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NYCBluenose

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  • Application Season
    2014 Fall
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    Political Science

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  1. Annae, one thing you should keep in mind is that many programs have very defined quantitative profiles, and others are more allowing of qualitative work. So if you do want to go in a more qualitative direction, i'd suggest avoiding Stanford, Princeton, NYU, and Rochester in particular (maybe Michigan as well). Programs which are more accepting of qualitative stuff (from faculty and reputation): Harvard, Berkeley, Northwestern, Washington University in St. Louis, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins. Good luck!
  2. I'm even stupider than "anyone", and got a q-score of 158 (I think it was in the mid 70s as a percentile), and am going to a top-20. You might well need 90th percentile across the board to get into a top-10, but in the event you are more of a qualitative person, don't be discouraged! You don't need to be crazily strong in math to get into a good program. I nearly failed pre-calc in high school and did as little math as I possibly could in college. You do still need to show strengths in other areas to compensate though (research experience, knowledgeable SOP etc.)
  3. hey esotericish, do you have any suggestions for apartment complexes in Carrboro? Ideally, I'd love something that wasn't too far out west so I could walk home from campus if needed.
  4. PROFILE: Type of Undergrad Institution: Fairly prestigious private university in the northeast Major(s)/Minor(s): International Relations Undergrad GPA: 3.57 Type of Grad: M.A in European Studies from well-known European university Grad GPA: 4.0 GRE: V: 167 Q: 158 AW:5.5 Any Special Courses: Letters of Recommendation: 1 from Undergrad Advisor/Mentor (Tenured Prof in Comp. Pol), 1 from M.A Advisor (Tenured Prof. in Political Economy), 1 from Professor in M.A (Assistant Prof in Sociology) Research Experience: Three stints as R.A (two in undergrad, one during M.A), research experience at NGO internship, B.A and M.A Theses Teaching Experience: None Subfield/Research Interests: party politics, political economy, constructivism Other: RESULTS: Acceptances($$ or no $$): Johns Hopkins ($$), UNC Chapel Hill ($$), Sciences Po Paris Waitlists: George Washington, Georgetown, NYU Sociology Rejections: Berkeley, Columbia, Michigan, Yale, UCSD, Northwestern, MIT, Duke Pending: LSE Going to: UNC Chapel Hill LESSONS LEARNED: This was my second cycle. In retrospect, my first cycle I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, and deservedly struck out. You may not be as naive as I was, but I hope others can avoid my mistakes. (As a caveat, all this is just my two cents, and my experience may well not be representative of the norm). 1) Do what you have to do to get decent GRE scores: the cutoffs aren't absolute, but scores below a certain level kill your credibility. My first cycle my quant score was 152, and I doubt my applications even got a second look. This cycle, I spent a few months studying quant; my final scores still weren't good enough for the top-10, but were close enough to get into some good programs. 2) Fit matters enormously. Over my two cycles I've been rejected by some low-ranked programs and accepted by some fairly strong ones. Don't bother applying to programs just because they're strong/prestigious (like I did); you need to be able to make a credible case that you'd fit with several faculty members. The places I was accepted had either a few professors with a very close fit in my particular sub-field niche, or 5 or 6 professors with broader connections to my regional and/or substantive interests. 3) To determine fit and strengthen your SOP, I'd suggest going through faculty pages intensively. When you find a professor whose interests seem aligned with yours, check out their CV and read one or two of their articles. This will help you express a clear fit with the program, and committees notice that. 4) This is an exhausting and stressful process. I'd strongly suggest that after submitting your apps, you avoid grad cafe like the plague until the end of January at least. If it doesn't work out in the first cycle, don't give up! The competition is ferocious and the results can be a bit arbitrary. If academia/research is all you can imagine doing (and you shouldn't apply for PhDs otherwise), then take the time to improve your app materials and give it another go. Many people on this board have struck out on their first cycle, only to get into fantastic programs the second time around. SOP: The best SOPs that I've seen have catchy hooks at the beginning. I wasn't creative enough for that. I found a compromise which was to explain the puzzle of a research question/agenda that I'm interested in, briefly mention some of the literature, and describe a different approach I was interested in taking. This might be too specific for some, but I had some modest success with this. In the body I briefly discussed my previous academic and professional experience, but mostly how they prepared me to pursue my research interests going forward. Somewhere (I did it in the final paragraph) you should make a sustained case that you're a good fit with the department; I cited specific professors and some of their previous work that was relevant to my interests.
  5. Out of positive votes. Congrats everybody! Very glad to hear so much good news after a brutally long cycle!
  6. Hi all, Does anyone know exactly what time the deadline to accept offers is on April 15th? I'm accepted at program X, but have been waitlisted at program Y. Program Y has told me that their decision might well come at around noon or 1 on April 15th. Is this technically after the deadline? I'm worried that, worst case scenario, I could wait until the afternoon of April 15th, only to be rejected by program Y and have my offer at program X rescinded for having missed the deadline. Many thanks for your help!
  7. Hi guys, I tried to find this info on their website and using the search function, but I'm a bit confused. I know the deadline to accept offers is April 15th, but what time does that mean exactly. Midnight on the 14th? Noon on the 15th? The night of April 15th? I have a good offer from program X, but am waitlisted at program Y and have been told that their decision could well come around noon on the 15th. Would waiting this long jeopardize my offer at program X? My fear is that I could wait for program Y, not be accepted off the waitlist, but have my offer at X rescinded because I missed the deadline. Thanks for your help!
  8. That wasn't me, but I just got a rejection from Duke as well. It was an email to check the website (self-service account).
  9. Hi all! I wanted you ask you guys for some advice about whether my interests could fit within sociology. Just a quick recap of my situation, I've got an MA in Poli Sci and have applied for PhDs almost entirely in Poli Sci, where I have a few acceptances. But I have one waitlist at a top-20 sociology program, and need to decide whether it would make sense to pursue in case I get in off the waitlist at the last minute. I'm interested in the interplay between economic crises and ideas about economic policy, and more specifically in trying to explain the political resilience of neoliberalism following the Great Recession. The subfield I'm interested in (social constructivism) is sort of a marginal/heterodox one within political science, and as the field moves in an ever more quantitative direction, I've thought about making the switch to sociology. That said, I'm a bit worried that my relative ignorance of sociology literature would set me back. So I guess I have two questions: 1) do you think these interests would fit and could be pursued within sociology? and 2) what is the place of political sociology/political economy within the field? I've heard that there are fairly few jobs open for this subfield, so do you think it is worth specializing in it? Sorry if that was a bit long, but any thoughts/advice would be appreciated. Thanks!!!
  10. OP, I went 0/8 for PhDs last year (pretty much, one offer unfunded). This year I applied even more widely and have a top 20 acceptance, a top 40, and a few waitlists. I think it's worth a second cycle if you really see academia as the place for you. But I agree that you should look for a job/internship for this year, and try and get that M.A paid for in the framework of a PhD program. As an alternative, I did an MA abroad, which can be way way cheaper than in the States. The biggest difference for me from cycle to cycle was re-working my SOP and focusing obsessively on fit. It's really worth reading at least 3 or 4 articles from each of the professors you propose to work with so you can better connect your interests to theirs in your application.
  11. Is it entirely different, cooperstreet? It's not exactly a wild flight of fancy. People who claim causal inference as the core mission of political science, and assert that only quantitative research can lead to causal inference delegitimize alternate approaches, sometimes implicitly, and sometimes explicitly.
  12. That was never the case at the well-known Continental European university where I did my MA, and it didn't seem like it was at the UK schools I applied to either. But to the extent that quantitative people are deliberately marginalized in Canada or elsewhere, that's just as stupid. Pluralism makes the discipline stronger, not exclusionary groupthink (be it quantitative or qualitative). Just one example. Constructivism makes rational choice stronger, by forcing it to address the weaknesses of some of its core assumptions (subjectivity of interests, importance of non-material interests). Similarly, rational choice makes constructivism stronger, by forcing it to specify and operationalize 'ideas' as an analytical concept, and consider the links between ideas and material interests.
  13. I don't like the way the OP has overreacted in this thread, and I certainly don't approve of some of his comments. That said, I generally think that most people on this thread need to understand the context in which qualitatively-oriented people are operating. And that is being told that our approach has no place in the discipline. This is something that the quantitatively-inclined will never hear in their careers. Quantitative methods can absolutely be useful for a huge variety of questions, and have a valuable place in political science. I would never dispute that. But when you hear comments to the effect that even a mixed-methods dissertation 'sends off the wrong signals', and that qualitative dissertations belong in sociology or the humanities, we've gone way too far in the direction of conformist groupthink. How can we read the work of giants like Peter Hall, Paul Pierson, Theda Skocpol, and Alexander Wendt (to name only a few) and then casually say that qualitative work is not political science? So try to view people's frustrations in context: they feel like they're being pushed out.
  14. At the end of the day, you are not going to be happy doing someone else's research, so don't bother doing a PhD somewhere that won't take a qual/comparative historical perspective seriously (like Rochester or NYU). That said, doing one or two quant classes won't kill you, and will at the very minimum help you to understand a huge, important body of poli sci literature. You'll need to understand that approach on its own terms in able to critique it.
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