Imperator Totius Hispaniae

@BalkanItinerant congrats on the interview! So interesting that I got my interview request last week, but seems ppl in other sub fields who got Berkeley interviews received requests this week.

@4everstudent That was very helpful, thanks! Im not sure if this makes any difference about whether or not they are taking any Latin Americanists this year, but one of the Latin American POIs I spoke to a few months ago said they would personally be taking on students this year. Hopefully that means they will accept a Latin Americanist this cycle!

@wynntiroh yes that's right! now I remember your post. good luck with your interview!

@wynntirsame! ive been reading through the 2021 application thread and one of the ppl I saw was rejected from Berkeley didn't get an interview. When is your interview? And is it with Berkeley as well?

@flowersandcoffeeYa im really curious if the other two latin americanists that were CC'd will be there in the interview. I was looking through last year's results forum (saw some of your posts there), and it looks like if you get an interview, seems like you most likely (though not for sure) will get an acceptance? Glad you're not a latin americanist so we aren't competing haha. What day is your interview? I think I saw you interviewed last year Yale? any advice on what to say/questions to ask in these interviews?

@emeraldsapphireoh ya it must be by subfield cuz I got my email a week ago today! Well good luck and keep me updated! I'll let you know how my interview goes.

@emeraldsapphire ya Ive been preparing the same way. Thats so funny about the rambling, because I have the same problem haha. I have a friend who is a PhD history student at Stanford, so I'm going to try and rehearse stating my rehearse interests more concisely. Yesterday and today I've been reading the POI's work so I can speak to it if asked, or at the very least demonstrate a fit between my work and theirs. But ya I'm going to make sure I sound enthusiastic, but I dont think that should be hard cuz I had a phenomenal zoom meeting with one of the other latin americanist POI's. but I agree I REALLY hope that the POI doesn't press me on what my top school is. I'm gonna ask my friend about what to do in that situation. When are you supposed to have your interview? Mine is this coming Monday at 2pm!

@emeraldsapphire we may very well be! Honestly, based on what youre saying, perhaps this interview is more of a formality to ensure that we are serious about going to berkeley. But ya, the POI's ive spoken to at other schools have all said they're reducing the amount of people they're accepting. I was SHOCKED I even was offered an interview, because I thought for sure I didn't demonstrate a good enough fit in my SOP. How are you preparing for the "interview"?

@emeraldsapphirewell, I think anyone who applies to PhD programs tend to be overthinkers (I certainly am an anxious over thinker, haha). But ya, the POI who emailed is not the one I spoke with over zoom a few months ago, so perhaps thats why there's more formality in the email. But yes, the two other latin americanists were CC'd in the email as well, so it seems like I will be speaking with all 3 latin americanists in the department. But perhaps this varies by subfield. im SO relieved youre not doing Latin American history (im actually in the early modern period as well, but for Latin American history) haha. So it seems like we won't have to worry about competing with each other for a spot. The other person in this thread who has an interview with Berkeley (flowers and coffee, they posted a couple posts above us) is apparently modern Europe. So that seems like a good sign that none of us are competing with each other.

@emeraldsapphireNo, my email didn't really say much, just that they enjoyed reading my application and would like to extend a zoom interview with me, where I will have the opportunity to "tell us a bit more about your interests and goals for a History PhD, and allow us to answer any questions you may have about our program at this point". So, much less enthusiastic that yours haha. I wonder if its a personality difference or they're less sure about me than they are you. What is your subfield? Mine is Latin American history.

@flowersandcoffeeI'm not sure about Yale, but based on what I've been told from a current PhD History student from Harvard, they don't do interviews. My interview is with Berkeley as well! When is your interview with them? And what is your subfield?

Does anyone have any advice on what to say/what questions to ask in interviews? My interview is this coming Monday. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

@aurelie426my understanding is they aren't very common. I know UC Berkeley does (I have an interview with them soon), and so does NYU. But thats all I know.

@psstein whoops! I realize I wasn’t very specific. I don’t have an interview with HSS specifically, I was just saying I had an interview as well, it’s just with another school

@psstein I have an interview as well! any advice on what to say/what questions to ask?

I'm applying to the History PhD Program at the University of Michigan!

I will echo Sigaba and killerbunny and say that writing as clearly and concisely as possible is paramount! I'm sure if you went over your SOP and cut out unnecessary adverbs, prepositions, and the passive voice, you will be able to shorten it. However, based on reading application instructions for all the programs I'm applying to, it seems like you should defer to your program's specific instructions on the program page for the SOP, writing sample, etc. The general instructions act as default requirements in the event your particular program doesn't provide specific instructions. My advice: go with what Harvard's History Department says re: word length for the SOP, not GSAS. Btw, what subfield are you applying to? I'm applying to Harvard as well.

Which school?

From my research, pretty much all of the departments in the top 10 have a very strong quant bent. Since quant methods are considered the cutting edge of political science, and the top 10 I'm sure try to compete with each other on who can produce the most cutting edge research, I would argue most departments in the top 10 are heavy on the quant methods. The CHYMPS schools probably have the best quant training methods though and would have a more quantitative bent. How much more, that's not for me to say because I am not in any of those programs.

In what discipline or area of study was the nonfiction book that you sold? To be completely honest with you, if the book was not about a subject within political science and was not published by an academic press, ad coms, particularly at top schools, will not really care, because it will not demonstrate your propensity for rigorous research in political science. That's not to say it's meaningless or that you can't put it on your CV, or even describe in your statement of purpose how the research you conducted to write your book lead you to want to further study political science (im assuming thats what you want to study since you're posting in a political science forum). There are many academics who are on twitter and discuss and even post links to their research work or upcoming book publications, so I don't think that having a lot of followers on social media or lots of media coverage on your research will be dispositive. Assuming your book is not on a political science topic that is researched in academia, I doubt they will be "excited" that you have already completed a dissertation length research project. Since academics seem to be fairly pretentious and only concerned with what goes on in their discipline, I also doubt they would be excited to have a mini celebrity in their program. They don't care for celebrity. They just care if you can produce exceptional research in your field of study. As far as if it would be reasonable to use a chapter from your book as a writing sample, that would be fine if you don't have anything else. Otherwise, if your book is not about a Poli sci topic, then I would look into conducting your own independent research project in an area of interest within one of the major sub disciplines in political science (American, comparative, international relations, political theory). Good luck!

I have not done a PhD in political science, but I will be applying to PhD programs in the fall and I have consulted numerous sources on getting into top PhD Poli Sci programs, including current grad students and professors. I've had the good fortune of chatting with numerous Stanford Poli Sci grad students and professors in person, so I feel I have a pretty good idea of what is needed for admission into top programs. However, since im not a current Poli sci grad student, feel free to take what I have to say with a grain of salt. Before I get into my advice, I just want to ask, why the switch to poli sci? what about it, and Far East Asian studies interests you? How do you become interested in this topic? What is your plan after graduating with your PhD in poli sci? As far as your competitiveness is concerned, it's a bit hard to gauge based on the limited info you have provided. But based on the limited info you gave, if im being completely honest with you, as it stands you are not competitive for the schools you want to apply to, especially Stanford and Columbia. However, this doesn't mean you can't get competitive. There are things you have within your control that can greatly help increase your odds. As someone who is also applying to poli sci PhD programs coming from a different field (history for me), I think it's first important to be sure that you are familiar with the poli sci literature in IR, Far East Asian studies. This familiarity will be crucial for your SOP (statement of purpose), especially for someone such as yourself coming from linguistics, because admissions committees need to know that you have a good grasp on what the current state of the literature is and how your own research interests fit in and add to the current state of research. If you cannot articulate this in your SOP, you will have a very hard time getting into top programs such as Stanford and Columbia. Have you read any articles from the leading journals in the field--APSR, the Journal of Politics, and the AJPS? Have you read any books on IR, specifically in East Asian studies? I would highly recommend doing so if you haven't. I think your level of familiarity with the literature will also determine whether or not you should defer for a year or go straight into a PhD program. If you aren't very familiar, or only have a cursory understanding, I would definitely hold off a year to do some research, and perhaps even work on an independent research project that you could use as a writing sample, just to show the ad coms your understanding of how to do political science research. For people like you and me applying to poli sci from a different field, it's going to be a bit of a challenge, though not impossible. For you, GRE, Letters of Rec, and Statement of Purpose are going to be crucial in convincing ad coms you are highly qualified for rigorous poli sci research. You will be competing with hundreds of other highly qualified applicants in top programs, so you have to find a way to stand out positively to ad coms. Because there are so many applicants and few open spots for admission, ad coms will be looking for reasons to reject you, especially at places like Stanford (ranked #1), and Columbia (ranked #7). Just as a warning, even people who have perfect GPA's and perfect/almost perfect GRE scores still don't get into top programs like Stanford or Harvard, so don't be disappointed if you aren't accepted into those programs. Beyond GPA and GRE scores, ad coms are looking for fit, and how well a student's research interests fit with the research interests and strengths of the department. Which leads me to my next point. I'm not sure if you were only giving a small sample of schools you want to apply to, but if those are the only schools you are applying to, you should really be applying to a much broader range of schools within and outside the top 20. Because the application process is so competitive, you will be significantly lowering your odds of getting into grad school if you're only applying to 3 programs, two of which are in the top 10. Also, why do you want to apply to NYU, Stanford, and Colombia? You really should be applying to schools that fit your research interests. Not saying that those schools don't, but I feel there are probably other schools that have just as strong, if not stronger, faculty doing Far East Asian studies. Grad school will be at least 6 years, so you want to make sure that you're attending a school that will have faculty and potential advisors who are interested in similar research topics as you, or else you will be miserable trying to work with scholars who cannot really help or advise you on your research topic. Perhaps you should spend more time reading faculty profiles at different schools and the articles/books they've published to find a school that's a right fit for you, and not just selecting schools because they are in the top 15 or 20. As far as letters of rec, if the best you can do is getting letters from linguistics professors, that's ok. Make sure those professors will write you glowing letters of rec, on the order of "this person is one of the best students I've ever worked with". Also if these professors can attest to your research capabilities, this will be helpful as it will demonstrate to ad coms your propensity for research. If you could somehow get letters of rec from poli sci professor that are familiar with you and your work, that would be better of course. Your SOP will be crucial for you. This will be your chance to demonstrate your propensity for research in political science, your familiarity with the literature, how your studies have lead to your interest in Far East Asian studies, and how your research interests will contribute to and push past the frontiers of research in your sub field. Although this statement of purpose was written for a PhD history department, it's still an exceptional example of a statement of purpose that you can use as a template for your own statement of purpose (obviously modifying it to fit political science and your own personal situation): http://ls.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/statement_of_purpose.pdf Finally, as you mention, your quant GRE score is not great, however neither is your verbal GRE score. If you really want to get into Stanford or Columbia, you will need 160+ in both the verbal and quant, preferably a 165+ in both. Most schools have an implicit cut score just to make it past the first round, so that's why it's important to get as high a GRE score as possible. Also, if you want to get into top 20 programs and you have no math/quant experience, your quant GRE score will be especially important as someone coming from a different field, because ad coms use this GRE quant score to determine whether or not you would be able to survive the school's quant methods sequence. Also, poli sci as a field is becoming increasingly quant heavy (even in IR, though it depends on what specifically your research interests are), so be prepared that you will have to take quant methods sequences, especially in the top programs. You will be reading journals with a lot of math and you will be expected to output in your research quant methods, especially if you want to be published in a top journal. It's very difficult to do qual only work and there are very few scholars who do qual only work. Even the qual leaning scholars still use mixed methods. Hope this helps. If you have any more questions let me know

Ya I would second what you are saying schuaust. I've actually spoken to grad students and professors from Stanford (and a couple people on this forum from Harvard and Princeton) and they pretty much uniformly told me that taking/auditing any sort of math class outside of being a student would pretty much be a waste of time and recommended against doing it because unless you're taking math classes at an ivy league school, its hard for ad coms to assess the rigor and quality of the training you received in those classes, especially if you aren't getting a grade for it. Moreover, they said even if you did take math classes, they probably would probably have a marginal effect on your application at best. So Dpan, I would stop trying to worry about taking quant classes before you apply because you will take a quant methods sequence in grad school. What I've been told is to just focus on getting the best GRE quant score you can (165+ would make you very competitive), and which is what I would recommend you do. So instead of taking up time taking game theory or stats classes, use that time instead to study for the GRE and writing a well written SOP. I think that would see a bigger return for your efforts.

Hmmm...interesting. I think that QS are crucial, though if you don't have any I don't think it's dispositive. Political Science as a whole, as a consequence of its influence from economics, has been and is currently very quantitative. So yes, I think what faculty at Colombia told you is 100% correct, but to my mind, this advice really applies to the ideal, prospective applicant who is young in their college career and has the ability to make choices in quant class selection that will increase their odds of being accepted into top programs. I've spoken to some people on this forum who had almost no quant skills and still got accepted into top programs. Ultimately, the admissions process is almost entirely arbitrary and idiosyncratic. Because admissions committees change every year, the preferences of individual admissions officers changes accordingly. Also, the current cohort of students within each subfield, which professors are currently teaching or on sabbatical/left for another school, etc. are factored into the ad com's decisions. All these variables, among others, have an effect on applicant decisions, so it's sometimes hard to offer advice. I would say, speak to other faculty and students from other schools, because clearly I received different answers. Overall, your lack of QS may make it more difficult for you to get accepted into the tippy top programs such as Harvard, Stanford, or Princeton, and the like, but it's certainly not impossible. I would still apply to top programs and try hard to spruce up other areas of your application profile. My top options are Stanford, Harvard, Berkeley, MIT, and Northwestern, mainly because they have faculty working on political economy, development, state formation/capacity, and most critical for me, historical institutionalism. Of course I will be applying to many other schools. Given my lack of heavy quant skills (I took a single stats course and that's it), I have no illusions about my prospects being admitted into those top schools. I'm just going to try to make the other aspects of my application stand out as much as possible to provide a compelling case of acceptance into their program. And I think that's about all you can do as well.

I am not currently in a PhD program in political science (I will be applying in the fall), but I have done extensive research and spoken to numerous poli sci grad students and faculty. I graduated with a BA in History, so I am also coming from a non quant background, and this has been a concern of mine as well. Here's what I have heard from the people I have discussed this with: First, IR is the 3rd least quantitative of the 4 major sub fields within political science. Although there are definitely quantitative oriented scholars in IR doing quant work (James fearon comes to mind), there aren't as many as in, say, American politics, where it's almost a prerequisite to take courses in stats, linear algebra, econometrics, game theory, and the like. Second, as I mentioned before, I was also concerned about my lack of quant skills coming from a history background, and the general response I got from current grad students and professors (at Stanford and UCLA no less) is this: not having a quant back will not be a huge mark against you. It would matter more if you were applying to be an americanist or were interested in doing quant methods. From my understanding, many applicants do not come in with extensive quant backgrounds, though this may be changing as the field as a whole has been going in a more quant oriented direction. Moreover, auditing courses in stats/game theory wouldn't necessarily hurt you, but it may not be worth your time. From my understanding, PhD programs, particularly those in the top 25, wouldn't really weigh the classes you audited very heavily, especially if it wasn't taken at a top level institution for a grade, because there's no objective way ad coms would be able to determine how well you did in the class, or the rigorousness of the methods and course work. So it certainly wouldn't detract from your application profile, but it also would likely only help you out marginally, if at all. In fact I was told by all the Stanford grad students and professors that I shouldn't waste my time auditing quant classes. The best thing to do would be to get as high a score in the quant section of the GRE as possible. Finally, if you are accepted into a program, you will be required to take a quant methods sequence anyways. Overall, I think ad coms will recognize that you come from a discipline that is almost entirely qualitative, and factor that into their decision (as well as the fact that you want to do IR which as I've said before is much less quant heavy). They will look to other aspects of your application profile, which you will want to ensure are stellar. That means you want to get glowing letters of rec from faculty, write an exceptionally well written statement of purpose clearly stating your reasons for wanting to get a PhD in poli sci and your research interests, and scoring high on the GRE overall (particularly in the quant section). The fact that you have received prestigious scholarships, speak two languages, and have publications will certainly help you out a great deal, I believe, with ad coms. I think for you in particular, since you are coming from a PhD program in an entirely separate field, clearly explaining and providing a compelling argument for why you want a PhD in political science will be crucial. I'm sure others will have something else to add/a different take. Hope this helps!

I'm curious to know why you hope to go to law school after getting an MA in poli sci. What is the purpose for that? As someone who went to and graduated from law school, you will not benefit much from doing both, because they are trying to teach you and socialize you to do different things. MA programs in poli sci are trying to train you to enter into academia or public policy, whereas law school is training you to analyze and think critically, to train you for the bar exam, and to prepare you for a career as a lawyer. Consequently the teaching, methodologies, and logics for each graduate program are going to be very different, and do not necessarily inform the other. Getting an MA in poli sci will do very little to help you out in law school. Law school is significantly more applied and is not very theoretical or abstract; you will not be discussing any political theory much or how that shaped laws in the US. The closest you would get to something like that is a U.S. constitutional law class, but even then political theory plays little role in the analysis of the constitution and U.S. Supreme Court case law. Also, as Dwar has stated, I would caution against doing an MA in poli sci in the first place. I've heard good things about doing MAPSS, but that program is really to prepare students to enter into PhD programs in poli sci. So if you don't have an intention to get a PhD, I would recommend against applying to that program. However, I've heard some bad things about Columbia's MA program from numerous sources on this website who have had personal experience in Columbia's MA program. Columbia's MA program is largely separate from the PhD program, so you will not be getting the same teachers from that program teaching the MA program. You also will not get the same kind of training, will not be taking the same classes, or have access to the same resources, as students in the PhD program. So I would strongly recommend against it. But honestly, I would really ask yourself what your purpose is--and by extension your career goals-- for wanting to get an MA and a law degree. The only thing both will do is stick with you hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, and really no better job prospects-in either poli sci or as a lawyer- from having done both programs.