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smug-face

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Posts posted by smug-face

    2020-2021 Application Thread

    in Political Science Forum

    Posted

    9 hours ago, sakimarquis said:

    I have been waiting for 6 weeks after being placed in the waitlist at Dartmouth. I applied for 8 PhD programs and got 1 waitlist and 7 reject. This is my only hope now. I asked the POI about the information, he said "I am still waiting to hear back from both candidates. I have a feeling that they are going to sit on their offer till April 15 and I cannot do anything about it.". What does it means? It seems that the hope is slim.

    It means that you're unlikely to hear back before the deadline, which is April 15. Them not having heard back from either candidates is good news though -- it means that there's still a chance they'll decline their offers. Good luck!

    Which Master for US-PhD in Political Science? When to apply for the PhD then?

    in Political Science Forum

    Posted

    What does the Fulbright scholarship entail? If it's fully funded, definitely go to Columbia. Not only will it allow you to network with top US polisci faculty, but a funded MA is a very strong signal of academic potential. It would also make sense financially. 

    LSE may have more rigorous training but PhD programs will re-train you anyway, so it's all about the signal you send. Focus on nailing your GRE and work on a strong quant writing sample and you'll be fine. Good luck!

    2020-2021 Application Thread

    in Political Science Forum

    Posted

    Just now, ps10 said:

    Thanks for this! A question I have for the group regards point 3: to contact faculty or not to contact faculty? 

    I am not from the US so am not sure about the customs there regarding reaching out to faculty during the applications process. I'd be grateful if people could share their thoughts and experiences of this. It has struck me that a lot of admits on this forum and the results page have first heard about it from their 'POIs'. To those who reached out: did you find this made a difference? How so? When did you reach out? To those who didn't: I'd also be very grateful to hear your thoughts on this! Thanks in advance everyone! 

    I did not reach out to faculty. Most blog posts from professors I've read also recommended not reaching out in advance (e.g. Cyrus Samii's at NYU, Chris Blattman's at Harris). As to people talking about PoI, I was also surprised -- though I have to say, in most (all?) of the programs I was admitted to, the DGS who emailed me with the good news was also one of the people I mentioned in my SoP...

    2020-2021 Application Thread

    in Political Science Forum

    Posted · Edited by smug-face
    grammar

    1 hour ago, antiq said:

    Thanks for the info! Such a relief it must be. Well, then, I guess, do you have any tips for the applicants next year?:) Did you contact any faculty before applying? Or did you do anything else that you think carried you up in the ranking?

    I think a few things I did right were:

    1. Not be content with my first (mid-160) quant GRE score. I wanted to do quant work, I knew that I needed exceptional scores, and I knew that this year especially, "good enough" was not gonna be good enough. So I took the GRE again and I think that really helped, especially because my math background was pretty good but not stellar (e.g., only took some undergrad calc, no real analysis). I also did this because I was applying to several GRE-mandatory programs, which I thought would place a ton of weight on my scores, and because I assumed that GRE-optional ones would mostly receive very good scores because of selection effects (only high-score applicants would send in their scores).
    2. Apply to places with a good fit. I didn't apply to stellar places like Harvard or Stanford polisci because there's just no one there that does what I want to do. Incidentally, the places that I got rejected from were all places where I struggled to find more than 2 faculty members with whom I thought I had a good fit beyond broadly similar research agendas (e.g. democratization, institutions, development). What I mean by "fit" is, has this professor recently written a paper that made you think, huh, that's pretty close to what I'd like my dissertation to look like? 
    3. Not contact faculty. Not that it would have hurt necessarily, it's just that it's unlikely to help in any way. Better invest the time and energy reading faculty's work and seeing how it fits with your interests. There's nothing they can tell you that you can't already find online.

    2020-2021 Application Thread

    in Political Science Forum

    Posted

    10 minutes ago, antiq said:

    @smug-face Congratulations! When did you receive the phone call (or the email asking for your number)? I'm wondering if they're calling one by one or if the ship has sailed. And do you by any chance know anything on how many people ate admitted this year? :)

    Thank you! It was about noon ET when I got the email. No mention of how many were admitted, sorry!

    2020-2021 Application Thread

    in Political Science Forum

    Posted

    29 minutes ago, btermite said:

    Did you mostly just use it for Quant? I just looked at the prices and it seems way more affordable than any other option I've seen.

    Yeah, my verbal was already good and I applied to do formal theory so I just did the quant! I heard good things about verbal, too.

    2020-2021 Application Thread

    in Political Science Forum

    Posted · Edited by smug-face
    explained better

    59 minutes ago, icemanyeo said:

    Speaking of the GRE, does anyone have any resources they recommend for studying? I already have a practice test book that I work on, but I'm wondering if there's more (like online classes). I'm pretty much out of the running everywhere pending Yale, so now I'm turning to a 2nd master's as well!

    N=1 but I cannot recommend Magoosh enough. I was plateauing around the mid-160s (quant) and after a couple months of Magoosh videos and exercises I nailed a perfect score! The exercises are actually a bit more difficult than the real thing, which I think is good since it gave me a cushion (particularly in terms of time management).

    GRE Scores

    in Political Science Forum

    Posted · Edited by smug-face

    10 hours ago, Frazier123 said:

    Is a 167V/164Q/5.0AW low for any schools? I am debating whether to take it again. 

    Depends on your field of interest. Honestly, the quant might be a little low for places like NYU which tend to prefer candidates in the 90+ percentile. I got a similar score to yours the first time around and decided to retake. But I applied to do very quant-heavy work. It's possible I would have gotten in anyway, but especially in a brutal year like this, I chose not to risk it!

    2020-2021 Application Thread

    in Political Science Forum

    Posted

    7 minutes ago, tedneko said:

    Hey guys,

     

    So I got waitlisted at my top choice and one of my recommenders, a veteran prof. at a competitive department, asked if I had reached out to the program yet. He then said it shouldn't hurt to email the DGS, mention how excited I am about the possibility of attending and ask when final decisions will be made. I'm a little worried about doing this because I don't want to seem like I'm putting pressure on them, and, to complicate matters, the DGS is also the prof. I would want to work with in the first place. Would this be too awkward? Have any of the wailisted people here reached out to their respective departments?

     

    Thanks in advance!

    I got waitlisted at Princeton, and I'm scheduled to meet the director of my program for a brief chat. I think you should definitely schedule a meeting with the DGS (assuming they don't reach out to you first) -- the probability you'll be offered a place is not zero, and the fact that you weren't rejected indicates that the department thought you were a worthy applicant! Definitely listen to your recommender on this!

    2020-2021 Application Thread

    in Political Science Forum

    Posted

    16 minutes ago, Senochka said:

    Long time observer, first time poster here.

     

    I Have a question for the sincere and good people of thegradcafe. Every input is much appreciated.

     

    I am an int'l student on a really, really tight budget. I previously applied to master's programs and received acceptances with good funding (Heller, MIIS, LSE). But I still had to pay a small portion of the tuition 1/4 - 1/5 and for living expenses. In my case, taking out a significant loan would lead me to a disastrous ending if I could not find a place on the already saturated US job market. I would need to return to my home country and due to the parity, it would take me a lifetime to pay the loan even if I survived on very little. Doing a master's at my home country proved to be unfeasible as well because all decent universities demand attendance which would be an issue since I work full time and cannot/could not leave my job So I applied only to five schools. From two of them, I already received rejections. (Turns out my topic is studied by comm and English departments more often than it is studied within polsci. This could be used to my advantage since I have a BA in English but I really really want to do political science.Long story short, alignment issues.)

     

    Anyways, this was to provide some context and to shield myself from the classical "What a whiner, duh." reaction.

     

    Main story, I applied to Vandy but could not pay the fee at the time. Later, I e-mailed the Graduate School to say that I was definitely going to pay the fee and asked them not to penalize my application based on that. They directed me to the department. Same thing, no answer. Meanwhile, the additional documents I submitted a while ago has not been processed meaning that they probably saw that the fee was missing and did not look into the direction of my app. again. Only now I am somewhat capable of paying the fee but everyone here seems so sure that Vandy contacted all the students it intends to admit. The question is, should I still submit the fee? Would they look into my app then? But wouldn't it be joining the race at the finish line? I founnd two lower ranked schools with Feb. 15 deadlines. Should I give them a shot instead or would I be setting myself on a track to hell by applying to these schools? This is my first and last PhD cycle. I am financially, physically, and psychologically exhausted from the previous master's cycles. My family and my professors are tired. I will not even be able to find recommenders. There are financially more capable, better prepared people out there who will ask for letters and why bother with me instead of helping them, right? At least they have reasonable shots at good places.

     

    This is so long, and for that, I profusely apologize. 

     

    What should I do now? Any suggestions?

     

    P.S. When I started on the process, fee waiver deadlines have already passed. I could not start earlier because I was tackling a health problem and in fact I am three days out of surgery.

    Hi, my two cents: if it seems like your research interests would make you a better fit in English departments, and if your background is in English, it really seems like you would be better off applying to English departments. You say that you want to do polisci, but that seems to contradict your claim that you are struggling to find polisci departments where you would be a good fit... in short, fit matters more than anything else!

    Having said that, have your recommenders already told you that they would not write you more letters if you were to reapply next cycle? It is very common for students to have to reapply (this year in particular), so don't count yourself out just because you fear you might annoy some referees - writing letters is part of their job after all, and I can assure you that they also asked professors to recommend them for graduate programs or jobs, and they probably got rejected from most of them!

    I can totally understand your frustration, but rejection is the bread and butter of academia. I would recommend trying again next cycle, when hopefully your health issues are resolved, you can apply for fee waivers in time, and competition returns to normal levels. And definitely consider applying to departments other than polisci if that's where you would be the best fit!

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