IRTheoryNerd

Yea, I'd have picked NU over those two anyway so I don't actually have complaining rights. I emailed JHU today too... there is a transcript issue on my application and I'd really like that that not be a factor in their decision given that I followed procedures by the book. That one would actually have spoiler capacity though. We'll see what happens.

Thanks. I just sent an email asking the department whether it can accommodate dietary restrictions in case it does provide meals. Otherwise what is a vegan to do? :-)

Claiming a Georgetown and Syracuse rejection. Within 5 minutes of one another. Boo.

My undergrad department actually grade deflates according to a recent review it conducted!

We are only as good as we are at our worst...

There are always such people who cannot bow out gracefully. Set backs are temporary. There is no need to drag down your good name and everyone who has supported you because of a set back. We are here to help each other pull ourselves up regardless of outcome, not be condescending and vindictive.

Congratulations to the McGill admit!!! :-)

Yes! Well, more accurately, the theoretical and methodological lens through which I see my substantive interests changed quite dramatically.

The Loyola area has a intercampus shuttle stop if I'm not mistaken, right? That's what I've got my eyes on. ;-)

You can probably find more to do living in northern Chicago than in New Haven. At least that's what I tell myself to ease the sting.

I'm basically looking at Lakeview, Uptown, Rogers Park, or Edgewater---something with red line accessibility. I heard Rogers Park is a bit of a food desert now that one of the big grocery stores has closed down (or is planning to close down).

Yuppp... I definitely autocorrected my own ambitions too because of perceived inferiority. With my current knowledge, my CV was probably better positioned relative to my peers at that time than it is now. But I was risk averse. I corrected for it this round by having a lot of ambitious schools on my list. Even if the Ivys don't happen at least it will not have been out of a lack of effort or resolve on my part.

Do departments usually provide meals during recruitment weekend?

I would argue too few top programs actually stress methodological pluralism---the farthest they go in terms of methodological pluralism is to assign George & Bennett alongside King, Keohane & Verba. The false dichotomy between qualitative and quantitative methods (not methodology) is alive and well as though it is the only difference in possible research techniques. Some PhD students coming with prior exposure to advanced statistics simply don't find the underlying logic and philosophical ontological assumptions of neopositivist methodology terribly useful in answering the sort of important questions they seek to ask. Insofar as this is the case, more advanced statistics requirements will not be a solution, but a waste of time for these students. Sure, it's nice to be able to arm yourself with counterarguments, so a few stats classes should be taken by all students. But a few philosophy of science and non-positivist methodology courses should also be a part of the standard curriculum. That would certainly go a long way in getting all of us to stop talking past each other, unfairly criticizing each others' work without any concept of internal validity, and allowing for a future US political science academe in which not only quantoids are welcome. I suppose that has little to do with the immediate concern of job placement, except this: students should focus on improving how they articulate their arguments for why non-positivist methodology make valuable contributions to the field, and engage with senior scholars (at conferences, within departments, on dissertation committees) who might push back against outside the box thinking. Find natural allies. Cultivate those relationships. Network the hell out of them. But don't compromise your research to the point that you barely recognize it as your own in order to land a job or appease a committee member whose raison d'être is to unreflectively prescribe positivist methodology for any and all projects, tone deaf to the actual research question itself, and convinced that anything that isn't hypothesis testing lacks scienticity.

Never give up

Two rejections today. Unrequited love.

I absolutely agree. I was advised by a director of graduate admissions to start the SOP by talking about your research interests and plans. Let this take up about half of your statement and only then devolve into a discussion of how you got to have this interests. It struck me as somewhat anachronistic, but I think it made me a stronger applicant. If you'd like to discuss SOP drafts with more specificity, I'd be happy to chat via PM.

If your heart is set on grad school, yes, apply again. Spend the intervening period strengthening your application. I would advise the following: 1. Improve those GRE scores. I retook the GREs last summer and improved dramatically relative to what I got when I took them two years earlier. Invest a ton of time into studying and take a preparation class if you think it'll help. GREs don't make an application, but they can break it. 2. Take some time to fix up the writing sample. Don't write one from scratch. I'd recommend editing the thesis down to a publishable article. Take that to a conference perhaps, get more feedback. Rework it. Perfect it. Submit it to a journal. And use it for your apps. (It'll also give you an added line on the CV for a conference, an added line for an article "under review", and a better writing sample). At this point, you'd have until December or so, which, unless time is very prohibitive, is possible. If you go to a good conference, that also gives you the chance to network with faculty and students at prospective schools. I talked to people from Delaware and Northwestern at ISA-NE and I think that face time helped them seem I'm not an automaton, I'm dedicated to what I want to do, and that I have a required minimum amount of social skills. When people look at applications and they all look the same I bet it helps to be able to say that, all else equal, at least person X is someone I enjoyed having a conversation with. 3. The DC-Boston corridor has some great schools. Focus your efforts on fit rather than ranking, but don't forget about ranking altogether. I'd say that unless you're going to be at a top 10 program, having good fit at a program ranked 23rd, is better than a bad fit at a program ranked 17. At least that's how I weigh these things, for better or worse. Most importantly, if this is what you want, don't give up. I applied three years ago and got rejected from 9 schools. I went into a catatonic depression. It took a while to figure out the right steps forward, to get myself back on my feet, and to reassess my strategy for getting where I want to go. And it paid off that I took those steps that I reflected on. I hope your luck turns---unfortunately luck might be the single most important part of this process.

:-D Well, yea. I saw that average time to completion issue as well. It's less than encouraging, but I resolve to be on the sooner end of that distribution. Depends a lot on how long the dissertation drags on, and I hope by that point I can get my butt in gear and not make it last too long. I also posted this to someone via PM so I figured I'd share it with all of you as well:

If we move there, which is looking increasingly likely, we would likely live somewhere south of Evanston--perhaps Rogers Park, Lakeview, Loyola area. Aiming for metro accessibility. I'm glad at the prospect of being in a big city, even if school is in the suburbs. DC has made me a city boy--can't imagine what I would have done in Ithaca RE: a social life if I'd have ended up there. I'm not thrilled to be returning to the tundra, but I lived in Winnipeg once so Chicago will be comparatively benign. Do you have more specific location concerns? In terms of ranking, I'm pretty happy. Other than perhaps Johns Hopkins what other top US poli sci program has such good critical/constructivist credentials? Many profs are leaving Minnesota. USC is turning increasingly positivist. GW is full of big-C Constructivists. Northwestern seems to balance decent rankings with a good niche program. NW also has a decent placement record. Based off of a conversation I had with Ian Hurd at a conference it seems the department is generally pretty involved in student progress, and is pretty open minded in terms of what it considers acceptable philosophical ontological assumptions. Unlike at Harvard, Princeton, Michigan, Rochester, Yale, and many others, you would likely not have to engage in a (perhaps) Quixotic battle with the faculty in order to do something a little outside the box that is actually interesting and useful (in our minds). :-)

I'm likely leaving Chicago on Sunday, March 9 (mostly because I'm poor and can't afford to stay beyond when they'll cover me), but I haven't gotten my tickets from the agency yet. Is there a good chance you'll be attending in the Fall (or will visiting make/break it for you)?

The department seems to do more constructivist and critical work than most other top US political science departments. That's what draws me to it. ;-)

It's not a turtle! It's a duck-rabbit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit%E2%80%93duck_illusion It's my tip of the hat to Wittgenstein. ;-)

Haha. Where?