cjalpha

I would third the advice to "tech up" as it's called. Courses in multivariable calculus, linear algebra, statistics, probability, or computer science would be a huge asset. An intro to programming course is perhaps the most important course that many people don't take; knowing how to program (1) will make future methods courses much easier and (2) will make you a lot more useful as a research assistant. Instead of doing grunt work when you start out, you get to do technical grunt work.

PROFILE: Type of Undergrad Institution: HYPSC Major(s)/Minor(s): Engineering major with minors in applied mathematics, computer science, and statistics. Undergrad GPA: 3.90 Type of Grad: NA Grad GPA: NA GRE: 170 V, 168 Q, 6 W Any Special Courses: I took the graduate methods sequence and one substantive graduate course in American. Letters of Recommendation: One from a very good methodologist who I've been working with for three years, another from the political science department chair with whom I've been working for a year, and the third from my thesis adviser in my home department. Research Experience: 3 year RA with aforementioned methodologist (with an R library to show for it), 1 year RA with a substantive professor constructing a data set and doing database programming, and my senior thesis in statistical learning. Teaching Experience: None that I mentioned on any of my applications. Subfield/Research Interests: Quantitative methods Other: I spent my summers working as a data scientist in major tech companies. RESULTS: Acceptances($$ or no $$): Berkeley ($$$), Princeton ($$$), Michigan ($$), Stanford GSB ($$$), Stanford ($$), MIT ($$), Columbia ($$), Harvard ($$), Chicago Harris ($$) Waitlists: None Rejections: None Pending: None Going to: Undecided LESSONS LEARNED: 1. Jumping fields is not so bad. This one applies especially to future methods people. I had not taken any substantive courses in political science before I applied (even now, I've only taken one), and was legitimately worried that the admissions committees would refer my application to the statistics department. I took every possible opportunity in my application to show that I do read and think a lot about political science in my down time and that I am interested in statistical models because of how we can use them to learn about the political world, rather than for their own sake. That seems to have done the trick; one professor specifically mentioned that he could tell I cared about what is at stake in political science research. 2. Find a mentor. This one applies more to the younger people. I was extremely lucky that my adviser took me under his wing while I was a sophomore. The work I did with him made me want to become a political scientist in the first place and it's impossible to overstate how much I've gotten out of this relationship - he has helped advise me on which courses might be interesting, introduced me to graduate students and the work that they do, and passed down many of the secrets tricks and intuitions of statistics which cannot be found in papers or textbooks. His presence definitely loomed large with the admissions committees as well; every person I have talked to has mentioned how influential it was to have someone they admired vouch for me. 3. Market forces make a difference. There is a clear shortage of methodologists at the job market level, and I think this has trickled down to graduate admissions. Many professors I have talked to have specifically mentioned how difficult it is to find graduate students who are likely to choose methods as their primary subfield. SOP: I'm happy to share via PM.

Yahoo, Harvard is out!

It would be quite unfair to say that Yale missed the boat on the quantitative revolution. There are people at Yale who do work at a level of rigor roughly on par with what we see out of the rest of the discipline (Jason Lyall comes to mind, and Deborah Beim's dissertation is another fine example), so it's not like the research that they produce is all that different. However, with the exception of Peter Aronow (who is very young and was trained at Yale, which raises its own set of questions), they do not have any pure methodologists. This, by extension, means that they do not have any seasoned methodologists teaching their quantitative courses. Granted, these courses very well might be well taught, but in my experience taking courses with someone who really knows the ins and outs makes a huge difference. Effective use of quantitative methods revolves around knowing where your assumptions are likely to go awry. A good deal of this comes from experience, and full time methods people (as opposed to substantive people who dabble in methods) have an advantage in that much of their research requires scouring the empirical literature for problematic violations of model assumptions. Studying statistics under an experienced methodologist gives you access to this kind of intuition, and a kind of sixth sense as to where danger might lurk.

Indeed, a big congratulations to all the new Yalies.

I refer the thread to Gary King, founding father of my people: http://gking.harvard.edu/files/gking/files/psgrad.pdf.

No, I just heard what you did. I think full details are supposed to be in the snail mail letter.

I have been doing this compulsively for the last two years. I share your disease.

I concur. Best case scenario, you get into another school and they remember you as the jerkface who used a deferral to apply to other schools. Worst case, you don't get into another school, they find out about it, and then they either rescind your offer or constantly think of you as "that guy."

It depends on what he means by defer. If by "defer" he means trying to accept an offer while delaying attendance for a year, that is indeed pretty shady. But if he means "defer" in its ordinary rather than a technical sense (to simply decline his offers this year and try again next year), I see nothing wrong with applying twice.

I guess that we know of at least one case in which Stanford made a good call on a rejection.

Just got the call from Stanford!

Thanks! Although based on the conversations I've had with people at these schools, my recommenders seem to be doing most of the work.

Claiming a Columbia as well. A big congrats to the other admits, most especially anxious2151.

I'm going to GSB! Yahoo!