socme123

That's awesome - congrats! Doesn't UCLA at least guarantee 5 yrs of funding, or is all that up in the air with all UCs because of the economic situation?

Disappointing about the top 3 choices, but congrats on all your other acceptances!

In at Princeton! I cannot freaking believe this. I have become completely useless at work.

Hey folks, I haven't been ignoring this but I'm leery of giving out my stats now for a couple reasons. (1) I don't really want to jinx myself by being IDed by adcoms until I have firm answers in hand. But more importantly (2) I am 100% confident that my stats have very little to do with any of my outcomes so far. They are decent, I guess, and there are no outlying scores or grades that would make people doubt whether I can do the work, but my take on GRE scores is that they are essentially irrelevant once you get past a base threshold of acceptability. Grades are more complicated, but not a dealmaker in and of themselves. I am kinda on the old side for this too, so again there are variables at play (both positive and negative) that have nothing to do with numbers. That said, sure I'll be happy to share once I've heard from a few more schools Also, I believe the Harvard committee is meeting today. I'm on pins and needles. I assume we'll get the verdict this week. Sigh. It's my dream school.

Guys, there's no need to be patronizing. (1) No, of course I don't think JDs in general are better for teaching poli sci than poli sci Ph.D.s. That's ridiculous. But do I think JDs could teach most undergrad poli sci classes, yes - even seemingly unrelated ones like international politics - yes if the person focused on international legal topics and political economy in law school. (2) I actually don't doubt my ability to practice law. I just hate it I'm only on grad cafe because I'm applying for Ph.D. programs. (3) At my law school, law students often TA for undegraduate courses in non-law fields. That's different from being a professor, obviously, but we were doing the same thing the grad students were asked to do so there's at least some recognition that law school teaches you something other than how to practice law. (4) I'll ignore the knock on legal academic research - the idea that some random "peer-reviewed" po-dunk journal is somehow more rigorous than the Harvard Law Review is something else - because it's to be expected among Ph.D. folks. I just don't think there's a need to knock on the academic rigor of a J.D. program in order to make the argument that Ph.Ds are more deeply rooted in political science. I'm more annoyed by the mischaracterization of what goes on in law school than I am by what seems to be an obvious point that Ph.D.s are more deeply trained in traditional political science than JDs are. That doesn't mean JDs CAN'T teach poli sci classes, but it does mean that it doesn't make sense to hire a JD when there are so many unemployed poli sci Ph.D.s. I'm rambling, and I definitely don't take this all that seriously. It's really funny the way y'all have let this SOG25 character wind everyone's clock.

No. I don't think YOU understand what I'm saying. I'm talking about research publishable in academic journals, not legal memoranda. Required for graduation at my school.

This conversation is hilarious! All I can say is, I have a JD and despite being a recently minted member of the bar I feel far more qualified to teach political science courses than to practice law. Almost none of my law school classes were practical in any way, and I think the vast majority of law school classes are NOT practical and are instead theoretical and about a certain way one should think about the law and society. That is, my experience was that law school was more like grad school than vocational school. Plus, my law school actually requires independent research and writing projects in order to graduate, so that argument about how JDs never have to do research isn't 100% grounded in reality.

It's a good sign. They are interviewing finalists this year (I am not sure if they are interviewing ALL finalists. I just know they are interviewing at least some of the 21 finalists and plan to make only 10 or so offers - yikes.) But for those who haven't been contacted yet, I am not sure if they are still notifying people about the interviews or not and I don't know if everyone under consideration is being interviewed, so don't assume the worst at this point. As to the format, it probably varies a lot by interviewer. I imagine the main purpose of these is to get a sense of an applicant's very specific fit with their program and to make sure you're an okay person to have around. They don't want to reject any of the people they've narrowed it to, so probably fit is the real tiebreaker. Good luck!

In at Penn. Very excited. I've been lurking around here for years now, and this is not my first post, but it's my first of this cycle I think. Congrats to everyone who also has admissions and good luck to all!

I have a full-time job, so I studied off-and-on for about 3.5 months. Two months with 6-7 hours a day seems sufficient to me. People study for the bar in that amount time and that's a lot harder than the GRE quant section.

The last time I took any kind of math class was in high school ten years ago. That was calculus, so the last time I took anything that's tested on the GRE was 11 or 12 years ago. I took the GRE 2 years ago and got a 600 on quant - ouch! I was a "mathlete" back in the day, so this was a mess. I took it again last weekend after working carefully through the Barron's math workbook and only supplementing with a few more books (Princeton Review 1014 questions and the stuff on ETS' website) and got a 730 on quant. It's not STELLAR or anything, but it's damn good considering the circumstances and should be fine in my field. I credit the improvement mostly to getting a better understanding of the basics using the Barron's book. The other books were more for refinement of the basics. The Barron's does have a lot of typos and little mistakes, however. It can be annoying/distracting. But that seemed to be the case with every review book I used!

I'm not in your field, but in general, the problem with retaking to get higher than a 760 is that the chances are better that you'll do the same or worse. Averages are averages, not baselines, and you're only 10 points off the average. That means people with scores lower than yours are probably getting in. If I were you, I'd get over the GRE disappointment and focus on the statement of purpose and schmoozing people for fantastic LORs.

Just wanted to express solidarity with this thread. I wish I'd dropped out, but I didn't! I did the JD, the bar, and am even practicing now (just 2 years). I actually loved most of law school because my law school is more similar to grad school than most, but I've learned now that most law practice is terribly boring and pointless. Props to all of you for getting out quicker than I did. After $100K for law school and $10K rekated to the bar exam (not to mention bar fees), I'm annoyed, tired, disenchanted, and broke. But I have hope - grad school apps go out in the fall, and I am SO excited that I've summoned the guts to change course. Far too many of my friends have not. By the way, Skip Gates dropped out after (or during?) his first semester of law school and is now a University Professor at Harvard. There's hope

Very favorably. TCD is well-respected in the US.

I made the mistake of going with JD over PhD, not because of the stability et al., but because I thought I'd like it. WRONG. BIGGEST MISTAKE EVER. Now, after accumulating nearly 100K in debt, I'm preparing to apply for PhD programs. I am so full of regret for the years and dollars I wasted pursuing a profession that makes me want to kill myself every day. Don't make the same mistake I did. If you want to teach political science, pursue a poli sci PhD. Happy lawyers are rare.

wow, the changes sound terrific. i'm studying to take the test so I can apply next year. why couldn't they make the changes for like mid-2010??? :-( Damn ETS.

Hey everyone! I am planning to apply for sociology/policy PhD programs for Fall of 2011. Right now, I'm studying to retake the GRE. I took it last fall when I was thinking about masters programs in education, and I did it really stupidly - I signed up and had less than a week to study. I did OK on all but the quant: 670V, 600Q, and a 6 on AW. That probably would have been fine had I decided to stick with the masters, but I've decided to follow my true passion and pursue a Soc PhD. I am aiming for a tip-top program, preferably Harvard or Princeton's joint programs in sociology and social policy or Chicago, although I'm obviously applying other places. I'm trying to decide how much time to allot to the GRE thing versus focusing on developing my research agenda, SOP, and most importantly, reaching out to profs I'd like to work with. All of the latter is more important, but I need to clear that GRE hurdle. I feel like I'll look like a decent candidate at first glance: I wrote two undergrad theses, I have a masters in a related field, a couple big scholarships, a law degree from a top Ivy, multiple publications, and I'm an underrepresented minority. BUT - that GRE quant score is NASTY and I'd wager that the mean/median verbal scores at my dream schools are higher than 670. I also have to recover from weird undergrad grades from an OK liberal arts college from almost 7 years ago: Soc was one of my majors, but my Soc GPA was lower than my cumulative GPA. I've purchased test prep materials and am studying a little every day. I want to take the time to prepare this time and give the test the focus it deserves. But, given that I have a hectic job, etc. - how much time should I be devoting to GRE prep in comparison to other things, like talking about research, why I want to move from law back to sociology, building relationships, etc.?

"Ideal" might work. As in, the program is an ideal fit for X and Y reasons. Don't use "essential" - makes you sound too desperate.

Thanks - this is really helpful. I'm looking forward to writing the SOP. The letters - BAH! Wish it wouldn't be so bizarre to rely on undergrad profs. I haven't done terribly overall but I just fade into the background in most of my classes. Anyway.

CCN = Columbia, Chicago, NYU

Wow, this is the same question I had. I'm graduating in 2009 and haven't taken the GRE (plan to take it sometime this summer.) I went to a liberal arts college and finished with a lower gpa than the original poster in poli sci and sociology. I have a masters degree in a social science subject and go to a top law school. Definitely want the PhD because I don't have the tools to study what I'm most interested in, the politics of legal and policy change. I'm not interested in courts though (part of the reason I don't see a point in clerking.) My interests lie more in legislatures. Honestly, I fear that it's easier for me to justify a Ph.D. than the law degree I'm about to receive...haha. I have a few publications in law reviews. I suspect that my application will get a second look if only because of where I attend law school, since academics can be such prestige whores I'm realizing. I'm more worried about my lack of a quantitative background (not since college, which was a while ago - I remember nothing.) Most important, I've had only a mediocre law school career grade-wise, and I wonder how much that will count against me. The letters from my law school profs will probably not glow the way I'd like them to. How much do you think one or two questionable grades in law school will count against my Ph.D application? I probably should have done a Ph.D instead!