victorydance

You aren't looking at McGill? They have a number of profs in your interests including Winters and Roberts in Marxism/Critical Theory, and Abizadeh in democratic theory. Although, the IR faculty is rather small and less theory based (more driven towards institutions, political economy, and conflict). I have no idea what L2 is. I wouldn't really email profs except to ask if they will be around, particularly for prospective masters programs.

Depends how efficiently and properly you studied during those two months honestly. For reference, I have studied quite diligently the last 6 months and have improved my quant and verbal scores by over 10 points each. This is after a ridiculous amount of time sunk into it though.

I'd say your quant score is fine, even for economics ph.d. programs. I would be way more worried about your verbal.

I would say libraries actually save money by having e-books if done on a certain scale, not lose money. Of course, there are drawbacks and benefits of e-book collections. Furthermore, there are actually a multitude of university libraries that have thousands of e-books or extensive electronic libraries.

More depends on what you were specifically doing. It could be relevant or entirely irrelevant. In the absence of academic research experience, work experience can be a "remedy" if it is research based. That being said, I don't think it puts you ahead of any candidates, particularly those who have academic research experience. If you have both academic and work-related research experience and manage to weave those together well in your SOP, that is something that can really differentiate yourself from the pack.

Well I think being involved in a paper from inception to publishing, regardless of whether or not you were the theoretical mastermind behind it should give you the tools to come up with a general thesis topic. And of course, no one said you can't get your past professors or letter writers to look over this part of the SOP to help you, I certainly have. It doesn't have to be incredibly detailed nor some ground-breaking idea because that's not what is needed for a SOP. That being said, I think it is probably the most difficult part of writing a SOP. Perhaps not showing that you know the literature and setting up the idea, but succinctly detailing how you would go about solving that puzzle with proper knowledge of the field definitely. It's something that I am kind of struggling with myself on my SOPs. I have a topic because I spent the better part of my senior year doing research on it, but detailing it in an SOP can be challenging.

What were your favourite classes, what are your favourite papers in biostats?

Wait you have a first author publication in a journal and can't come up with a basic thesis topic? That makes no sense at all. It doesn't have to be incredibly detailed. Just something that is original, can be tied to other recent publications in the field, and you can ask a couple questions about in your SOP.

Honestly, for the quant section it is just about doing as many questions as you can. It's one thing to review things and remember how to do certain math problems it is a whole 'nother thing to actually sit down and bang out 100 practice questions. I had spent about 5 months studying, and improving, with magoosh and their 6 month study plan. But then my magoosh membership was running out so I busted about probably about 500 of the remaining questions that were left in a few days and my practice scores bumped up like 5 points for each score after that. So ideally, first review each component of the GRE quant section (number properties, algebra, statistics, ect) > then once you have a good handle on them, do a crap load of practice questions > take some practice tests > go back and work on your weaknesses > take more practice tests. Studying for the GRE is a process. And a better planned process will garner better results. For the verbal, it's pretty much just about vocabulary. I mean, you should understand text completion shifts and all those strategies, but at the end of the day if you don't know the words, you won't do well. For me, the reading comprehension sections are a walk in the park so I haven't done anything for those. Don't just do flashcards though, retention isn't as strong. Do flashcards, read the New York Times or Economist or Scientific American or the Atlantic or something, do some games, make short stories, ect. You need to really diversify your approach for memorizing vocab because not only will flashcards not be the best for retention, the GRE is more about context than knowing exact definitions anyway, which flashcards aren't particularly helpful for.

You don't have much time so I advise you to memorize as many words as possible, particularly the words that commonly come up on the GRE.

^ I don't get it. You source the work, it doesn't matter which format or medium you get it from. Why would you need to cite it as an e-book when it is the same source whether it's in paper or digital form? I cited a bunch of things from e-books, but the citation doesn't change one iota than if it were a physical book. The same goes for journal articles.

Hard to say really. I would look for at least a 158/158. 160+/160+ isn't probably going to hurt you or help you past that point. If you are in the humanities, the quant might not be that important.

BTW, you can look through the results section, many people post their GRE scores.

Those scores are not good enough. You'll get cut from the list probably without them looking at the rest of your application.

True, but I was under the assumption that is what he was looking for because he is doing a Ph.D. Could be wrong though.

The process is too random to quantify. Way too many variables. Honestly, coming from a relatively unknown undergrad doesn't really matter that much. What matters more is what you did there rather than where you came from.

If you didn't take any courses (this seems rather strange to me), then you don't have any transcript to send nor do you need to put it on your CV or explain it.

Another option would be to try and go for another cycle this fall. You obviously have a decent application because you are getting acceptances, might be worth it to give it another go and see if you get into a higher ranked American university.

I have no idea what it's like it engineering, but in my discipline I have never seen an academic employed in the USA at a decent university that has a Ph.D. from a Canadian university. And looking at the placement records for the top 2 universities in Canada for the last 5 years shows no placements in American universities except a couple to very low ranked universities (for example, a Ph.D. student from McGill got placed to Southern Illinois University in 2011).

^ And yes, stipends in Canada can be misleading because tuition still needs to be paid, so really you could be looking at your stipend being nothing when your tuition and fees are all paid for. That is, if you haven't deducted this already.

Why especially for immigrants? They are both immigrant nations. I see no reason to believe that Canada is any better than the USA for immigrants. I think you are being a little "hurrah" about Vancouver. I don't particularly like Vancouver but that's not why I am responding to this post. It's pretty hard to have a good quality of life on a 13,000 gross stipend in Vancouver. I mean, living anywhere even somewhat close to UBC is going to run you around $800 with roommates on rent alone. With other living expenses, you are looking at barely making ends meet with that stipend so in terms of actually "enjoying" Vancouver there wouldn't really be much to offer. And in terms of hitting the American market with a Ph.D. from a Canadian school, your chances are pretty slim. So if you are dead set on trying to get an academic position in the US with a Ph.D. from Canada, it's probably not the wisest decision to go that route. But I do agree that as far as reputation goes, UBC is perhaps the best out of the list but that doesn't erase the deficit from trying to hit the US market with a Ph.D. from outside it.

Stop with the self-defeatist attitude and study. The GRE is a test that measures how well you know how to take the GRE. You can make yourself good at it if you put in the effort.

Three ways to approach that: 1) Learn how to navigate academic texts. Most academic articles will have a section outlining briefly how the paper is laid out. Being able to find this section quickly, then use it to go to the most applicable section is a crucial skill for people who read a lot of material. Secondly, you should also learn how to use section headings and paragraphs to be able to find what you are looking for quickly. One can find out quite easily what someone is discussing just by paying attention to the key words in the sub-headings and in the paragraph introduction sentences. 2) Searching keywords. If what you are looking for has a specific keyword attached to it, use the ctrl + F or F3 command to search the entire article for those keywords. 3) Anything very important that you jot down for a note, reference the page number. If you have the page number beside the note you took it isn't difficult to go back and find where it came from.

I highly doubt it matters.

If the readings are article and book heavy (which all of my major is), I make annotated bibliographies in word docs. I really could care less about those little specific notes that really have no relevance to anything outside of context. The only thing I care about is the main arguments, the theoretical basis behind them, the methods they used, and the conclusion they came to.