diter91

Also claiming one of the GWU interviews from earlier in the week.

Anyone know when Brown sending out decisions?

Is this placement record based on a particular range of dates (eg 1990-2012) or in each department's entire history?

Your best chance at this is UK. Most programs 3-4 years (limited coursework). You must already have a research agenda and be in contact with potential advisors prior to deadline for these schools (which is much different from North American programs).

I'll second @Comparativist

How competitive is admission to PhD programs at schools like Cambridge, Oxford, LSE, Essex, etc? Do they attract as competitive a pool of applicants as top 20 American?

This.

Competitive at all. Might have said Columbia difficult without MA in US as international student, but your profile looks great. Btw 169 Q is big - congrats.

Speaking strictly on admission competitiveness, UofT is quite difficult. Unlike the US, where several top schools populate several cities (eg Boston, NYC, Chicago, etc), UofT is by far the best school in Ontario, to say nothing about Canada as a whole. The competitiveness comes from the fact that all serious Canadian applicants typically see UofT as #1 choice. Nevertheless, there is no GRE requirement, so CGPA, Master's degree, and applicant-faculty compatibility are all significant.

If you are serious about doing an MA before PhD, you might look at Canadian schools. There are several programs that offer fully funded MAs. Waterloo, for example, does not have a PhD program but offers an MA in P.Sci with guaranteed funding (through scholarships and TAships) upon acceptance. They also have a great faculty (eg Homer-Dixon, Helleiner, Ravenhill, etc).

With a few good LoRs and a well thought out research plan, you should be competitive at any top 20 program (provisional on your compatibility with the particular department).

@dagnabbit Thank you - I appreciate your advice. I seem to be having the geographic difficulties you are referring to. I was introduced to these schools of thought in a (recent) grad seminar on accumulation and crises, and have since written a master's research paper using SSA theory to explore demographic trends during the 'neoliberal capitalist' era. I think that my difficulty is finding North American scholars working on the political economy of capitalism, rather than comparative political economy. I am finding my interests aligned with faculty at places like Manchester, Lancaster, London, Sydney, etc. (not to mention many Geography departments), but I'm also aware that my interests will evolve and I have strong reasons to remain in North America. I'm not quite sure about the etiquette on naming people, but I do have several North American political scientists in mind (Queens, York, Mac, UofT, Brown, Columbia, Cornell). Do you have any suggestions?

Choosing which schools to apply to and wondering if anyone can suggest any American/Canadian based political scientists working within the 'Regulation School' or 'Social Structure of Accumulation' paradigm. Seems that economists still using these frameworks to explore economic crises (a few at UMass Amherst), but having trouble finding any political economy scholars within political science departments. One example would be Nancy Fraser at the New School.