. The program was academically rigorous, but focused more on measuring and analyzing individual programs and policies than trying to answer questions about how the system that produces and refines public policy functions. I learned a lot, particularly on statistical analysis, STATA, research design, and the incorporation of multiple disciplines to answer a question, and was able to work part time in the field, but it became clear that my long term research interests were in political science. After graduating, I began working at [Organization], a think tank and advocacy organization. My primary job has focused on communications our research and advocating for its recommendations. However, over the last six months I have produced more research; including leading a [some details about research], which we hope to submit to a peer-reviewed journal in the spring. Extensive experience in the field will be invaluable to my academic career. It will help me to formulate hypotheses, develop new analytical techniques, illustrate phenomena observed in data, and advise students on their career path. If admitted, I will study in the American Politics subfield. My research interests are interest groups, extended political parties, and the policymaking process. I plan on using social network analysis methods, perhaps using the techniques developed by Grossman and Dominguez (2009) and Koger, Masket, and Noel (2009) but also perhaps developing new techniques, to analyze the extended party networks of Democrats and Republicans over a time series, which is a major gap in the research. A time series will allow us to find trends, and possibly correlate changes in party networks with other phenomena. An aspect of this analysis that particularly interests me is factionalism. I’d be fascinated to see, for example, if evidence of factionalism increased in the extended Republican network following introduction of Tea Party organizations in 2010. Increased factionalism may be able to predict primary challenges. Patterns may follow competitive Presidential contests. I hope to explore these types of questions if I am able to gather together a sufficiently large time series. Further, both studies measure the density of both extended party networks, and find the Democratic extended party network significantly denser and larger than the Republican extended party network. I’d like to explore changes in density levels over time, which could potentially impact electoral effectiveness, fundraising, or policy outcomes. I would love to pursue this research at the Department of X at Y, and learn from its great collection of scholars. [Paragraph about 3 scholars I would like to study with and why. I spent a lot of time researching individual work, and tried to read at least 1 article from each.]

One of those is me. There was never a mention of a wait list.

DC is a disaster zone right now, so I'd be shocked if anyone is in the office at Georgetown.

Me too.

Got a personal email (in the BCC line, so presumably it went to a number of people) saying I was waitlisted at GWU last week, and just now got an email to check the website with an application decision saying I was admitted, and an alternate for funding. I'm assuming this means the waitlist is actually a waitlist for funding. I would never do this, but theoretically one could accept without funding.

5 year DC resident here (about to leave for grad school). Three tips for finding relatively cheap rent in a good place to live: 1. Push the neighborhood envelope. People are still afraid to live in areas that are rapidly gentrifying. Bloomingdale, H Street, NoMa, Shaw, SW Waterfront, parts of Anacostia, etc are great places to live and hang out, and rents haven't yet gone crazy. Lots of old buildings which work well for roommates. 2. Take the bus. Pretty much anything that is a 5 minute walk from a metro will be expensive, but buses run all over the place, are cheaper than the metro, and are often overlooked. 3. DC is a very small town. Everything is close to everything. I walk everywhere when the weather is nice. Feel free to ask here or PM me with any questions. I live this town, and am happy to help.

The email I received specifically says if admitted, I will be fully funded for 5 years. My application status did not change on the website.

Waitlisted at GW. Could be worse.

Oh, I'm aware of that. I just have no real research interest in it. I'm planning on studying U.S. political parties, interest groups, and networks. This subject matter isn't close. I wish I could explicitly say what the research is, but it is basically empirical work to figure out how large a certain illicit economy problem in a developing country is.

I have a minor dilemma that I'm curious if anyone can help me solve. I currently work at a think tank. Recently, I co-authored a very in depth, cutting-edge piece of research on a very sexy topic in international development / economics. I can't give more details right now, because the research is not yet public, but we believe it will be public in the near future. The research is novel and detailed enough that I believe I could turn it into 3-4 articles in top quality international economics / development / journals. My current organization doesn't care much about peer-reviewed publications, but is okay with me spending my own time preparing the work for submission. I have been accepted into several PhD programs, in the American subfield. Any possible research that I am interested in has nothing to do with the material I recently worked on. It's not even close. The only reason I would consider putting the time and effort into submitting this research for peer review would be to support my academic career. This obviously comes with significant opportunity cost. Is it worth it? Or do hiring committees ultimately not really care about publications far outside your field?

Economists will tell you that's the one where you'll always lose, unless you're a mechanic

[First Name], I am excited to attend your visit weekend. I have one quick question, however: Given how far I am coming from, the least expensive airfare that I've been able to find from X to Y is $Z. Does the department have any flexibility in their budget to help defer some of the difference? My budget is tight, but I would really love to make it on the [date]. Best regards, [Your name]

Just a quick negotiating tip: If you ask in a respectful, professional way, there's not a lot of downside. They might have a firm policy, they might have wiggle room. If it is the former, they'll say it. No one will think less of you for asking the question, and you might be $200+ richer because of it. You won't be the only person to ask the person organizing these visit weekends for more money.

Someone has to stick up for New Jersey

To be fair, as far as small-ish towns go, you could do a lot worse than Princeton. The biggest pain is getting to and from Princeton. Route 1 and 206 are not fun roads.

For what it's worth, my "You should check the website" email from UC Davis was a yes.

Someone's got a Georgetown acceptance up now.

I'm at my computer at work. I always have both my emails (work + personal) open on a screen to my left. This is probably a bad thing for my blood pressure, and is definitely a bad thing for my productivity.

Except that my productivity at work is now shot But yeah, it beats a 'no'.

UT-Austin is mine.

If the partial fee/tuition waiver is identical to my offer from UCD (the other numbers look identical), the difference between a "Full Fees & Tuition" and "Partial Fees & tuition" is $250 per quarter, but the increased stipend while working in the TA/RA/Course Reader positions almost exactly cover the difference.

I am in the same boat. I am assuming I am in the maybe column, and being patient.

With confidence in your tech skills I'd recommend buying Bluehost's cheapest hosting package (usually comes with a discounted domain name - be aware though, domain name prices always go up in year 2), let it automatically load you a Wordpress site, and modify it from there. The HTML/CSS and PHP editing is pretty intuitive, and there are tons of great free Wordpress templates out there. With less confidence, I've heard great things about Squarespace, which is an all-in-one (hosting, web design, domain registrar), and allegedly has a drag and drop template builder.

What are your tech skills like?

Just got an acceptance form email from GMU.