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tskinner

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Everything posted by tskinner

  1. I personally know of none that have rolling admissions (do they exist, possibly). If they do, they will clearly state it. If they don't then submit only after you've looked over everything 10 or 12 times.
  2. Well, that's the highest I'll ever get! First year of my grad program starts next week!
  3. If you're going to open with a narrative, it needs to be concise. Keep it to three or four sentences. I would not recommend devoting a whole paragraph to it, unless it is done in a way that demonstrates your knowledge of the field. Here's how mine went: Only the first three sentences are pure narrative. The rest extrapolates on how it affected my career decision and analyzing it. If it's just story telling without relevant commentary, then the reader isn't going to be that interested. It's difficult to strike a balance (and I'm in no way saying that even I did it successfully), but it does need to be balanced, IMHO. Good luck!
  4. Yeah, people were terribly scared last year too, but UCSD, for example, was able to offer tuition remission and all fees paid to all students plus $26k a year for five years.
  5. Maybe you could put in something like, "having spoken with so-and-so, I am interested his/her research on blah-blah-buzzword and would look forward to working with him/her" ...and then the adcomm could ask the professor if they care. Then again, I never contacted professors, so I'm just guessing here.
  6. Woah! Calm down, everyone! I was just trying making things clearer! I never said what you had posted was wrong/not what he wanted, just that it was what it was.
  7. Note, however, that these are more for Masters in Public Policy and foreign policy in general than International Relations PhDs. Just read all the descriptions, and they talk about MPPs and masters more than PhDs. Or at least, that's how I've always understood FPA's rankings.
  8. 1 Princeton University Princeton, NJ 1 Stanford University Stanford, CA 3 Harvard University Cambridge, MA 4 Columbia University New York, NY 5 University of Michigan--Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI 6 University of California--San Diego La Jolla, CA 7 University of Chicago Chicago, IL 8 University of California--Berkeley Berkeley, CA 9 Yale University New Haven, CT 10 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA 10 New York University New York, NY http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-political-science-schools/international-politics
  9. My $0.02: If you're applying for a masters, get two editors and one professor. If you're applying for a PhD, get two professors and one editor.
  10. I don't know much about the programs, but I do know that sometimes a one-year masters can have some issues. I know Tufts Fletcher School doesn't admit PhD students who don't have a two year masters. This is also the only school I've seen that has this requirement, so take it with a grain of salt.
  11. I don't know much about the programs, but I do know that sometimes a one-year masters can have some issues. I know Tufts Fletcher School doesn't admit PhD students who don't have a two year masters. This is also the only school I've seen that has this requirement, so take it with a grain of salt.
  12. Oops, try again. http://forum.thegradcafe.com/forum/73-statement-of-purpose-personal-history-diversity/
  13. The first step is always the hardest! Glad to hear it.
  14. But remember, much of the advice given here is discipline specific. For example, musicforfun talks about professors not having the "funds or time to take on new students," but in Political Science, usually faculty don't "take on" graduate students in the same way. You'll be assigned one as an advisor, but they don't need funding or money. The department takes care of that. That's why it's not really imperative to e-mail professors when that's not the case, and in some ways can be bothersome. In fields where professors collect grad students, they'd love to get e-mails from great candidates so they can get their hands on the ones they want; otherwise, they'd rather let the department deal with picking the grad students.
  15. Are you going to share yours?
  16. I would say philosophy and political theory are pretty related. I got a BS in Applied Economics and a BA in International Affairs and Commerce (not political science, by any means). I took two political science courses in my undergrad (Intro to. and International), and I got into a PhD program. I asked one of the professors at my new program if I would be at a big disadvantage from day one, and he said "undergrad political science is basically advanced high school civics anyway, don't worry." I don't know if I'd go that far, but I think he was saying that the grad school will train you, as long as you can prove you can be trained.
  17. I used a book similar to this when I took the GMAT and did great: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=800+gre+kaplan&x=0&y=0&ih=5_2_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_1.5_144&fsc=-1 It's just the hardest questions and will help boost your score.
  18. Tough love, but probably accurate.
  19. I don't know about Rhetoric and Composition programs, but if they're anything like any other program I've looked at, the admissions committee won't even look at anyone's application until after the deadline. Do any of the programs you're applying to have rolling admissions? If not, don't worry about turning it in close to the deadline.
  20. I wrote something that I thought was passionate, beautiful, and witty, sent it off to my advisor to look over, and got this: My reaction was like then I was all and then I was all O.K. This isn't to say that you should "dumb it down" or make it DRY. It should still be nice to read, but just cut the crap. No cute anecdotes. Don't try to make them laugh. Just give tell your story.
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