Kief13muse

I majored in economics in a top-tier Chinese university with a 3.5+ GPA and several published papers (in Chinese) during undergrad. I think the weakest part of my profile is that I went to a professional IR Master's program (it is a really quant program though), and therefore the research I did were more policy-oriented.

Thank you very much. Yes I’ll wait for the final results. And congrats on your offers!

As for Penn, I just emailed the DGS. He said "the committee is considering applications and you will receive a notification in the system when decisions have been released," which I think means nothing but rejections. Personally I've been through a really tough cycle. With a nearly perfect GRE score (V169/Q167) and a 3.8+ GPA from a top IR MA program in the US, clearly I overestimated my competitiveness and applied the top 20 programs mostly. So far I've received rejections from 8 out of 10 schools that I applied for (counting Penn), and the odds are against me for the remaining two Ivy schools. I've been out of school for a while and now work in a completely irrelevant industry in my home country. This might be the last chance that I could get back to the American academia, unless I could find an RA position there to strengthen my profile for next year (difficult due to visa issues however). But it's always good to know that so many of you have been doing wonderful research and are able to get into great programs. Wish you all good luck!

Yeah I'm worrying about the same thing, and I didn't know that UCSD also holds interviews. My subfield is CP by the way.

When did you receive the email?

Thanks a lot. Very helpful advice.

Type of Undergrad: Top 5 Chinese university with top 2 econ&poli sci departments in the countryMajor: EconomicsUndergrad GPA: 3.51Type of Grad: Top 2 IR programs in the US, strong econ focusGrad GPA: 3.83GRE: 169 V, 167 Q, 4.5 WAny Special Courses: Grad-level - Econometrics, Applied Econometrics (Cross-Sectional), Advanced International Macroeconomics, and a series of China studies coursesLikely Letters of Recommendation: One from program advisor (a highly renowned, though policy-oriented China expert, whom I worked with as an RA for one year); one from another professor in China field (got an A and impressed her with the final paper); one from undergraduate econ professor (co-authored two econ papers)Research Experience: One year RA in China studies as metioned above; three published dissertations in Chinese journals (one pure econ, one political economy, one political theory)Research Interests: Comparative, Chinese politics, Methodology Quantitative Skills: STATA, SPSS, planning to learn R before application Other: Currently working in China to fulfill a two-year home residency requirement stipulated by the scholarship I received for graduate studies (working in the financial industry, completely irrelavent to poli sci); will have two-year full-time work experience plus several professional internships presented on CV by 18Fall My main concerns: 1. Professional rather than truly academic training at grad school, as well as several years of work experience in non-academic/politics areas: will these hurt my chances and should I use a full section in SOP to stress on the explanation? 2. Writing sample: choose between several course papers during graduate years (better polished and formatted, but few quant method applied) and the undergraduate thesis (published, with basic econometric analysis, but the methodology could be somewhat flawed if it was subjected to greater scrutiny) Any thoughts/comments/advice would be much appreciated!