Penelope Higgins

I write this as a faculty member at a school that gets mentioned on here occasionally, in political science. Your admission depends, in part, on your ability to make the case that your interests fit well with those of some of the faculty at the department to which you are applying.

The 'POI' model from the natural sciences just doesn't apply. Generally you will work with a committee of several faculty rather than in a lab with a single advisor. Make sure you can make the case that your intellectual interests match those of some of the faculty. You do NOT need to have contact with faculty before applying. Nor does your funding come from a faculty member, with very rare exceptions. Your admission is determined by the department as a whole, or more accurately the representatives they choose, and funding comes from the department or university. You're applying to join a department not to work with an individual.

I write this as a faculty member at a school that gets mentioned on here occasionally, in political science. Your admission depends, in part, on your ability to make the case that your interests fit well with those of some of the faculty at the department to which you are applying.

The 'POI' model from the natural sciences just doesn't apply. Generally you will work with a committee of several faculty rather than in a lab with a single advisor. Make sure you can make the case that your intellectual interests match those of some of the faculty. You do NOT need to have contact with faculty before applying. Nor does your funding come from a faculty member, with very rare exceptions. Your admission is determined by the department as a whole, or more accurately the representatives they choose, and funding comes from the department or university. You're applying to join a department not to work with an individual.

I'm not the OP, but I am a faculty member at a school that gets mentioned on here fairly often, but not one of the three the OP mentioned.

Stephen Walt is not in political science at Harvard. He is in the Kennedy School of Government, which is the public policy school. He has nothing to do with graduate admissions for the Government Department and does not normally advise PhD students in that department, though he does occasionally serve as a third or fourth member of a dissertation committee. Same with Milani at Stanford. You need to find out which graduate programs they work with if you want to study with them.

In general in political science in the US, individual advisors have relatively little influence over the admissions process. That is because funding comes from the department or graduate school, not advisors. Do not count on them to play a major role in helping your case, particularly if your file is weak on GRE scores or GPA. Your file needs to appeal to a coalition in the department, not just to a single faculty member.

I'm not the OP, but I am a faculty member at a school that gets mentioned on here fairly often, but not one of the three the OP mentioned.

Stephen Walt is not in political science at Harvard. He is in the Kennedy School of Government, which is the public policy school. He has nothing to do with graduate admissions for the Government Department and does not normally advise PhD students in that department, though he does occasionally serve as a third or fourth member of a dissertation committee. Same with Milani at Stanford. You need to find out which graduate programs they work with if you want to study with them.

In general in political science in the US, individual advisors have relatively little influence over the admissions process. That is because funding comes from the department or graduate school, not advisors. Do not count on them to play a major role in helping your case, particularly if your file is weak on GRE scores or GPA. Your file needs to appeal to a coalition in the department, not just to a single faculty member.

In my experience, this is where a clear and compelling personal statement and strong letters of recommendation can help you. Your application needs to convince us that you are a stronger student than your record reflects, and that you have a clear sense of how your research interests fit into political science scholarship even if your undergrad was in another field.

The reality is, though, that top schools get 400-500 applications for 30 spots. So it is hard to be competitive for admissions at a top department if your undergrad is really "weak and unrelated." I would make sure to apply to a wide range of schools, including some with a less competitive admissions process.

I'm not the OP, but I am a faculty member at a school that gets mentioned on here fairly often, but not one of the three the OP mentioned.

Stephen Walt is not in political science at Harvard. He is in the Kennedy School of Government, which is the public policy school. He has nothing to do with graduate admissions for the Government Department and does not normally advise PhD students in that department, though he does occasionally serve as a third or fourth member of a dissertation committee. Same with Milani at Stanford. You need to find out which graduate programs they work with if you want to study with them.

In general in political science in the US, individual advisors have relatively little influence over the admissions process. That is because funding comes from the department or graduate school, not advisors. Do not count on them to play a major role in helping your case, particularly if your file is weak on GRE scores or GPA. Your file needs to appeal to a coalition in the department, not just to a single faculty member.

OK. I'll bite. Name a top 10 comparative politics NYU placement who has worked with faculty still at NYU. Saiegh and Johns are the only two I can come up with, and Saiegh started out at Pittsburgh. Not exactly a stellar placement record. Still a great place for a particular kind of comparative politics, but I would not choose NYU over Yale unless I was sure I wanted to do that kind of work.

Someone in my grad school cohort who was wait-listed and eventually enrolled without funding ended up as clearly the star of our cohort. They got their first job at a top 5 department and now have tenure (early) at another top 5 department. Nobody remembers whether or not you were wait-listed or where you ranked in the admissions process once the admissions process is over.

Institute for Qualitative and Multi-Method Research at Syracuse. It is organized by political scientists and mainly draws on them, but would be a good experience for someone doing comparative-historical work. Instructors include sociologists, such as Jim Mahoney. It is not easy to attend if your department is not a member of their consortium, but they do have a limited number of spots for applicants in unaffiliated institutions.

More info here:
http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/moynihan/cqrm/The_Institute_for_Qualitative_and_Multi-Method_Research/

In at OSU....shaking....
 
I'm happy to join the list of people who struck out their first cycle, and got in on their second try. Keep the faith everyone!

Most top departments will pay for admitted students to travel from overseas for visits. Others will ask whether you're already coming to the US to visit other departments, and pay for your domestic travel form one department to another. This may mean that you end up missing the formal visit at some places, but I would think that would be preferable anyway to making multiple international trips within the same month.

Ok, econosocio, I'm sorry, but I have to chime in here.  Someone has to, I suppose, or this is going to snowball further.  It's one thing to pontificate on the "realities" of academic discourse and critical thought.  It's quite another to hold yourself out as a victim of the perceived immaturity of this board, and then turn around and post a personal attack against someone who gave you a downvote.  You say that you have been mislabeled as a bully by members of the board, but the personal attack you made on darthvegan makes you appear exactly that.
 
You have probably been called condescending because you put forth all of these ideas about what the "academy" is or what "sociology" is - and you are entitled to your opinion - but you are no more qualified to do so than any others who frequent the forum.  Just because you know what your experience has been does not make it the "truth."  I attended a top 15 university, full of professors in the forefront of their field and intelligent, passionate students who appreciated a critical discourse.  I often witnessed and was a part of heated academic discussions or critiques.  Though, I would point out that I never once had professors laugh at students for their ideas, though they would point out the fallacies in their arguments and challenge them to defend them with sound reasoning.  I also never saw a classmate bring out another's youtube feed as ammunition.  And, before you say I was a mamby-pamby sociologist or something along those lines, I was not a sociology major - I was political science and history.
 
I am not saying we all have to be friends and sit in a circle holding hands, singing Kumbaya.  Though, I would hope we can tolerate each other to some extent since we will be colleagues in the future.  What I am saying, however, is that we can engage in critical discourse on this board in a respectful way without personal attacks and condescension.  I agree that things get boring if no one is challenging others to examine their beliefs and pointing out the fallacies in their arguments.  I'm an attorney, so it is basically my job to criticize others' arguments and undermine their assumptions; criticism and confrontation don't faze me.  The difference is, after a day in court arguing with my opponent, we can go out for a beer together.
 
So, by all means, please continue to challenge others on this board to defend and question their positions; healthy academic discourse is greatly appreciated.  But, stay away from the personal attacks, yeah?  
 
Now, in a perhaps futile attempt to guide this thread back on topic... Northwestern's Kellogg offers a PhD in Management and Organization and Sociology, which may be of interest to the original poster.  http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/Programs/DoctoralProgram/Programs/ManagementOrganizationSociology.aspx

Institute for Qualitative and Multi-Method Research at Syracuse. It is organized by political scientists and mainly draws on them, but would be a good experience for someone doing comparative-historical work. Instructors include sociologists, such as Jim Mahoney. It is not easy to attend if your department is not a member of their consortium, but they do have a limited number of spots for applicants in unaffiliated institutions.

More info here:
http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/moynihan/cqrm/The_Institute_for_Qualitative_and_Multi-Method_Research/

Most top departments will pay for admitted students to travel from overseas for visits. Others will ask whether you're already coming to the US to visit other departments, and pay for your domestic travel form one department to another. This may mean that you end up missing the formal visit at some places, but I would think that would be preferable anyway to making multiple international trips within the same month.

In my program, which is on the smaller side, since we really only have intro stats (for people who don't know stats) and maybe two random upper level classes, everyone who does serious quant work took most of their stats in other departments and taught themselves a lot of stuff (and when they got stuck, they went to their adviser).  The requirement was just that you took a math class in your first two years.
 
People might look at you funny if you wanted to take stats in the econ department, but not if you wanted to take it in the math or stats deparmtents or the CS department (for data-mining related stuff).  At least that's how it is in my school--I don't think anyone has taken an econ class.  Other places, like especially big schools like Michigan and Wisconsin and Penn State, have really solid in-house quant people who teach solid sequences and you'd probably be encouraged to take some of those first at least (remember, half the point of classes is so you can get to know faculty).
 
And by theory, I meant classical theory not contemporary theory.  My theory course was mainly Marx, Weber, Durkheim, then just introducing Tocqueville, Simmel, the Chicago School (Park, Burgess, et al.), Goffman, Garfinkle (ethnomethodology), Merton (middle range theory), Bourdieu, and Foucault, and maybe one or two others.  Some might add someone like Benjamin or Braudel, but stuff like Fligstein is definitely not what we learn in a theory class.  Everyone is expected to learn Marx, Weber, Durkheim, the Chicago School, etc. and then a little bit of stuff that's happened since 1950, and even less stuff that's happened since Goffman and Garfinkle (and none of the stuff since Goffman or Garfinkle that you really have to know is American, I don't think).  Is that typical?  Probably roughly typical, though I think most schools will also have a contemporary theory class (some will probably even have a required contemporary theory class, we don't even have an optional one that's regularly offered).  FWIW, I believe Fligstein's "isomorphism" comes directly from DiMaggio and Powell's "The Iron Cage Revisited", which is both enitrely theoretical and probably one of the key articles in contemporary sociology, but not what that you'll likely to see in a theory class.

If you're serious about learning what's going on under the hood and you've had mathematics through multivariable calc, pick up Statistical Inference by Casella and Berger. This will take you through probability theory and mathematical statistics at the upper undergrad or lower grad level. However, if you're not planning on doing a lot of heavily quantitative research and/or teaching yourself a lot of advanced methods in the future, C&B (and what follows) would likely be overkill.
 
Alternatives to C&B:
Mathematical Statistics (Wackerly, Mendenhall, Scheaffer) - similar topics to Casella & Berger, but at a lower mathematical level, in my opinion Mathematical Statistics (Rice) - a lower mathematical level than WMS, but some with weaker math backgrounds may find it as a good intro to the topics Mathematical Statistics (Bickel, Doksum) - slightly higher level than C&B; this one does a better job of emphasizing estimation of multiple parameters, while C&B sticks more to single-parameter estimation  
You will need a good background in regression to make use of all the above statistical theory. For that, you might try the following:
Introductory Econometrics (Wooldridge) - this is used for the first-year quant methods courses in many soc programs (e.g., Penn's and UNC's); his upper-level book, Econometrics, is commonly used as an alternative graduate text on econometrics to Greene's Introduction to Linear Regression Analysis (Mongomery, Peck, Vining) - a good alternative to the introductory text by Wooldridge, and written more from the statisticians' perspective; note that you should have a background in multivariable calculus and linear algebra to get the most out of this book Linear Models in Statistics (Rencher, Schaalje) - good for self-study, as all solutions are provided in the back; the first few chapters review the essential linear algebra, but again, you should have already be familiar with eigenvalues, eigenvectors, spectral decomposition, etc. A first-year sequence in quant methods for soc will likely cover the basics of ANOVA, standard linear regression, logistic regression, and Poisson regression (all three of which are encompassed by generalized linear models) and possibly touch on multilevel and longitudinal structures, survival analysis, and causal inference. With stats, you can go much, much deeper than what I've listed above. That being said, I don't think it's necessary to know all of the above to be a good quantitative researcher in the social sciences, provided that you do have a solid understanding of the assumptions and limitations of whatever techniques you use.  
 
As for taking the first-year graduate econometrics sequence: I wouldn't recommend doing this unless you have an extremely strong background in mathematics. Many of the top programs assume knowledge of real analysis and some familiarity with mathematical statistics before entering the program. Some top-10 programs' econometrics sequences even begin with an overview of measure-theoretic probability, and dive right into asymptotic properties of estimators. These are not trivial topics. FWIW, my own background is in math (undergrad) and biostats (grad).

My apologies if this information is all obvious, but I'm putting it on "paper" in case it is of use to someone. These comments are based on my experience as a student at a program often tossed around on here, and a faculty member both at a well-funded, competitive program to which many on here apply, and at a less prominent, more poorly funded department.

Top programs commit themselves to fund everyone they admit. With very few exceptions at these programs, funding is equal for all admitted students. This funding consists of a mix of assistantship (you TA or RA a certain number of hours per week) and fellowship (you have no responsibilities beyond pursuing your own research), and comes on top of tuition remission and usually healthcare etc. Funding is normally guaranteed for a certain number of years (usually four or five) and additional funding options for things like fieldwork and summer research vary on a school-by-school basis.

Lower-ranked programs tend to offer less funding. This means more teaching or RA work and less fellowship, and that packages vary from one admitted student to the next. Some fairly well ranked schools (a search on this forum should tell you which ones) are notorious for not offering funding to very many students, and for making students compete for funding with one another each year. Even worse, some schools simply have very little funding, and hope students will attend anyway. You should not enroll in a PhD program without funding, nor should you enroll before you are crystal clear on exactly how many years of funding you are guaranteed, and what your responsibilities will be as you earn that funding.

Nearly all funding is merit based. Some schools have funding for students who fit particular categories - Harvard, in particular, is famous for its list of scholarships for graduate study for people who meet all sorts of arcane criteria. At most schools, especially lower-ranked ones, some funding is allocated at the university level on a merit basis. This usually involves comparing raw data like GRE scores and GPA to arbitrate among candidates from a range of departments. But most funding even in these cases is allocated at the departmental level.

Note: if you make a ranking yourself, keep it to yourself.

Your question is too broad. There are not "a couple of good texts" in political science because the field is divided into subfields like international relations, American politics, etc and because we lack the disciplinary core of fields like sociology. If you give us more information about the course you are taking perhaps people here can make some suggestions.

I'm a faculty member at a school often mentioned on here (I won't say more than that), and I'm not here to find out about people's choices, but to try to give some advice that I never got when I was applying to grad programs. I've got nothing to do with admissions here and I intend to keep it that way...

You will rarely if ever be able to find out who is on the grad committee, and should not count on getting a significant conversation with its members. If you think a personal conversation would really make a difference in your case, and it almost never does, you should raise this matter with your letter writers. They should be the ones giving you advice, making the committee aware that you are "out there" (along with the hundreds of other applicants) and reviewing your application materials - that is not what admissions committee members do. In my experience on both ends of the process, you should not expect to get much mileage out of this route. Instead, focus on making your application as strong as possible, and ensure that your recommenders address any unique information about your file in their letters.

I have served on grad admissions at two institutions. In one case the committee made all the decisions; in the other each subfield handled its own set of candidates. In either case, you can be confident that someone on the committee will be perfectly proficient in understanding and evaluating your research statement. Your choice of words should be an effort to situate your research interests in the broader subfield in which you want to work.

Here are a few comparative hires at top schools in the recent past (chosen purely off the top of my head, not based on any commentary about these folks or anyone left off the list):
Prerna Singh (Princeton PhD, hired at Harvard) qual and quant work on India, comparisons across Indian states
Ana de la O (MIT PhD, hired at Yale) quant work on Mexico - natural experiments
Rafaela Dancygier (Yale PhD, hired at Princeton) quant (mostly) work on ethnic violence in Western Europe
Stanislav Markus (Harvard PhD, hired at Chicago) qualitative work on former Soviet Union
Daniela Campello (UCLA PhD, hired at Princeton) quant work, mostly on Latin America

My view is that knowledge of a region is necessary but not sufficient to get a job at a top school, but fancy methods aren't everything either - the people who get these jobs combine both: look at the job market wiki to see the people getting offers at Yale, Chicago, etc. and take a look at their work - you'll see the same pattern.

Elisabeth Jean Wood at Yale does related work. I would look her up. If you don't have the credentials to get into Yale, you might see where some of her students doing work along these lines have ended up teaching.

Elisabeth Jean Wood at Yale does related work. I would look her up. If you don't have the credentials to get into Yale, you might see where some of her students doing work along these lines have ended up teaching.