Determinedandnervous

Hey all, this isn't my application season (post in last year's thread here), but I did want to impart a bit of advice. It is likely that your research interests overlap somewhere with another member of this forum. While you're all still on this forum (as most of you will likely never return after the beginning of grad school), I encourage you, if you are comfortable with doing so, to talk to each other privately and de-anonymize. Networking is a huge part of how you fare on the market, and it does not hurt to start today. So turn to each other and start talking, arrange to meet each other at conferences, and possibly co-author something once you feel ready to do so. This is not empty advice. I am currently co-authoring a project with a (former?) active user of this forum, who I will leave nameless unless they wish to announce themselves, and it's looking promising. The type of people who self-select into GradCafe are usually ahead of the game, and all of you this year were no exception. So get networking!

It's quite possible. You do need to learn more programming languages than the average political scientist (python, sql and c++ come to mind), and you do want to cultivate a professional network. It is certainly not a bad situation to be in if you have the skills to do it though - not many fallbacks make six figures.

PSU student here. We are great in quantitative methods, but obviously the top 10 are going to place better and in most cases have more cutting-edge methods training and greater variety. That's not to say we don't have our strengths relative to many institutions - we're certainly making advances in our infrastructure for big data social science in a way that not many programs outside the top 10 are doing, but we're not the holy grail second only to Rochester. We do well in big data methods and most large-N statistical methods. We even have quite a few students doing experiments, though this is mostly learned from ICPSR or through collaboration with faculty here who do experiments. If that's your thing, then Penn State would not be a bad choice. However, if you want to do formal theory, or bayesian statistics (we don't have a bayesian in the faculty at the moment), it's not the department for you. Just to respond to Comparativist, we have placed people in methods hires in the past (though they are more known for their substantive work), and there are some top-notch grad students who will be going on the market in the coming years in methods. Obviously, we're out-placed still by the top 10, though we're not chopped liver in this area (and I didn't think you were saying that, either). The good news for any future methodologists is that it's probably the least rank-conscious subfield in the market (and there's usually a shortage of good methodologists), but rank still helps.

If you go to Cornell and take full advantage of what the program has to offer in honing your skills as a China scholar, you will not have trouble being placed. I don't know how many people study China, but very few can attain a high level of credibility as scholars of the country. If you can become one of those people, you will not have a problem.

Here are some imperfect, but reasonable benchmarks for whether the program is generally okay with people who are interested in the private sector. 1) Does the program advertise private sector placements in their placement history? This is not exactly a strong heuristic, but it's a start. The better heuristic is 2) Does the program advertise that they're good at placing in the private sector during recruitment? If so, then likely at least some of the department would be behind you in your decision. However, proceed with caution - even departments that put these signals out have contingents of faculty that vehemently disagree.

I agree with @BigTenPoliSci that rank matters quite a bit. However, it's a lot more probabilistic than this, since there are plenty outside the top 10 and even outside the top 25 that get good jobs. It will depend on your advisor, subfield, sub-subfield, the amount you publish, where you publish, who you publish with, what classes you've taught if any, who's in your network, how large your network is, whether you're using the coolest methods, etc. Quite a few of these correlate with rank - publishing is easier (and to a certain extent, less necessary) when you're at a higher rank or if the other name on the paper is someone like Gary King, your network will be larger and more influential when you go to a higher-ranked place, and the top schools tend to have the most cutting-edge methods. This means those lower down the ranks have to do much more to achieve the same thing someone at a higher-ranked institution would do, and certain barriers will make things difficult if not impossible to doing the necessary work. I'm sure that the OP will largely agree with this. That being said, if you, like me, are not at one of the top institutions, you have to adjust your expectations. The likelihood is quite low (unless you're a methodologist) that you will get a tenure-track job at a comparably ranked R1. However, it is possible to get the R1 jobs towards the lower end of the ranking scale. Bulk up on teaching skills. Get good publications. Build your network. Beef up your methods skills. Start this on day 1. Recognize that even doing all this, it may not be enough. Focus on getting big data skills if your program offers it. Learn some programming. Political scientists do not have the comparative advantage in computer smarts, but we have the advantage of understanding human behavior enough to make sense of the data. Feel free to disagree - I recognize that I may be biased. I just wanted to say something to make people outside the top 25 that were reading this not immediately panic.

Most likely, it's fine. It is more fine if the person is a professor in the Politics department with a courtesy appointment in the WWS, but I don't see how this is an issue.

Let's put it this way - I'd be shocked if you weren't able to land somewhere incredibly decent with that profile. However, echoing what others said, make sure you have strong letters of recommendation and make sure your writing sample is up to par. When in doubt, mimic the tone of journal articles.

It seems like you're equal parts comparative and theorist. If the department sees you more as a theorist, then your low quant score, while a red flag, may not be a deal-breaker (at least with most of the departments you're applying to). If they see you as a comparativist, it's likely to hurt you. However, the rest of your file is up to speed and interesting, so you do have that going for you.

If I recall right, I was able to send letters to interfolio with the online application. I ended up getting rejected from Michigan, but they didn't say I lacked LORs.

Hey, sorry for the delayed reply. I'm quite busy nowadays, so I'm not on here every day. I would really not worry about these errors. They are minor and it's quite likely that given they are trying to move through hundreds of applications in a short amount of time, they may not even spot the error. Everyone makes typos, it doesn't send a signal that you're a bad researcher - it just means we can't always catch everything.

If there are a couple of typos, it's not a big deal. There was a grammatical error in my SOP for one of the universities I applied to, and I still got in with a fellowship. Everyone makes typos, and not all of them are easy to spot. They won't be inhumane about it. @dododo, you can with some schools probably, but for the most part, no. Even with the schools that do let you, you'll have to email them directly about it, and considering they're inundated with applications, it may or may not be updated.

Always include these things. Always.

I would say with your credentials and your research experience, you're a strong candidate. Your AWA score is low, but probably not a dealbreaker given that English is not your first language.

There's no need to tell a story. Just convey that you know what political science is, that you are serious about research, and that you read up enough about the school to know why their program would help you further your research agenda based on their training and faculty. It doesn't need to be interesting.