munch22

No decisions would have been made at this point. Two years of no cohort would really throw a program off so I doubt this will happen again.

I apologize - I missed your last sentence there. I do want to focus on your last point though, because it is a serious problem with applicants and academia in general: students should not feel bad getting paid more. Would you say the same thing to someone asking for a raise in the private sector? Many PhD applicants are so grateful to have funding, they accept extremely low offers. Getting rid of the stigma in grad school about asking for more funding is really important. The real value of grad wages has gone down significantly over the last 20 years. Applicants should feel comfortable asking for money, even if they don’t “need it”.

This isn’t how department funding works. In no world is someone denied promotions or administrative staff are not laid off so a grad student can come to a school with a few thousand dollars more. I don’t think there is any downside to list other schools. And you should use these other offers to leverage more funding (in a respectful way of course). Letting them know you are applying to other schools is beneficial in this process.

They just want you to focus mainly on yourself. Talk about your own work and what you are interested and how that fits within the broader department strengths. There is no need to talk about historical components.

These jobs do exist. I worked in one. They will not be posted every second of everyday, but they are out there and plentiful. They just take a little bit of digging. I don’t think you should be so dismissive. OP’s original question was “what more can I do to become a more competitive applicant”. Industry is a great path for some people, but for many, especially someone who studied outside the US, developing a network and working with known quantities is one of the most beneficial things you can do. Hence why I am recommending work at an academic institution over industry. The faculty and work you do will be much more known among those on admissions committees. Further, I think you need to drop the notion of what you think an RA is. Yes, undergrad RAs do menial data collection most of the time. A full time job at one of these academic roles are way more involved and generally can pay similarly to some roles in industry. I think you just need to chill out with your responses a little bit. I am not trying to bash on industry because I don’t have personal experience with it. Rather I’m just trying to explain the benefits of working full time at a research institution. Don’t bash it or dismiss my points because you have no familiarity with a different path you didn’t take.

With admissions getting more and more competitive, yes research experience or an MA will become the norm, but the more the better. There is an added benefit of more research experience, both in terms of having a better substantive knowledge base, being more competitive for admissions, and more prepared for research once arriving. The more research experience, the better. The number of admitted students to top 20 programs is probably going to be cut in half over these couple of years. The places I was suggesting are those such as Stanford Institute for Research in the Social Sciences or Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. There are numerous other institutes of this kind across the country that have large scale research projects on grants requiring full time employees doing research related work.

I strongly disagree with this. First, there are plenty of RA or research related roles at a number of universities that are not specifically working for professors. Look at different universities that have social science research institutes. Even if it is not in political science explicitly, learning something substantive about another area is really useful and will give you great research experience. Second, there was some discussion on academic twitter yesterday about the increasing importance of research in PhD applications. The application process is going to get significantly more competitive these next couple of years. As mentioned by a few (see below), having significant research experience is becoming the norm. You and other should focus on getting research experience in an academic setting as an RA even if it not for a faculty member directly.

Can you send a link? I haven’t seen anything on this and don’t think it’s correct given they didn’t have a cohort last year.

I disagree. Yes, 165 is a great score. but I think the likelihood of benefiting from your quant score is lower than the likelihood of being dinged for a low verbal score. In most years, yes a good quant score is important. But this year is different in that you have the opportunity to not send anything. In my opinion, the risk outweighs the reward, especially as an international student.

This is such a weird year, I think the only people who will be able to tell you that are faculty on the committee after the fact. If you have above average scores for that school, definitely send them. If not, it’s really hard to know. I don’t think anyone on here actually has an answer.

If it doesn’t soecify length, 2 pages/1000 words is generally what people consider the maximum (single spaced). Most political science PhD programs will specify that so I think it’s a good guide to go by if there is no listed maximum. I agree concise is better, but I disagree with the notion that shorter is always better. You need to be able to convey your research interests, fit, etc. Thats hard (if not impossible) to do in fewer than 500 words with a high level of detail.

Short answer: don’t do it. These programs don’t provide much in way of experience/learning and are mostly cash draws for these schools. It just adds a year or two that you are in school. Go out and try to build some knowledge in something related to your research interests. Something people don’t talk about before applying is how important it is to have some sort of outside expertise or knowledge that can help inform your research. If you don’t get in this cycle and know research/phd, this is a great way to spend a gap year.

Applications open at the graduate school level. Decisions on admissions/how many to take For each subfield/whether to take students are all at the department level. The two may not happen at the same time. Pretty sure Duke made the decision last year in October.

The gpa cutoff is not that high (if there is one at all). They’ll look at both the number and contextualize it based on classes taken.

It has less to do with endowments and more to do with the impending issue of current students going on the academic job market that is now virtually non existent. Schools are suspending admissions to provide further funding for current students in many cases, although budget issues are making this problem even worse. And more programs will be coming with suspending admissions. Almost all will be cutting cohort sizes. Departments are presumably still make decisions on this and well have a better picture come late October.

It’s always been the case that applicants have to reach some arbitrary threshold, but beyond that no one really cares how far above someone is. It will be the same this year for students who submit. You are significantly overstating the role the GRE plays in a regular year beyond that threshold.

A PhD In political science is designed to get you a job as a researcher and Professor primarily. Yes, a PhD in political science will teach you tangible skills you can take and get good jobs in Data Science, government, etc. I won’t say don’t do it like some people will, but you have to come to the terms with two questions: 1) the job market for tenure track position sucks And may not improve anytime soon. Are you ok with not getting a tenure track position? https://mobile.twitter.com/tylerreny/status/1293175667702497281 2) if you are targeting an industry job, are there other routes other than a PhD that could get you to your industry job quicker and sooner without years of low pay and long hours? admissions are going to hurt this year I think come September and October a lot more departments are going to pull the plug. Even if you still decide to apply, just make sure you are comfortable with your answers to the two things above. The shifts in academia are only going to make things harder.

You can prep somewhat in two weeks. The best practice is learning the strategies to take the test, taking the free practice tests ETS has online, and getting comfortable with the format. That is doable in two weeks. You’ll see your scores go way up each time you take it and get more familiar. Even if you don’t use these scores it is good to experience what the actual GRE is like because it is a somewhat grueling in my opinion. Also, don’t listen to anyone about these “arbitrary“ cutoffs. Do your best and aim for 160+ but don’t let people freak you out about just not being competitive for good programs if you don’t get 160. I had more than my fair share of luck with a section below 160 and plenty of people have gotten rejected with perfect scores.

No one on this forum has any idea what an admissions committee will do or what the best course of action is. It’s going to vary by school as well. Talk to the advisor you are closest with to find out the best course of action, especially if you are at an R1.

Job opportunities will differ significantly graduating from Wagner and SIPA versus Pace or CUNY. To be honest, I’m not really sure why you are looking at MPA schools at this stage in your life/career. SIPA is pretty clear they want students with 3-5 years work experience and others are going to be the same. This forum can help, but I think you need to do some more research on the specific programs from their websites. I also don’t think it’s necessarily smart to limit yourself to just one city. There is always plenty of time to circle back and get a job in NYC if that is your dream to live there.

Depends on what sort of data work you want to do. If you are interested in research questions that may use big data, the more the better. Normal data sets with maybe a few thousand observations you would be fine with 8GB

Hahah yeah that’s just not true. GPAs lower than 3.5 make it significantly harder to get into a top 20, but not impossible. I really think your best route is trying to find a research based position related to your interests. In my opinion, the added value of a masters is low, especially for someone with a strong academic record from a top political science program. I know you are worried about not having a background in Comparative- so take more classes at Cornell! You can also explore these things on your own. Public opinion/behavior research Is also dominated by the American context, so having a background in undergrad in American doesn’t necessarily eliminate you from contention or being able to show interest if you combine it with some comparative classes this year. My biggest piece of advice though- GO TALK TO YOUR PROFESSORS! You go to a school with a top PhD program, who read applications every time and have colleagues at almost every top PhD program. They will be able to advise you way better then any of us (including me) on what you should do.

Your verbal scores are good enough for top 20/top 10, especially with your math background. Focus on your SOP and writing sample.

It’s a good question to ask your DGS/POI before accepting an offer. Really depends on the school and what the stipend policies are for the university. Usually the university and the graduate school have some sort of guidelines, and then departments can either use those or something more then those. It is important to read your offer letter careful and figure out if all five years are guaranteed, what the conditions of maintaining funding are, etc.

Yup every university is considering it for sure to avoid the information provided in the articles you linked about the mass panic and rush that happened this semester when courses flipped all of a sudden. I know my university will have a final decision probably late June early July. To be clear, I’m not looking for a tussle. I am looking to provide people with accurate information. I’m a current student at a top 30 with a few colleagues at other top 30s. I have a parent who currently works in some capacity (not polsci) at a top 30 polsci university and used to work at another top 30. My point being- I have gotten a pretty good pulse of how programs and schools are adjusting to this shift From hearing information from these sources. This pandemic is going to affect cohorts for years on end, and that is a fact. I hope my posts can provide honest information about what is going on. The realities of what we face are this: fewer jobs will be available in the future, more students will have to take 6/7th years because they can’t do fieldwork (Depending on sub field but this still effects the whole department), and universities are either going to have to expand department budgets or cut future cohort sizes. It will be more competitive to get into specific schools. Im not trying to be combative - I’m trying to express the realities we live in today (the focus of this forum, which is a very relevant topic for current and future applicants).