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Monody

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Everything posted by Monody

  1. Submitted my publication at JCR. Now I only have to change the CVs and SoPs.
  2. I rather mean that your success chance generally depends on your profile, so in case that the rest of your application is similar in quality to your GRE scores (even though this comparison probably doesn't work) 12 makes an admittance somewhere probably relatively likely.
  3. I would say that 12 is plenty, but it strongly depends on the schools and your profile. If you had only perfect score, then 12 would probably be too many.
  4. I wouldn't say so unless you use 0in margins and it specifies double-space in the FAQ. As long as you write something meaningful, I dont think that anyone will be bothered as it is in the prescribed range.
  5. Honestly, I began in July, didn't have something I was truly happy with until mid-September, and now am still thinking about changing things around. The first 20 or so (I mean that literally) drafts or beginnings sounded horrible when I would read them out loud, because I wanted to sound interesting to the committee. If you want to save the time I spent on this I would recommend to drop the pre-tense of that cool introductory story and just have one or two sentences at the beginning to explain your interest, why it fascinates you and then just describe what you did so far, are doing now, and plan on doing in the future. If you tie it together nicely it should be clear why a PhD at that particular department is the logical next step.
  6. Thanks for your reply. I have now finished the paper and am just running and extracting robustness checks to create an appendix. The profs who read it so far - one of them is a LoR writer - told me that I could submit it immediately to International Interactions or JCR for example, but I want to make sure that I don't waste any reviewer's time if he or she wants to see robustness checks. On the SoP front, I will probably go back to it a few days before the deadlines and include a sentence on the submission and adjust the CV. I thought about including a link to my Drive folder on the CV so they can have a look at it if they want to. Lastly, I've to say that I was a bit annoyed by the election results this morning. Not extremely, but I don't like the associated uncertainty.
  7. @CarefreeWritingsontheWall Thanks for that information. I was honestly unaware about the implication. What about including a working paper section and indicating that the paper was submitted with "(submitted)" at the end of the title? Also are their any good options to create a personal website to which one could upload the current work in progress? On another note, I have to say that the closer the deadlines are, the more I feel like I want to rewrite the SoPs I submitted. At least those I can exchange. I am worrying that I wrote too much about what I am currently working on and provided too little detail on the research question I would like to pursue. I basically described the argument behind my current work and then sketched out the area in which I would like to conduct research while in grad school relatively precisely, but without the level of detail that I provided about my current work. Obviously, you can't give a precise statement, but considering SoPs generally, it that an issue?
  8. Take everything with a grain of salt, but from my experience on this forum, your profile is not too bad and as @DeterminedandNervous would probably say, there are people who go on the job market without any publication. Having them is an advantage but not a requirement for a successful application. Further, you may generally heavily discount any work experience that is not directly research related. Lastly, I would maybe reconsider Georgetown and John Hopkins as they - as far as I know - are foremost policy oriented. I could be wrong though. You should also generally look into your fit with the faculty to see whether there is actually someone working at the department who shares your interests. Also, the latter seem to be quite broad as far as you described them and particularly for the SoP you may be advised to focus them a bit more.
  9. Apparently, depending on the kind of online storage you use, you can also see who accessed it (to succumb to disappointment if nobody ever looked at the material you carefully prepared).
  10. I excluded it in mine, because it takes away a whole page without adding anything. In Latex I just used paragraph subtitles through the whole text to compensate. Also, in your introduction you probably talk about the structure of the writing sample so you theoretically have this covered either way. Maybe to add to this, I included a link to an online-appendix with the figures, the graphs, the bibliography, and replication files. This also saves a lot of pages.
  11. I included internships in parliament that are related to the subfield I am interested in. It probably hardly matters, but I don't think that it hurts either.
  12. From my experience so far, most universities handle this differently. Some (Princeton, Stanford) ask you to write 0.0 and will convert it themselves, other will ask for the original GPA and the original scale (NYU if I remember correctly) and others again will ask you to use WES to transform it yourself (Duke). I would really suggest that you do what they tell you and don't decide anything by yourself without contacting them first. Some specifically told me that I should really not transform my GPA on my own.
  13. Just to be clear. The writing sample is not the paper I am talking about. I submitted an abbreviated version of my BA thesis that focuses on the formal argument and the quantitative part. And of course I am not stupid enough to lie myself into grad school. The idea is simply to submit it mid-November after having received some feedback from profs at the department and then making some slight adjustments to the documents in the end of November either calling it a working paper if rejected or a submission otherwise. As I mentioned in another thread as an international applicant I ever more strongly get the feeling that my education will be - some what understandably - discounted and I just hope that my problem of missing extensive formal research experience will be even to a minimal degree improved. And either way, writing it was quite nice and revealing regarding some development in the specific field in the recent years.
  14. Fair enough, but as I said even if they don't get back positively to me before the submission deadline, it won't hurt and it's still valuable experience. That said I will discuss the paper with one of the LoR writers next week, so that he may be able to provide some credibility to it if it only remains a submission for the time being.
  15. I have my doubts that the review process is sufficiently quick, at least from what I read to be the norm. So far, I generally got the feedback that it can only improve my chances of admission so nothing would be lost I guess.
  16. Hey all, I will be submitting an article for review probably in about 2 to 3 weeks, most likely at JCR, and wanted to ask how I should notify the departments at which I applied of this. Of course, I will update the SOP and CV wherever possible, but some like Columbia, NYU or Duke do not allow any changes after the submission of the application. Should I send a small notice to the person who is responsible for the process or is there a more appropriate way of going about this? Thanks.
  17. Thank you for your thoughts on this, but I have to say that I am now just happy if I can get an acceptance at any of these universities and even though that may sound stupid do not want to spend any more time on additional applications that further eat into my wallet and my time. I spent the last 3-4 months on it and I am happy with the results that I submitted. In addition to that, I am sufficiently close to submitting an article (solo-authored) for review before the submission deadline and would be immensely happy if that were to work out so that I can sleep comfortably that I may have increased my chances of admission by a few percentage points.
  18. Well, nothing to be proud of considering that I failed to upload error-free material to 2 programs (MIT lets you change things after submission). I also began in early July with the writing samples, the SoP, and the GRE preparation, and I told my recommenders that I would give them all the material early enough so that they don't have to rush anything. Anyway, send me a PM if I can help you with anything.
  19. So everything is submitted and I already feel like a very stupid fool. I just noticed that three of my statements had the same two mistakes. "specialized" instead of "specialized in" and dyadic --- dyad. I must have overlooked it, even though I spent the literal last two weeks working on these texts. Well, I probably have to hope that someone is having a great day when reading the applications to overlook this. But overall I am very relieved that this is over and I finally can go back to the usual stuff.
  20. Thanks for the considerations. Regarding 1): My first university had a good methodological training, but they had literally no-one working in my subfield and not even really anyone working in anything security related. The second one had a very good focus in my research area, but when I asked whether I can get additional methodological training beyond what I did at my first university, they flat out told me that even at the master level they only focus on qualitative work and most despised rational choice. My third year is an exchange year at a respectable university where I am able to do both. That is basically how I describe it in the SOP. It was intentional even though in hindsight I should've probably known my specific field before I started my studies. I hope that this issue is somewhat relegated by the fact that Ive a LoR from each school which should strongly indicate that there was nothing questionable going on. Regarding 2): I think that standard wise it shouldn't be that much of an issue. All of the writers indicated that they know what committees are looking for and some of the departments I wrote too even indicated that they had some successful applicants from the university from which I will be graduating in recent years. I will certainly apply for master programs, since I know that nothing is guaranteed in this context and I will begin looking after Ive sent away all these applications. The only issue is that I can't take up anything without funding which again is much rarer for master programs as far as I know. You are probably right about Yale, but when I had a look at their faculty and the courses they generally offer it didn't strike me as particularly quantitative. I mean I would like to apply to Rochester, but I know that this would probably be a waste of money since none of the universities Ive been to offered me any training in formal modeling (which is again the reason for my exchange year) and even though I only got A+s in my statistic courses (4) that probably wouldn't suffice either way. Also a note on fit maybe: All of the universities would be a great fit and some of the faculty actually work not only on civil war but particularly in the smaller niche in which I would situate my research question.
  21. Thank you for your response. I studied at Humboldt in Berlin and luckily they have an exchange program with Duke and the prof also studied there for some time. I also took a course with a PhD student there with whom I am still in contact. I mentioned that in passing in the SoP. That may be a plus in that case. The two others, specifically the second one are able to speak positively from good experience, but are certainly not well-known. Can't help it. Regarding the writing sample, Ive to say that the more I think about it the more miserable I feel. It is not bad based on what I learned so far, but I aim to specialize in formal modeling and quantitative methodology and for that it is really underwhelming. I mean I make some novel adjustments to an existing model based on an arguably good argument, derive hypotheses, and test them on a large dataset that I (painstakingly) built. Nonetheless, I didn't do equilibrium analysis or anything like that simply because I don't know how to do it, because they never offered courses in that area at my universities and the courses I will take at my exchange university haven't begun yet. The SoPs are good in my opinion. In the beginning, I thought that I would write one master version and adjust it, but now I have 7 different pieces that are all fine-tuned to the different requirements of the programs. I also got two profs to look over it and they gave me good feedback. I have to say that I particularly decided against Yale, because of their focus on qualitative methodology and the feeling that even though someone like Kalyvas may be a great advisor I overall wouldn't get the methodological proficiency I am aiming for.
  22. So for the last post with which I will probably bother this forum until the admission season, I just wanted to get some feedback on my choices regarding the likelihood of being at least accepted into one of them and whether I may be well advised to apply to some universities further down the line. I already got a lot of feedback I am really grateful for, but I am now practically done with all the tests, statements, LoR writers, and so forth that it may merit this post. The first post in this thread also was a mess so I am sorry for that Undergrad: one of the most well-known universities in Germany for Political Science, 3 year BA Major: Political Science only Undergrad GPA: approx. 3.77/4.00 (4.00/4.00 when using WES); I will hand in a certified conversion sheet which transfers to the former when using letter grades Graduate School: NA Graduate Program: NA Graduate GPA: NA GRE: 163V, 169Q, 5.5W TOEFL: 114/120 Letters of Recommendation: one from the prof responsible for methodology at my first university which is known for methodological rigor (I had a lecture with him as well as discussion regarding the letter. He will also talk to a TA who wanted me to teach undergraduates before I transferred.), one from a prof at the university from which I am graduating with whom I had two advanced courses, one from a prof for whom I am currently working as a research assistant (for free btw; he is not well known but a nice guy and does research in my field) Research: undergraduate thesis which doesn't mean much as it's only about 7000 words and the research assistantship since the beginning of August; if I am lucky, another one may realize in the next two weeks Research interests: civil war and particularly patterns of violent behavior by insurgent groups and their determinants Publication: in the process of writing my first paper which I will submit early next year and which I describe briefly in my SoP to introduce my research question Presentations: NA Teaching: NA Other/Misc: spent/will spend one year each at three different universities which I explain by pointing out the specific aspects of the departments that I needed for my scholarly development (first uni, transfer to second uni, exchange year); I am currently taking a year-long econometrics courses, and more classes in microeconomics and advanced game theory and modeling next semester which I mention in the SoP; I also speak 5 languages to varying degrees and did a very large number of courses so far (more credit than I would ever need for my program even though I am now only in my third year); last is an extracurricular activity to support students from low-income households Programs I'm Looking At: Columbia, Duke, Princeton, MIT, NYU, Stanford, PennState I wrote personalized SoP for each program but all began with a few words on my passion for research, my substantive interest, and why an academic career is right for me. I then went over my educational background on to describing the research project I am currently pursuing (general argument and testing procedure). This leads to the research question I intend to work on later and also the methodology I want to use. The last 300-400 words were mostly spent on describing how the program will help me achieve my research question by mentioning course work, the structure, and faculty members with whom I like to work with (how their work relates to mine and mentioning the work they wrote and I read). I generally finished with a few concluding remarks. Ive to say it was a lot of work and I will be glad once it's over but I also have to add that I learned a lot about my own interests and the specific programs. For example, I kicked Harvard and San Diego out of the set, because either nobody is working in the area I am interested in or the faculty members appear to be somewhere but not at the department doing research for quite some time. As I said in the beginning some feedback on my chances would be highly appreciated.
  23. Thanks. Ive to say that I was quite nervous before the test itself, because I certainly wouldn't have wanted to take it again. My TOEFL score is 114 which seems to be fine for most program. I also got my final results for the GRE just now and am in the 93., 98., and 97. (5.5) respectively so that is taken care off. Five of the seven to eight statements are done and yesterday evening I wrote a 5 double-spaced pages summary of my thesis and prepared the online appendix as well. So two more statements to go and another version of my thesis shortened to 20 double-spaced pages. Ive to say that I am happy that at least NYU asks for a 30-50 pages writing sample. All in all, two more weeks to go and then I can finally get back to my normal stuff.
  24. So, last couple of days have been great. My SOP is done for the first university after I got feedback from two profs, I finished my thesis which I will use as my writing sample, and I also took the GRE today and am still thrilled that I got 163/169 out of it. Sure, verbal could have been better but the second part after the adaption was really hard and at least it is not terrible and won't immediately disqualify me. Now I can finally begin to concentrate on my paper while finishing the other SOPs. edit: I just noticed that 163 is only in the 92% percentile in the verbal range and that most universities have a higher average qualitative than quantitative score. Is that a potential issue?
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