victorydance

"Now, that doesn't mean any political science or natural science major can come in and do an English person's work easily." I am pretty sure I made myself quite clear with this statement. I never said it was a zero-sum equation. It was a generalization. Of course not all majors of X fields are good at all the things you listed. However that doesn't mean that most hard science majors can't design experiments or work in labs...considering they kind of need to do this to get a Ph.D. unless we are counting the ones who flunk out. And no, not all political science majors are great at quantitative methods, but they are also the ones that are getting shafted in the current job markets as well. In our current society quantitative and technical skills are valued. This isn't up for debate. I was trying to provide some reasoning why the pay gap may be different based on these skills that are in demand in comparison to those that are not. My intention wasn't to disparage certain disciplines. You go into the private market place and if you have more technical skills then you will have more opportunities and probably be paid more. This is not false. Why would academia be any different?

Wow, bullet proof argument there. Then please, enlighten us all why there exists such a large pay gap between graduate students in different disciplines? Is it only because of the demand of the field? Is it something else? I am trying to provide a good discussion. You are doing nothing but making snide and condescending remarks.

telkanuru if you want to actually debate this then go ahead. Or else you can continue to just snip little statements and troll. I don't really care.

It shouldn't really matter that you are Canadian if you are an excellent applicant. You will be viewed as an international, however an international with perfect English skills and a similar university training so that is a bit of a bonus. I had no problem getting into two very good American programs last cycle as a Canadian. But I made the decision to do my MA at an American school instead of a Canadian school to increase my chances for upcoming Ph.D. applications.

I am aware that the skills sets are different, and that for example English majors are better at certain things that political science majors are. However, is there really that much different in the general skills sets between an English major and a political science major BESIDES the additional quantitative and statistical skills the latter possesses? I don't really think so.

I don't agree. I have my needs met and I don't personally care about other people's needs for the most part. The argument that students should have some kind of automatic collective sense of connection or community is absurd to me.

I think one of the reasons is diversity of skills. It's similar to the marketplace where if you have more skills at your disposal, and the more technical they are, the higher you are likely to be compensated. Simplified way of looking at it: someone who is able to do literature reviews and analysis (English) is less skilled than someone who is able to do the same things + statistical/quantitative analysis (political science) is less skilled than someone who is able to do the same thing + design experiments and be a lab technician (hard science). Another reason is the demand of the discipline. Using English vs. political science as an example...political science as a field is more in demand as a field, which means that political science departments get better funding from universities, hire more professors, bring in more research grants, and often bring in more tuition because of more students wanting to study it. It then goes without saying that these departments are going to have a lot more fluidity to pay graduate students more because of their resources than say an English department. Even further, natural science departments often have large labs that bring in a lot of money, making it easier for those departments to pay grad students more in order to get more competitive students to enter the program. Most top political science programs pay their students ~$25K in base stipends. Whereas chemistry students of the same universities often bring in $30K+. I don't have a problem with this personally because I understand the greater learning curve and time that goes into learning the skills required to work in a lab and conduct experiments. Now, that doesn't mean any political science or natural science major can come in and do an English person's work easily. But I do recognize that there is a whole slew of technical skill sets that the former two have to learn to be successful in their field while the English major doesn't.

That's not really what I am saying. I don't think it is "shitty" anywhere. My point was that the way society is set up, people make some sacrifices and with those sacrifices comes restraints or lack of opportunities. Starting a family is one of those restraints. If you want to get married and/or have children, you have to recognize that your opportunities will be more limited than they were before. Doesn't mean you can't succeed in whatever you may want to succeed in but it still means there are more restraints. It's a fact that people with families are going to be more risk-adverse and less likely to strive to become leaders of their fields because someone that has a family is going to value more stability and place less value on ambition. I don't think people should be paid more because they have a family. Nor do I think students should receive more funding if they have a family. It was their choice to have a family. The world isn't full of roses and free rides, well for the vast majority of people anyways. Simple fact is that breaking into academia is difficult and if you want to put more restraints on that pursuit by having children then so be it, you shouldn't get any advantages because you did so. And it doesn't matter anyways, because there is always going to be someone in line to take your place if you aren't passionate enough/willing to make sacrifices to break into academia. And that's the way it is everywhere. It's just a matter of entitlement. I want a nice house, a family, a Ph.D., and a tenure-track job please. Well, you might have to forfeit one or more of those things to get the other.

But there are people who are marginalized in all industries and in the economy because that's how the current system works. It can be reasoned that having children is a sacrifice and that sacrifice comes with it restraints on other parts of your life, including your profession or job paths. Academia is no different and I don't believe it should be made into some kind of utopian place that is different than the rest of the economy.

Good for you.

Better than political science where you are expected to do extensive statistical analysis AND have a similar theoretical and case study approach.

They can however take on more TA jobs, RA positions, or apply for more grants (both external and internal) if they need to so I don't see how it is that relevant. The thing is that I don't feel like individuals who decide to have children despite the inability to really provide for them should be supported any more than someone who decides not to have children. If an individual is incapable of working due to disability or whatever, then fine, but that's not the case here. I don't think having children while being in grad school is a good life decision. It can be done and if they can make it work all the power to them but that doesn't mean they should be supported anymore than someone who doesn't make that decision.

Factors I care/cared about (not in any order of preference): 1) Ranking of department in the field (I will only attend a top 20, and preferably a top 10 department). 2) Research fit (I want at least one professor who aligns extremely well with my interests, and 1 or 2 others that intersect in some other way). 3) Desirability (if this was the only school I was accepted to, would I actually go there?) Factors I placed no value on: 1) Location (1 - you have 8-10 different locations on your list so it's impossible to say which one you will end up with and 2 - location is what you make of it) 2) Overall prestige of school (who cares about going to, say, Columbia if their department in your field isn't any good). 3) Funding 4) Second hand accounts of collegiality of faculty/grad students. I am of the firm belief that only 3 things matter: ranking, research fit, and if you actually want to go there. If you have multiple acceptances, then other things start to come into play but not at the application stage.

I don't really care about graduate stipends. I currently live on 13K a year and have an independent income/passive income. Granted, I live in Latin America so costs are much cheaper, but I also travel a lot. I see no reason why I would ever hit above 20K in the USA. If you cannot live on 25-30K a year then that's a problem. Most jobs pay around 30-40K, there is no reason that a student should make that much.

Modern political science is very quantitative or at the very least mixed methods. Those types of topics would be comparative politics. I would say do your Middle Eastern Studies/Arabic Studies program and take some political science seminars, particularly methods and a survey course of comparative politics, and see if you like it or not.

There is no reason to not apply to one of the UC schools, particularly Berkeley, because of funding concerns. On the other hand, it's probably not wise to make a significant chunk of your application percentage based on the UC schools either.

Lot's of political science Ph.D. applicants with masters' degrees come from interdisciplinary area studies programs. This is particularly true for people who want to study comparative politics. The question you have to answer is if you actually even know what political science is. Because it is quite different than history as a discipline. Saying "I know a lot about X politics and enjoy it" is a lot different than saying "I like political science." In general, there is a surprising little amount of actual 'politics' in the study of political science.

UCSD regularly admits internationals without funding.

It means that I know pretty specifically what I want to study and have spent a lot of time pursuing that topic and gaining knowledge and experience in it. Consider this, by the time I apply to Ph.D. programs, I will have written an honours thesis, a masters thesis, have been an RA in related subjects, all of my mentors (and SOPs) will have specialized in it, and hopefully presented a paper or submitted an article to a journal on this very topic. When you have clearly defined research interests you can build your application around it, the programs that you studied at around it, and the programs you are applying to around it. All of your LORs will be involved in that topic, your classwork will be geared towards it, your research experience will be on it or connected to it, and you will know exactly which programs house scholars in that subject. Everything is targeted and tight. And that is one factor that really I think people underestimate as a potential deal breaker into getting into top ph.d. programs.

Impossible to say. The problem with these 'what are my chances threads' is that the most important factors, SOPs, LORs, writing samples, and research experience are never really revealed. Everyone on this board likes to say they have top notch LORs, but I doubt that's the case. Everyone seems to overrate their SOPs, even though this possibly could be the most important part of your application. Research experience matters. You will be competing with people, like myself, who have 1-2 years of RA experience when they apply to Ph.D. programs. Stats at the end of the day are the weakest indicator of acceptance potential. As long as you meet a threshold (~3.5+ GPA, 160+ on both sections of GRE), these things have little relevance in whether you get accepted or not. Regardless, at the end of the day it doesn't matter. You put together the best application possible and apply to the best programs possible and see what happens. Only a select few have carte blanche to attend virtually anywhere they wish. For the vast majority of us, we put together a good application and hope we get a couple of acceptances. You only need one fully funded acceptance to go to grad school. FYI, I will be applying to Ph.D. programs mostly only in the top 10 and a couple in the top 20 with a 3.45 GPA and mediocre GRE scores (something I am going to try to improve). I got into perhaps the best MA program in my field (albeit obviously these programs are less competitive than doctoral programs) with these types of stats. That being said, I have quite hashed out research interests, experience in researching them, and a few professors who are really going to bat for me. That at the end of the day is going to get you in. Also, UPenn isn't very good for political science.

^ People on this board don't really consider foreign nationals and how beneficial Ph.Ds can be in those job markets. Depending on your home country, a Ph.D. can get you into the door into a lot of professions where it may not in North America. I study Latin American politics and people from those countries that go back home with a Ph.D. from a top school end up with very good careers particularly in the public sector. Not saying that it's the right choice or not, but you need to decide if the opportunity cost is right for you.

You don't need perfect GPAs to get into top schools. It's actually the indicator that matters the least. I would say your grad school transcript is worse than getting a 3.4 during undergrad, finishing with only one A is kind of unimpressive. Regardless, it's not the end of the world to have average GPAs in your file. Your GRE score is solid. If I were you, I would be more worried about if you have had enough training in political science and/or empirical/quantitative training. I have no idea if this is the case or not but it's something to consider. One thing I will say is this though: you have a sufficient substantive training in East Asia. You don't need to apply to programs that have a number of people who do research on East Asia politics. You need to focus on your research interests and apply to programs that have the best scholars in those sub-fields. For example, if you are interested in migration, you should be looking at all the top programs and who studies migration. If one of these studies migration in East Asia that's a bonus, but you have enough training in East Asia now that it really doesn't matter.

I think this is horrible advice. Not saying the OP is necessarily at fault here. Nor is it always a two-way street. However, if you are having problems with relationships either personal or professional, not looking at your own behaviour and just thinking it's the fault of everyone else is a horrible approach for self-improvement. For example, people who continually play the victim card and take things way too personally can often create more conflicts than are necessary. Once again, not saying this may be the case with the OP, just an example.

Why are you not considering communications?

One of the great advantages of coming from Latin America is that it's much easier to get research and work experience there than in North America. The fact that you have experience as a lecturer for two years is a nice bonus, and this wouldn't really be possible in Canada or the USA. Definitely try to get some additional research experience. Because it appears that you do not have any academic research experience, this counts for a lot. You have to consider you are competing with applicants that have 1-2 years of RA experience when they submit their applications, and letters of recommendation from professors who supervised them. It doesn't really matter which country from LA you are from, it's only relevant insofar as where you went to school for your undergrad/masters. Focus on the things you can improve. Getting research experience, definitely your GRE, your writing sample, and your SOPs. Lastly, although I am not extremely knowledgeable in your particularly field (although I study comparative Latin American politics, it has nothing to do with this sub-field), one program to look at is University of Texas at Austin. Prof. Elkins does a lot of work on comparative constitutional research and Prof. Brinks is quite respected in relation to law and politics in Latin America. You might also want to check out University of Chicago as well because a prof there works on the same massive project as Elkins, Prof. Ginsberg. It should be noted that you have a fairly significant substantive training (both in Latin American politics and law) so you should be a bit looser with your POI and look for people who don't necessarily do Latin America but more specifically on your specific interests.