victorydance

I do agree with this. Having an MA with a 4.0 and methods classes, good letters, and possibly a published paper will significantly strengthen your application. But the question becomes at what costs does it take to get that.

^ Agreed. If your goal is to enter academia, don't go into debt. Foolish move. Actually, I would argue unless you are in a program like law or a medical doctor or engineering or something like that, incurring debt from school is extremely risky and not worthwhile. I am of the opinion that a MA is pretty useless no matter which way you slice it. I can see the value of professional masters when you have some experience, but with no experience and a BA and a MA, where exactly does that get you? Nowhere that no experience + BA will really. It depends on how much you think you can improve your application without doing the MA. Are your GRE scores poor? Do you think your SOP and writing sample was poor compared to others? If you feel like you can substantially improve those three things without doing more schooling then I would choose that option. It also depends on just how much the MA is going to hit you. Do you have savings? Can you get external funding? Do you have the ability to get a high paying job over the summer? If your looking at more than 15-20K of debt I would throw that option out the window right away. But that's just me.

Also, I don't take notes on my first reading, and I almost always read the whole thing from top to bottom through. I make mental notes in my head. Then, if I really care about what the article is about, I go back and take notes on the argument, and all the other stuff. A task that can help with this kind of stuff is making annotated bibliographies. Also, if your program allows you to enrol in independent reading classes this is where you will really hone your skills. Basically it's one on one with a prof and he gives you stuff to read every 1 or 2 weeks and you go in and discuss it. It will force you to prepare and understand the text because, trust me, there is nowhere to hide in these classes.

I don't see any point in focusing on how people write or jargon or whatever. The first step in reading any scholarly article is to identify the argument. More specifically, the relationship. What two (or more) variables are related to each other and how are they related? Does changes in X mean changes in Y? This is usually located right after the literature review. You should read the intro first just to get a general feel for the paper. Then find the argument. Then read the paper and understand their reasoning behind why they are arguing something. How is the person measuring the variables? Do you agree with the measurement? If it's qualitative, do you agree with their reasoning? If it's quantitative, do you agree with the method they are using? You should be able to identify what they are saying without the conclusion. In many cases, the conclusion is useless except to see how they summarize their paper in their own words. So basically: -find relationship -how did they arrive at this relationship? -what are the variables? -how did they measure the variables? -is their method sound? Keep in mind this is from a social science perspective, I don't have much experience with pure science articles but the previous should apply broadly.

There are two basic approaches to producing something that hits a hole in the literature: taking an already used approach and applying it to a new topic or taking a new approach to a topic that has been done before. I think people really misunderstand what research is about. They have all these grand illusions about people producing groundbreaking research that changes a field forever. This is rarely how it works. Research is incremental. 99% of research is improving methods or testing methods or theories in different contexts.

To answer the OP's question, not it doesn't matter, especially a history major going into political theory. The only problem I see is that you won't be as well versed in the literature as other prospective theory students who have been doing it longer and more intensively as you. I agree with the general sentiment that political science undergraduate programs are not aligned very well with graduate programs. At my university, political science was the largest discipline by number of students in the arts department. Yet, the advanced quant course offered had to be cancelled last year because only 4 students enrolled in the class (much to my chagrin as I was one of those students). The only required methods class is a basic empirical class (basic stats and methods class) that is only required by honours students. So basically you could get an honours degree in political science with very little methods or quantitative training if you wanted. However, I would argue that the top students in political science do have opportunities to enhance their skills. Many of the top undergraduate students take graduate courses, get RA positions, and do an honours thesis that gives them the opportunity to enhance their quantitative analysis skills.

I agree with this approach. Unless you are limited for time, you should be studying all aspects of the test not just your weaknesses. You can only improve your score because of it. I also agree that reading is the best way. But I think a multi-pronged approach is best. For example, if you are even just reviewing all the most common words on the GRE, then when you are reading your Economist articles or whatever, you know exactly what words to look out for. I find that using Anki and reading every day not only helps you learn context wise, but also what the precise definition is and for multiple definition words, what one is most important for the GRE.

As I said in the next post, those words were from a list of the 100 most used words on the test. My point was to show that even among the most commonly used words, there are some obscure ones. I did not attempt to make a list of the 'most obscure words on the GRE.' I prefer to pile in 500 of the most common words that I don't know perfectly into Anki and do 30 or so words every morning. It's less time consuming and very systematic.

They were examples of relatively obscure words of the most common words that come up on the test. There are more obscure words that come up less frequently, particularly if you do well on your first verbal section. We get it, you (think you) are some kind of vocab whiz. But to state that there is no point in studying vocab if you have an 'above average' vocabulary (however you measure that is anyone's guess) is just plain bad advice for future test takers.

Although it could change in the future, my first paragraph generally outlines my broad research interests (the next two get more specific while tying into the faculty of the prospective school). So I guess to answer your question, I just jump right in.

You have to ask yourself what is the masters going to give you that is worth the huge expenses that will ensue? I would look at the nuts and bolts of these programs. Learning a bunch of information for thousands of dollars seems like a waste. A quick look at the requirements of the Columbia program shows that the only real 'methods' or research type class you need to take is a colloquium related to the thesis. Is taking a few classes and writing a thesis really worth 50K+ to you? If you are interested in this topic, you can just read and research human rights independently during law school. I am slightly confused at your ambitions. You want an MA, but then you want to go to law school, but maybe want to get a Ph.D.? You want to work internationally in international law? Be careful, you need to pick the path you are most interested in. And also, international law is the least employable (some would even say there are no jobs at all) of all law fields. Burdening yourself with thousands of dollars of debt and then trying to beat the odds is probably not the best course of action. I agree with the other person in that you need to set out your path, then figure out what you need to do to get there.

You may have a great vocabulary so that you can wing it, but most don't. Some of the 100 words most commonly found on the GRE include: petulant, mirth, tyro, wan, heretic, calisthenics, efface, extol, taciturn, torpid, wile, ect. Those aren't really words that 'should be familiar to college educated adults.' I come from a heavy reading major and speak 3 languages but there are a number of words that come up on the GRE that I do not know, or haven't even heard of. The GRE purposely picks words that are not familiar to college educated adults. Why does every single GRE resource out there suggest to study vocab? Because they know it is the easiest way to up your verbal score and is often a GRE-taker's biggest verbal section weakness. If you don't know the words, then sentence completion becomes a guessing game which will drastically reduce your scores, same with all the other types of questions like sentence equivalence. Vocab is a factor in reading comprehension, albeit a smaller one, but if you can't understand the words and quickly you will do poorly there as well.

- "A Ph.D? How long will that take? - "Probably about 7 years." - "What?! 7 years?!?! What kind of job can you get with it? - "Jobs that require you to do research for something." - "Why can't you just get a job like that now?" ----- - "More school? I thought you just finished your degree!" ----- - "What are you to lazy to get a real job?"

I disagree. It is a reasoning test, but the tools you need are a strong vocab (more specifically, a strong vocab in the words they use). About 90% of the questions are dependent on vocab words. The words aren't 'difficult' but many of them don't come up in conversation or typical literature, so they can be tricky or unknown when taking the test.

Mentioned my school, not my GPA. I would imagine when referencing your research experience in your undergrad it would be kind of weird not to say something like "my undergraduate experience at X school blah blah."

Job placement generally comes down to three factors in this order: 1) Ranking of Ph.D. granting institution. 2) Who your adviser was and his connections. 3) Your dissertation and applicable experience (teaching, research ect.). Some people really underestimate number 2. Not all the most brilliant professors are in the top programs. Secondly, not all advisers are going to work and vouch for you during placement. If school X has a renowned prof in a certain sub-field that has a knack for placing his students well, this can be just as effective as going to a school ranked a few spots up. For example, University of Texas, Austin is generally ranked in the 15-25 range for comparative politics. However, Kurt Weyland is well respected in the field and has a good track record of placing students in good TT positions. So if your adviser is Weyland, you have good credentials, and you write a good dissertation, then you can get ranked just as well as the average person in a late top 10 or top 15 program. I don't know if this applies to CUNY because it's not on my radar, but it's something to keep in mind with this type of thing. In short, the placement of students in your potential school is just as important as the placement of students under your potential adviser. They are not the same.

^ This is correct, they have already given acceptances to Ph.D. students. Don't lose hope. I got put on the wait list at McGill and I got in (it was for undergrad so different ball game, but the general point still stands).

It's basically like two sides of a coin: what are you want to research during your Ph.D. and what you have done in the past to push you towards that direction. You should have some idea of the research you want to do, otherwise why are you applying for a Ph.D.? (the fact that you talked to various people about your interests, tells me that you do). That doesn't mean you are ready to write a dissertation proposal on the spot, but it means what are you interested in investigating? What questions would you like to attempt to answer in your field? You should first have a general interest within your field, then it should be narrowed down to some kind of causal relationship between two variables and a set of questions pertaining to that relationship. No one is going to make you research what you stated in your application, but this task helps committees see if you know how to develop a research question in academia. As far as your research experience...was there not a thesis component to your masters program? That is always one place to start. Did you do any special 1 on 1 work with professors? Using projects from classes for research experience is fine as long as they fit two requirements: 1) It is a project of substantial length and depth. 2) It is actually research. IE, it has a question and goes about answering that question through some kind of methodological process. Lastly, don't do a literature review unless it is directly tied and consistent with your research question. A literature review helps you hash out what has been done in the field, and what works can help you shape your project and answer your question. As for how to do that, you should already know this. Bear with me because I know next to nothing about your field... For example...you may want to investigate how different markets for sports teams influence how management allocates resources and manages their teams. More specifically, there may be a general trend that small market teams allocate more resources towards drafting, minor league scouting, and developing their farm system so that they can field teams with players on cheap contracts that can compete with others who spend substantially more. Whereas large market teams focus more on professional scouting, executives to sign free agents, and marketing so that they can use their ability to have larger budgets towards getting good players and putting more fans in the stands. Your question would be something like "does the size of markets affect how teams allocate resources within their organization"? Do small market teams behave substantially different when managing sports teams than large market teams? Ect., Ect. As for a literature review, look for people who may have researched the topic or something similar. Use databases to search for articles or books. All you really need for this stage is one or a couple of good works that closely align with your question. Then backtrack, find out who they cited. Read those, find out who they cited, read those. And so on. Now the literature review shouldn't be exhaustive, but it should show that you know the field somewhat and know what has been written about your topic of interest. Then mould it into your statement like "such and such argue X and blah blah but I want to investigate this." Or "person X has influenced my interests." Hope this somewhat helps haha.

As far as a classics that all poli sci (particularly comparativists) people should read: - Political Order in Changing Societies by Samuel P. Huntington. Probably one of the best works on institutions in the entire field. - An Economic Theory of Democracy by Anthony Downs. One of the pioneer works of rational choice theory in political science. - Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism by Guillermo O'Donnell. Completely shattered the theory that modernization was conducive to democratization. - Parties and Party Systems by Giovanni Sartori. First systematic classification of party systems. - Building Democratic Institutions: Party Systems in Latin America by Scott Mainwaring and Timothy R. Scully. Regarded as one of the foremost works on measuring party system institutionalization. My personal favourites are Democracy without Equity: Failures of Reform in Brazil by Kurt Weyland and Rethinking Party Systems in the Third Wave of Democratization: The Case of Brazil by Scott Mainwaring. I have many others, especially a bunch of edited books where I fell in love with specific chapters rather than the book itself. As far as my inspiration for wanting to pursue political science was definitely the above mentioned 'Party Systems in Latin America'. It basically turned me into being interested in political parties in Latin America and the various effects that different party systems can have on other political phenomenon.

Yeah, Medani does quite a bit on political economy. Although he doesn't seem to publish as much as he used to. The Institute of Islamic Studies is pretty good at McGill, actually probably one of the best in North America. I am not applying for grad schools until next fall. I study political economy and Latin American political parties. First choices are probably Cornell and Princeton.

Is McGill your first choice because of Rex Brynen?

It's just a waiting game, not much you can do at this point. What are your research interests?

Perhaps talk to them right now about your plan? Asking them to write an extensive template LOR for you at the moment and put it on file for a later date.

Took it on a whim in junior year of undergrad. Probably studied for like 3 weeks and it was totally disorganized studying. 158V/147Q/5.0W I plan on spending about 6-7 months intensive studying this time around along with working on everything else for my applications for Fall 2014. I'd like to hit 162+ on both, I think it's doable. I am weak in math (just really rusty more than anything) but I know what I need to do and have an extensive study plan set out.

First of all, why don't you wait another year before going to grad school? For one, depending on what programs you are applying to, grad school is a large commitment. It's good that you are interested in pursuing further education and are preparing for that, but there really isn't any rush either. I entered my senior year with a total of zero potential LORs. In fact, two of them were secured largely on the back of my final semester (although I knew them before hand, I didn't work one on one with them until that last semester). So relationships can be cultivated quickly, but I feel you need to follow the following steps for success: 1) You need to target three profs. This is a mixture of asking around who is friendly, personable, and willing to cater to undergrads. More importantly however, you need to find three profs where you have some kind of research interest in common, and get in their classes. 2) You need to go to office hours almost every week. And when I say go into their office hours, this means go in prepared. 2a) The first office hours should be introducing yourself, and asking questions about the required essays. Say that you want to get started early and ask what they are looking for. This is an easy way of showing them quickly that you are a committed and dedicated student. (Pretty much every prof loves to see dedicated students and these types of students always get preferential treatment). 2b) The next step is to start going into their office hours every week asking about the readings...something you didn't understand, something you liked, what other papers do they know that are on similar subjects/use similar methods? You can also supplement these visits by asking what research they do, what they are currently working on ect. This pegs into their mind that they you are interested. 2c) DO WELL ON EVERY ASSIGNMENT AND PARTICIPATE IN CLASS. You should be getting As in all the classes your potential letter writers are teaching (if they are the ones marking the papers even better). You should be asking intelligent questions in class. You don't need to 'that guy' that is always talking, but you need to be active. 2d) After you continue to do these things, the most important part is now: try to get into some kind of situation where you are working one on one with all three of them. There are plenty of avenues to take. If you have done the above really well, ask them if you can do research for them as an RA over the summer or whenever. Many schools have courses where you can do an independent research and reading class (basically a class where you go one on one and he assigns readings, you talk about them with each other, and you write a paper). Obviously the easiest one is a honours thesis, this is an automatic letter. These things are not expected however, you need to ask them...and if you have done the things above well, then they will probably accept. 2e) Work your ass off whenever you are given the opportunity to work one on one with a prof in some capacity. Follow these steps and by the end of your senior year you will have great letters. You don't have to be brilliant, nor the most social person in the world (I sure as hell am not), you just need to be: dedicated, interested, and willing to ask about opportunities. Lastly, you don't need to be an ass kisser. Stroking their egos once in a while is fine, saying hi when you see them on campus, being kind and polite, ect. is plenty enough.