tskinner

Take math courses! If you haven't taken calculus or statistics yet, do so! Also, from what my political science advisors go, grad schools like to see a lot of Econ to, so try to get that in if you haven't. Start buddying up with your professors. I'm lucky that I go to a school within a University with about 40 people per year in it. All our professors know us extremely well, and a personal/deep letter from a faculty member is much better than an empty letter from a well-known researcher. IPSQQ: Where did you hear that about being an RA and getting a letter from a resident? I've been an RA for four years, and I do not see how having a resident write a letter for me would be an indication of how well I would do in graduate school. Did you hear this from someone? I'm wondering if I missed an opportunity.

Come on guys, let's keep the politics off the politics board.

It's slightly ambiguous, but I think/hope it means quarter. "During your first year, our Department would like to offer you a department scholarship for one quarter during the 2010-2011 academic year that will provide you with a $5,400.00 stipend and pay the full costs of your in-state fees."

I just got into UC Davis not five minutes ago by e-mail! I got first quarter fully paid for + $5,400 stipend with the expectation of all five years paid for through a combination of Teaching Assistant assignments, Research Assistant assignments, and Readerships. Such a relief to get in SOMEWHERE! Hopefully this bodes well for things to come.

As I waved goodbye to my newfound friends--the trigonometric tin man, the calculaic cowardly lion, and the social science strawman--I click my heels together three times and said, "There's no place like home." And that home is your institution.

UC San Diego! I miss the sunny shores of Southern California!

I'm reading The Poisonwood Bible for class, and starting the Harry Potter series over again for roughly the 37th time in my life. I am honestly obsessed, but I do have my first three books signed by J.K. Rowling! They are in tatters due to all the reading abuse, but since I don't plan on selling them, I hardly care.

BWAHAHAHA! :lol:

Great work! Congrats!

Three people have already posted results from Berkeley in the results! I want to know who they are, how good they are, etc... >.< Three weeks. Three weeks.

Not really. If your scores were sent out for free, would that really make you apply to 20 more schools or maybe one or two? Remember, you would still need to pay the $100 application fee, transcript fees, and what have you for each extra school.

Eugh...getting these really gets me peeved at ETS. We have to pay $20 just to get our scores put on a CD and sent to a school?! They don't even need to pay for paper. The marginal cost of sending your score is basically zero. And then they go off and give it out for free to schools you aren't applying to!? The price gouging is extremely frustrating. Monopolies are lame.

Thank you for posting this! I love hearing information and details like this! It gets me anxious and excited for some reason--thinking that there are seven bulging files on me scattered across the nation!

Also, as I've read on one of my application sites, the schools may take over a month from after they receive their scores to when they actually match them with your application. As long as you paid for sending them out/took the test before the application deadline, I wouldn't worry about anything.

None of mine were late, technically. I did, however, study abroad, and those grades are put on my main undergraduate transcript. I assumed that once they received them they would open it and see...but I now know that they don't really look at them until later. So when I sent my Fall grades I told them that my abroad grades are on that transcript. I heard back from a few, but not all schools... Frustrating, but I don't want to send e-mail after e-mail and annoy them.

I thought about it, but from what my advisors told me, Fletcher is more for people who are looking to work rather than go into academia. Also, they do not accept PhDs straight from undergraduate. If I don't get anywhere this round, I may apply to the MALD.

I've been thinking about it... For all my applications I picked International Relations as my primary and Comparative Politics as my secondary, but I really like methods, so if I get in, I may consider changing my secondary.

I never did it either and I regret it (though I am happy to see the response above...has anyone else heard this). The main reason I didn't do it is because it all feels so fake to me and suck-upy. I don't want to do something that isn't true to myself. If I don't get in anywhere, though, I will have no problem e-mailing some and asking for maybe a reading list of current research to prepare for the next round of applications.

Calculus 2 is more important than Calculus 1...but you can't really skip it. However, the econometrics course will cover some of the more important statistics while taking a calculus course can show that you can do abstract math as well...so I would go for those two.

OK...here go the negatives 600 on Verbal GRE (low for the programs I'm applying to) No real research experience (but plenty of research METHODS experience) An SOP with an extremely vague "research interest" section Coming from a fairly unknown but rigorous program (I always am afraid that grad schools assume unknown programs are easy and grade inflated) I didn't contact any professors in the programs I'm going too (I felt like it would be too fake and contrived, so I didn't do it...which I regret now)

I'm game for this, then I'll pop over to the negative thread! 3.67 GPA (High for my program...probably will graduate Phi Beta Kappa) 780 QUANT GRE Studied Abroad in Japan with host family Received grant to attend International conference in Prague 3 LORs from professors who know and love me Never less than an A in an ECON class (except an A- in the one taken in Japan) Two of my last three semester were 4.0s (the other one was in Japan) As in all my Calculus courses Graduating concurrently with a separate B.A. and B.S.

I'm interested in conflict and cooperation between countries. Why war happens happens...why it doesn't happen...what steps to states take to prevent it that are effective (or ineffective)...how/why/when do states stop war when they are already in it...etc.

Just e-mail the departments you applied to with the grade report and include a PDF of your unofficial transcript. This is usually all they need, and all programs should just slip it into your application.

I LOVED this! Except the underlined section is a little wordy and could have been written more concisely: ...in which we, the scrutinized, scrutinize scrutinizers.

This is what all my advisors tole me unequivocally: Ignore page restrictions. Send your best work. If it's too long, then they'll just stop reading when they think they've had enough. Honestly, with hundreds of writing samples to read, do you really think they're going to read all 25 pages of yours?