qeta

Hi, everyone. Based on the rather long description below, do you think it is possible for me to switch from a political science Master's program to PhD programs in sociology? (Apologies for the length of the post - I just wanted to give as full a picture as possible.) I did a BA in history and political science and am currently enrolled in the Master's program in political science (comparative politics subfield) at McGill. I am finding political science to be rather narrow in both focus (concentrating too much on "top-down" state effects) and in attitude towards mixed-methods works. I also sense a kind of alignment in political science with methodological individualism, which bothers me. I am finding myself working on mostly ethnic conflict because it turns out that, broadly speaking, I'm most interested in how groups of people relate to the state and how their positioning in society affects this relationship. If I were to specify keywords for my research interests, it would look like this: inequality, identity formation, state institutions (including but not limited to the law), conflicts and social movements, citizenship. Political science uses a lot of the same methods as sociology, so I am lucky in that respect. I am currently loving comparative historical methods. Next semester I am looking forward to learning more about statistical methods, especially regression analysis, and a little bit of ethnography. Something I'd like to know more about is network analysis, but it's only started to migrate to political science so I'm probably out of luck there. Given all this information, does it sound like I would fit in sociology and can make the transition? I have read some sociology, including some of the founding texts, but it's difficult to know the state/future direction of the field from the outside. I'm not miserable in political science--in fact, some of it I find quite interesting--, which weirdly makes the question all the more urgent.

Good luck to you too, on this and all other applications this cycle! I sent you a PM.

I am so glad you started this thread! I am applying too, to SSHRC in my case, as a first-year MA student in a two-year program. I was wondering if anybody here would be up to reading the proposal, giving feedback, and the like.

Off-topic but I have to ask: is Quince a beagle who likes licking/sniffing big cats? Is that what's going on in your profile pic? That's certainly what mine would do. (God, when did I become a crazy dog/beagle lady?!) On topic, I second the idea of a friend or family member taking care of the OP's cats for the duration of the Master's, partly because the degree should last only 1-2 years and mostly because human roommates suck.

Mine was posted yesterday morning. I'm sure the school is just taking its sweet time with yours for no particular reason and you have nothing to worry about. Yup, McGill was the Canadian MA school I applied to. One of the US PhD programs I applied to referred my application to their MA program, and I reluctantly late-applied to a UK school just in case.

Hi there. McGill official acceptance letters are now up on uApply and yours will likely say something about the options since mine gave details about the thesis option. No funding details are on the official acceptance letter. My email from the department said that funding decisions will be emailed by the department by the end of March and the official admission letter from the school reiterates that funding is handled by department. I hope this helps and congrats on your acceptances! I hope you're celebrating.

I can't answer about the Development Studies or the European Studies options, but my acceptance email informed me that funding decisions will be made and relayed to the applicants accepted during the first round within the next two weeks. I'm thinking they will let us know right at the end of March.

I feel that as soon as you attach specific methodologies, especially if they are niche ones, or geographic areas to your research interest, fit becomes an issue. Fit was probably very important in my case because of the focus on South Asia and I bet it was for you too.

Ugh, stupid touchy buttons. Can you count my downvote as an upvote please? CERES is a great program and my friend who went there last year had a great experience and got tons and tons of funding from various U of T sources for language study and fieldwork. McGill's European Studies Institute is much less focused on Eastern Europe than other parts of the continent, so fit probably wasn't right.

Thanks! :-)

Thanks, IRToni! It's my first acceptance of the cycle and probably the program I will attend since my two holdout schools don't offer good funding packages.

Received email notification from the Graduate Coordinator of acceptance to McGill Master's program - my focus is on comparative. For those who are waiting: they seem to have sent a blast email for the rejections and are sending personalized emails with acceptances.

Congrats on your acceptance! Woot! I'm out of upvotes (largely due to this), but the eruption of happiness over this has been awesome to watch. Upvotes for everyone!

Coursera is pretty good. There are tons of stat courses--the ones from Duke and JHU looked particularly good--and there's a very very intro modelling course taught by Michigan's Scott E. Page. Sorry about your end of the cycle - I'm in the same boat when it comes to PhDs. Bottoms-up!

Are you more interested in IR? UBC seems like the place to be for IR in Canada. McGill seemed better-equipped to prepare/train me on comparative politics and methods, and those two were high on my list of criteria for selecting programs.

Oh, you're totally right! The shuttle stops right near the red line exit at Loyola station too.

Rogers Park was a bit sparse in terms of bars, restaurants, etc.. I lived closer to Thorndale, which was an awesome location in terms of grocery stores, red line accessibility, restaurants, dog parks, and the Armory (if you're into theatre). In some ways, I wished that I had lived closer to Lincoln Park because the purple line express didn't stop at Thorndale but made stops at Belmont and Fullerton. One of the people I was on exchange with actually later moved to that area because if it's faster and more convenient (no transferring and waiting on the outdoor platform in the freezing cold) to ride the purple express to Northwestern and back during peak hours (5:30-10:30am and 2:30-7pm).

I don't know if it will be helpful and there are likely many sources that are more authoritative, but I lived in Edgewater and commuted to Evanston for a chunk of 2012. Granted I lived alone rather than with a partner and was an undergrad, but I can try to answer questions about the location.

I emailed and was told that McGill MA decisions will be released between mid-March and mid-April - sorry about that. I don't know whether McGill receives the most US applications out of all Canadian schools and thus waits until those decisions go out (if this is true, predicting their yield must be an insane business), or if this is just an institutional quirk. Short answer: you have at least three more weeks to go before you could possibly hear anything from McGill.

Congrats! You have the best admission update on results search on GradCafe ever!

Not to mention that for some people like international applicants and US students whose lives and careers have been shaped by structural inequities, those "better" schools are simply not an option. If you got into a better-ranked program, good for you. Why belittle both your own choice of applying to the school to begin with and the people who go there?

You're a Canadian too, I'm going to guess. It seems that the mix of low GRE scores and international status is an app killer because they both effect funding. This is the info I got from my friend at Berkeley as well, although why he didn't tell me that before the application cycle began is a mystery.

I can't remember which former UChicago student talked about profs laughing about application packages/applicant emails in this thread - a tidbit that frankly gave this international applicant from a virtual red-brick university nightmares. That, combined with the consistent poor handling of rejections, makes me happy to not have applied to Chicago.

When I fly from Canada to US and vice versa with e-tickets, I enter my last name and scan my passport in the self-check-in kiosks, usually located at the head of the check-in lines for the airline, and it prints out a physical ticket and a boarding pass. That way I don't have to interact with the human beings in the booths, unless I am checking bags. Not sure if you can do something more advanced when flying within the US like getting your e-ticket scanned on your smart phone or tab though.

Accepted/Rejected/Wait-listed, I believe. I think the folks on the forum wanted that info and specification on sub-field and the very helpful/considerate posters are obliging. :-)