bees

There are plenty of good places outside the top 50. Some will have smaller faculties, and so you need to make sure that your interests match. Here at USC, for example, you'd be mad to come to study Theory- in fact, we wouldn't let you in because masochism is hard to watch- but it is great for any number of other things: China, Congress, Post-Soviet stuff, Middle East, non-proliferation, law and public policy, IR Theory etc. If you have a match, then check out the last few years of placement. Now this isn't meant to be a commercial for USC, but it is what I know. We've got recent PhDs at Oregon, Oklahoma, Baylor, U-Mass, New Mexico, Florida etc. And post docs at Brown, Florida etc. And that placement rate will get better as the program has got more competitive. Again, I am sure that other schools ranked similarly have done similarly well. It's just to knock on the head the idea that you can't get a great R1 or liberal arts placement from somewhere not on the USNWR radar (although the NRC rankings were kinder to us).

Looking forward to meeting all those coming to the POIR Preview at USC next week. Should be fun.

I wouldn't stress the fluency thing- you can always learn it when you are there (and if you have some background, more the better). The quantitative people tend not to care too much about language stuff, but most qualitative people prefer case studies that encompass more than one case (e.g. Iran), although Odell and others make the case that you can study a 'critical case'. You seem to have a good background otherwise, so as long as you are open to study the whole region, you'll be fine.

Interesting article in the NY Times on the issue: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/books/20poli.html

http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/posts/ ... al_science

They only person who springs to mind in Andrew Bacevich at Boston University.

If you have one or two Russianists per department, I would look to see what kind of methodology they employ.

Brown is ranked fairly high in econ and has a decent Public Policy program.

I am sending an emergency message to political science department chairs to ask your quick help. APSA has just learned that Sen. Coburn (R-OK) has proposed an amendment to eliminate NSF's political science program. It is an amendment to the Senate Commerce, Justice, Science appropriations bill, which is currently on the Senate floor today - Wednesday October 7th. Calls today to your Senator's office are important. The message should be: Vote against Coburn's amendment to eliminate the political science program at the National Science Foundation (NSF). It is amendment No. 2631 to the Senate's consideration of HR 2847. You can find information on how to contact your Senator at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_i ... rs_cfm.cfm There is more information on Senator Coburn's position here: http://coburn.senate.gov/public/index.c ... 6640c2c880 That may help you craft a response. I would welcome any nuggets or suggestions you have, as well, to contribute to materials about the importance of political science. Please send me your examples or thoughts. Any help is much appreciated. Thank you very much. Michael Brintnall Executive Director, American Political Science Association 202.483-2512 x105 fx 202.483-2657 cell 202.255.1880 brintnall@apsanet.org www.apsanet.org

There are not jobs out there at the moment, but if you are starting next year the economy will be humming when you finish and lots of schools who need to hire to fill the gaps from previous years. Normally 40-50 ranked schools means that you are looking at a school ranked 30 places lower down. If you're happy working at a Boston College, Boston University, Alabama etc, then there is no reason why you shouldn't apply to some schools ranked farther down.

Let him milk that gag for a while.