Irish.Coffee

Hi there! congrats to those admitted. I'm just gonna answer some of the questions about the program at Uoft real quick in case it helps (this is my personal view): Departmental culture: The professors are truly amazing, same goes for the administrative staff. Historically, the department was more historical institutionalist and focused on books, which I believe is still true today, but there is also a lot of high quality quant work. There are potlucks every year for every field, with both students and professors which are super fun as well as beginning and end of term parties, and it is very easy to make friends in the department. The atmosphere betwee students is not competitive and students support and help each other. The stipend is obviously very low considering you have to live in Toronto, which is super expensive. However, if you are eligible to apply for scholarships, this can be of great help. Also, it is usually possible to get extra TAships if wanted. Students that do not come in with a scholarship do start TAing year one, but usually for a big intro class with a TA coordinator, so most of the material is just given to you (not much prep). There are a lot of extra funds, especially for conferences. I think you get somewhere around 500$ every year for CPSA and another 300-500 for another conference (again every year), plus some other sources of funding (student union, etc.). There are also funds for fieldwork. I think they usually take about 25 students each year. I don't know whether there are quotas for each subfield, but I would imagine so. Overall, I think it is a truly great program with a lot of resources.

Hi all, for UofT applicants, the department is in the process of reviewing applications at the moment. I’m a phd student at uoft if you have questions.