Charlie2010

Post-docs are not nearly as standard in poli sci as in the natural sciences. In addition, they tend to go to the best students--those who placed well but want a year or two more to just do research, or those who are expected to be stars but may not have had good jobs in a particular niche available when they first went out. I would say roughly (very roughly) 1 in 6 of the PhD graduates from top-ten programs will do a post-doc before starting their first job. From a top-ten perspective, I would say that hiring committees are a lot like admissions committees--overburdened and hoping to narrow the number of files they have to read closely. So they will always look at a file from a top-ten department (or one of the techy boutiques if they are looking for methods), and they will look at a file from someone who worked with a big shot they know of , and they will look at a file from someone who worked with someone more junior who they respect as a good judge because they know the person's work, or have talked at conferences, or went to grad school together. If you have none of that then you will need to have an impressive publication or something else to stand out and compel them to actually personally read and evaluate your research. Of course, there are faculty at top schools who have been effusive too often about students that weren't all that good, and faculty who won't make the personal effort to promote good students. Then there is the question of whether they will offer good training and helpful supervision (although usually this goes together). An uninformed and short letter from, say, a Sam Huntington, will not help you as much as a detailed discussion of why your research is groundbreaking from a solid but less-famous associate prof.

Departments also prefer not to have a long waitlist or obviously staggered acceptances, since this establishes up front a sense among grad students that some were the ones the department wanted while others were second-best. This isn't very good for departmental camaraderie. Also, we would like everyone we admit to come. If you get waitlisted while you have an offer from another school, you might start feeling more positive about the other school and resentful of the one that apparently almost rejected you, so you might go to the other place. Now that this website exists, however, departments are less able to play games. For that reason, I think they will increasingly move toward making a single wave of acceptances. However, as someone noted, that can make for big problems if you get a ten person admit class when you only meant to have five, and budgets are tight.

On the Chinese student's question: Probably the only aspiring PhD students for whom a US MA has value are foreigners, since it gets you grades and recommendations from known people. To the person complaining about 6 weeks spent studying for the GRE. Is it a waste of time learning to use and read English grammar correctly, or understand basic mathematical logic? Admittedly, the multiple choice and timed aspects of the test make it an imperfect test of these skills, but really any indicator we have short of a completed dissertation is an imperfect indicator of the relevant skills.

Some of you have held out hope for applying again next year. I wouldn't rule it out, but for your application to do much better, something major has to change. For instance, you did a great senior thesis this year and now have a prof who says you walk on water. Or you pursued advanced Arabic study in Egypt and also made a bunch of friends while hanging out in Tahrir Square. Or you did a very techy MA program like the Columbia QMSS program and stood out. If, by contrast, all you'll have done is polished your application essays and pumped up your GRE scores by a hundred points with a tutor, don't expect a drastically different outcome. You might get lucky, because there is always a lot of randomness in this process, but probably you'll just do a little bit better. You might also do worse, if your activities this year were not that impressive, or if we recognize your application and realize this means all of our peer institutions must have rejected you last year, too. My intention here isn't to be mean, but poli sci is a tough field to get ahead in so if you fail this year you should really consider whether there is something else in the world you might enjoy doing.

Randomness always plays a part, but even techy schools and techy scholars want to see students who will be able to have an impact on (and get hired by) the larger field. Some students just throw around a bunch of advanced methodologies they learned in some class, but give no evidence that they might actually apply them in interesting ways to important topics. The best technical applicants wear their technical skills lightly--good grades in hard classes (plus a 760+ math GRE) communicates the technical competence, while the SOP and the letters from political scientists present a picture of a scholar and intellectual.

It seems risky both for you to decide to become an academic and for a program to accept you if you haven't yet faced the struggle of designing and carrying out a significant piece of independent research. It also helps you have something interesting to say in your application essay. However, if your advisors tell you not to and say they will write good letters anyway, you should probably do what they say.

Because I care, I google the syllabus. It takes 3 minutes and is very informative. Also, many schools now provide information on the curve (average grade, or % A's) in a course. More should do this so that smart students aren't penalized for taking challenging classes.

I'm sure there must be very good schools that don't care whether you have good skills at reading comprehension, constructing grammatical sentences, or doing high-school level math. But they are rare, for good reason.

Just do it. Don't you like doing research? If not, please don't apply.

Actually, mechanism design tends to be non-contextual, starting from first principles. Definitely not starting from actual institutions that exist in the real world. Although the best articles (or most famous) tend to show why real-world institutions actually serve certain functions. (yes, very functionalist)

Most serious applicants at top-ten programs have taken at least one college level math course and one stats or methods course. Beyond that, math training is just one of a variety of ways that one can distinguish oneself. And the occasional star with no calculus gets in, but you're better off taking a couple of courses than hoping you're good enough to be that person.

Major GPA isn't insurmountable. You should actually hope that your letters and GRE are enough to get someone to look closely at your application. If film or some other major that has almost totally different disciplinary standards/intellectual tastes from poli sci is what is dragging it down, that will be to your benefit. Bad (or at least less-stellar) grades in related but tougher-curved disciplines (stats, econ) also shouldn't hurt. Of course, if you know you want to do poli sci, you probably want to reserve film studies for your spare time.

You should ask what is incomplete and get it in by Monday. Missing fall grades are common, so that won't count against you. Otherwise strong applications get reviewed even if a letter or something is missing, but if your app is marginal, then this is enough to drop you out of consideration.

If I'm understanding correctly, you failed to do your work and had no good excuse. Then you lied about doing it. Now you're hoping to ask for forgiveness because you're being "honest." I knew someone like you who made it to a prestigious grad school pulling stunts like that, but this person dropped out after second year because it became apparent to the entire department (students and faculty) what this person was up to. I hope you pursue a less demanding career, both for your sake and for that of the classmates and faculty who would otherwise have to put up with you and eventually make the painful decision to kick you out of a program you can't handle.

Every committee knows grades are lower in math/stats classes than in social sciences. A B in a serious (calculus-based) stats course is better than two A's in undergrad Methods courses in political science.

At top programs, TOEFL scores become irrelevant because they are all basically perfect. AWA is marginally helpful, but the foreign students (even good ones) mostly seem to get 3s or 4s. A 5 or 6 would be a little impressive but if you're good enough to get in we're going to read your SOP and some of your writing samples to form our own opinion not just of you writing/grammar but also of your understanding of the field. If I'm uncertain about mastery of English grammar and usage I usually turn to page 15 or so of the writing sample and look at a couple of paragraphs. People with bad English are rarely able to produce polished prose that far into the piece.

I'm reading files now. Don't worry about the grade. Any department you'd want to go to will have a committee that understands that the average grade in a math or stats course is much lower than that in a social science course. Simply by completing an applied math major you have demonstrated that you are in the top 1% of files in terms of quantitative training. Presumably you will also have a math GRE of 760 or above (and probably 800) to reinforce this impression. If you fall short on the political science coursework or lack recommendations from social scientists that we've heard of, you may have better luck at Caltech/GSB/Rochester but if you also can show you know more than just the numbers-stuff you'll be looked at seriously at any top department.

Political science departments won't know what to make of an MPhil from Asia. If you want to specialize in a region, spending a year or two and becoming fluent in the language will help, but getting academic training from a top Asian (and therefore probably 3rd-tier global) institution won't help. Your current range of regions spans a huge range that includes about a third of the world's population, so that doesn't really sound like an interest in a region, though. Post-colonial studies as studied in literature will not be very helpful in social sciences. Lately, East Asian politics has not been a growth area, but China studies has. If China continues to have a major role in the global economy, environment, and security environment it will probably be a safe bet to study, so make your own forecast on that one. Unless you are going to invest in language skills I wouldn't worry about anticipating what the trendy subfields will be by the time you get out of grad school. Other than language study and in-country time (for an area emphasis), an MA in a top US or European program might help, since top-50 LAC with just an okay GPA is not a great starting point for applications. Then you'd have recs and grades from someplace that the admissions committee knows well. Urban Planning is a good applied field. Do that if it better fits your interests.

There are a lot of undergrad courses I would recommend before topology. Even real analysis I would only recommend if you like the stuff and hope to become a methodologist or formal modeler. So I wouldn't recommend a full math major unless you really love the stuff in its purest abstraction. But I'll second the rest as being useful for the majority of students who will do applied multi-method empirical work. For that reason, a double major in econ might be better since it would give you some experience seeing how math can be applied to social science questions. A stats double major would also help on the purely empirical side. Other science majors or a pure math major will give you a ton of skills you will ultimately be able to apply, but will leave you with no clue about how any of it might pertain to the political science that you are presumably passionate about. Evolutionary biology is less quantitative but might be a better fit because they face many of the same challenges we do in dealing with non-experimental data.

JDs are not trained to do social science research. If one believes in this premise of the university model, that students benefit from being taught by active researchers, then a pure JD is not the best choice. Also, what JDs study is law, not politics. They are very focused on the texts of the law and the formal institutions and procedures. But that means they do not generally devote much time to other core topics of political science, such as why coalitions do or don't form within legislatures to pass certain laws, or why citizens elect legislators of one type or another. One cannot understand or teach US local, state, or national politics without having a grasp of these topics.

Yes, they do accept international students. However, the bar has always been higher for internationals, because they can never qualify for in-state tuition. That means they cost the department a lot more. Not sure if the present budget situation will make this even harder or not.

AW is a noisier signal than most. Committees would rather not see a 3, but if you have a good essay, writing sample, and other scores, they'd treat it as a fluke.

Those are solid scores. Combined with an MA from a well-known program you'll get a serious look. You'd want to indicate in your application that you are open to quant approaches even though you haven't done much yet. What looks bad is the occasional app that oversells how quant the person wants to be when they haven't yet shown significant effort or inclination in that direction. Or, along similar lines, it would be unwise to list "methods" as one of the major fields you are considering if you haven't done multivariate calculus yet.

You sound competitive for a top department, although you might want to give the math GRE another shot to raise that score. There are so few departments with Middle East specialists that you should probably broaden your range to consider other places with good comparativists who will help you ask and answer interesting questions about the region. You've already got the language and cultural background, and you'll spend another year or two in the region during your PhD, so you don't really need that in your department. (Not that it's a bad thing, but given the slim pickings you shouldn't view it as essential).

You really want to get both over 650V and 700Q to avoid getting axed without a second look at top-ten places. If you had a great performance and strong recommendations from Harvard they'll probably look anyway, but you'll be facing an uphill battle. There is a lot you can do on the Q, especially, just by buying books and working through lots of practice questions. Might make sense to spend a good 80 hours doing this before paying for a tutor.