Parisienne

To give a quick answer to the first set of questions you ask : 1) Yes, getting a student job with zero French skills might be difficult. However, again, there are a few options you could check out (giving private English lessons/tutoring for example). You might want to contact Sciences Po’s American Center to find out more about how they usually help out U.S. students with finding jobs. 2) You have to be sure that the E.U is what you’re truly interested in right now if you decide to pursue the Sciences Po Masters in EU Affairs. As the above poster said, Sciences Po is well known and regarded in France & Europe, and this degree will help you in getting jobs in say, E.U lobbies, or European think tanks. It’ll also help you get a job as a parliamentary attaché if that’s something you’re interested in. But if you're not hell-bent on EU affairs, or if you're thinking about moving back to the U.S., that degree wouldn't be the best choice. My general advice is, if you’re not sure about what you want to do with the degree, how you want to leverage it, and if it’s the right degree for you, then work for a while, and defer application until you’re sure. Extra prof. experience is always valued obviously, and you can get a Master’s at any given point, but make sure you know what you wanna do with it to avoid wasting time & money. 3) Sciences Po Avenir is not super helpful… They have a good website with interesting offers, especially for internships, but when I was there they weren’t the best helpers. 4) I really don’t know anything about the MPA degree, so I’ll just refer you to what the above poster said

Hey there, I'm French & studied at Sciences Po, so hopefully I can help you with this as well. 1) Your social life: not speaking French shouldn't impede on your social life at Sciences Po per se, since there are many, many international kids who attend this school - particularly for their Masters - and obviously, the common language is English. In my experience, the international students at Sciences Po are all fun & pretty outgoing. However, the same can't be said of i) French people in general and ii) French students at Sciences Po. First, what other posters have said is true - French people, unfortunately, can be cold and difficult to approach at first, so striking up a convo with a French person won't necessarily be easy if you don't speak French. However, as the others have said, they do truly appreciate it when people make an effort to try to speak French; also, the younger the person you talk to, the nicer that person is likely to be and the more likely is is that this person speaks English as well. Second, You'll notice that French students at Sciences Po either hang out with a predefined group of people or keep to themselves, and that's very specific to ScPo (not all French students are that way). You definitely have to be the outgoing one if you want to strike up a friendship with a French kid. But once that happens, you'll truly be friends, as opposed to what I've experienced in the U.S. (American students being extremely nice and outgoing to you, and, being used to French-ness, you think that means you found a new best friend, then you realize they're just that way in general with everyone and that it really doesn't mean that you've become friends with that person). So - finding international friends at ScPo will be easy; being friends with French kids will be less so, but if you're outgoing & make an effort to speak French you should do fine 2) Finding a student job: it'll certainly be difficult in the sense that yes you do need to speak French for 99% of student jobs you'll be applying to. There are a few tricks though: for instance there's an awesome American diner in the heart of Paris whose waiters/waitresses seem to be exclusively Americans who speak pretty poor French; or you can always try to find a job in an American/British library/bookshop. You could also try doing a few hours at the Sciences Po library. 3) Taking advantage of university resources: it'd certainly help if you could understand or at least try to make minimum sense of the job/internship listings available on the career website, that's for sure. If you work intensively on your French before going to ScPo though, you should be OK and you can always ask for help from the people in charge at Sciences Po of the international students. In other words: if you try to work on your French intensively a few months before leaving, you should be OK & you'll be able to navigate the Sciences Po world just fine. I've seen many internationals at Sciences Po whose French was pretty poor, and they did OK. Plus, you'll learn a new European language in the process (particularly useful for working in EU affairs, and ScPo has great recognition in the EU milieu)and above all, get to live in gay Paris! Voilà - hope this helps!

Thanks for your input guys. Yeah, I think I may have read a thread in the past in the Gov't section, but I still had questions & I guess I also wanted input from this year's batch of poli sci applicants who have applied to both types of programs. My feeling so far is indeed that it isn't necessarily going to make a gigantic difference in your professional life. Perhaps in some areas such as public health, a policy PhD is required. But, I've interned at the UN, and although there were a few people who had gotten a PhD, most of them simply had an MPA/MPP. So in terms of getting your foot in the door of these institutions, my feeling is that a PhD can help but isn't all that necessary; however, I don't know whether it makes a difference in terms of promotion & moving up the ladder later on. I guess the exception would be the IMF, which seems to have a strong preference for econ PhDs (although I'm sure people from the Political Econ program at the Kennedy School would have no problem getting in). Sigh. This is such a confusing issue to me! The thing is, I'd absolutely *love* to get a policy PhD in political economy, but 4/5 years is a long period of time to be spending in school when you're not 100% sure the PhD is going to make a big difference in your career relatively to just getting an MPA.

Hello fellow posters, I come to you with questions regarding policy PhDs. I’ve been reading the admissions thread, and this issue was mentioned, but I guess I’d like to know more about your views on these programs. I’m very interested in schools that offer such degrees (WWS, Stanford, KSG’s Political Econ & Gov’t program) so I’m largely playing devil’s advocate here, just to hear what other people have to say about this. OK so my main concern relates to the “usefulness” of public policy PhDs. First, say you want to work in academia, and really just conduct research: it seems to me that it makes much more sense to go after a normal poli sci PhD than a policy one, unless you specifically want to work at a policy school. Second, suppose you want to work in policy-related areas, and are looking to get this PhD to get some in-depth expertise before joining a think-tank, the IMF, what have you. In that case, is the PhD really necessary? Isn’t it sufficient to build expertise by getting an MPA/MPP then working as soon as possible and building your expertise as a practitioner? And even if your career goal is to go back and forth between the policy world and academia, I suppose you could still publish & teach a class or two once in a while (at least at a policy school) thanks to the expertise you’ve built in your job, and that a public policy PhD wouldn’t be a requirement to do that. For those of you who are applying to both normal poli sci PhDs and such policy programs, what’s your rationale? Thanks in advance for sharing! I’ve been debating this issue with myself only for too long and need outside input on the matter

Many thanks for your advice, it's definitely very useful information. I'll definitely follow your advice when the time comes! Thanks again

Thanks a lot for the very helpful responses everyone! My problem then, as it appears, will definitely be finding the time to practice intensively & regularly, and getting in the mindset of the exam (especially since we almost *never* take standardized tests in Europe). I definitely don't have the time to take a class, and I guess I'll have to find the motivation to study efficiently for it on weekends -- my job is full-time and pretty demanding in terms of hours. And thanks a lot for all the references regarding books, practice tests, etc. I'll definitely take a practice test before I dive into this to see where I stand and how much time this will likely take. 700+ was the ideal target I sort of had in mind indeed, so everything that's been said so far in this thread pretty much confirms what I thought. Thanks again for all the help people!

Apologies if I didn't post in the right forum. Honestly I just thought I'd post my question here because I wondered whether applicants to certain fields studied more for the GRE than others (in economics for instance, given the importance of the quant score), so I wanted answers from poli sci applicants -- that said I'm sure the mods will move this post if they deem that appropriate. Anyway -- thanks for your answers. 1h per week is definitely doable -- I was just wondering how much time commitment is needed to prepare for this properly (for instance, is 6 months a good timeframe for prepping & taking the test?).

Hey folks, A couple of questions about the GRE: 1- How much time did you take studying for it? Haven't started yet, thinking of applying for Fall '11, and I have a full-time job, so...the prospect is stressing me out; 2- I'm not American & haven't studied in the States (except for one year abroad): will that make schools more or less demanding regarding my GRE scores? Thanks in advance for your helpful answers

I second this. I'm European as well, and the academic job market will definitely be tougher for you coming from a European university than an American one (except perhaps for the LSE). If you can do your PhD in the U.S., then definitely go for it and -- I agree with Sanssouci -- try to squeeze in a year abroad in Europe if you can. Also, as someone who's studied in both the U.S. & Europe, I can fairly say that the resources European universities have can in no way compare to those of American schools. Certain American towns & cities admittedly can't compare to London, Paris or Berlin, but the conditions in which you'll be studying in the States will definitely be much better.

Many thanks to all for the useful feedback! All points are well taken. If I summarize: 1- when there's good fit, it's probably obvious and it shouldn't be difficult making an argument for it in the SoP for example; 2- the more specifically my interests match those of other professors, the better the fit (that's obvious enough); 3- you can look at fit through different lenses (thematic or regional) and make your argument accordingly; 4- when browsing through a professor's profile, there's good fit if I'm interested in his work and can see how we'd complement each other/mutually learn from each other's research. Stormy Waters - I'm interested in comparative state-building and more specifically, how economic policy and institutions (such as monetary policy & central banking) help or hinder democratization processes and state-building. Since my interests lie at the intersection of political science & economics (I've studied both), and because what I'm interested in is studying the design and effects of policy, I've so far been focusing on programs that offer PhDs in public policy with a focus on political economy. I'm also looking at poli sci programs that have strong political economy subspecialties (but I feel that a PhD in public policy/affairs would suit my interests better). I'm still doing research on professors at different programs & in the process of determining where I'd fit well

First, thanks to both of you for your replies! It's really helpful to be getting feedback on this issue Actually, my intuition & thinking was that my 1st example was that of a good fit, and the 2nd example, one of a "so-so" fit: suppose I browse through the papers/CV of the imaginary professor from example n°2. I find out that, sure, he's interested in political economy too, but has been so far mainly interested in issues relating to growth & development economics and has never written anything regarding monetary policy for example, whereas I'm really interested in the politics of central banking. In terms of field, both research agendas pertain to political economy, but those are two very different issues. Do you still think that this would qualify as "good fit"? In the first example, professor and student are both interested in the same general theme (democratization) within a certain subfield (comparative politics). On the other hand, the second example, in my view, would've been similar, in the field of comparative politics, to having a student be interested in democratization and having a professor focus his research on issues of ethnicity. What do you think? Thanks again

Hi all, While most of you have already applied for 2010, I'm still in the process of considering applying for PhD programs and doing research on schools/degrees/admissions process etc. So apologies for this beginner's question! OK, so I'm wondering how one can determine "good fit" with a school's faculty. I've read that good fit can be determined by matching interests with 2-3 members of the faculty. This is where my question comes in: how precisely should my interests correspond to a professor's interests/research agenda in order for me to determine that our interests actually match? Example: let's say I'm interested in comparative politics with a focus on democratization in the Middle East. Let's say I find a professor who's interested in the resilience of authoritarian regimes, with a focus on, say, China. I'd tend to think that our interests match because although we're not interested in the same region, there's obviously a common theme. Am I right? Other random example: I find a professor who's interested in political econ, in the sense of how politics & economics influence each other. I have a similar broad field interest, but I'm interested in the interaction between monetary policy & politics, whereas he's more focused on politics & issues related to growth. Could there be a good fit there? Or do our interests match only too broadly? Thanks in advance for your help!

A grad student in a top institution told me that emailing professors ahead of sending in your application is generally speaking a good idea. I think it can help if you're interested in that professor's research, are a bit familiar with it, and perhaps have questions regarding how his interests could fit with yours. No? It doesn't necessarily turn out to be suck-upy. I don't have that much more info or experience with such issues (haven't applied for this round), but that's just my 2 cents!

Sorry to be barging in on this thread (not applying for Fall 2010), but I was wondering about this too. I haven't posted much since joining this forum, and, like cpaige, am not worried about anything I might have written, but it's always good to know whether adcoms do check out these boards or not.

Thanks for the suggestion I'll look into it!

Hi everyone, I'm looking into schools where I could do research in Political Econ/Public Policy. There are the obvious options -- Harvard & Princeton -- with Public Policy programs & PE subspecialties, but I'd like to know what are the other schools on the East Coast that have good PE departments (whether within a Poli Sci department or a Public Policy school). Yale, MIT & NYU all offer PE specializations - are they any good? Has anyone ever heard anything regarding NYU's Hamilton Center in Political Econ? Also, I've been hearing that Yale is very quali-oriented, so I guess I can't help but wonder how good they are in PE. Any other ideas apart from these schools? Thanks in advance!

Well I guess it depends on how different the grading system is in the UK, but it I were you, I'd do it. If they're asking for it & strongly recommend it, then it probably means it would improve your chances, and also, it just makes everyone's life easier on the admissions committee. I would definitely do it -- for the simple reason that I attended two French grad schools where the grading system is really different from the American one. In one of them you were graded out of 20, and in the other one you'd get A/B/C but those grades would also depend on a grade out of 20 (meaning there was zero grade inflation: a 17,5/20 would get you a B, and an 18/20 would get you an A).

Hey there, A/ Not too sure about that one so take it with a grain of salt, but it would only seem rational/logical for the adcom to simply view you as a candidate who's not fully fluent, regardless of heritage. But then again, not all students entering Comparative programs have total language fluency, so I'm not sure to what extent this would be considered a problem (I've never applied for a PhD in the U.S., but I have a Research Masters in Comparative/Middle East from Europe, and the adcom rarely took students who had too basic a knowledge of the language. It had to be at least almost intermediate). B/ That's a tricky one, I'll leave the advice to other posters... C/ You say you're a heritage speaker - do you still have family in Iran? If so, that might help convincing advisors when proposing fieldwork there. I performed fieldwork in a pretty sensitive area in the ME, and it definitely helped me convince my advisor to carry out the interviews I wanted to when I mentioned I knew the area well/had family there. As for how you actually perform the fieldwork itself, it's most certainly very complicated. People often have trouble opening up especially if you're working on a politically sensitive issue, but you just have to keep at it really. I have to say that the situation's pretty bad in Iran these days though...

I don't know about any list of top Middle Eastern departments, but from what I know/heard, UMich (Ann Arbor) has a great Middle Eastern Studies department/Center for Middle Eastern & North African Studies (they have Mark Tessler I think). Columbia's department is really good too (my opinion at least; I took a few classes there as an exchange student).

Penelope, Many thanks for the advice I'll take a closer look at these schools' departments. It also seems logical that schools would use these scores to weed out applications in the first place. Just a last question: any idea as to what Princeton's adcom for the Public Policy PhD would consider good test scores? I'm guessing around 750 in quant & verbal, but I might be totally off track.

Thanks a lot for your reply, I appreciate the advice In terms of research interests: in political econ/public policy, I'm interested in the way certain institutional arrangements (such as those pertaining to the central bank and the choice of an exchange rate regime) help the state-building/democratization process in developing countries. In terms of comparative politics, I'm also very interested in state-building/democratization in general, especially in the Middle East & in Central/Eastern Europe. So given my interests, especially in public policy, I feel like I'd need a program that does include quant & would allow me to use that as a tool, without being completely obsessed with all things quant. Do you think that the Public Affairs PhD at Princeton would fit that description? I thought that all the public policy programs at Woodrow Wilson & Kennedy were very quant-oriented? How about MIT's poli sci department? Also, regarding chances of admission - I'm aware of the importance of test scores, but would my application's chances be really mostly determined by GRE scores? Do soft factors/undergrad-grad GPA not matter at all?

*Bump* Anyone? Anyone at all?

How about a Masters of International Affairs at Columbia's SIPA? I think they have an "International Security Policy" concentration that's supposed to be very good. It's a less selective than KSG & WWS but still a top program.

Atlas, As far as the language in which classes are taught, my understanding is that the Economics doctoral program is the only one where classes are exclusively taught in English, unfortunately. You should also keep in mind that, again, there are very few classes that you'll be able to take as a PhD student at ScPo. Only Masters students have regular classes. Also, if your interest is IR, you should be aware that Sciences Po's IR doctoral program is actually quite particular. When getting into the program, you need to choose an angle through which you'll want to study IR (politics, economics, or history), yet the program still fashions itself as a "multidisciplinary" one, where for instance students need to take economics classes to complete the degree (or so I've understood). To be honest, the ScPo IR PhD program is very confusing and complicated. It's not actually affiliated to any formal poli sci department (same as the Comparative Politics PhD -- both are sort of "stand alone" PhDs), and the doctoral school calls it the "Discipline Plus" program... I'm not sure I ever understood the way it was organized. So all in all, again, if it comes down to Sciences Po vs. LSE, go for LSE. Yes, Paris is a wonderful city, and it's certainly cheaper than London and has a better quality of life overall. However, you'll find that the quality of life & resources available to you as a doctoral student at Sciences Po cannot compare to that of the LSE's, even less so to that of American universities. Sciences Po has a really great reputation for all of its Masters programs, but its PhD program still has a long way to go (which is understandable though since, again, the administration started focusing on the doctoral school only recently). Hope this helps!

Atlas - I can give you a bit of info on Sciences Po since I graduated from that school with a Research Masters in Comparative Politics. Obviously, Sciences Po is a prestigious school, and probably one of the most high-profile poli sci schools in Europe. However, if you had to choose between LSE/Oxford and ScPo, I'd recommend that you go for LSE & the like. The main reason for that is that historically, Sciences Po was never very strong research-wise -- the school is known for training people to become public policy experts, not academics. Now, they do have a doctoral school that they're really trying to develop, and there are excellent teachers there, but it still lacks in resources tremendously. The library is too small for instance, and funding is scarce. Also, you'll barely have any classes at all as a PhD student there (just a few seminars here & there). On the other hand, one thing to consider is that Sciences Po has numerous exchange agreements with excellent American universities, and many doctoral students take one year or a semester to go do research at schools such as Columbia, Berkeley or Princeton, and excellent fellowships are usually offered. So you could get the best of both worlds in a sense: doing a PhD in France in only three years' time, and spending a year in the U.S. developing contacts with professors there in case you want to eventually go back & look for a job/post-doc there.