sundaymonday

I guess my only experience has been with more tightly-knit, smaller programs. The program I work for only accepts 10-12 students per year, and the program I'm entering into is the same way. Where I work, most of the students are in many of the same classes for two years. Sounds like you two are pretty mature and handled the situation well - and probably benefited from it being a larger (or at least more broadly oriented) department.

Be careful what you wish for, especially if she/he is in the same program. They could turn out to be a complete psycho, or break your heart, or do an impression of your O face for everyone in your seminar group. I know WAY too much about the sex lives of the graduate students in my office, and I'm sure they have no idea. Dating in the department is like dating people at your place of employment. Not ideal, for obvious reasons, but it happens anyway. Just remember that you're probably going to be stuck with them for the next 5 years.

Check out the "Poll of Polls" thread on the second page of the Poli Sci forum. There is a link to a 2006 peer-rated raking for IR that I thought was pretty interesting.

I also got into BU, but was offered no funding. 2-3 packages for 35 admitted applicants? Ridiculous.

So school X and Y are equally ranked...I'm assuming they have similar post-grad placement? I would go with school Y if they are offering you 5K more per year, unless the money isn't that big of an issue for you or you have a strong reason for being in the area where school X is located. I had a similar dilemma in choosing between two programs, but there were other issues at play aside from the funding package. School X and Y for me were also (somewhat) similarly ranked, had similar post-grad placement rankings, and school Y offered me 5K more per year too. Still, I solicited the advice of a few poli sci profs at different schools in the form of a friendly email, and they unanimously agreed that school X was the better program. Also, school Y didn't offer dependent health care coverage, my partner's aging father was within driving distance to school X, etc. I decided not to go with the money in the end. Regardless, I definitely think you should send an email to the DGS at school X and see if they can bump up your funding package. It's all part of the game. They expect it, and if anything, it makes you seems more desirable as long as you're tactful about it. I didn't have very much success on that front, but I think it had more to do with financial restrictions at school X than anything else.

$18,500K for five years plus $2,500 guaranteed summer funding for 3 years. I think the TAship is for three?

Oops! Sorry, GW, not Georgetown Anyway, I interpreted the above essentially as "Shoot for the stars, but have a backup plan in case it doesn't work out." I didn't really seem him equating getting a TT job with a 2nd tier PhD as the same thing as going from the South Bronx to the NBA.

To the OP - have you considered just getting the MA from Georgetown, and transferring out if they can't fund you? The worst that can happen is you've paid for the MA out of pocket - and that's pretty much what other people are suggesting at this point. Your prospects for getting into a higher ranked PhD program after completing the MA might be better having attended a second tier, rather than a fourth tier school. I can't imagine a reputable PhD program being surprised by or opposed to someone trying to transfer out because they're not funded by their current program. If they really like your work and want you to stay on, perhaps you can use it as leverage to get funding in year 2 or 3? Paper or plastic?

Congrats! Took them long enough!!!

I agree with this statement. Maybe top 40? But not in the top 20. I was rejected from Penn - didn't even get on the waitlist - which I thought was kind of surprising considering I'd had two (what I thought were) very good interviews with the DGS and another professor there. The DGS also had me meet some of the graduate students, and invited me to attend one of his classes later that afternoon. I wouldn't have chosen Penn over WUSTL, but I still feel that rejection a little more than the others. Ah, well. Anyway, inside info says that they're working hard to get their ranking up, so perhaps they've become increasingly more selective about admissions. Also, my impression was that professors who were not on the admissions committee had virtually no input as to who got in. I know some departments circulate apps to people who might be interested in working with a particular applicant, but that didn't seem to be the case at Penn. If I were to do it over, I might have made more of an effort to contact other people on the committee that year. Here are my UG stats: NYU: Major Politics/Minor Economics. GPA overall 3.75, major GPA 3.84 GREs: 1st time 630Q, 460V (????), 4.0 AW, 2nd time (one month later) 730Q, 650V, 5.0 AW 0 publications Dean's Scholarship, graduated w/ honors Some research experience: studied Arabic in Egypt and did field work in Dubai a year later Took 6-7 highers in Middle Eastern politics, IR, econ. One stellar LoR from a prof at Princeton.

Hi Noodlez - sent my acceptance letter in last week. I haven't applied to any other programs that I'd rather go to, and that haven't contacted me yet. Thanks for the placement info! Are you going to visit the campus?

Congrats!

ACK. Just got my acceptance package in the mail for MAPSS. I thought I had been rejected entirely. They're offering me 1/3 funding. Am I crazy for going to Hopkins with a full ride, and not taking this offer if what was said previously in this thread is true, and that I'd mostly likely get into their PhD program after a year? I'd be 30K in debt, and even if I was accepted into the UChicago PhD program, I suppose there's no guarantee of funding there either.

Lol. If I don't know if the people who were offered funding were contacted, why would I know if the other 25 who were not were? You should give her a call. She'll probably be able to answer these questions for you. Do you need a contact name? I can PM it to you.

I spoke with her on the phone directly. It's true that I was told this by the dept admin, but could she have been lying? I guess anything is possible. Feel free to give her a call. She said 25+ were accepted, that only 2 people per sub-discipline were offered funding, and that those people had already been chosen. I don't know if they were contacted, or whether or not they had accepted the offer. My thought is they have some kind of back-up ranked waitlist for those they'll offer funding to, should those other folks reject the acceptance offer.

I hope it will be easier in Baltimore. My heart goes out to NYC grad students, though.

Should be, but won't be unfortunately for me. I don't know how all you other folks do it, but I haven't made 16K per year since I was in high school working a part-time job at a coffee shop to pay for my car insurance. Plus I have to pay taxes on that? Ooof. I will definitely have to get some kind of part-time thing going. I was thinking "evil test prep tutoring" myself, or maybe teaching a spin class... I do some freelance writing as well, but it's fairly unstable work. Sounds like the OP has a pretty cushy deal right now. Working for a poli sci journal and they're willing to bump down his/her hours? I would see if they'll let you work 10-15, or maybe do some work from home? I live in NYC too, and it's pretty expensive. You can't leave your house without spending $30.

I don't think I said that. Obviously if you're writing like a robot, that's not good either. I mentioned a few personal things in my statement, but it was related to either research that I'd done, or it was something that qualified me in some way to be a doctoral student at [insert program here]. How your personal story relates to being a doctoral student and researcher is going to be different for everyone (herein lies the creative part), but I think there should be a defined relationship between the two. Otherwise, it's just extraneous. I'm not really sure this applies here, as both posters of their SoPs did so specifically to get feedback about their statements from other people on the forum. I also mentioned that I work at a graduate department and have assisted the admissions committee there through several cycles. Although I'm a first-time graduate applicant, I wouldn't say I was "similarly ignorant of grad school" as some others who are going through this process. The advice I've received from said committee has helped me a lot - a lot meaning going from community college to a BA from a continuing ed school with no admissions criteria (I worked full-time while in school and had to take night classes), to being accepted with full-funding into two very reputable PhD programs. Of course other people have gotten into reputable programs having taken a different approach to their statements. This is just what worked for me.

Hi Lenin - I took the liberty of adding a few comments within the body of your text below. I've mentioned before that I work in the office of a top 10 social science program (not poli sci). I'm not an expert, but I have read countless personal statements written by people who were accepted to that program, had my SoP reviewed by five different professors and revised it ten more times before sending it out. I was short, but honest in my comments. Hopefully you'll find them a little helpful. I'm pretty much echoing a lot of the sentiment that's been going around on this thread. If you like, I'd be happy to send you my statement via email so you can take a look at what I mean. Just send me a PM if interested. PhD University of Toronto -Direct Entry "Following my graduation from St. Louis University, I was afforded the opportunity to teach English in Ljubljana, Slovenia. In addition to giving me valuable practice on the other side of the student

I, for one, am going to try to refrain from getting too carried away by all of this "I'll never get a job unless I get into a top 25 program" stuff. The schools I got into with funding are questionably in the top 25. They are great programs with excellent faculty and resources. I'm going to get a great education, regardless of whether or not they're ranked 24 in 2004, 23 in 2006 or 29 in 2008. And I'm going to get a job afterward. It might not be at Harvard, but then again, but who ever said teaching at Harvard was the best working environment in the world anyway? I've found myself reading over these posts and falling prey to this negative mindset of, "My God, I'm going to go through this competitive, rigorous, all-consuming program, give up this this and this in my life, force my partner to move here here and here - all for a lackluster position at Po Dunk U making 2K a semester teaching Intro to Politics for the rest of my life." ENOUGH ALREADY. To everyone who got in anywhere - congratulations. You worked hard, you got in, and everything is going to be okay. And to those who didn't and want to try again next year, do what you can to learn from your mistakes this go-around, perhaps apply to a few more backup schools, distinguish yourself from the 400 other applicants by making personal contacts with those profs you'd like to work with, and I'll bet you do a lot better. The fact is, the hiring process is just as subjective and random as the application acceptance process. Some places are just off limits - we get it. And yes, it looks good if your CV says you have a PhD from a top ten school, but your personality or area of interest or age or bodily smell or hair color or marital status just might not gel with the department, and the job might go to someone from UNC who gave a stellar job talk and who reminds the Chair of his favorite aunt. There will be plenty of time to worry about finding a job five years from now. In the meantime, I'm just going to try to get through the first year.

I was told the same thing by a professor that I work with. Good reputation, very popular with international students, but very little money.

2 people per sub-discipline were offered funding, according to the gov dept admin.

Have you all seen the campus? http://cmichae.acm.jhu.edu/blog/2006/11 ... mpus-fall/

I have to disagree here. I've mentioned on the board that I work in the office of a top tier program (not poli sci, but another social science dept), and I just intimately participated in the graduate selection process on an administrative level. If applicants didn't score above a certain number on the GRE, or had a low GPA (under 3.5), their files were tossed back in the box. I'm not saying that all committees do this, but ours did.