Penelope Higgins

Consider this discussion on this topic. There's no substantive reason why you shouldn't be able to teach with a MA/JD:

You should definitely contact professors whom you are interested in working with.
In my experience, many are great resources for the application process. During my application season last year, I was in contact with a prof from an Ivy school who offered to look over my SOP and advised me on the content. I was not admitted to this school but it was very helpful to have someone on the inside point me in the right direction. Keep in mind that most profs are busy and will not respond to your first or second email, but be persistent and follow up. You will get a response after the second or third email. Good luck.

Because you are not admitted to a political science program to work in a particular professors' lab or group, faculty as a whole are far less involved with the admissions process than in the natural sciences. As a result, they are less inclined to respond to email, and their influence is going to be less important in your admissions process. I encourage my students applying to grad schools not to reach out to faculty, but I reach out to colleagues on their behalf as appropriate. If you are applying to political science programs, I would not spend much energy trying to contact faculty.

Because you are not admitted to a political science program to work in a particular professors' lab or group, faculty as a whole are far less involved with the admissions process than in the natural sciences. As a result, they are less inclined to respond to email, and their influence is going to be less important in your admissions process. I encourage my students applying to grad schools not to reach out to faculty, but I reach out to colleagues on their behalf as appropriate. If you are applying to political science programs, I would not spend much energy trying to contact faculty.

I do grad admissions in my department most years. Our spreadsheet on applicants doesn't even have a column for the writing section of the GRE.

The history undergrad degree won't be an obstacle at all, but you'll have to navigate the divides in the subfield of political theory. You want to find a department that is focused on, or at least open to, history of political thought rather than post-modern/contemporary theory, or analytical philosophy. Harvard, Yale, Chicago, Princeton (to a lesser extent) are all good options to explore.

On a side-note, remember to check to see your POI is still at the university you'd like to go to. It seems Justin Fox has left Yale and Princeton for WUSTL.

This post by a Cornell poli sci professor is also worth reading; the advice there applies far beyond Southeast Asian politics.

This post by a Cornell poli sci professor is also worth reading; the advice there applies far beyond Southeast Asian politics.

This post by a Cornell poli sci professor is also worth reading; the advice there applies far beyond Southeast Asian politics.

You'll get better advice in the professional schools forum. My sense is that admissions to SAIS, Georgetown SFS, etc is very hard straight from undergrad and that work experience makes a big difference in the competitiveness of an application.

You'll get better advice in the professional schools forum. My sense is that admissions to SAIS, Georgetown SFS, etc is very hard straight from undergrad and that work experience makes a big difference in the competitiveness of an application.

You'll get better advice in the professional schools forum. My sense is that admissions to SAIS, Georgetown SFS, etc is very hard straight from undergrad and that work experience makes a big difference in the competitiveness of an application.

Sorry Doorkeeper. My comments were directed at the poster above you, who doesn't seem to know anything about the field of political theory, or about the Brown department. I fully agree with your suggestion that the OP needs to figure out what his/her interests are and to streamline them. Apologies for the confusion.

Sorry Doorkeeper. My comments were directed at the poster above you, who doesn't seem to know anything about the field of political theory, or about the Brown department. I fully agree with your suggestion that the OP needs to figure out what his/her interests are and to streamline them. Apologies for the confusion.

^^ is trolling for some reason, or locked in a very narrow view of political theory that only includes Straussian approaches. Please do not take their comments about choosing theory departments seriously.

^^ is trolling for some reason, or locked in a very narrow view of political theory that only includes Straussian approaches. Please do not take their comments about choosing theory departments seriously.

^^ is trolling for some reason, or locked in a very narrow view of political theory that only includes Straussian approaches. Please do not take their comments about choosing theory departments seriously.

Perhaps this is better placed in the other thread on packages, but I just want to urge folks to think twice or three times before making decisions based on relatively small differences in stipends for the next 3-5 years unless you are supporting a family with your stipend income. The choice you make of which program to attend will have long-term consequences for your career - you should be wary of trading off the subsequent 30+ years for a few hundred dollars a month in the next 3-5. Visit the programs that admit you if possible, make a choice based on which program will be best for you professionally, and prepare yourself no matter what to share an apartment, live on free sandwiches from talks rather than all the fine restaurants mentioned above, and have limited disposable income.

As a faculty member in a department that has to play this game often because of lack of funding, here are my 2 cents. The DGS knows exactly what the situation is - they may lose the funding if they offer it to you and they go elsewhere, but they may decide to do it anyway. Tell him/her the truth about where else you have applied, and they will decide how to proceed. Any other talk is cheap talk and everyone knows it.

Edited to add: no need to reveal any information unless asked, or to be terribly specific about your other applications, but I would advise you not to be dishonest: tell them you are excited, but unable to commit until you hear from a range of other places.

To be honest I don't have much insight on negotiating funding: I've never been involved on either side of the process. More to the point, the range of flexibility that a DGS has varies widely. Most top schools offer fairly similar and fairly standard packages to all admits but there may be wiggle room in some cases. I don't have any more specific thoughts than that. But I will say that there are a lot of factors in addition to funding that you should consider in choosing a grad program. And if it does come down to comparing packages, which it almost never should, there are a lot of dimensions on which packages can be compared, including not only amounts per year and number of years, but the nature of teaching, the existence of summer funding even if not guaranteed up front, etc. You can learn a lot by talking to current students when you visit departments. So things get complicated very quickly.

As a faculty member in a department that has to play this game often because of lack of funding, here are my 2 cents. The DGS knows exactly what the situation is - they may lose the funding if they offer it to you and they go elsewhere, but they may decide to do it anyway. Tell him/her the truth about where else you have applied, and they will decide how to proceed. Any other talk is cheap talk and everyone knows it.

Edited to add: no need to reveal any information unless asked, or to be terribly specific about your other applications, but I would advise you not to be dishonest: tell them you are excited, but unable to commit until you hear from a range of other places.

As a faculty member in a department that has to play this game often because of lack of funding, here are my 2 cents. The DGS knows exactly what the situation is - they may lose the funding if they offer it to you and they go elsewhere, but they may decide to do it anyway. Tell him/her the truth about where else you have applied, and they will decide how to proceed. Any other talk is cheap talk and everyone knows it.

Edited to add: no need to reveal any information unless asked, or to be terribly specific about your other applications, but I would advise you not to be dishonest: tell them you are excited, but unable to commit until you hear from a range of other places.

To be honest I don't have much insight on negotiating funding: I've never been involved on either side of the process. More to the point, the range of flexibility that a DGS has varies widely. Most top schools offer fairly similar and fairly standard packages to all admits but there may be wiggle room in some cases. I don't have any more specific thoughts than that. But I will say that there are a lot of factors in addition to funding that you should consider in choosing a grad program. And if it does come down to comparing packages, which it almost never should, there are a lot of dimensions on which packages can be compared, including not only amounts per year and number of years, but the nature of teaching, the existence of summer funding even if not guaranteed up front, etc. You can learn a lot by talking to current students when you visit departments. So things get complicated very quickly.

To be honest I don't have much insight on negotiating funding: I've never been involved on either side of the process. More to the point, the range of flexibility that a DGS has varies widely. Most top schools offer fairly similar and fairly standard packages to all admits but there may be wiggle room in some cases. I don't have any more specific thoughts than that. But I will say that there are a lot of factors in addition to funding that you should consider in choosing a grad program. And if it does come down to comparing packages, which it almost never should, there are a lot of dimensions on which packages can be compared, including not only amounts per year and number of years, but the nature of teaching, the existence of summer funding even if not guaranteed up front, etc. You can learn a lot by talking to current students when you visit departments. So things get complicated very quickly.

As a faculty member in a department that has to play this game often because of lack of funding, here are my 2 cents. The DGS knows exactly what the situation is - they may lose the funding if they offer it to you and they go elsewhere, but they may decide to do it anyway. Tell him/her the truth about where else you have applied, and they will decide how to proceed. Any other talk is cheap talk and everyone knows it.

Edited to add: no need to reveal any information unless asked, or to be terribly specific about your other applications, but I would advise you not to be dishonest: tell them you are excited, but unable to commit until you hear from a range of other places.