casbahboy

Serious question: unemployed applicants, what do you all do while you wait? Do you apply for jobs, do you not apply for jobs, do you build skills...

If you are late to get rejected does that mean anything? Is it more favorable than being rejected immediately?

Hello all, Having just completed my PhD applications, I am choosing a few schools for masters applications. I would like some recommendations. My favorite program currently is QMSS at Columbia University because it offers a decent data science education with statistics courses, programming, but also prepares me for a PhD in Political Science. I want a program that will help next years poli-sci PhD apps, but also improve my professional prospects for work in policy/M&E research. I already have a years experience running studies for an M&E firm in the third world. - QMSS at Columbia - Computational Social Sciences at University of Chicago. If you have a similar program to recommend, lmk

Thanks for the BFB for the response. More perspectives would certainly be welcome. In particular I have found a diversity of opinion about whether you should apply to schools where professors don't share your interests. It's frustrating because I don't think my seminar papers were very good, but this article I did write myself. In seminars and honors thesis professors read their student's drafts and give comments, so the only difference (as I see it) is the publishing itself. That's just my frustration, I understand how an admissions committee may simply not read it that way. I doubt I'll have time to write a new paper, but if I get into a masters program I could write a thesis. One piece of advice I do have for someone in my situation is to reach out directly to DGS's and admissions staff and ask them how to represent this irregularity. On their advice, I now preface all of the samples with cover letter explaining my responsibilities and my coauthors, and including a shorter single-authored paper for schools with particularly strict guidelines.

Oh Great and Powerful BFB, I have a few questions, now that my first cycle is starting to wind down. 1. In my senior year I failed a course. Thinking I had dropped the course I ceased attending, as the class was additional to my graduation requirements. Otherwise, my GPA would have been a 3.5, but because of the failure my final GPA was 3.35. How should I approach this issue in my applications? 2. I never wrote a senior thesis paper in my undergrad. Instead after graduation I found a coauthor and a research gap and I lead authored a research paper in a well-regarded (impact factor 2.5) peer reviewed journal (Water Alternatives). The paper is currently under peer review. In practice I lead the writing process, developing the thesis and research design, carrying out the fieldwork, writing the body, editing it, while my more experienced coauthor advised the writing and journal selection. I would like to use this paper as my writing sample, but some schools perfer a single authored paper. As an independent researcher, single-authoring doesn't really make sense. Should I use this paper anyway? Should I use a different paper? Should I seek a masters program to write a masters thesis? Thanks, Tim

I share these questions

yeah I miswrote them, 170v, 161 quant

Hi! I can't tell you how you'll do in the application process because I am in it too. Honestly, I have no idea how it works other than the many contradictory things people say on the website. But I share your feelings of uncertainty, just wishing you new what to do to make up for the problem in your application. Best of luck, I hope that knowing we are in it together helps.

Felt admisable, might delete later. Unusual profile. Undergrad GPA is weak but my research experience, publications and references are strong. Type of Undergrad Institution: Oberlin College Major(s)/Minor(s): Political Science and Physics Undergrad GPA: 3.35 (would have been a 3.5 but failed a course senior year because of clerical mistake) MA: none GRE: 180 V, 171 Q, 4.5 Languages: Arabic (professionally proficient, lived in the Mid East 2 years now) Teaching: none Publications: I am currently publishing two articles. The first is a political geography paper on water policy in a mid-east country. It is in a European journal and would probably be seen as more political geography than comparative politics. I was the lead author and lead the project from inception, building coauthors, finding the literature gap, building a network of in-country informants, qualitative data collection, designed remote sensing analysis component. It passed internal review and is waiting for external. My best reference is my coauthor from this project, a post-doc at Oxford in IR. I am also publishing a working paper at a British development institute, on urban governance and how aid actors see local politics. It passed peer review and is in editing. I published another article right after graduation, but the research was less intensive because I used user generated content from the Syrian Civil War and it was just an undergrad journal. LOR: Highlight of my application. I can get a very detailed reference from my coauthor on the water paper and from me coauthor and the British development institute that hit all the things the programs want. I also have a good undergrad professor to recommend me from college. SoP: I aim to apply in the area of comparative politics with a regional focus in Mid East, and a substantial focus in authoritarian politics, development, and natural resources. I have a very clear proposal, mapping groundwater regulation to understand how authoritarian regimes approach resource exhaustion. I have based much of the methodology of the proposal on Michael Albertus's 2015 book on Land Reform, although the theory to evaluate is very different. Unpublished Research Experience: I have worked the past 8 months doing Monitoring and Evaluation in the aid sector in Jordan. Organizing surveys of refugees, needs assessments, writing reports, etc. Quant Experience: Mainly my physics degree (very quant intense) and my work in aid sector survey analysis. I'm currently working freelance in R on the web, hoping to add a bit. It seems like relatively few people on this site talk about their publications before they apply. I know my grades are a red flag for top 25 programs, but I think it would still be worth applying given my strong publications and my research experience. I have a few questions 1. I could really use someone to read and critique my SoP. Pm me and I will send it to you. 2. Is it worthwhile to retake the GRE's - I can't get the Verbal up, and I can't get the writing up (ADD, slow writer). But I could get the quant up, since I didn't even study last time. But I'm also looking for work so it would take time away from all my other responsibilities to rush that this week. Is it worth it just to improve the quant? My verbal would probably be lower the second time. 3. I'm going to be applying for more positions as a fieldworker in developing countries based in the Mid East. In my last job I got to do academic work (my aid worker colleagues didn't want to do it), so that'd be super fun. It seems like the research experience component of the application couldn't be stronger, but why not grab a few more. 4. I have not actually done much social science quant yet, just physics quant and survey analysis. I am considering Columbia's MS in quantitative methods for social science. But I think my political geography paper is a good writing sample even if it doesn't include regression analysis. 5. Is there anything you would change about the reference letter? People often talk about the name of the referencer, but I am hoping the content of these two will make a big difference. reference letter.docx reference letter.docx