guest56436

Because they want to get applications in before the break.

This is incredibly bad advice. - Why would you want to be mentored by someone who has no experience in that role, and has no track record of successfully mentoring students? High risk, low information. - New assistant professors are more likely to be especially concerned with getting tenure, not advising students to the best of their abilities - New assistant professors are more likely to move to another institution - New assistant professors have smaller professional networks - New assistant professors are more likely to have less of a (comprehensive) grasp of the broader field - New assistant professors are unlikely to have extensively published in your field Are there some advantages? Sure...assistant profs have been on the job market more recently and can offer more current professionalization advice. They are also more likely to coauthor with grad students and be publishing at a faster rate. But neither of these benefits are required for a good dissertation chair, you can receive these benefits by building relationships with them outside of them being your adviser. That's also not to say that you can't have a good chair be an assistant professor. But to make the statement in bold is completely false and the behavior (sans the foolish addressing part) is completely rational from these applicants.

Doomed? Definitely not. Will it hurt? Perhaps. But then again, you've been out of the academic game for 10 years, what would people expect? Nothing you can do about it. Relax and try not to stress over the applications (easier said than done, I know).

Addressing you by your first name is stupid. But it's not surprising that applicants want to work with more senior faculty than a recently hired assistant professor. This should be fairly obvious and has nothing to do with sexism.

Sure. But the real variable is how nervous you get when you are actually being tested rather than when you know it's inconsequential.

The order does not matter.

C stands for Cal (Berkeley), not Columbia.

^ The top 6 programs.

You are competitive as anyone else who is applying. Apply to all top 10 and top 20 programs that there is a good fit. Top 20 programs: Stanford University Harvard University Princeton University University of California - Berkeley (USB) University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) Yale University Columbia University Duke University Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) California - San Diego (UCSD) University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill (UNC/UNC-CH) New York University (NYU) University of California - Los Angeles (UCLA) University of Chicago Ohio State University (OSU) University of Wisconsin - Madison University of California - Davis (UCD) University of Rochester Cornell University Washington University in St. Louis (WashU/WUSTL) University of Pennsylvania (Penn/UPenn) University of Texas - Austin

One problem with the median/mean GRE score statistics is that those include theory applicants, whose quant score is largely irrelevant but also likely to be much lower than the modal admitted student in the three other fields.

Yes, it matters. Hard to 'get on the track' when you are competing with people already 'on the track.' One of the biggest reasons is because letters from less known universities/departments are less likely to carry as much weight as letters from top scholars that people on admission committees know. Secondly, undergrads at top programs have access to a significantly greater amount of resources (research projects, funding, grants, ect.) than those who went to 'lesser' institutions. Thirdly, signalling matters - we all have cognitive biases that make us think applicants are more impressive if they went to top institutions. That being said, these obstacles can be overcome and every cycle applicants from many different undergrad institutions get into top programs. But it's an uphill battle. Lastly, there's no point in stressing about it - it's out of your control and nothing you can do about it (besides make your profile more competitive).

Placement pages are notoriously inaccurate. They often do not include the scores of people who dropped out, took a VAP/post-doc and never got on the TT, or conflates things. Yes, you should trust the doom and gloomers. I would personally not attend a program outside of the top 20 (and preferably a top 10 program or CHYMPS). Everyone has their own parameters for risk acceptance though. In fact, if I really cared about job prospects and earning money, I wouldn't be doing a Ph.D. It simply isn't worth it if you are driven by 'career' goals.

The bold is the most important. Puzzle -> Questions -> Possible ways to answer it theoretically and methodologically. Area is not that important, although it should be obvious based on the empirical founding of your puzzle. Research interests do not need to be a perfect match for good POI signalling. Think about these different approaches for identifying POIs and demonstrating fit: - Broad interests. - Independent variables - Dependent variable(s) - Broad research interests - Methodological approaches - Theoretical approaches - Geographical area You can make plausible connections based on any of these things. Let's do an example. Say you are interested in the socioeconomic effects (i.e. the persistence of poverty) of clientelism in Africa and you are applying to Yale. So your (broadly speaking) independent variable is clientelism and your dependent is poverty and your region is Africa. Let's also say you are interested in mixed methods broadly speaking (say game theory, interviews/ethnography, and quantitative analysis). You have so many POIs to identify in this instance that it's almost hard to be economical. Susan Stokes (independent variable, methodological), Ana de la O (independent and dependent variables), Frances Rosenbluth (broad interests), Steven Wilkinson (independent variable, theoretical approaches), James Scott (broad interests, methodological), and Kate Baldwin (dependent variable, geographical area).

9 pages seems excessive for methodology/analysis. This can probably be reduced as well. I'd be hesitant about cutting the lit review completely if it is tied to your theoretical section.

Broadly speaking, there is an applicant (or multiple) every cycle that gets into programs with a low GRE quant score. This happens all the time, even at top institutions. Put yourself in the shoes of an adcomm member, if you had an application in front of you that was stellar in virtually every way except for a low GRE score, would you consider admitting that person? The answer is most certainly yes. GRE, prestige of undergrad/masters, and GPA are all cutoff factors, but they do not necessarily sink an otherwise stellar application.

I am a bit confused here. The vast majority of phd programs in the US have December deadlines (some do have Jan deadlines but not many) at which point the applications close until the following Fall. So I'm not sure what you mean by applying in mid Jan or Feb. The applications are only available roughly from Sept to Dec. You'd have to wait until the following cycle.

It's idiosyncratic depending on who is on the committee (some people weigh certain aspects more than others) and how they decide to do it. But I think generally, it goes something like this: First cutoffs: GRE = Pedigree = GPA > SOP > than everything else. As the list gets smaller: LOR > SOP = WS > CV.

Probably not much different than the other programs you are applying to.

Just for the record - I am moderate (hold many conservative views, hold many liberal views) in political leaning. In comparison to my peer students and professors, I would be considered conservative on a relative scale. Would you like to know how many times my personal political views, or the view of professors, have come up in 1 on 1 interactions in political science? As many times as I can count on one of my hands. This isn't a discipline where people sit around and sip coffee and have deep intellectual and partisan debates. You are much more likely to argue about how to operationalize some obscure variable or how to read X's book in the case of theory.

Yeah, I am a bit confused as well. Political science is perhaps the biggest, along with economics, discipline that has failed to embrace post-modernism in the social sciences.

You're over thinking this. 1) I don't think it matters whether you are conservative or not. 2) The campaign work isn't going to get you admitted. In fact, it may not have any bearing whatsoever. Ph.D. admissions are about academic experience.

A professor has three duties: research, teaching, and service to the university (and discipline at large). What they choose to focus on of those three depends both on the norms of their position and university but also where their interests and strengths are. Not all professors are going to be really good at research, teaching, and administration and/or service. Sometimes some focus on one (or two) at the expense of others. And to answer the second question, yes, it is entirely possible. One thing I think a lot of people don't understand is you should be utilizing their office hours, a lot of grad students expect appointments; but most things can be figured out by dropping in to the time they set aside for students.

I don't think your intentions are the right ones. I have a simple question for you: do you know what you are getting yourself into when you enter a Ph.D. program in political science?

UT? In that case, list the relevant subfield and methodological coursework. Or maybe just list all the political science courses you have taken. I don't think this is something that is going to really affect your admission.

Keep your CV as simple as possible. I did not and do not recommend you to put coursework on your CV. Your coursework is readily available in your transcripts.