Theoryboi

I think my schedule was maybe a bit unorthodox compared to what others have experienced, but I will share anyways. As part of my program I am employed as an instructor of record for an undergraduate class (meaning I am THE instructor, not an assistant). So I taught an IR class twice a week for an hour and fifteen minutes each session, and had 3 graduate classes which were once a week for two hours and fifty minutes, also this of course involved prep time, grading, etc. Teaching was awesome and my students really helped keep my spirits up as the semester wore on. I don't think most programs will involve this sort of work, particularly in the first semester, so it probably won't apply to many reading this post. Basically, like I said above, I had to do a ton of reading week in and week out as we would expect for a PhD program. One class, on Theory, mandated we read at least one book a week, sometimes two. Another, a security studies class, involved one book with a few related articles a week. The third, a methods class, was more like 4-5 articles a week. The first class I mentioned also mandated a short paper be written every week (750-1000 words) on the book(s) we read. Otherwise, there were not really week-to-week assignments for the other two classes, though they each had a presentation at one point in the semester. Two classes had book review essays (about 2000 words each), and Final papers ranged from 4000 words in one case and two called for 6000 words. Of course, much of this occurred online, so I was mostly isolated in my room. On a non-work note, but related to the day-to-day, I found it difficult to connect with people generally speaking, and I wouldn't say this is for lack of social grace, but rather just the Covid situation really complicating things. I have one close friend from my cohort and we made it a point to hangout once a week so we had some form of human interaction. Hopefully for those reading, this will be less of a concern by the time you start your programs. So there isn't a great sense of cohort comradery at the moment, but hopefully that will improve as time goes on and conditions improve. I found I had great flexibility with my schedule overall, as I had no obligations on Fridays generally speaking. Still, I was working pretty much seven days a week, and only took a few full days off here and there. I know many of my colleagues felt very overwhelmed by the workload/schedule demands, though I can say I was able to manage it well enough. As others have said, my experience was more demanding overall than during my masters work, and it was both the most challenging, yet rewarding semester of school I have experienced. But, the stakes are high: my cohort has already had one drop out and it remains an open question if one or two others will return after winter break, so I don't know if I had the typical case of people, even in my own program. So, if your number gets called, don't take the opportunity lightly! When it gets tough I always remind myself how many people would love to have the opportunity and the funding I am fortunate to have. Maybe that thought can help when things inevitably get tough; after all if a PhD was easy, why would we all covet it as such?

1st-year Theory/IR PhD student here: no quant for me. My advice for theory folks is: 1. get ready to read 2. pre-reading before you start is a great idea 3. Even if you think you have a really strong base in theory going in, you probably don't. Most of my theory cohort came in super ill-prepared and it showed.

I think ultimately the number itself isn't as important as the breadth. As many have pointed out, they've evaluated 'safes', 'possibles', and 'reaches'. My advice to anyone reading is to make sure you don't put your eggs into too many dream schools. Especially with the current state of admissions (or likely the lack thereof), I can't picture many people being able to very accurately predict where they will be admitted right now, so do yourself a favor an apply broadly. Treat every one like its a dream, because in some sense, 2021 admission has a realistic chance to be a total fantasy considering how many schools have already shut the door to apps.

I think it's always a good idea for the same reasons as others have listed. I actually discussed my now-supervisors work explicitly in my SOP and got in, so just make sure you know what you're talking about and I think it can be endearing.

The problem though is that while there are race and gender critical theorists dispersed, it can be difficult to find a program which has a concentrated cluster on different topics which might interest critical scholars. I myself focus on critical security studies, which is not easily found many places in the U.S. Since OP wants to do critiques of economic ideology, they have a similar set of problems to deal with. Unless you really want to focus on gender and race issues specifically (I don't), then the places where you may fit is smaller than it seems in the U.S. I can say as someone who has been in a few academic programs both analytic and continental-minded, the more you are involved in the community, the more you realize that continental theory is anything but monolithic. So the Frankfurt acolytes have very real differences with the Foucauldians, and the feminists have very different methodological predilections from the semioticians. OP just needs to figure out where they fit into all of that and dig for places which have people who do what they do. So like CU Boulder is great if you want to do race, gender, environment stuff, but they would have little to offer me in terms of security studies, as an example. In my department, the security people are generally Foucauldian, while the political economy people are generally Marxist/post-colonials. It's all cordial of course, but there are divides to be aware of.

My vote would be to single-space it and just make sure you aren't over two pages. Page count seems more important as a guide for this sort of thing, rather than word count given that they aren't going to check wc.

Well, I'm a lot like you in terms of theoretical disposition, so I'll tell you it takes a lot of digging to find places that fit us. You should check out departments like Duke, Johns Hopkins (home to the immortal William Connolly), UCLA maybe, UVA, UC Irvine, Colorado at Boulder maybe, Virginia Tech ASPECT, maybe UC Santa Cruz, UH-Manoa. There may be a few others that folks can add. This list includes a range of ranks and difficulties of getting in, so I didn't discriminate between what some people think is 'good' or not. These are just departments that I know have people working broadly on small 'c' critical theory topics. Berkeley would be great for what you want to do though, I think. If you can get in.

I did an MSc in International and European politics at a UK university (not Oxbridge, but only one peg below). Like you, I studied abroad in UG and it lit a fire within me to go back. I had the benefit of being able to take both Europe-focused courses and general IR, which I think helped to keep my profile broad. I actually discovered there that I don't really care for EU politics and wanted to focus more on IR in the broadest sense. I will be starting a PhD in the US this Fall (though this does not qualify anything that I say beyond mere personal experience). I am not really going to answer your questions on competitiveness, as I don't feel qualified to speak on that level (and frankly neither is anyone else on this forum who will likely chime in at some point). I think any of the schools you listed would qualify you for great PhD programs should you chose to do that later on. I will say though, given that you are are unsure about the PhD route, its likely that you could do an MA and then decide, 'this isn't really my thing'. I think an MA is a worthwhile endeavor in its own right, and end-in-itself for some. But I think the experience you could gain from living abroad beyond only adds to the value of doing a degree in Europe. This is just one guy's opinion, but I feel it was even more life-enriching than the UG experience I had. If being immersed in another culture is important to you, as you say, then I say go for it. Also, I did not go there, but you should maybe consider the joint MSc through LSE and Sciences Po. I think it could be a really cool fit for you given your interests.

Hey Moss, I did my MSc in IR at Edinburgh. To tell you the truth, I am not very familiar with the other schools on the list aside from Warwick sort of. I found Edinburgh to be a really awesome place to live, though I felt the department was very hands-off. My views are therefore pretty mixed on going there. I can say that based on your interests, Dr. Oliver Turner would be a great person for you to get to know. He is a really cool instructor and seems to care about students much more than many other faculty there. Also, you will find a large amount of students in your cohort from Asia, especially China which could lend to your studies. If you're concerned with name recognition though, I'd say shoot for Edinburgh and Warwick over the others.

Hey Captain Marvel, You got into UCI, right? Do you happen to know if they are taking a smaller cohort this year?

So now that there is a waitlist post on the results page, I can't help but feel that means they have made all of their decisions. I wonder if they had a very small yield this year or just not a very active applicant group on Gradcafe.

Well, now we've got three interview requests and two acceptances. Though its possible two of the interviews are the now acceptances, making only three posters. Nevertheless, I'm starting to worry. Hopefully this will be our week.

Nah, you'll be fine. I just wanted to use that meme. As you say, there are some sympathetic to Palestine in the department and that sounds like an interesting comparison to me. I was more guessing you were saying like "Israel should take the West Bank" and I was thinking ... yikes. Perhaps this is the wrong mentality but I like to swing for the fences. Some people will hate it, but the people who don't usually think its brilliant. I'd rather be brash than boring. Hopefully it will work for you and you'll go into the fall with a reputation as an all-star.

I think it depends on how strong your stance is and how well the piece conforms with academic norms. (Yes, I realize that rhymed.) If it doesn't...

My UK MSc was not funded. I went to one of "the big UK unis" and earned an MSc in IR. A big reason why I chose to go there was because at the time, I was very interested in regional integration theory (EU) and so I felt that Europe would be the prime place to study that, rather than here in the US. Also, the fact that I liked being in Europe was certainly an important factor. Additionally, given that I went to a very small (unheard of) US liberal arts college for UG, I wanted the big name school to augment my profile. I am currently doing an MA in Continental Philosophy in Switzerland. I chose to do that because the U.S. is not a particularly great place to study that sort of theory and so I sought out something closer to the source. It's a bit of a less-traditional path to a Politics PhD, but its afforded me a wide swath of perspective that I don't think I would have gained otherwise. I would say if your focus is on IR, Comp, or Theory then Europe could present some nice options for you if you have the means to move there. If you are an Americanist and/or do domestic policy then I can't see how Europe really makes sense. For me, being Theory/IR the wider world presents lots of options, though other subfields can be really dominated by US schools. If you are an American (as an example) and you went to Europe to study US politics, that might seems strange to an adcomm. Also perhaps more Americanist-oriented folks will chime in, but I don't know that there is a lot of value in an MPP if your goal is a PhD in Politics. (Though if you want a PhD in Public Policy then it makes sense). My understanding is that an MPP is more of a Professional degree, whereas an MA/MS will be more academic-oriented and aligns better with a PhD. That's not to say that you couldn't make it work out, rather my perception is that an MPP/MPA is not on an equal level to an MA/MS.