kaykaykay

yes ok. whatever. if you are really at MIT, and you are dead set on going there, be a normal person and go to the poli sci department take some classes meet the students and ask them for their SOP. you can even find the people who are working in your field. good luck!

there are a number of issues to consider: sometimes universities let you stay in residence from a distance if your advisor is moving. could this be a case for you? if money is a problem would your advisor get you money in Canada? Are there any other professors in your program that you would consider working with? Are there in Canada? How well networked is your Professor, how well ranked he/she is? That may matter more for US job prospects than the school you graduate from! I am fairly sure you can discuss a number of these issues with your current professor and maybe another part with some other trusted person in the field ( former advisor etc) In any case I heard some cases like this and they always managed to solve it in a way it did not hurt the student at the end! Remember your advisor wants you,- and the university that hired him/her will want to please him and the university that you are at now wants you so you have some wiggle room to find the best solution. Good Luck!

I think calling trolls all the time when an unlikely acceptance pops up is very unproductive. Someone said that there are a lot of trolls this year and that current graduate students are having fun with posting those here.I would be very surprised if graduate students would be having fun by posting random university acceptances(trolls were called for acceptances for all sorts of universities). The truth is there are a number a reasons that someone would learn earlier that he/she is accepted than the rest of the students. I was told that I was accepted to a program 2 weeks before anyone else knew that they were because some funding issues. They told me this directly.If someone called the university they would have said that they did not start notifying people at the time. But in some cases faculty wants to inform the students they want to work with by calling them etc, some people do a masters in a given university and get notified in person. so there can be a lot of reasons to learn your status earlier than others. As you can see it above, saying every time when you see a single acceptance that people are trolling can really offend people. Also it can further confuse stressed out people. I think a better approach is to think about these lone acceptances that they are real but they may not say anything about your status.

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-humanities-schools/political-science-rankings Here is a place where you can start looking at these schools. Placement information is usually at the schools webpage or you have to ask them directly. Ivy league schools vary quite a bit in the quality of their PhD program in political science. I am not sure whether you can consider them as a category.

I think it would be really sad if these emails would decide. First of all, it would give incentive to all 100 applicants to email the departments which would cause SERIOUS trouble for them.So it would be in fact a bad idea for the departments to encourage this. Secondly, it would disadvantage people (for instance international students) who do not know about it. As I said above in my (limited) experience contacts may help you in deciding whether you want to apply (eg. people can tell you whether you are competitive or not) but will not help you get in a program. With jobs there is a serious information deficit (qualified people do not know about them) but these "jobs" are usually well advertised.p.s. in some other fields contacting the POIs is essential.

Well agree with adaptations on that contacting the DGS is not always useful. Especially if the program is big they will have a lot of responsibilities. Often the graduate student advisor can be a better resource of information. As for POIs it may be useful to ask them about whether they will have sabbatical soon, are they interested in taking students. I sent an email to a professor who did not reply, but I did not take it personally. Overall I thought it was not very useful to email POIs because admission committees decide on the students and I did not really know what would be the reason to contact them. In this field it is not expected that students contact POIs. I got into places where I did not contact anyone. It was totally fine. As much as I talked to other people who got admitted they did not contact professors either, but my sample on admit weekends is really not representative. Of course the size of the program can be a huge factor in how much time the DGS or POIs have to talk to you(also the time of the year) but apart from that a responsive program may indicate that they attentive to students. If you are looking for small programs which are very personalized maybe you should apply to the universities where they paid a lot of attention to your application especially if you decide to apply to less well known places.

Whether you need field work far and foremost depends on your research topic. So no in America field work is not mandatory, and you will probably not find it in a brochure. Said this students in comparative politics more often than not do field work for a semester or two.Sometimes depending on the research topic students in other fields do too. Often the university has resources through the international institutions to support field work and sometimes professors are running some project that students can get on.

just enjoy that for a short amount of time you are the star that universities try to court. you can visit the city see the university talk to some profs and some students, enjoy the parties. Don't be embarrassed. Even though they want you there they will be ok even if you decide to go to another university.There are a number of people every year who choose another university for a variety of reasons after they visit. That is what visits are for. I think it's a bigger impoliteness if you decide to not even consider them.

I really liked the book by Liah Greenfield: Nationalism, Five Roads to Modernity .One part of the book is on the US.

Some state schools will not pay for international travel. Unless another school gets you into the country they cannot reimburse you. But usually, if they want you everything is negotiable.

they did not tell me that they had a problem with my payment (not even my fault) and simply did not release my points. I missed a couple of deadlines and almost had a nervous breakdown when I realized what did they do.

adcoms often call recommenders directly to talk about a finalist. heck one of the adcoms even contacted a prof I only mentioned in my SOP to ask for an extra information from an extra person! I think you might get into serious trouble over this,if you really forged the rec letter. esp. a non edu email address may make them call if they are seriously considering you.

The GRE Verbal does NOT measure English ability. It does not measure whether you would succeed in grad school (the quant score is a better measure) It measures whether you know a crazy list of words.The OPs English can be quite good actually, many native speakers score below that 450.In any case OP if you do not get in study that 3000 words and you will be fine.

Then I guess you know that the proper thing is not to get involved. As I said above this situation happens in many adult working relationships. You have to learn how to handle it. If you two decide to break up the marriage then again you have to report to the university that you have a relationship. I heard this happening too. I am guessing the only thing you should be wary about is to get into an adulterous relationship and be advised/supervised by this person because if that gets out it can jeopardize your academic carrier and in general the prof's marriage . Then again the final conclusion is that you are an adult so you are free to decide to do so if you are prepared to take the consequences.

I am guessing you are a grad student. ok you are an adult now. guess what you are allowed to have a proper relationship with a professor if you report it and both of you make sure that they are not supervising you. you are even allowed to marry them if you so wish. This happens in various universities. as you say the attraction is mutual so the prof is not harassing you or anything. If for some reason the two of you decide to keep it platonic though you as an adult should be able to handle it too as most adults do in other close working relationships.

yep they told us something along those lines at the int'l student orientation. but as I said it might have been the I20.

I do not know a couple of years back when I took the GRE they made it very clear that non citizens need their passport to take the test. No offense but in theory I think you should carry your passport (or I20?) always with you. As much as I had issues with ETS (including an almost nervous breakdown over the phone ) they are cruel and unreasonable even if something is their fault. My experience is that programs accept somewhat late GRE scores. Good luck.

no. who do you think you are that you already know how scholars ought to behave? and does it make you a good prospective scholar that you behave like you ought to? you do not want to come off as pretentious in you SOP. even if you are the nicest person and this was a joke it is really hard to know just from one essay. people will remember your essay for all the wrong reasons give yourself that 5% chance.

hypothesizer, why do you attack me personally ? I just tried to give you the advice that you were asking for. I also gave you several reasons to support my answer. Just tell me why talking about the hair on your body would not be a good introduction of you to the admission committee? Alternatively I suggested talking about your IQ or your sense of empathy. You mentioned at least one of them and I thought that you do not feel quite as intelligent as the average Stanford student if you mention that.I dared to mention empathy but gosh I do not know you maybe you are very empathetic. I am just following your logic all the way.

don't worry even if you decide to tell him not to write- normally professors have a lot to do, he will not cry over less work.

Exactly. Normally the grad division collects everything , makes sure that files are complete and everything found its place then sends it to the departments. But the things that you are responsible for like SOP and writing sample should be really on time.

I heard it from faculty : Professors are not allowed to discourage anyone from applying. I guess there are several reasons for this. In any case do not be surprised if they tell you you should apply.

respect commanded? wtf? Are you into some sort of cult or something? respect is for fellow human beings until they loose it. And I had a suggestion, the hair on your body ftw..you will perfectly introduce yourself to anyone at the admission committee.

hypotheser stop embarrassing yourself. You are a horrible troll. No people do not get "brownie points" for being in a minority in grad applications. Your suggested idea of "brownie points" is really showing your disrespect though for all the people who struggle with real disadvantages in their lives. And yes you should write about your hairy armpit in your essay or you can write about your intelligence or sense of empathy because one of these two is seriously lacking from you which is a rarity at Stanford.

Programs are looking at applications holistically but there are a lot of good applicants.This is a crapshoot process even if all your stats are stellar and it is even a bigger risk if someone can question your abilities (even at the last round of decisions). I would add a few lower ranked schools to your list just in case. (of course if you do no mind being out of school for a year if worst come to worst don't do it). In any case 4 schools are not very many and they might all have different issues(like a prof is leaving that you did not know, they want a certain class etc..). You can be just left out by sheer chance alone.