buckinghamubadger

@Hamb, I only ask because historically UW doesn't seem to have interviewed people. How did it go? Any insight as to when decisions will be coming? Are they interviewing everyone who is competitive or just a handful of applicants?

Is anyone claiming the University of Washington interviews?

So, here is a brief list of schools that may announce some decision this week that people on this thread seem to be invested in, either because of past history or interviews: Texas North Carolina (UNC) Emory Northwestern Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) Colorado Ohio State University (OSU) Stony Brook And schools that have already begun to announce that may have more decisions Wisconsin West Virginia Georgia Missouri Michigan State (MSU) Rice I'm a neutral observer in most of this. I have one acceptance and another decision that may come this week in Colorado. I'm just genuinely interested to see how this cohort shapes up nation wide. Best of luck to everyone!

Its the time to be anxious. We're all going to find out a lot over the next six weeks. To whoever got accepted to Madison, I did my undergrad there and there are a lot of amazing professors there, but also a few who may leave something to be desired. I took enough classes in their Poli Sci department to major in it twice and worked closely with faculty as an RA, in a grad class and on an independent study. Message me privately if you want to know more.

@SerenityNow!, ". I think it is best to be an informed customer and check out all the different rankings and systems and look at the inputs in the different ranking systems but at the end of the day things like department fit, POIs, location, etc... should probably outweigh rankings when determining which program to attend" Absolutely right, the rankings are just a short cut. Everyone needs to do their own research

@diter91, that is the number of professors with PhDs from the program in question currently with TT jobs at R1 Universities. As you point out, there is little control for the date of the appointment or the size of the program. The assistants is meant to control for date of appointment and if you read the article, placement efficiency is meant to control for size. This only includes R1 jobs. I used to be a much bigger fan of the Oprisko et al rankings than I am now for the reasons discussed here.

@Comparativist, to each their own. To me the US News rankings seem somewhat arbitrary, and I'll take infrequent over arbitrary. And every five years or so isn't very frequent either. But I suppose it has it's strong points. It is more frequent which may mean more responsiveness. There could also be something to be said for reputation which likely matters on the job market. Big named professors are great if you can become one of their grad students. I much prefer the NRC. They probably aren't old enough to be completely outdated yet (2010). But like I said earlier, rankings are just a shortcut. Everyone applying should do their own research.

That table is based on when the departments have historically released results over the past 3 to 5 years

US News uses a survey of academics on program reputation. This leads to programs like UCLA, Penn and Northwestern, which have big name professors, to be ranked higher than programs like Washington and Stony Brook which seem to place better. NRC factors in 21 separate measures, presumably uses regression modeling, to come up with their rankings. These include I believe stuff like funding, publications of students and faculty and student outcomes (don't quote me on those exact criteria, but stuff like that)

My bad, Houston is #96 just ahead of SIU. That means that there is either one program missing or they factored University of New Orleans (the one program that they did not rank) in in some funny way

I am posting this to help people who are either earlier along in the process or perhaps some who are making decisions. Based on the analysis of placement of programs I was considering the NRC rankings are much better indicators of program strength than the USNWR rankings. This said, no rankings are perfect. They are a short cut. I encourage everyone to do their own research on placement, fit, funding and a variety of other factors. This only acts as a starting point. This post hopes to eliminate some of the rankings ambiguity by translating their ranking range into a single ranking. This is done by ranking the programs first by their high S rank and breaking ties by ranking them by their low S rank. Alternatively one could use an average of the two, but I found that too time consuming. Here are the rankings ranges translated into a single rank using that method. 1. Stanford 1. Harvard 3. Michigan 4. NYU 4. Penn State 6. Rice 7. UCSD 8. SUNY Binghamton 9. Columbia 10. Yale 11. WashU 12. Duke 13. Princeton 14. George Washington 15. UC Davis 16. UC Berkeley 17. Illinois 18. Indiana 19. Emory 20. Texas A&M 21. MIT 22. Pitt 23. SUNY Stony Brook 24. Michigan State 25. University of Washington 26. Florida State 27. UNC 28. Wisconsin 29. Ohio State 30. Arizona 31. Rochester 32. Cornell 33. Minnesota 34. USC 35. UC Riverside 36. Chicago 37. Missouri 38. UCLA 39. Vanderbilt 40. Brown 41. Maryland 42. Kentucky 43. New Mexico 44. Northwestern 45. UC Irvine 46. Colorado 47. Purdue 48. Penn 49. Texas 50. Washington State 51. Oregon 52. LSU 53. Iowa 54. Nebraska 55. Mississippi 56. Rutgers 57. Arizona State 58. Notre Dame 59. Florida Intl. (IR) 60. Kansas 61. Georgia State 62. Wisconsin-Milwaukee 63. South Carolina 64. Connecticut 65. Temple 66. Florida 67. Miami 68. UMass 69. Boston University 70. Delaware 71. Virginia 72. Georgetown 73. Syracuse 74. Alabama 75. Boston College 76. UCSB 77. Wayne State 78. Johns Hopkins 79. Tennessee 80. SUNY Buffalo 81. Howard 82. North Texas 83. Brandeis 84. Texas Tech 85. Georgia 86. Florida Intl. (Poli Sci) 87. Oklahoma 88. Western Michigan 89. Cincinnati 90. Illinois-Chicago 91. Missouri-St. Louis 92. American 93. CUNY 94. Northern Illinois 95. Hawaii 96. Houston 97. Southern Illinois 98. Houston 99. SUNY Albany 100. Old Dominion 101. Loyola-Chicago 102. Claremont 103. Nevada 104. Catholic University 105. University of Dallas

I made a table of when to expect results from the programs I applied to. I want to post it just in case it gives anyone a better sense of when to expect decisions. A number of the programs I applied to seem to be popular on this forum. Princeton- Early Feb Michigan- Early-Mid Feb Brandeis- Feb-March Notre Dame- Late Feb-April WashU- Early-Mid Feb Missouri- Already in Washington- Feb-March Colorado- Jan-March USC- Early-Mid Feb UCI- Feb-Early March I already have a good offer at Mizzou that sounds really nice. I'm just eager to know what else is on the table.

Historically UW begins to send out decisions in the second to third week of February. Some of their decisions, however, may not be out until March. I applied there as well.

Historically UW begins to send out decisions in the second to third week of February. Some of their decisions, however, may not be out until March

I can't claim the OSU admit, but I can claim the Mizzou admit. I've applied to 10. I figure I'm going to give every place that admits me a fair shot. I made sure every place I applied to placed people. Despite all the stress put on getting into top 10s (and yes, I applied to a couple), I've gotten some good advice that indicates that fit might matter more. If a mid-tier program can put up a good 'fight', I'm willing to maybe be a big fish in a small pond rather than have to fight for face time with my advisor. There's a lot of things to be considered. Point is, some admissions decisions are being made right now. Maybe the Princeton and Columbia claims are being made by trolls, and there is plenty of reason to be skeptical, but you guys will know soon enough. Hang in there. Most of you guys will get in somewhere. The first acceptance feels really good, but a lot of us are going to have to make some difficult choices over the next few months. Do we go to the place that fits our interests well or do we go somewhere that has top notch placement? Do we take the extra money or slightly better job prospects? Do people like me, who already have an MA, really want to redo it or do we take the couple of extra years to maybe get an additional publication or two? There's a long road ahead of us and sadly most of us won't get into our dream program. But that's okay. In some cases, you might even be better off. It feels really good to already have a program to go to on January 12. But there's still a lot of variables to be considered. I hope it works out for everyone.

Here is how I did it: Go to faculty pages of programs that seem interesting to you. Write down the names of the professors in your subfield (no adjuncts though). Look at their CVs or search them on google scholar, and if they seem like someone you can work with, put a star by their name. If they seem really, really interesting to you put two stars. If they seem like they're in your general area, but you're not super excited about them, you can give them a half point. Then analyze this data as you see fit. Count up how many people you can work with, factor in how many people you are super excited to work with somehow (I factored it in qualitatively rather then quantitatively) and determine fit based on that. Its a lot of work, but it narrowed my list of 40 schools down to like 9 after factoring in that, stipends, placement record and other important factors to me (EG, is this somewhere I can see myself living for five years). Wish I could be of more help.

I just want to know if the list of schools I'm planning on applying to seems to match my profile. I've already looked extensively at placements, academic fit, funding, location and a few other factors. I just want to know if I should maybe add a reach school or two and or add more 'safer' schools, or if my list seems good as is. Here is my profile: Undergraduate Institution: well-known, respected public school with a top tier political science program Major: Political Science Undergrad Major GPA: Approximately 3.4 Undergrad Cumulative GPA: Approximately 3.1 Grad Institution: Reigional Public School (MA in Political Science) Grad GPA: 3.9 GRE: I have not taken it yet, but my most recent practice test was 162 V/ 164 Q Letters of Recommendation: Four letters of rec. All from my grad institution. One from a professor who is relatively famous. All four should be strong, but three of them should be exceptionally strong Research Experience: I have one article under review in a journal, another article that has been submitted, but not yet reached the review stage and another one that is almost ready for submission. I also have five conference presentations and one semester of RA experience a long, long time ago (Freshman year of college) Teaching Experience: Four semsesters as a TA for intro American Government at a 4 year, two additional semesters as a TA at a Community College, three semesters as a TA for Moot Court, One semester as a lecturing intern at a community college and one semester as Supplemental Instructor at a 4 year Research Interests: American Politics, specifically racial politics, political behavior and psychology and public law Additional Skills: I worked in politics for about two years on both the campaign and policy side, albeit at a lower level in each. I also am well versed in SPSS and Stata and have some minor experience with R. Schools I'm planning on applying to: Princeton, Michigan, WashU (in STL), USC, Notre Dame, Virginia, U of Washington (in Seattle), UCI and Colorado

If you go off the rankings, I would guess that the best programs are the top PhD programs that offer a terminal Masters (Duke, Columbia, UChicago). In terms of other schools, you can always look at MA programs placement records, see how many people ended up in PhD or top programs. Not knowing anything about your situation, I'd have no idea where to start to look. But MA programs vary a lot. Some are really good at preparing students for PhDs or the CC job market, others might exist more for the sake of the University than the students. Ultimately though, I think it's what you make of the program. Try to do some research there. Conference presentations or publications will really help you out, if your ultimate goal is a PhD.

I've attended a conference there last semester and will be going back later this year. Everyone in the program seems very nice, smart and capable. I'm considering applying myself if I end up staying on the west coast and persuing a CC job. They're not an elite program, but the name certainly does cary some power at reigonal schools in Southern California. As I understand it they are much stronger at global politics than american or theory. They have the Center for Democracy which gets them some good funding, at least that's what my professors say in my MA program. Irvine isn't my favorite city in the world, but its surrounded by a lot of nice places. You'll likely need a car. Hope this helps. Anything else you were curious about? (Full disclosure, I am in an MA program that has a pretty close relationship with UCI. We've sent plenty of our students there and have hired their PhD students.)

@tkid86, @Bibica sorry if I overreacted, but one last thing that I do want to note is that you don't just waltz yourself into a community college job with a Masters. If I end up teaching at a CC, I will almost certainly have to adjunct for a few years before finding a full time job. The market is becoming flooded with PhDs as four years hire less of them, and people at the CC where I have worked have told me that one is much more likely to find a full time job after having at least started a PhD. This said, you don't need to go to a top school, but it likely makes you a significantly stronger applicant if you have at least some study beyond a masters.

How did a question about funding and accepting transfer credit become a contentious debate about my qualifications and willingness to go through rigorous study?

@tkid86 I'm sorry, I thought this was a forum to collaborate on such research.

@tkid86, alright, first off, your assumption that because I did something in the past means that I want to do the same thing in the future is baseless. I worked in politics for a few years, didn't like it, decided I wanted to go into academia. The fact that I have professional experience is valuable. Second, I don't understand what is so hard for you to understand about this, I want to teach at the college level, I would prefer to teach at a four year, but I would entirely be willing to take a job at a community college. I may have the credentials to do this. I have plenty of time to weigh my options before I apply or comitt. Third, my research interests have expanded as I have taken more classes. Its worth asking again to see what schools are available. Fourth, YOU are the one who asked me about literature. I told you the scholars I like. You can't be like 'what scholars do you like?' Then hold it against me. Fifth, read oprisko and paige. If you did, it should be very clear to you why I am concerned with placement. I was merely clarifying that I was using Oprisko et al over USNWR, the NRC, ect. Seventh, if you read OP, I am asking about funding and various other issues. Eighth, you made no effort to be constructive.

What changed is that I figured out that I love research and am pretty apt for it. I certainly would not mind ending up at a CC. If I get a part time job at a CC, I may want to stay local and get my PhD in Southern California. I do want to at least try to get my doctorate if I go that route because it is useful for career advancement. I may chose to go to a top program to persue a TT job at a 4 year. I want to prepare as though that is what I am going to do. There is a scholar I really enjoyed working with as an undergrad, and I wouldn't mind going back. Otherwise, John Zollar and Michael Mann have always fascinated me. Both are at UCLA. I really like Fukyama and Skocspol at Harvard, but that may be aiming too high. Hetherington, at Vanderbilt wrote a good book recently. Of course Gilens and Paige, at Princeton and Northwestern are pretty awesome. But these are people at the top of the field, it seems like everyone would want to work with them. Right?

@Comparativist, sorry. In American, I am interested in class, race, public policy, elections, constitutional/public law and political psychology. In comparative I am interested in democracy, liberalism and human rights, development and genocide.