eggsalad14

LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE (LSEPS) ECONOMICS, Masters (F18) Accepted via E-mail on 28 Feb 2019   28 Feb 2019 report spam APPLICATION WAS COMPLETE ON JAN 8TH, I'M VERY HAPPY TO HAVE GOTTEN AN OFFER FROM MY COUNTRY (IM BRITISH FROM BATH - NOT THE TOOL WE USE TO WASH, BUT RATHER THE CITY IN SOMERSET). I HAVE A DECISION TO MAKE BUT I AM GRATEFUL FOR THE ACCEPTANCE. I WISH THEY GAVE ME SOME FUNDING THOUGH... THE TUITION IN POUNDS IS MORE THAN I WEIGH AND IM A HEFTY BLOKE.

Are you in grad school right now or not? 
It sounds like you have your good basic bases covered. If you want to really gain advanced quantitative methods and understand it (which it sounds like you do), I think the next logical step is to actually learn some calculus and maybe linear algebra. Calc is the bases for regression, probability, and is used heavily in game theory and formal modelling. 
Time series is kinda hard and also relies on calculus. 
More topics you can potentially get into: Bayesian stats, data science principles, different kinds of regression (logit, probit, lasso, etc), nonparametric stats

LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE (LSEPS) ECONOMICS, Masters (F18) Accepted via E-mail on 28 Feb 2019   28 Feb 2019 report spam APPLICATION WAS COMPLETE ON JAN 8TH, I'M VERY HAPPY TO HAVE GOTTEN AN OFFER FROM MY COUNTRY (IM BRITISH FROM BATH - NOT THE TOOL WE USE TO WASH, BUT RATHER THE CITY IN SOMERSET). I HAVE A DECISION TO MAKE BUT I AM GRATEFUL FOR THE ACCEPTANCE. I WISH THEY GAVE ME SOME FUNDING THOUGH... THE TUITION IN POUNDS IS MORE THAN I WEIGH AND IM A HEFTY BLOKE.

This is going to totally out me to any adcoms, if I haven't already done so (but hopefully very few lurk here) 
PROFILE:
Type of Undergrad Institution: R1, somewhere in the top 30-55 ranked polisci PhD programs. Ranked 50-100 of undergrad schools. Yes, I'm trying to be a little vague. 
Major(s)/Minor(s): econ, stats, political science
Undergrad GPA: a hair under 3.9. It's probably worth noting that my last 2 year GPA was much much better than the first 2 year GPA. 
Type of Grad: none
GRE: 94-98th percentile on all sections. Only took once. 
Any Special Courses: 3 PhD-level courses (All A's), plus all the mathematical goodies that come from a major in stats (including calc 1-3 and linear algebra)
Letters of Recommendation: 3 professors, 2 tenured, 1 assistant. 2 are big enough names in their subsubfields and polisci is small enough that application readers probably know who they are even if they're in different subfields. 
Research Experience: some RA work, some research intense coursework, one independent project funding by an honors college fellowship, published in only an undergrad journal
Teaching Experience: 3 years of TA work, but in math
Subfield/Research Interests: American, methods, behavior. Specific interests include inequality, political participation, public opinion, REP, policy, geography, and how these all interact via cool methods. 
Other: 1 year at an unrelated but quantitative job. Experience with coding. Again, I'm pretty decent at math relative to the typical applicant. Also gonna mention that I'm not an underrepresented minority, nor do I come from an underprivileged household, or anything like that, so no big diversity points for me. For schools that asked for personal/diversity statements, I explicitly said something along the lines of "yeah I'm probably here somewhat because of some privilege. I had a 20hr/week part time job in school, but if you really think about it, only needing to work half time while getting to go to school is really freaking lucky relative to so much of the country"

RESULTS:
Acceptances($$ or no $$) -- all $$: Stanford, Princeton, Yale, Berkeley (no word on funding for another week actually, but I think they always fund everyone), UCSD, MIT, Columbia, Duke, UNC, NYU, UCLA, Ohio State, WashU, Emory  
Waitlists: none
Rejections: Harvard, Michigan
Pending:
Going to: I have a vague idea abut I'm waiting for visits to decide for sure. 
 
LESSONS LEARNED: This is the part where I say that I applied so many places because I expected maybe 3 acceptances, and I'd apply to all of these schools again. I don't know what exactly I did "right" that other people haven't done. But I'm going to take a stab at it.
1. Coming from a large R1 where students rarely pursue PhDs in political science probably helped in a way. Less competition and professors really notice when you say you want to go into political science. When recommenders send their letters, they often also fill out a survey section asking stuff like "Is this student: a. best I've ever had (or best in years), b. excellent (top 1%),  good (10%)" etc. and my situation made it much easier to get an a or b vs. coming from somewhere like Reed or Swarthmore. Letters really matter, especially if the people who read your letters know and trust the people who wrote your letters, which gives R1s a big advantage.
2. I never contacted any prospective advisers. I think it can sometimes help but I know a lot of professors are very lukewarm-to-cold about it. Also I'm awkward, which is really why I didn't do it. Didn't seem to matter in my case anyways.
3. Work on the SOP a lot. People who have read mine include: 3 professors, 2 parents, 1 bf, 1 ex-bf (I feel the need to point out that my SOP writing period did not span two relationships, but rather the latter was an ex when I let him read it). Some will give you good advice, some will give you bad advice, and you'll absolutely get contradictory advice. I leaned on the side of professional as opposed to fun-to-read, which meant no sarcasm, only 1 half-joke, and very little personal background that isn't directly relevant to my skills. It took a long time for me to get mine to a place where I could say "it isn't going to get any better than this" but I did get there!
4. Don't refer to the Harvard Government department as the Political Science department like 3 times in your SOP. This probably isn't really why I got rejected from Harvard, but I'm pretending that it is. 
5. Try getting your writing sample published somewhere, even an undergrad journal. Even if it doesn't get published, you'll get a lot of experience in editing and polishing that mofo. I did all of this in the spring and summer, and didn't even have to touch my writing sample come application season (other than to mess with margins to get it to conform with grad school requirements). Major time-saver. 
6. A few less-than-perfect grades won't sink you. As a recovering high school valedictorian, having my first two years of undergrad be filled with B+'s and A-'s was a little painful. All my B+'s were in major courses, too. There were definitely nights when I anticipated my semester GPA dipping below 3.5 and it freaked me out so much. I worried that this blemish would sink my graduate school prospects. In hindsight, it's clearly fine.
7. While looking at grad schools, I noticed that so many PhD students at the most prestigious institutions were all graduates of prestigious, expensive undergraduate and master's programs, and often also had prestigious work experience (ie central banks, prominent NGOs, cool politics-related companies and organizations, big-name management consulting). This does not describe me at all. I'm not saying that there isn't an admissions boost for students who don't come from prestigious schools (and I wholeheartedly believe that the BA-to-PhD pipeline is much much better supported at those places), but it's not an obstacle that can't be overcome. In fact, 2 of the exact schools I most had this worry about both accepted me and offered me money beyond their standard stipend package. 
8.There's a lot of really good information at GradCafe, especially for those of us who again don't come from common PhD pipeline schools. There's an older thread where people actually posted their statements of purpose. These threads are really good to see the level of competition that is present for many schools. BFB's stickied thread is a must-read. There's also a lot of good information on PSR, but I wouldn't recommend going there unless you're used to reading reddit or 4chan. There's a learning curve before you can recognize what is trolling vs. good information, but that's, unfortunately, the best aggregated place for information on what's going on in the field. 
I know I just said a lot, but if there's more that anyone would like me to speak on, feel free to DM me or ask here. 

This is going to totally out me to any adcoms, if I haven't already done so (but hopefully very few lurk here) 
PROFILE:
Type of Undergrad Institution: R1, somewhere in the top 30-55 ranked polisci PhD programs. Ranked 50-100 of undergrad schools. Yes, I'm trying to be a little vague. 
Major(s)/Minor(s): econ, stats, political science
Undergrad GPA: a hair under 3.9. It's probably worth noting that my last 2 year GPA was much much better than the first 2 year GPA. 
Type of Grad: none
GRE: 94-98th percentile on all sections. Only took once. 
Any Special Courses: 3 PhD-level courses (All A's), plus all the mathematical goodies that come from a major in stats (including calc 1-3 and linear algebra)
Letters of Recommendation: 3 professors, 2 tenured, 1 assistant. 2 are big enough names in their subsubfields and polisci is small enough that application readers probably know who they are even if they're in different subfields. 
Research Experience: some RA work, some research intense coursework, one independent project funding by an honors college fellowship, published in only an undergrad journal
Teaching Experience: 3 years of TA work, but in math
Subfield/Research Interests: American, methods, behavior. Specific interests include inequality, political participation, public opinion, REP, policy, geography, and how these all interact via cool methods. 
Other: 1 year at an unrelated but quantitative job. Experience with coding. Again, I'm pretty decent at math relative to the typical applicant. Also gonna mention that I'm not an underrepresented minority, nor do I come from an underprivileged household, or anything like that, so no big diversity points for me. For schools that asked for personal/diversity statements, I explicitly said something along the lines of "yeah I'm probably here somewhat because of some privilege. I had a 20hr/week part time job in school, but if you really think about it, only needing to work half time while getting to go to school is really freaking lucky relative to so much of the country"

RESULTS:
Acceptances($$ or no $$) -- all $$: Stanford, Princeton, Yale, Berkeley (no word on funding for another week actually, but I think they always fund everyone), UCSD, MIT, Columbia, Duke, UNC, NYU, UCLA, Ohio State, WashU, Emory  
Waitlists: none
Rejections: Harvard, Michigan
Pending:
Going to: I have a vague idea abut I'm waiting for visits to decide for sure. 
 
LESSONS LEARNED: This is the part where I say that I applied so many places because I expected maybe 3 acceptances, and I'd apply to all of these schools again. I don't know what exactly I did "right" that other people haven't done. But I'm going to take a stab at it.
1. Coming from a large R1 where students rarely pursue PhDs in political science probably helped in a way. Less competition and professors really notice when you say you want to go into political science. When recommenders send their letters, they often also fill out a survey section asking stuff like "Is this student: a. best I've ever had (or best in years), b. excellent (top 1%),  good (10%)" etc. and my situation made it much easier to get an a or b vs. coming from somewhere like Reed or Swarthmore. Letters really matter, especially if the people who read your letters know and trust the people who wrote your letters, which gives R1s a big advantage.
2. I never contacted any prospective advisers. I think it can sometimes help but I know a lot of professors are very lukewarm-to-cold about it. Also I'm awkward, which is really why I didn't do it. Didn't seem to matter in my case anyways.
3. Work on the SOP a lot. People who have read mine include: 3 professors, 2 parents, 1 bf, 1 ex-bf (I feel the need to point out that my SOP writing period did not span two relationships, but rather the latter was an ex when I let him read it). Some will give you good advice, some will give you bad advice, and you'll absolutely get contradictory advice. I leaned on the side of professional as opposed to fun-to-read, which meant no sarcasm, only 1 half-joke, and very little personal background that isn't directly relevant to my skills. It took a long time for me to get mine to a place where I could say "it isn't going to get any better than this" but I did get there!
4. Don't refer to the Harvard Government department as the Political Science department like 3 times in your SOP. This probably isn't really why I got rejected from Harvard, but I'm pretending that it is. 
5. Try getting your writing sample published somewhere, even an undergrad journal. Even if it doesn't get published, you'll get a lot of experience in editing and polishing that mofo. I did all of this in the spring and summer, and didn't even have to touch my writing sample come application season (other than to mess with margins to get it to conform with grad school requirements). Major time-saver. 
6. A few less-than-perfect grades won't sink you. As a recovering high school valedictorian, having my first two years of undergrad be filled with B+'s and A-'s was a little painful. All my B+'s were in major courses, too. There were definitely nights when I anticipated my semester GPA dipping below 3.5 and it freaked me out so much. I worried that this blemish would sink my graduate school prospects. In hindsight, it's clearly fine.
7. While looking at grad schools, I noticed that so many PhD students at the most prestigious institutions were all graduates of prestigious, expensive undergraduate and master's programs, and often also had prestigious work experience (ie central banks, prominent NGOs, cool politics-related companies and organizations, big-name management consulting). This does not describe me at all. I'm not saying that there isn't an admissions boost for students who don't come from prestigious schools (and I wholeheartedly believe that the BA-to-PhD pipeline is much much better supported at those places), but it's not an obstacle that can't be overcome. In fact, 2 of the exact schools I most had this worry about both accepted me and offered me money beyond their standard stipend package. 
8.There's a lot of really good information at GradCafe, especially for those of us who again don't come from common PhD pipeline schools. There's an older thread where people actually posted their statements of purpose. These threads are really good to see the level of competition that is present for many schools. BFB's stickied thread is a must-read. There's also a lot of good information on PSR, but I wouldn't recommend going there unless you're used to reading reddit or 4chan. There's a learning curve before you can recognize what is trolling vs. good information, but that's, unfortunately, the best aggregated place for information on what's going on in the field. 
I know I just said a lot, but if there's more that anyone would like me to speak on, feel free to DM me or ask here. 

LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE (LSEPS) ECONOMICS, Masters (F18) Accepted via E-mail on 28 Feb 2019   28 Feb 2019 report spam APPLICATION WAS COMPLETE ON JAN 8TH, I'M VERY HAPPY TO HAVE GOTTEN AN OFFER FROM MY COUNTRY (IM BRITISH FROM BATH - NOT THE TOOL WE USE TO WASH, BUT RATHER THE CITY IN SOMERSET). I HAVE A DECISION TO MAKE BUT I AM GRATEFUL FOR THE ACCEPTANCE. I WISH THEY GAVE ME SOME FUNDING THOUGH... THE TUITION IN POUNDS IS MORE THAN I WEIGH AND IM A HEFTY BLOKE.

LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE (LSEPS) ECONOMICS, Masters (F18) Accepted via E-mail on 28 Feb 2019   28 Feb 2019 report spam APPLICATION WAS COMPLETE ON JAN 8TH, I'M VERY HAPPY TO HAVE GOTTEN AN OFFER FROM MY COUNTRY (IM BRITISH FROM BATH - NOT THE TOOL WE USE TO WASH, BUT RATHER THE CITY IN SOMERSET). I HAVE A DECISION TO MAKE BUT I AM GRATEFUL FOR THE ACCEPTANCE. I WISH THEY GAVE ME SOME FUNDING THOUGH... THE TUITION IN POUNDS IS MORE THAN I WEIGH AND IM A HEFTY BLOKE.

This is going to totally out me to any adcoms, if I haven't already done so (but hopefully very few lurk here) 
PROFILE:
Type of Undergrad Institution: R1, somewhere in the top 30-55 ranked polisci PhD programs. Ranked 50-100 of undergrad schools. Yes, I'm trying to be a little vague. 
Major(s)/Minor(s): econ, stats, political science
Undergrad GPA: a hair under 3.9. It's probably worth noting that my last 2 year GPA was much much better than the first 2 year GPA. 
Type of Grad: none
GRE: 94-98th percentile on all sections. Only took once. 
Any Special Courses: 3 PhD-level courses (All A's), plus all the mathematical goodies that come from a major in stats (including calc 1-3 and linear algebra)
Letters of Recommendation: 3 professors, 2 tenured, 1 assistant. 2 are big enough names in their subsubfields and polisci is small enough that application readers probably know who they are even if they're in different subfields. 
Research Experience: some RA work, some research intense coursework, one independent project funding by an honors college fellowship, published in only an undergrad journal
Teaching Experience: 3 years of TA work, but in math
Subfield/Research Interests: American, methods, behavior. Specific interests include inequality, political participation, public opinion, REP, policy, geography, and how these all interact via cool methods. 
Other: 1 year at an unrelated but quantitative job. Experience with coding. Again, I'm pretty decent at math relative to the typical applicant. Also gonna mention that I'm not an underrepresented minority, nor do I come from an underprivileged household, or anything like that, so no big diversity points for me. For schools that asked for personal/diversity statements, I explicitly said something along the lines of "yeah I'm probably here somewhat because of some privilege. I had a 20hr/week part time job in school, but if you really think about it, only needing to work half time while getting to go to school is really freaking lucky relative to so much of the country"

RESULTS:
Acceptances($$ or no $$) -- all $$: Stanford, Princeton, Yale, Berkeley (no word on funding for another week actually, but I think they always fund everyone), UCSD, MIT, Columbia, Duke, UNC, NYU, UCLA, Ohio State, WashU, Emory  
Waitlists: none
Rejections: Harvard, Michigan
Pending:
Going to: I have a vague idea abut I'm waiting for visits to decide for sure. 
 
LESSONS LEARNED: This is the part where I say that I applied so many places because I expected maybe 3 acceptances, and I'd apply to all of these schools again. I don't know what exactly I did "right" that other people haven't done. But I'm going to take a stab at it.
1. Coming from a large R1 where students rarely pursue PhDs in political science probably helped in a way. Less competition and professors really notice when you say you want to go into political science. When recommenders send their letters, they often also fill out a survey section asking stuff like "Is this student: a. best I've ever had (or best in years), b. excellent (top 1%),  good (10%)" etc. and my situation made it much easier to get an a or b vs. coming from somewhere like Reed or Swarthmore. Letters really matter, especially if the people who read your letters know and trust the people who wrote your letters, which gives R1s a big advantage.
2. I never contacted any prospective advisers. I think it can sometimes help but I know a lot of professors are very lukewarm-to-cold about it. Also I'm awkward, which is really why I didn't do it. Didn't seem to matter in my case anyways.
3. Work on the SOP a lot. People who have read mine include: 3 professors, 2 parents, 1 bf, 1 ex-bf (I feel the need to point out that my SOP writing period did not span two relationships, but rather the latter was an ex when I let him read it). Some will give you good advice, some will give you bad advice, and you'll absolutely get contradictory advice. I leaned on the side of professional as opposed to fun-to-read, which meant no sarcasm, only 1 half-joke, and very little personal background that isn't directly relevant to my skills. It took a long time for me to get mine to a place where I could say "it isn't going to get any better than this" but I did get there!
4. Don't refer to the Harvard Government department as the Political Science department like 3 times in your SOP. This probably isn't really why I got rejected from Harvard, but I'm pretending that it is. 
5. Try getting your writing sample published somewhere, even an undergrad journal. Even if it doesn't get published, you'll get a lot of experience in editing and polishing that mofo. I did all of this in the spring and summer, and didn't even have to touch my writing sample come application season (other than to mess with margins to get it to conform with grad school requirements). Major time-saver. 
6. A few less-than-perfect grades won't sink you. As a recovering high school valedictorian, having my first two years of undergrad be filled with B+'s and A-'s was a little painful. All my B+'s were in major courses, too. There were definitely nights when I anticipated my semester GPA dipping below 3.5 and it freaked me out so much. I worried that this blemish would sink my graduate school prospects. In hindsight, it's clearly fine.
7. While looking at grad schools, I noticed that so many PhD students at the most prestigious institutions were all graduates of prestigious, expensive undergraduate and master's programs, and often also had prestigious work experience (ie central banks, prominent NGOs, cool politics-related companies and organizations, big-name management consulting). This does not describe me at all. I'm not saying that there isn't an admissions boost for students who don't come from prestigious schools (and I wholeheartedly believe that the BA-to-PhD pipeline is much much better supported at those places), but it's not an obstacle that can't be overcome. In fact, 2 of the exact schools I most had this worry about both accepted me and offered me money beyond their standard stipend package. 
8.There's a lot of really good information at GradCafe, especially for those of us who again don't come from common PhD pipeline schools. There's an older thread where people actually posted their statements of purpose. These threads are really good to see the level of competition that is present for many schools. BFB's stickied thread is a must-read. There's also a lot of good information on PSR, but I wouldn't recommend going there unless you're used to reading reddit or 4chan. There's a learning curve before you can recognize what is trolling vs. good information, but that's, unfortunately, the best aggregated place for information on what's going on in the field. 
I know I just said a lot, but if there's more that anyone would like me to speak on, feel free to DM me or ask here. 

You got into Berkeley, right? I'll be at the visit days next week! 

PROFILE:
Type of Undergrad Institution: Top 5 school, particularly known for STEM/engineering. It's top 10 in polisci.
Major(s)/Minor(s): Unrelated social science field
Undergrad GPA: 3.7 (alma mater is also known for grade deflation)
Type of Grad: none, but in a 2-year polisci program at another school in the top 5 (both for undergrad and for poli sci)
GRE: 170, 163, 5.5
Any Special Courses: STEM requirements from going to an engineering school. No undergrad polisci courses at all (a few econ courses is as close as I come), though I've taken a bit of polisci in my current program.
Letters of Recommendation: I went crazy with these and submitted 5 at all schools that would allow it. One top 5 only allows 3, and I was accepted there, so maybe it doesn't make a difference. But anyway, they were from an undergrad professor in my unrelated field for whom I did research, two polisci professors at my current program, my former manager at work who has an econ PhD from a top 15 program, and an econ professor who I worked with while in that job. I've heard the one from my undergrad prof is strong, though of course no one in polisci would know the name, and they no longer teach at my alma mater. The more senior of the two polisci profs I had a letter from is pretty well known and really supportive so I think the letter would have been strong. The more junior of the two told me that letter was very strong. The econ professor is well-known, but we didn't work super closely together, so the letter was probably medium. The letter from my manager was there to give some more context for the relationship with the econ professor, and was strong, but not from someone in academia.
Research Experience: RA work in my undergrad field throughout college, including two summer internships abroad. RA work in polisci in my current program.
Teaching Experience: Zero
Subfield/Research Interests: CP
Other:
Pretty decent, if a bit rusty, speaking/listening/reading skills (but cruddy writing) in a major foreign language from working abroad in undergrad. 2 years of study in two other languages, one of which is rare. I brought all three up in my SOP. 3 years of unrelated work, including one year in a very junior role at a super well-known company; nearly two years at a small but still well-regarded firm where the work could be super-tangentially related to polisci. Over 1 year of RA work at a top poli sci department (this will be nearly 2yrs at enrollment). Since eggsalad mentioned it, I am a URM (and privileged, if that's not clear already). None of my diversity statements actually mentioned my own background at all, but were about an experience I had meeting people less advantaged than myself. (Also, @eggsalad14, 20 hrs of work a week in undergrad sounds huge to me! I think we were limited to 10hrs max at my alma mater, not that anyone tracked it if you worked off campus.)
RESULTS: (Using current USNWR rankings, duplicates refer to ties)
Acceptances($$ or no $$) -- all $$: #1, #1, #3, #4, #7, #9, #9, #12, #12, #12, #19. Funded at all.
Waitlists: none
Rejections: #4, #19
Pending: none (whew!)
Going to: Some ideas and I've already declined a few, but I'm waiting on visits. But I do have strong location preferences.
 
LESSONS LEARNED:
1. I applied to a massive number of schools because I'm still pretty fresh to polsci and had no idea how this process would go. I was encouraged by profs and others in my program to do around 10-12. I had a main list of 10 with 3 additionals that I was hesitating on but ended up applying to as well. If I had had any idea I would get into most, I would have pared the list wayyyy down. Having a lot of acceptances makes deciding where to go much harder! While I'm really, really happy to have each acceptance, saying no is tough, particularly once you've been in contact with profs. Many reach out right when you're accepted, they're all incredibly interesting, and if you could replicate yourself, you'd probably work with all of them. But you can't, so you need to be very diplomatic. To avoid this, see if you can talk to your advisor or others about a good number to apply to based on your file.
2. TBH, I didn't spend that much time on the SOP. I know it's sacrilege to say so, but I knew what I wanted to say so it came together quite easily. Two profs (including a DGS) at a top 5 school looked at it and had no suggestions. Some friends and family also looked at it. I hadn't seen any SOPs before writing it and later got a few examples of successful SOPs from the DGS, but I had already submitted it to a few schools at that point. It's absurd, but I was too nervous to look at the examples to see if mine was way off until application season was over.
3. Also on the SOP, I didn't personalize that much. I usually just wrote the final paragraph to be targeted to the school and changed nothing else. For some schools, because of length requirements, I wrote only 1-2 sentences targeted to the school. A prof at a top 10 school actually mentioned this when we spoke, which was a bit embarrassing! I would have written more about the school if it weren't for the length cut off, but oh well. And, I was still accepted, so I'm not sure how much schools need to see you saying about their specific department. They seem to be able to get fit mostly from your research interests. Also, once I did take a look at the sample SOPs the DGS had shared with me, I found that most of those letters also have just one final paragraph about the specific department.
4. I think my writing sample was a big factor. It's been mentioned by several profs I've spoken with since being admitted to various schools. This is where I spent a ton of time and where feedback from a professor was incredibly helpful. I didn't have one already laying around, so I pulled it together over the fall, starting with something very rough I had written the previous spring. One of my rejections limited the sample to 10 pages, so I submitted just an excerpt. It's impossible to say, but I feel that played a role in the rejection. I was sure to make a point of building my quantitative research abilities into the sample.
5. I have a personal connection to three top 5 programs and one top 10. i.e., I went there, took classes/did a program there, or have a recommender from there. I was accepted to all of those, so I really do think it matters.
6. If you're applying to UCs, apply for the extra scholarships the apps mention! They're not huge, but they make a difference. Also, more generally on funding, a lot of schools will add scholarships to the funding package, and you might be notified of the scholarship after receiving the initial funding info. So don't just cross anything off until you're sure you know everything from them.
7. Trust yourself. I freaked out a lot during app season—over developing my materials obviously, but also over not having a background in the field since I studied something else in undergrad, and then worked in the private sector for several years. I probably should have just straightforwardly asked some of my professors in my current program about this, because it was a really silly reason to be anxious. If you're seriously considering PhD programs like these, you're probably pretty qualified.

This is going to totally out me to any adcoms, if I haven't already done so (but hopefully very few lurk here) 
PROFILE:
Type of Undergrad Institution: R1, somewhere in the top 30-55 ranked polisci PhD programs. Ranked 50-100 of undergrad schools. Yes, I'm trying to be a little vague. 
Major(s)/Minor(s): econ, stats, political science
Undergrad GPA: a hair under 3.9. It's probably worth noting that my last 2 year GPA was much much better than the first 2 year GPA. 
Type of Grad: none
GRE: 94-98th percentile on all sections. Only took once. 
Any Special Courses: 3 PhD-level courses (All A's), plus all the mathematical goodies that come from a major in stats (including calc 1-3 and linear algebra)
Letters of Recommendation: 3 professors, 2 tenured, 1 assistant. 2 are big enough names in their subsubfields and polisci is small enough that application readers probably know who they are even if they're in different subfields. 
Research Experience: some RA work, some research intense coursework, one independent project funding by an honors college fellowship, published in only an undergrad journal
Teaching Experience: 3 years of TA work, but in math
Subfield/Research Interests: American, methods, behavior. Specific interests include inequality, political participation, public opinion, REP, policy, geography, and how these all interact via cool methods. 
Other: 1 year at an unrelated but quantitative job. Experience with coding. Again, I'm pretty decent at math relative to the typical applicant. Also gonna mention that I'm not an underrepresented minority, nor do I come from an underprivileged household, or anything like that, so no big diversity points for me. For schools that asked for personal/diversity statements, I explicitly said something along the lines of "yeah I'm probably here somewhat because of some privilege. I had a 20hr/week part time job in school, but if you really think about it, only needing to work half time while getting to go to school is really freaking lucky relative to so much of the country"

RESULTS:
Acceptances($$ or no $$) -- all $$: Stanford, Princeton, Yale, Berkeley (no word on funding for another week actually, but I think they always fund everyone), UCSD, MIT, Columbia, Duke, UNC, NYU, UCLA, Ohio State, WashU, Emory  
Waitlists: none
Rejections: Harvard, Michigan
Pending:
Going to: I have a vague idea abut I'm waiting for visits to decide for sure. 
 
LESSONS LEARNED: This is the part where I say that I applied so many places because I expected maybe 3 acceptances, and I'd apply to all of these schools again. I don't know what exactly I did "right" that other people haven't done. But I'm going to take a stab at it.
1. Coming from a large R1 where students rarely pursue PhDs in political science probably helped in a way. Less competition and professors really notice when you say you want to go into political science. When recommenders send their letters, they often also fill out a survey section asking stuff like "Is this student: a. best I've ever had (or best in years), b. excellent (top 1%),  good (10%)" etc. and my situation made it much easier to get an a or b vs. coming from somewhere like Reed or Swarthmore. Letters really matter, especially if the people who read your letters know and trust the people who wrote your letters, which gives R1s a big advantage.
2. I never contacted any prospective advisers. I think it can sometimes help but I know a lot of professors are very lukewarm-to-cold about it. Also I'm awkward, which is really why I didn't do it. Didn't seem to matter in my case anyways.
3. Work on the SOP a lot. People who have read mine include: 3 professors, 2 parents, 1 bf, 1 ex-bf (I feel the need to point out that my SOP writing period did not span two relationships, but rather the latter was an ex when I let him read it). Some will give you good advice, some will give you bad advice, and you'll absolutely get contradictory advice. I leaned on the side of professional as opposed to fun-to-read, which meant no sarcasm, only 1 half-joke, and very little personal background that isn't directly relevant to my skills. It took a long time for me to get mine to a place where I could say "it isn't going to get any better than this" but I did get there!
4. Don't refer to the Harvard Government department as the Political Science department like 3 times in your SOP. This probably isn't really why I got rejected from Harvard, but I'm pretending that it is. 
5. Try getting your writing sample published somewhere, even an undergrad journal. Even if it doesn't get published, you'll get a lot of experience in editing and polishing that mofo. I did all of this in the spring and summer, and didn't even have to touch my writing sample come application season (other than to mess with margins to get it to conform with grad school requirements). Major time-saver. 
6. A few less-than-perfect grades won't sink you. As a recovering high school valedictorian, having my first two years of undergrad be filled with B+'s and A-'s was a little painful. All my B+'s were in major courses, too. There were definitely nights when I anticipated my semester GPA dipping below 3.5 and it freaked me out so much. I worried that this blemish would sink my graduate school prospects. In hindsight, it's clearly fine.
7. While looking at grad schools, I noticed that so many PhD students at the most prestigious institutions were all graduates of prestigious, expensive undergraduate and master's programs, and often also had prestigious work experience (ie central banks, prominent NGOs, cool politics-related companies and organizations, big-name management consulting). This does not describe me at all. I'm not saying that there isn't an admissions boost for students who don't come from prestigious schools (and I wholeheartedly believe that the BA-to-PhD pipeline is much much better supported at those places), but it's not an obstacle that can't be overcome. In fact, 2 of the exact schools I most had this worry about both accepted me and offered me money beyond their standard stipend package. 
8.There's a lot of really good information at GradCafe, especially for those of us who again don't come from common PhD pipeline schools. There's an older thread where people actually posted their statements of purpose. These threads are really good to see the level of competition that is present for many schools. BFB's stickied thread is a must-read. There's also a lot of good information on PSR, but I wouldn't recommend going there unless you're used to reading reddit or 4chan. There's a learning curve before you can recognize what is trolling vs. good information, but that's, unfortunately, the best aggregated place for information on what's going on in the field. 
I know I just said a lot, but if there's more that anyone would like me to speak on, feel free to DM me or ask here. 

If anyone's still wondering where your Harvard rejection letter is, it's in your "promotions" folder if you use Gmail. Pretty shitty promotion tbh. 

This is going to totally out me to any adcoms, if I haven't already done so (but hopefully very few lurk here) 
PROFILE:
Type of Undergrad Institution: R1, somewhere in the top 30-55 ranked polisci PhD programs. Ranked 50-100 of undergrad schools. Yes, I'm trying to be a little vague. 
Major(s)/Minor(s): econ, stats, political science
Undergrad GPA: a hair under 3.9. It's probably worth noting that my last 2 year GPA was much much better than the first 2 year GPA. 
Type of Grad: none
GRE: 94-98th percentile on all sections. Only took once. 
Any Special Courses: 3 PhD-level courses (All A's), plus all the mathematical goodies that come from a major in stats (including calc 1-3 and linear algebra)
Letters of Recommendation: 3 professors, 2 tenured, 1 assistant. 2 are big enough names in their subsubfields and polisci is small enough that application readers probably know who they are even if they're in different subfields. 
Research Experience: some RA work, some research intense coursework, one independent project funding by an honors college fellowship, published in only an undergrad journal
Teaching Experience: 3 years of TA work, but in math
Subfield/Research Interests: American, methods, behavior. Specific interests include inequality, political participation, public opinion, REP, policy, geography, and how these all interact via cool methods. 
Other: 1 year at an unrelated but quantitative job. Experience with coding. Again, I'm pretty decent at math relative to the typical applicant. Also gonna mention that I'm not an underrepresented minority, nor do I come from an underprivileged household, or anything like that, so no big diversity points for me. For schools that asked for personal/diversity statements, I explicitly said something along the lines of "yeah I'm probably here somewhat because of some privilege. I had a 20hr/week part time job in school, but if you really think about it, only needing to work half time while getting to go to school is really freaking lucky relative to so much of the country"

RESULTS:
Acceptances($$ or no $$) -- all $$: Stanford, Princeton, Yale, Berkeley (no word on funding for another week actually, but I think they always fund everyone), UCSD, MIT, Columbia, Duke, UNC, NYU, UCLA, Ohio State, WashU, Emory  
Waitlists: none
Rejections: Harvard, Michigan
Pending:
Going to: I have a vague idea abut I'm waiting for visits to decide for sure. 
 
LESSONS LEARNED: This is the part where I say that I applied so many places because I expected maybe 3 acceptances, and I'd apply to all of these schools again. I don't know what exactly I did "right" that other people haven't done. But I'm going to take a stab at it.
1. Coming from a large R1 where students rarely pursue PhDs in political science probably helped in a way. Less competition and professors really notice when you say you want to go into political science. When recommenders send their letters, they often also fill out a survey section asking stuff like "Is this student: a. best I've ever had (or best in years), b. excellent (top 1%),  good (10%)" etc. and my situation made it much easier to get an a or b vs. coming from somewhere like Reed or Swarthmore. Letters really matter, especially if the people who read your letters know and trust the people who wrote your letters, which gives R1s a big advantage.
2. I never contacted any prospective advisers. I think it can sometimes help but I know a lot of professors are very lukewarm-to-cold about it. Also I'm awkward, which is really why I didn't do it. Didn't seem to matter in my case anyways.
3. Work on the SOP a lot. People who have read mine include: 3 professors, 2 parents, 1 bf, 1 ex-bf (I feel the need to point out that my SOP writing period did not span two relationships, but rather the latter was an ex when I let him read it). Some will give you good advice, some will give you bad advice, and you'll absolutely get contradictory advice. I leaned on the side of professional as opposed to fun-to-read, which meant no sarcasm, only 1 half-joke, and very little personal background that isn't directly relevant to my skills. It took a long time for me to get mine to a place where I could say "it isn't going to get any better than this" but I did get there!
4. Don't refer to the Harvard Government department as the Political Science department like 3 times in your SOP. This probably isn't really why I got rejected from Harvard, but I'm pretending that it is. 
5. Try getting your writing sample published somewhere, even an undergrad journal. Even if it doesn't get published, you'll get a lot of experience in editing and polishing that mofo. I did all of this in the spring and summer, and didn't even have to touch my writing sample come application season (other than to mess with margins to get it to conform with grad school requirements). Major time-saver. 
6. A few less-than-perfect grades won't sink you. As a recovering high school valedictorian, having my first two years of undergrad be filled with B+'s and A-'s was a little painful. All my B+'s were in major courses, too. There were definitely nights when I anticipated my semester GPA dipping below 3.5 and it freaked me out so much. I worried that this blemish would sink my graduate school prospects. In hindsight, it's clearly fine.
7. While looking at grad schools, I noticed that so many PhD students at the most prestigious institutions were all graduates of prestigious, expensive undergraduate and master's programs, and often also had prestigious work experience (ie central banks, prominent NGOs, cool politics-related companies and organizations, big-name management consulting). This does not describe me at all. I'm not saying that there isn't an admissions boost for students who don't come from prestigious schools (and I wholeheartedly believe that the BA-to-PhD pipeline is much much better supported at those places), but it's not an obstacle that can't be overcome. In fact, 2 of the exact schools I most had this worry about both accepted me and offered me money beyond their standard stipend package. 
8.There's a lot of really good information at GradCafe, especially for those of us who again don't come from common PhD pipeline schools. There's an older thread where people actually posted their statements of purpose. These threads are really good to see the level of competition that is present for many schools. BFB's stickied thread is a must-read. There's also a lot of good information on PSR, but I wouldn't recommend going there unless you're used to reading reddit or 4chan. There's a learning curve before you can recognize what is trolling vs. good information, but that's, unfortunately, the best aggregated place for information on what's going on in the field. 
I know I just said a lot, but if there's more that anyone would like me to speak on, feel free to DM me or ask here. 

This is going to totally out me to any adcoms, if I haven't already done so (but hopefully very few lurk here) 
PROFILE:
Type of Undergrad Institution: R1, somewhere in the top 30-55 ranked polisci PhD programs. Ranked 50-100 of undergrad schools. Yes, I'm trying to be a little vague. 
Major(s)/Minor(s): econ, stats, political science
Undergrad GPA: a hair under 3.9. It's probably worth noting that my last 2 year GPA was much much better than the first 2 year GPA. 
Type of Grad: none
GRE: 94-98th percentile on all sections. Only took once. 
Any Special Courses: 3 PhD-level courses (All A's), plus all the mathematical goodies that come from a major in stats (including calc 1-3 and linear algebra)
Letters of Recommendation: 3 professors, 2 tenured, 1 assistant. 2 are big enough names in their subsubfields and polisci is small enough that application readers probably know who they are even if they're in different subfields. 
Research Experience: some RA work, some research intense coursework, one independent project funding by an honors college fellowship, published in only an undergrad journal
Teaching Experience: 3 years of TA work, but in math
Subfield/Research Interests: American, methods, behavior. Specific interests include inequality, political participation, public opinion, REP, policy, geography, and how these all interact via cool methods. 
Other: 1 year at an unrelated but quantitative job. Experience with coding. Again, I'm pretty decent at math relative to the typical applicant. Also gonna mention that I'm not an underrepresented minority, nor do I come from an underprivileged household, or anything like that, so no big diversity points for me. For schools that asked for personal/diversity statements, I explicitly said something along the lines of "yeah I'm probably here somewhat because of some privilege. I had a 20hr/week part time job in school, but if you really think about it, only needing to work half time while getting to go to school is really freaking lucky relative to so much of the country"

RESULTS:
Acceptances($$ or no $$) -- all $$: Stanford, Princeton, Yale, Berkeley (no word on funding for another week actually, but I think they always fund everyone), UCSD, MIT, Columbia, Duke, UNC, NYU, UCLA, Ohio State, WashU, Emory  
Waitlists: none
Rejections: Harvard, Michigan
Pending:
Going to: I have a vague idea abut I'm waiting for visits to decide for sure. 
 
LESSONS LEARNED: This is the part where I say that I applied so many places because I expected maybe 3 acceptances, and I'd apply to all of these schools again. I don't know what exactly I did "right" that other people haven't done. But I'm going to take a stab at it.
1. Coming from a large R1 where students rarely pursue PhDs in political science probably helped in a way. Less competition and professors really notice when you say you want to go into political science. When recommenders send their letters, they often also fill out a survey section asking stuff like "Is this student: a. best I've ever had (or best in years), b. excellent (top 1%),  good (10%)" etc. and my situation made it much easier to get an a or b vs. coming from somewhere like Reed or Swarthmore. Letters really matter, especially if the people who read your letters know and trust the people who wrote your letters, which gives R1s a big advantage.
2. I never contacted any prospective advisers. I think it can sometimes help but I know a lot of professors are very lukewarm-to-cold about it. Also I'm awkward, which is really why I didn't do it. Didn't seem to matter in my case anyways.
3. Work on the SOP a lot. People who have read mine include: 3 professors, 2 parents, 1 bf, 1 ex-bf (I feel the need to point out that my SOP writing period did not span two relationships, but rather the latter was an ex when I let him read it). Some will give you good advice, some will give you bad advice, and you'll absolutely get contradictory advice. I leaned on the side of professional as opposed to fun-to-read, which meant no sarcasm, only 1 half-joke, and very little personal background that isn't directly relevant to my skills. It took a long time for me to get mine to a place where I could say "it isn't going to get any better than this" but I did get there!
4. Don't refer to the Harvard Government department as the Political Science department like 3 times in your SOP. This probably isn't really why I got rejected from Harvard, but I'm pretending that it is. 
5. Try getting your writing sample published somewhere, even an undergrad journal. Even if it doesn't get published, you'll get a lot of experience in editing and polishing that mofo. I did all of this in the spring and summer, and didn't even have to touch my writing sample come application season (other than to mess with margins to get it to conform with grad school requirements). Major time-saver. 
6. A few less-than-perfect grades won't sink you. As a recovering high school valedictorian, having my first two years of undergrad be filled with B+'s and A-'s was a little painful. All my B+'s were in major courses, too. There were definitely nights when I anticipated my semester GPA dipping below 3.5 and it freaked me out so much. I worried that this blemish would sink my graduate school prospects. In hindsight, it's clearly fine.
7. While looking at grad schools, I noticed that so many PhD students at the most prestigious institutions were all graduates of prestigious, expensive undergraduate and master's programs, and often also had prestigious work experience (ie central banks, prominent NGOs, cool politics-related companies and organizations, big-name management consulting). This does not describe me at all. I'm not saying that there isn't an admissions boost for students who don't come from prestigious schools (and I wholeheartedly believe that the BA-to-PhD pipeline is much much better supported at those places), but it's not an obstacle that can't be overcome. In fact, 2 of the exact schools I most had this worry about both accepted me and offered me money beyond their standard stipend package. 
8.There's a lot of really good information at GradCafe, especially for those of us who again don't come from common PhD pipeline schools. There's an older thread where people actually posted their statements of purpose. These threads are really good to see the level of competition that is present for many schools. BFB's stickied thread is a must-read. There's also a lot of good information on PSR, but I wouldn't recommend going there unless you're used to reading reddit or 4chan. There's a learning curve before you can recognize what is trolling vs. good information, but that's, unfortunately, the best aggregated place for information on what's going on in the field. 
I know I just said a lot, but if there's more that anyone would like me to speak on, feel free to DM me or ask here. 

PROFILE:
Type of Undergrad Institution: R1 with an unremarkable political science department
Major(s)/Minor(s): Political science, Communications
Undergrad GPA: 3.66
Type of Grad: Applied Politics 
Grad GPA: 3.8
GRE: 170V, 161 Q
Any Special Courses: None
Letters of Recommendation: 3 professors from my grad school (I graduated over a decade ago, but currently teach there, so I have strong relationships with all of my recommenders)
Research Experience: None
Teaching Experience: Adjunct faculty at an R1 school for the past four years
Subfield/Research Interests: American/Behavior/Political Psychology
Other: I have 20 years of professional experience working in politics (on Capitol Hill and as a political consultant), and my work in the field directly relates to my research interests.

RESULTS:
Acceptances($$ or no $$): Maryland ($$), American University ($$)
Waitlists: GW, Georgetown
Rejections: None
Pending: None
Going to: Maryland
LESSONS LEARNED: Meeting faculty with similar research interests at each school helped me understand fit and write strong personal statements tailored to each program. It also gave me a good feel for the schools that would likely accept me. Demonstrating fit in the personal statement is crucial. 

If anyone's still wondering where your Harvard rejection letter is, it's in your "promotions" folder if you use Gmail. Pretty shitty promotion tbh. 

If anyone's still wondering where your Harvard rejection letter is, it's in your "promotions" folder if you use Gmail. Pretty shitty promotion tbh. 

LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE (LSEPS) ECONOMICS, Masters (F18) Accepted via E-mail on 28 Feb 2019   28 Feb 2019 report spam APPLICATION WAS COMPLETE ON JAN 8TH, I'M VERY HAPPY TO HAVE GOTTEN AN OFFER FROM MY COUNTRY (IM BRITISH FROM BATH - NOT THE TOOL WE USE TO WASH, BUT RATHER THE CITY IN SOMERSET). I HAVE A DECISION TO MAKE BUT I AM GRATEFUL FOR THE ACCEPTANCE. I WISH THEY GAVE ME SOME FUNDING THOUGH... THE TUITION IN POUNDS IS MORE THAN I WEIGH AND IM A HEFTY BLOKE.

LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE (LSEPS) ECONOMICS, Masters (F18) Accepted via E-mail on 28 Feb 2019   28 Feb 2019 report spam APPLICATION WAS COMPLETE ON JAN 8TH, I'M VERY HAPPY TO HAVE GOTTEN AN OFFER FROM MY COUNTRY (IM BRITISH FROM BATH - NOT THE TOOL WE USE TO WASH, BUT RATHER THE CITY IN SOMERSET). I HAVE A DECISION TO MAKE BUT I AM GRATEFUL FOR THE ACCEPTANCE. I WISH THEY GAVE ME SOME FUNDING THOUGH... THE TUITION IN POUNDS IS MORE THAN I WEIGH AND IM A HEFTY BLOKE.

EDIT: Forgot to note — I graduated in spring 2018, and took a year off in between undergrad and grad to work as an RA
PROFILE:
Type of Undergrad Institution: SLAC known for sending students to PhDs
Major(s)/Minor(s): Political science
Undergrad GPA: 3.67 (my school is known for major grade deflation, tho — this GPA put me in the top 10 percent of the graduating class)
GRE: 166 V / 156 Q / 5.5 
Any Special Courses: I took a lot of political science classes and had a 4.0 in my major (around 10 classes, most of which were 300+ level), and I took five grad-level research seminars (i.e., you read 6000000 pages a week and produce a large paper at the end). Also took upper-level Econ courses and intro stats + data science classes. 
Letters of Recommendation: Presumably pretty good. I knew all three profs very well and took multiple classes with all of them.
Research Experience: Aside from my senior thesis (mandatory for all seniors), I worked as an RA with a visiting prof my second year and our paper was accepted to ISA (I wasn't there to present, though). I worked in a think-tank in a former Soviet country as an RA for a summer. Also interned at a public interest magazine and wrote freelance print articles for them for 2 years afterwards. Worked as an RA for a global humanitarian non-profit/NGO. Worked remotely as an RA for a federal agency in a former Soviet country. Currently working as a super data/quant heavy RA at an academic dept at an Ivy League but not within my own major or specialty.
Teaching Experience: None but I worked like a million on-campus jobs.
Subfield/Research Interests: IR first, CP second. Conflict studies, mostly.
Other:  Native fluency in another """strategic"" language and can read in two others. 

RESULTS:
Acceptances($$ or no $$): Duke $$, Columbia $$
Waitlists:
Rejections: Stanford, Yale, Northwestern
Pending:
Going to: Most likely Columbia     

LESSONS LEARNED:
Firstly, this is super obvious but like...research schools and programs as much as you can. I went into this super blind and clueless (I'm first-gen) and knew for sure I had a #1 choice but was having a hard time figuring out the rest. Come January, I was definitely regretting not applying to more schools and would have DEFINITELY regretted it if I hadn't gotten into my top choice. I'm not recommending applying for more schools just to apply to more schools (like, I applied to Yale but have no idea why really), but make sure you know exactly all the programs that might fit well for you and consider them all seriously when applying.
Second, I really think connections are incredibly important. Ask your profs where to apply and where they know people — aka so they can personally put in a good word for you.
Third, STUDY for the GRE as much as you can. Again, I kind of went into this blind and clueless and did not study for the GRE as much as I should have. I had maybe a week of serious studying before my exam. I decided not to retake it but I had a pretty low quant score. My writing sample (a quant-heavy thesis) and my current job and skills hopefully offset that low score, but this is one thing you can do to even out the playing field for yourself a bit. 
 
 SOP: PM me! It starts with a relatively quick anecdote about my personal history to explain why I'm interested in poli sci (and IR and CP specifically) and then I go straight into my research interests, then my current job, then my thesis, then other research, and then a paragraph about fit. 

Same ugh, it included like a named fellowship and everything

Same ugh, it included like a named fellowship and everything

Be sure to check your spam and other folders. I use Gmail and I think it went into "promotions" 

It sounds like I'm getting rejected from Harvard too at this point, which hurts a little but is ok. Literally everyone but Harvard has emailed me today, which has caused a lot of heart racing. 
I hope everyone is seeing this exchange on the results page about the LSE econ student from Bath. It's a little funny. 

Do something like "-london"