Poli92

Seeing that you all are starting to get decisions back is almost making me regret jumping ship over to Gov't Affairs. I don't know how I'm going to be able to wait until March. edit: English is hard.

Next question: will schools really care where/how I take these classes as long as it's from an accredited institution? Like if I take them online will that look bad?

The topic title should have had a question mark... English is hard.

Hey all, I'm considering looking into masters programs in econ. I am wrapping up a BA in econ and poli sci in the next couple of months, and I'm wondering how best to explain a peculiar course that my program offered. So the gist of it is, my school requires all econ majors to either take Calc 1, Calc 2, Discrete, and Linear through our math dept or you can take an accelerated course through the econ dept that is solely applied and covers linear algebra and multivariate calculus. I, because of scheduling constraints, took the accelerated course instead of the 4 math courses. I have also done two terms of stats and participated in a one-on-one directed study project with a prof reviewing popular methodology in my area of interest. Will this be enough for a masters program or do you think I should register for bonafide calculus courses at a community college or something before trying to apply? Thanks all.

If you can find a way to do it, I would really recommend it. Working on your own, largely self-guided project is much different than doing RA work (not better or worse, just different) and is useful as much for the process as the result. You really figure out how motivated you are when you have to set your own question, methodology, and agenda. It's a very enriching experience and will be a foreshadowing of the kind of work you will hopefully be doing down the road. That is to say, if you like the process, then you're probably on the right track. Whereas if you have to force it every step of the way, then you should probably consider other options. Also, if you're nervous about not knowing popular methodologies or being able to define a topic/question, this will be a great opportunity to practice. Writing a research proposal (which I would imagine you'll have to do for the thesis) can be great prep for defining your research interests in your eventual statement of purpose.

Thank everything that is good in the world, the GRE is done!

I'm basically in the same place. Also polishing my writing sample and taking the GRE Tuesday. Yippee!!!! I've done a couple practices and they've gone well but I still wanted to give myself enough time to retake if need be.

It's quiet... Too quiet. But for real, how is everyone's cycle going so far?

Could you speak a little more to exactly what your math background is? You may have more than you think.

If you're looking for personal fulfillment then research and write independently in your down time while you're waiting for the right time to apply. You may not be able to put it on your resume directly but you will certainly gain a greater familiarity with the literature. Also, I've learned more about applied methods from reading the lit and studying the things I don't understand in the methodology than I probably have from any class. It might not pay off immediately but in the long run it will help you talk the talk and walk the walk, which will be huge in your SOP for whenever you do apply.

Not a problem. A thread like that needs bumped around this time anyways.

I'll just leave this here.

I would say not to go into coursework at a new school and expect it to turn into an RA opportunity. Firstly, I know at my school, which has a decent record of placing econ majors into grad programs, people who are working through UG level econ frankly aren't qualified to be much assistance with the kind of research that the faculty are doing. I mean, maybe data management or something, but nothing really sophisticated--YMMV. Secondly, (and I mean nothing offensive by this) why should they pick a relative outsider over someone who comes from within their department? Particularly if you have econ grad students to compete with. There are too many incentives for profs to go with one of their own, groomed students to employ as an RA versus someone who is really just there to take a few courses as a stepping stone. You should still definitely take the coursework somewhere, and if it turns out to lead to more than that, great. I wouldn't hope for it though. If I were in your shoes, I would also save the money and take the state school route for these courses. I just can't imagine that the return is going to be commensurate with the amount you'll be paying for the classes at the private uni.

As a matter of curiosity, I wonder how (or if) the experience of those in grad school and beyond has actually been shaped by their undergraduate experience. As many of us are gearing up to apply this fall we are told about things we should, or at this point should have, done in order to prepare ourself for getting accepted and hopefully succeeding in a graduate program... but during and even post-admissions, how do all the little things that supposedly make or break an ideal political science applicant really impact the grad student experience? How was your experience or that of your peers affected if you: Came from R1 versus LAC or anywhere in between Had loads of math experience Came from fields other than poli sci Didn't do so hot in UG Came straight from UG Wrote significantly prior to grad school Participated in university or departmental honors programs etc. Any thoughts from the veterans in our midst would be awesome!

I second victorydance's remarks. Students with high GPA's may do better in admissions but it probably has a lot more to do with said GPA correlating with other indicators of performance and prospects shown in the applicant's file, not because of the intrinsic value of the GPA. Regardless, the myth continues. That being said, I think that given the other dimensions of the OP's file s/he will do just fine.

Here goes... (this is all to be taken with a grain of salt) 1) People have gotten into top tier programs with less than a 3.5. I would worry less about addressing this in your SOP as it is would risk coming across as making excuses and, given the upward trend that will show in your transcript, it doesn't really seem like something that you should spend valuable space justifying when you could be talking up other aspects of your application. 2) I would go with the thee amazing letters. If you are trying for that fourth letter because of the prestige of the writer rather than his/her position to write you an excellent, personal letter, at best it will likely not send that strongly positive of a signal about your capabilities and at worst it may blow up in your face because an adcom could see right through it. 3) With your credentials I don't think that you'll be an immediate rejection at any school. As far as making it to the end of the cuts, nobody knows for sure. 4) I would say no on things like op-eds (I have rarely seen them in a cv, doesn't mean it isn't done). The government report, however, might be worth mentioning, but I would probably put that more in a "professional experience" section of my cv than in a "publications" section. Additionally, you may want to sift through the Faculty Perspectives thread for more in depth and experienced responses to questions similar to yours. Hope this was useful.

Given the trend of the last couple of years, we're a fair bit behind schedule on getting this started up. So, since last year's season has more than wound down I feel that it's fair to get started anew. This will be my first cycle and I'm anxious/eager/terrified to get it started. I am interested in IR/CP, specifically looking at the relationship between ethnicity and contentious politics. Here are links to the threads of the last two cycles, each with very interesting contents of their own: 2013-14 2012-13 If we can have half as awesome of a group of posters this year as there were in last years' thread, this will be a pretty awesome environment! Best of luck everyone! Edited: typos and such

I think Walrus was referring to econ admissions here, in which case he/she is pretty darn near correct. For a growing number of econ PhD programs math experience is not a grey area, they flat-out require a full calc sequence and at least one or two of the other courses Walrus mentioned, maybe adding discrete math and prob & stats, as a prerequisite for admission. Some schools will take you conditionally if you can complete the coursework before your start date or contingent on some other arrangement. But at any rate, Walrus is right in that it isn't wise to go without.

If I can add to this, I think we all know that not all pubs are equal. So what kinds of/venues for pubs send the best signals for PhD prospectives? Or is it really just having been published that matters? Does this differ between sole authorship and co-authoring? Does anyone care about student journals?

How about attending schools outside of North America or Europe? I know that appreciation of in depth area knowledge has kind of waned over the years, but is there any value doing a program at somewhere like American University of Beirut or something along those lines?

Hey all, I have probably been posting on here way too much lately, but I guess there are worse problems, right? ANYWAYS, I'll be heading into my first app cycle next fall and I want to add a few masters programs to my application roster just to diversify my options should things not pan out ideally with doctoral apps. I'm doing this as somewhat of a hedge because many grads from my LAC in recent years have struggled initially to get into top notch programs, but have often either completed or transferred out of mid-tier masters programs and gotten into exceptional programs and have seemingly excelled. Many of them think that they were somewhat hamstrung by our school's lack of a major rep and more methods-rigorous grad schools having an understandable apprehension about the qualifications of outbound LAC students (on the other hand this is something I plan to address in my SOP). Because I ultimately wish to pursue my doctorate I'm not really interested in more policy-oriented programs, but instead programs that really prepare you with the chops and mindset to dive into a Ph.D. Thoughts on this? On a broad level I'm interested in IR and have a poli sci and econ background and would be willing to look at anything in either of those realms.

Was this something that you coordinated before the fact or you just bumped into people at the conference and chatted a bit? I am hoping to attend the APSA conference this fall and I would definitely like to try to use it as a networking opportunity.

Thank you all for your responses!! I'm curious if anyone else has had an occurrence more like this, where they decided no to go somewhere due to correspondence. I could also envision a situation where you might contact someone and find out that they aren't interested in taking on new advisees due to workload, being low on the pecking order, etc. I guess I would probably be reaching out to faculty for this reason more so than to try to talk myself up. If others have done this, then how?

As the title suggests, I'm curious about contacting faculty, as I'm sure others might be as well. I'll be applying for the first time in the fall and I would just like to get a sense of the norms (if there are any) of contacting faculty at departments of interest. Is it appropriate? Necessary? If so, when? How? Are there examples out there of it really making a difference, real or perceived, for someone? Also, is there someone in the department staff that should be contacted prior to contacting faculty? I come from a LAC so the inside community of higher is completely foreign to me. Insights?

I don't find the idea that those faculty at lower ranked schools aren't as well connected that convincing. Mind you, I'm just an undergrad at a mid-ranked LAC, so my knowledge is admittedly limited. Because of being at an LAC, though, my professors are obviously more teaching focused than research and should then be pretty poorly connected in the research world, yet I know that each of them are still rather well connected in their particular interests. My thesis advisor, for example, is frequently in contact with colleagues at high- and low-ranked programs in both the US and abroad in relation to his research and has put me in touch with a number of awesome people in very good programs even outside of his interests. My impression has been that communication within a research interest has a pretty wide vertical distribution throughout rankings. Why? Because within a sub-subfield these people are reading the same things and bumping into each other at the same conferences, and because they are concerned about X and what people have to say about X, not about the rank of their respective programs. So if you're in a program were people study your X, your advisor(s) will likely be able to market you to other people who study X in various programs, somewhat regardless of the rank of the program.