poli90

Lot's of JD's teach political science...they just have PhD's as well. While a JD may be basically capable to teach large, introductory public law classes, they would be entirely unable to teach more substantive political science courses or upper year courses that orient senior undergrads or grad students to major problems in the academic literature. When would a JD learn about political behaviour? Electoral systems? Legislative bargaining? Social movements? Democratization? Institution theory? The history of political thought? These sorts of topics are the bedrock of political science education. Given the over-supply of PhD's, virtually every institution in America can find people with PhD's to teach these courses. Finally, learning how to practice the law (or politics, etc) is very different from learning how academics study a topic, and unless they are in professional program, that is mainly what undergrads have signed up to be exposed to.

I think that is a fairly common switch, and I think search committees won't find it strange so long as it is clear why you belong in a political science program doing political theory. Now for the bad news: political theory is by far the hardest subfield to get a tenure track job in, and this is the case even for students coming out of the very top programs. So the reality is that coming out of a program like Georgetown, it will be a challenge to get a job, no doubt about it. UCSD or Washington: chances really are not good. Keep in mind, though, that getting a job isn't just about having a big name school behind you - it's also a product of the stronger education and higher caliber of professors you will have an opprotunity to work with, as well as being in a cohort with focused and ambitious classmates. As an aside, a problem I've heard with Georgetown is that they aren't able to be as generous with their funding, and you definitely should not do a political theory PhD without full funding. As for where else to apply, my sense is that theory roughly breaks into three tiers (my classification will be controversial), and I know there are more programs that could be considered third tier that I'm not really thinking of. That said, I personally haven't heard of many schools other than the one's listed that have a credible theory program. Maybe McGill or Brown? First tier: Chicago, Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, WUSTL Second tier: UCLA, Columbia, Northwestern, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, Notre Dame Third tier: Georgetown, Virginia, Cornell, Toronto, NYU etc... My advice: apply to all of them, or as many as you can afford and where you have some fit. Just going on your stats, you have a shot at them. As theory is usually such a small part of a program, and because it is at the same time quite diverse, you really need to have at least a couple of professors who you could seriously see working with and whose interests line up with yours. The short term costs of applying widely are nothing compared to the long term consequences of where you get your PhD, what quality of training you receive, etc. If you can't get into one of those programs (and my list isn't totally exhaustive - I'd love to hear about some other mid-level programs with good theory programs and job placement), you may want to reconsider a PhD in political theory...

Retake retake retake! I seriously doubt you could get into any decent (top 25) polisci program with 440 Q. Remember you will be competing with students who have everything else you have going for you (GPA, letters, pedigree) plus near perfect GRE scores. I didn't do any math after high school, and with a little bit of studying was able to get 740 on the quant.

I think you are a good candidate for schools much higher than the one's you are talking about. If you have good references and a strong SOP, I think you can likely get into a top 20, if not top 10, school (the top 20 and top 10 is usually loosely based on the US News Ranking - there should be some older threads that list them. You can PM me with your subfield if you want more specific advice on programs). If your goal is to have a career as an academic (really the only reason to get a polisci PhD), you really should not limit yourself geographically. This means applying to every program in the US that is a good fit, has a strong reputation, and can get their students jobs. If you are concerned about location, the best time to take that into consideration is AFTER you get accepted to a good school. On the GPA: I don't see why any admissions committee would care about your performance 10+ years ago in an unrelated field, which is how they will see it. They know career changes happen, and all they care about is if you are intelligent and motivated enough to succeed in their program. They will look at your PoliSci performance, that's it. Maybe I'm wrong, but just know they do look at your transcript, and your GRE scores should be enough to get your file looked at.

I'd also be happy to give some comments on political theory SOPs, also from a more humanities perspective.

U of T has notified at least some of their admits.

Accepted to Toronto PhD...

I'm leaving tomorrow (!) to visit Northwestern and the University of Chicago.

Stanford's reputation is for not being friendly at all to theory, and for a long time their sole major theorist was Susan Moller Okin, and I've heard informally there was some tension in the deptartment. I could see applying there if I was really interested in analytical political theory, but I would think it is behind places like UVA, Toronto, etc, and maybe even somewhere like Brown. Now, this can have its benefits as it forces you to interact more with non-theory folk, but remember that after you will be competing with people trained at departments that seem to take theory much more seriously. I could also see it working if you are interested in doing work that is between theory and say American and then bill yourself as much as an Americinist as a theorist, say like Archon Fung. I would stick with HYP+Chicago if you can...

I don't think this can be emphasized enough. I'll have two years of working at good, interesting political jobs when I enter grad school, and I know beyond a doubt it is the right thing to do. I also think taking the time off helped me place higher into grad school, as it meant I had more time to study for GREs and work on my applications (I was only working part-time during the application season, so that also helped....) But seriously, take time off before grad school. It's a huge commitment and a huge opportunity cost investment, and it should never be a default option "because I don't know what else to do." When people now ask me about grad school, I always tell them to take time that I think it is best to take time off first - which is not to say some people aren't perfectly fine going straight through.

Thanks! I quite liked yours as well. You have probably had this discussion elsewhere, but where are you leaning towards?

I think Suddenly Paranoid's SoP is a good lesson in a key point to remember: programs are looking for interesting researchers, not interesting people (I'm sure you are an interesting person, SP, but you really do put your research front and centre). If you are going to use an anecdote, make sure it ties in strongly and creativly to your research, and is not just a story about why you want to study politics in grad school (the only really good reason is because you want to do research etc) or how you first got interested in politics.

I had 4.5 AWA and I'm in at my top choice. I would not bother getting it reviewed. I think a lot of profs don't know what it is. They also tend to think that they are a better judge of writing and analytical reasoning capability than some overworked, underpaid grad student who spent one minute looking at an essay on some random topic. So they will just look at your SoP and writing sample - much better to worry about getting those sharp than on your score. Edit: Plus I'm a theorist.

congrats to the harvard admits, and to everyone else: there is life outside of the h-bomb!

I'm planning on asking about the advanced graduate students they are currently working with, the sort of research they are doing (both the prof and their grad students), and how their students have done on the job market. I'm more interested in how they answer these questions (do they know who their students are? do they seem involved?) than the content, although that is definitely important too. I'm asking about what courses they are planning on teaching, which also gives an opprotunity to talk about more substantive research related things. I'm asking about opportunities to RA, especially to get out of TAing. I'm asking about their attitude towards publishing while in grad school, if any of their students have published or presented anything recently, etc. I'm really trying to get an idea of the general feel and approach of the department. I'd love to hear some of the questions other people have.