Paulcg87

Valid points, particularly the last sentence of your first paragraph. I don't disagree on that point specifically. With that being said, I will respectfully disagree re: the tone or suitability of the NYT publishing an internal government report. If this rationale is true, then someone leaked the report to the media. Personally, I'd rather have the media publish than not publish unless it is something that directly threatens someone's life (like a report revealing the identity/address of a confidential informant, or something like that). Without going too far into the weeds or venturing into politics (on a political science board, hey-o! "drumroll"), I'm personally very interested in what the government thinks and what HHS/DHS/CDC's projections are, and I don't blame the NYT in the slightest for reporting on it. It's not like they're the Daily Mail, the Sun or another tabloid that is speculating and just trying to scare people. As you already implied, reporting on leaked government projections should not be conflated with fear mongering because they are not the same thing.

I just read a paywall NYT update (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/us/coronavirus-updates-usa.html) about projected summer infections in the USA. If you don't have access to a NYT subscription, what it basically says is that even with this 30 day shut down in the USA that started a month ago, the US government (DHS, HHS, CDC) is currently projecting a series of smaller peaks or spikes, likely with the largest in late August that will result in approximately half of Americans having been infected and 750,000 to 1 million needing to go to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), which also implies they'll need to go on the ventilator to breath. Not to get negative folks but if this is accurate, and there is a large spike expected in August in North America, we're not going to be starting in-person classes in early September. Full stop. No university is going to take on the medical or legal liability of having tens of thousands of people together on a campus in the weeks right after the largest spike in infections and hospitalizations on the continent. I sincerely hope this projection is wrong. I do not want this. But you should plan on the possibility of online classes and/or delays/cancellations. I think it will depend on the school and the available resources more than anything else.

^^^This. Rome isn't quite burning yet but the Germans are at the gates of the city. @DrPepperGuy there have been several departments that have either revoked funding (see UArizona) or admission (see Loyola Chicago) for incoming PhD students so far this spring. We don't know if things will pick right back up in a few months or if we're in for a prolonged recession. The economic pain is unpredictable at the moment. What seems clear right now is that funding is fleeting in the minds of at least some academic administrators. I'm not trying to tell you what to do, but if I were in your shoes I'd go with your own advice, accept the offer I have immediately, and wait to see if the waitlist works out. I know that's a crappy thing to say given there must be people on the waitlist at the school you've received an offer at, but the alternative is to risk having your offer of admission revoked before you accept it and then not getting off the waitlist and being SOL.

You're right, what I thought/meant to say was that the best co-ops/internships in the MPS program go to the top 10-20% of students. I did not mean that 80% of students do not get co-ops. I should have phrased it differently. And in terms of where I'm getting this from, I was told this about a yea ago by a recent Waterloo MPS graduate, so it's as much hearsay as anything else is on here I guess. And it's not terribly surprising; makes sense that only the best students with the best backgrounds get the most competitive co-ops. I believe this is pretty standard in every program. Not every internship/co-op can be ideal. My broader point was that other major graduate policy programs also have an internship/co-op requirement and I'm not sure this should be a deciding factor in which program you choose. I would argue that the program you choose should depend on what it is you want to do and where you want to work. Simply put, there's a reason Waterloo's program is an MPS and not an MPP. An MPS, like an MPA and MPPA, emphasizes qualitative methods, project management and leadership. Most are one year and are more professional than academic. Many have a capstone rather than a research thesis requirement. This is VERY different from an MPP at the majority of schools in the US and UT Munk's MPP for example. The Munk MPP and several other Canadian MPP's are modeled on US public policy degrees. This model emphasizes quantitative policy analysis and you're usually required to take more courses in statistics/data analytics, research methodology and economics. MPP's are usually two years, with a shorter internship over the summer after the first year, and the degree is typically has either a capstone or a research based thesis, but often times the latter. MPP's are frequently intended to be the research based precursor to the PhD in Public Policy; an MPS or an MPA is typically designed for professional administrators and leaders as a terminal degree, even if it's not used that way. So, as I told the op in a PM today after they asked me privately, if you want a public policy degree, go to UT Munk. If you want an administration/global affairs type of degree, go to Waterloo, York, Carleton, et al., but do not confuse an MPP with an MPS, MPA, etc... Additionally, if you plan on staying in Canada, go with whatever is cheapest that you want to do. If you want to leave the door open to work in the USA or Asia, go to a Canadian top 3. Having been in this situation myself a decade ago, and having worked in policy consulting in three countries, my experience has been that many people in the US and Asia haven't even heard of the Canadian top 3, but even fewer have heard of the rest of the institutions in Canada. The big 4 firm I consulted for in the USA cared more about the name on your diploma and ranking/prestige than even GPA.

... wow.

I wish I could too! ?

That's the spirit! I'm moving to Toronto for school, and Toronto is another city on the great lakes with a climate identical to most midwestern lakefront cities. So, we're in this together As a side note @kestrel18, highly recommend you explore northern Michigan and the UP (Upper Peninsula). They are a beautiful little part of the world and if you like the outdoors you will love it. I particularly recommend Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore (https://www.nps.gov/slbe/index.htm), Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore (https://www.nps.gov/piro/index.htm), and Isle Royale National Park (https://www.nps.gov/isro/index.htm). These, along with similar parks in Ontario, were a staple of my childhood family vacations. The hiking, kayaking, fishing, camping and diving in northern Lake Michigan and Lake Superior is absolutely fantastic.

If it's anything like neighbouring Ontario, where I grew up, I'd describe it more accurately as "frozen wasteland" for the period from about December 1st until usually March 1st. Summers are hot, humid and buggy. Fall/autumn is beautiful. Spring is also beautiful but typically lasts approximately 1 day

Fair enough. We can go with ~500k for Lansing/East Lansing and ~2.1 million for Austin. I've never been to Lansing or East Lansing but I grew up next to Michigan so I am pretty sure I'm spot on in terms of my comments about quality of life and climate. In terms of MSU vs. UT Austin, you really can't go wrong with either school. I'd personally choose UT Austin, but that's because I've spent most of my life freezing and I like BBQ, warm weather, and locations a bit more ethnically diverse. Note: by "ethnically diverse" I don't mean the proportion of white people to, say African Americans; I mean the cumulative representation of different ethnicities and cultures. Lansing is, in fact, a diverse city too, but I wouldn't say there is a wide range of ethnicities.

Congrats on the additional fellowship! I don't know MSU well but I know it's a great school. Just point of fact (not to be argumentative), but both MSU and UT Austin have excellent placement statistics, so @american2020, you should probably consider fit, funding and quality of life as much if not more than placement. Looking at the placement statistics (MSU: https://polisci.msu.edu/people/phd-alumni.html and UT: https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/government/graduate/job-placement-services/Job Placement.php), I noted that UT Austin has an incredible track record as of late; I'd say both are roughly equal in terms of that. Texas has arguably better weather and significantly better beaches (I say this as a Canadian from the same latitude/climate as Michigan; it's freezing in the winter and the Great Lakes are frozen over blocks of ice for about 4 months out of the year, whereas Austin is 2 hours from tropical beaches on the Gulf of Mexico). Texas is also in a much larger city (Austin: 1 million, East Lansing: 50,000 people) that is also the state capital and brings with it those resources and connections. Austin has non-stop airline service to Europe and Canada and domestic non-stop flights to both coasts; East Lansing is pretty much exclusively a college town. And if you're a person of colour like I am, I can tell you for a fact that UT Austin is a more diverse school in a more diverse city (Austin is a liberal enclave of a more conservative state, although Michigan is also a red state). UT Austin is also ranked higher (top 20) for polisci, though they are close enough in ranking that I think it would only matter if you plan on pursuing a tenure track job or postdoc specifically in the USA. Also, just wanted to add, according to the UT Austin link I provided above, the departmental placement rate is 91%. That is incredibly good for a public university polisci department not called "UC Berkeley".

One of my old professors was an S polisci PhD alumni. She had nothing but incredible things to say repeatedly about that institution. It also has quite possibly the most beautiful campus I've ever seen in my entire life, and it seldom gets below 15C in the winter

Congratulations! I don't know what your field is but UT Austin is a fantastic school! I spent 2 months in Austin for a job and worked with UT grads when I was there. I don't know much about East Lansing or MSU but I know UT Austin is in such a beautiful location with great weather, and the best BBQ I've ever had in my life. Hook em horns!

@Cerebral93 I understand. It's a difficult time to be going into this field. I think many Canadians working in international fields are thinking about this right now. No idea how bad the economy will get but if it's anything like what economists predict, we could be in for some economic pain, and if so, the hiring situation will be impacted around the world. During the last recession, I went to the US specifically because it was easier at the time to get an entry level private sector policy job in the US as a Canadian than it was to get a similar job in Canada, mostly because the big 4 and other large consulting firms and non profits employ a lot more people in the US than they do in Canada. And, keep in mind, that was during a recession (2008-2012) that impacted the US a lot more than it impacted Canada. What we're looking at right now is the possibility of a prolonged global recession. Technically, we're already in it and we have been for about a month. I hope it doesn't last long but who knows how deeply this worldwide shutdown will cut. My experiences from 2008-2012 tell me Canada will take a hit, and the already competitive policy jobs in the private sector will get a lot more competitive. If you have a decade of experience in the field, I don't think you have to worry as much. But if you're relatively new and don't have much professional policy experience, you might want to keep the door open to working abroad for a few years like I did; it might be the easiest/only way to get entry level private sector policy experience over the next few years.

This is a fair point. I normally do not ever recommend that people go into debt for a degree just based on the name on the diploma unless they have very good, specific reasons for it. In your case, if you plan on staying in Canada for the rest of your career and you know it, go wherever you can study for the cheapest. Rankings don't matter much here in Canada and few employers care if you went to Waterloo, Toronto, McGill, etc., as long as you did well and got some good experience. With that said, if you know you want to work in policy abroad, particularly in Europe, the USA or Asia, then you need to go to the best ranked school you can if you can afford it. The unfortunate reality most Canadians don't realize is that in the social sciences/policy, rankings are actually very important in the USA and Asia in particular. Name brand recognition, strength of alumni network and ability to network matter more than the justification that you went to a lower ranked school to save money. This mentality is probably part of why Americans are so heavily indebted with student loans, but it is what it is. If you want to work in the USA or Asia, go to the best ranked school you can. In your case, that is UofT, which is objectively ranked higher both globally and in social science rankings by literally every international ranking service. As far as US News & World Report, THE, QS, etc., are concerned, Waterloo isn't even in the top 3 in Canada (typically UofT, UBC and McGill). I've spent 8 years working in policy and IR in the USA, Asia and Canada after getting my undergrad from UBC and my master's degree in IR from MIT. @Cerebral93 My advice is if you want to stay in Canada, save your money and go wherever is cheapest, but if you even want the option of working in the USA/East Asia, you're better off going wherever has the most international prestige and name brand recognition, and in this case, it's UofT. I'll add that UofT's MPP degree is a pure policy degree that emulates the quantitative/data driven policy analysis programs at UC Berkeley and Harvard Kennedy School; this is why, like most American MPP's, it's two years, there's a summer internship requirement and you take more quant/data/econ courses than other hybrid MPPA/MPS degrees. It's definitely more expensive, but you get what you pay for.

For policy students? Not that I'm aware of but it's definitely possible. Waterloo does typically have some good internships/co-op's available for policy students but those typically only go to the top 10-20% of students in each cohort. As far as getting a job in Silicon Valley or San Francisco. the problem is that you are competing with public policy students from US tech schools like UC Berkeley; Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy is one of the best policy analysis schools in the world and Waterloo isn't known for the strength of its policy program. Waterloo can compete with UToronto and many US schools in CS/Engineering fields because it is known for that, but it's not known for social sciences, either in global social science rankings or by reputation. Frankly, if you want a co-op in policy, UToronto or Carleton are better schools than Waterloo. UT and Carleton both offer very good policy internships (UT requires an internship/co-op just like Waterloo) and Carleton has incredible connections in Ottawa. I would say if you want a government policy position go to Carleton but if you want a consulting/private sector policy job, go to UT Munk. It has a significantly better reputation than Waterloo, it's a larger program with more networking, and as I've mentioned in the past, no one in the policy jobs I worked in (one of the big 4 firms and a non-profit) in the USA have even heard of Waterloo; Americans think "Waterloo" is referring to the Napoleonic battle in Europe, not a university in Canada. Sad but true. Outside of STEM, and for social sciences in particular, UToronto unequivocally has the best graduate programs in Canada and at least the rest of the policy/IR world has heard of UT.

Cool! We are in similar situations. And I know what you mean about the wildly unpredictable and confusing PhD acceptance stats. I saw somewhere that you did get into a few schools so congratulations on that! I'd say at this point we should all feel very lucky that we got in anywhere given that I expect cohort sizes will be smaller, funding will be less, applications will increase and admissions will be even more competitive next year. I expect the next few years are going to be brutal for PhD admissions in the social sciences.

I feel you. I'm 31 so close in age and I feel like an old man. I literally had another incoming PhD student who is about a decade younger than me mock me the other day (in an online FB group for my incoming cohort) for being so old and in school. I guess we have to get used to it. I doubt we'll be the oldest in our respective cohorts because I've seen some 40-somethings and even 50-somethings who go back for a PhD as a second career, often sponsored by their employer (often government/military service academies) or for personal enrichment. But we definitely will be among the older students given that the average PhD cohort age seems to be 23-25 years old. I wouldn't worry too much about programs shutting down. I think the current/projected economic turmoil will actually strengthen and bolster many programs. As that Stanford economist's (Prof. Hoxby) research revealed, during the last several recessions, undergrad and graduate education became more attractive to people because they were not forsaking jobs, money or missed opportunities to go back to school. If the same logic is applied to the current events, it's likely that programs across North America and Europe will see a significant uptick/increase in interest and applications. Combined with what will probably be smaller cohort sizes due to less money, I think there will be some painful years of hypercompetitive admissions and funding atmosphere at many (if not all) schools, but I don't see them shutting down with this potential boom time for intellectual renaissance as more and more people want to go back to school. I agree with others on here that cohort sizes will be smaller and there will be less money, but I do not believe programs will shut down to a significant extent. Professional programs will see huge benefits to this economy; law schools in particular, which do not give out substantial funding and are largely funded through student loans, were booming during the last recession and many shut down between 2012-2019 because the economy was so good that there was not as much interest in going to law school and getting $150k+ in debt. History and economics have shown that when the economy is bad, interest in lucrative professional degrees like law increase exponentially, so I expect some schools/programs will actually benefit from this economic situation. I was born in East Asia and raised in Canada so I have dual citizenship and about half of my family is still in Asia. I'm currently in Southeast Asia working. I went to a Canadian top 3 for undergrad (economics & IR), a US T10 for my master's degree (polisci/data analysis) and will be going to the University of Toronto for my PhD. I've spent most of the last 8ish years working in the US and Canada and only just moved to Asia for a job, right before the pandemic started ? I had planned on moving back to Toronto this summer but if my PhD classes are either going to be delayed for a few months or online, I'll probably stay here. I know they are doing online classes right now for PhD students at most US and Canadian schools because they had no choice but it's anyone's guess what will happen this fall. Online? Canceled/Delayed for 6-12 months? In person? Who knows. It's a very anxiety-filled time right now for all of us on this forum who are waiting to start a PhD, I think.

Agree on all. I think it will depend on what happens over this summer in terms of both the ebb/flow of this virus and the accompanying restrictions, as well as the economic impacts. My biggest concern is the economy, because that has such a direct causal relationship with university endowments and program funding. Some economists are very bull(ish) and are predicting a return to "business as usual" by early 2021 if not sooner. Others are predicting this could last years and be as bad or worse than 2008 (recent NY Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/business/economy/coronavirus-recession.html). Personally, I sincerely hope that the restrictions end soon, an effective virus vaccine is implemented in the next few months, and the economy fully recovers by this fall. With that said, I also think it is best to expect the worst and plan for/around it. If we are in for a few years of recession, it's truly anyone's guess how it will take shape and how it will impact our funding. Planning around this could include the possibility of curtailed funding after year 1 or 2 for those of us starting this fall, or perhaps it might just result in smaller cohort sizes rather than individual funding reductions, if at all. What I know for sure is that even the wealthiest schools in the world got very cheap and reduced jobs and academic funding very quickly during the last recession so I do not think it is an overreaction to consider this a possible prospect over the next few years.

A few users on here have asked (or speculated) about the potential impact/consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on polisci PhD admissions and funding. Others, myself included, have been wondering if travel restrictions and social distancing will affect the start of our classes and TAing in the fall/autumn of 2020. It seems like it might be easier to create a master thread for this, both to coordinate questions/thoughts and for the benefit of future users who might have the same questions and might not know where to look. The catalyst for creating this was an article I read on CNBC this morning that linked research by a Stanford University economist (Professor Caroline Hoxby) regarding university enrolment during the last recession. Here's a small bit on her research: https://news.stanford.edu/2015/03/06/higher-ed-hoxby-030615/ I think it's safe to say that we are in unprecedented times. It's easy to draw parallels to the 2008-2012 US recession and Prof. Hoxby's research and conclude that there is going to be a large influx of applications to virtually all higher education degree programs over the next few years. At the same time, this is a different "animal" from the last US recession in that it's a global pandemic with substantial barriers to entry and travel for the foreign/international students (myself included) who comprise a significant portion of US university attendees and tuition dollars. No one in North America or anywhere else has any idea how long the closed borders, travel bans, travel restrictions and social distancing will last; I've seen wildly differing projections ranging from another four weeks to up to two years for certain aspects of the current restrictions. For those of us entering PhD programs, it's impossible to know how much or to what extent any of this will affect the beginning of our doctoral programs; a few weeks ago I would have thought it impossible to take polisci PhD coursework entirely online at any of the major programs, but this is currently the reality even at Harvard. In terms of funding, it's safe to say (based on unemployment numbers, stock market performance and economist comments) that the United States is now in a recession. No one knows how bad it will be, but if it's nearly as bad as 2008-2012, it could also affect the funding that we receive. If this recession lasts a few months and things are back on track by Q1 2021, my guess is that there will be little overall disruption to the endowments and funding levels of major universities/programs. If this turns out to be a prolonged recession or even another great depression, all bets are off. No matter how big the endowment is, it's possible the school will make funding cuts in the interest of frugality, fiscal conservatism and survival. Harvard has a $41 billion dollar US endowment but it laid off several hundred employees due to endowment performance during the last recession (http://archive.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/06/24/harvard_workers_stunned_by_layoffs_of_275/). If it can happen at Harvard, it can happen anywhere, and if endowments are suffering and employees start getting let go at your school, it's probably the "canary in the coal mine" (i.e., the indicator) that academic programs will suffer from funding declines, too. As others have mentioned, if you have an acceptance to a program, you should probably take it. The perennial advice to only go to a top tier school and to perpetually re-apply with better GRE's/refs/EC's in order to get into the best school possible was solid advice over the last eight years, but maybe not so much in the coming years assuming that admissions gets hyper-competitive with a flood of applicants who have had a new or renewed interest in higher education sparked by the current economic woes, as Professor Hoxby's research indicates. Along the same lines, it's important to realize as you are starting your PhD that if this turns out to be a 5+ year recession, it's possible you will be graduating into one of the worst job markets in the last century. During the last recession, I was an undergrad and a master's student, and I can tell you first hand that the job market was ugly, much much worse than it was between 2012-2020. And by "ugly" I'm not just referring to academia and tenure track professor positions; I'm also referring to private sector consulting jobs at the Big 4 firms and even civil service/government jobs, which those of us straight out of grad school traditionally consider as well. Everyone talks about how bad the job market is for political scientists, but this might be especially prescient and on point in the next few years. Just my thoughts as a 31 year old who came of age in the last recession and now getting ready to start a PhD. Hopefully others can post thoughts/questions on here too so that there's a one stop location for this.

First of all, congratulations on getting into a PhD program! I tend to focus on the positives before the doom and gloom. Getting into any program anywhere for a PhD in political science is an accomplishment, and if it's at a large midwestern state university polisci department as you've mentioned here and elsewhere, it might not be a top 10 program, but it cannot be a bad school. Full stop. As far as jobs are concerned.. People on here and PSR seem to think that working at a smaller or lower tier school (ie a "no-name college in the middle of nowhere") is a fate worse than death. Personally, I graduated from undergrad and started my master's degree during the last recession and most of my friends who took a crack at academia and were graduating around then with PhD's weren't getting jobs at all, or were stuck in postdoc purgatory for many years. A few of my friends ended up in the private sector and two even went to permanent faculty positions at junior/community colleges in California, where the pay and resources are surprisingly good for the state community college system (check out Santa Barbara City College if you don't believe me - SBCC has the campus, faculty and resources of a major state university, and in fact, was the original UCSB campus before UCSB moved to Goleta). Based on the clues you've left us so far, I'm guessing you got into somewhere like Nebraska, Kansas or Mizzou; these are the only large state universities in the midwest with polisci programs that aren't at least T50 that I can think of off the top of my head. You might also be referring to Western Michigan or Northern/Southern Illinois. At the risk of sounding cliche, these are all decent schools and there are some great things about each of these institutions. The bottom line is this: if you are aiming to get a tenure track (TT) job at an R1/T20 department, you should go to an R1/T20 program for your PhD. Is it possible you'll get there after going to Western Michigan or SIU? Yes absolutely it's possible, but it won't be easy. It's really important to go into a PhD (at any school) with a realistic mindset and the benefit of all the advice and experiences of your peers and predecessors. Even the ivies and the T10 produce graduates who go to small schools, perpetual postdocs, or are unemployed for the first few years. You need to realize, expect, and be at peace with the prospect of a few years of postdocs, adjunct teaching positions, and/or teaching at a lower tier university or community college. It could be that you do this for a few years until you get the TT job of your dreams, or, equally as likely, it could be that you do this for your entire career and you never end up at Harvard or Cal. Either way, academia is brutal, and the political science job market is never going to be booming. Do not go into this field to make a lot of money, get famous or have prestige, because the odds are against it.

May I ask what school you are currently at? Also, what do you want to do after your PhD? Do you want to go into academia, work in government, etc? These answers affect which of these programs might be better for you. Carleton is known for its coop/internship and networking connections with the federal government. UVic is probably in the single best location in Canada for quality of life and weather, but the cost of living is horrendous (surprisingly close to Van and Toronto), there is less than a 1% vacancy rate for rentals, and the department is good but it's not among the best in Canada. In other words, unless you have your own funding/savings or get an incredible funding offer from UVic, I'm not sure it's worth going there for a master's degree and paying out of pocket unless you really want to stay in Victoria and settle down there. If you do get into Carleton, they seem to offer decent funding and that is a great school/department. But it's tough to give you advice without knowing the third program you mentioned (your "current" university), or what you want to do after your PhD.

Go to UBC. You are correct that UT doesn't typically fund master's students; their PhD funding is very generous (comparable to US T10/ivy league PhD funding) but their master's funding is not. Do not go into significant debt for a master's degree! It really isn't worth it, whether it's Harvard, Oxford or any school in Canada. UT is a great school but if you plan on staying in Canada, rankings really don't matter here. I've found that rankings only really matter in the USA and in parts of Europe/Asia. Additionally, in my opinion, for the purposes of U.S. PhD admissions, the Canadian "top 3" (UBC, UT and McGill) are all pretty similar in reputation, so I would agree that your research, grades and publications will matter more than which top 3 Canadian school you went to.

@starshiphistory if it's only between UBC and SFU, please go to UBC. It is better in every way. First and foremost, UBC has a better reputation both in BC and in Canada. UBC is also better known outside of Canada, and if you are American or intend to pursue a PhD in the USA or UK, UBC is ranked significantly higher in literally every publication (USNWR, THE, QS, etc). UBC has the better location and more beautiful campus; it is on the ocean (with direct access to beaches), adjacent to West Point Grey and Kitsilano, and the latter community is one of the liveliest, coolest parts of Vancouver. SFU is in Burnaby, which is... let's just say, none of the things that Kitsilano is. UBC is also significantly wealthier; its endowment is about 5 times SFU's and this means more funding for everything from facilities to talent. Seriously, unless you have an incredible fit with the department at SFU that you just don't have at UBC, or UBC will be significantly more expensive for you to attend, then this is not a contest.

^This. Unless your definition of "midwest" is different than most, the only schools with what could be considered "high" cost of living would be those located in the Chicagoland area. Chicago is expensive. Rent, gas, groceries, etc., it's an expensive place to live. With that said, Madison, Minneapolis, Ann Arbor and Columbus are very reasonable (compared to California, NY/New England/Mid Atlantic, Denver or Seattle) and some parts of the midwest are downright very cheap by US standards, including pretty much the entire state of Indiana, where you can buy a used 2 bedroom house near IU for less than $100k. You can't buy a closet space or a parking spot for that price in Boston, NY, Chicago, LA or the Bay Area.

@ValeriaAM I'm posting part of my reply to our PM convo here in the hopes it helps others, including @yhs. @Dwar feel free to chime in too with your advice, which is so helpful. Let me say up front that I believe that 'fit' is one of the most important factors when it comes to PhD admissions in North America. Now, this is more of a PhD thing than a master's thing, and it only applies to North America; most of the larger polisci programs admit 3-5 times more master's candidates than PhD candidates, and in Britain, even at the PhD level, the emphasis is more on grades than anything else (you won't even be considered for most Oxbridge PhD's without the equivalent of either a 1.1 or a 2.1 undergrad GPA). But back to North America, master's students are only matriculating for 1-2 years (versus 5-6 for a PhD) and a master's thesis is significantly shorter and less work than a PhD thesis, so fit isn't as much of an issue at the master's level. For PhD's, fit is so important, and it applies to both the student and the faculty supervisor. On the supervisor's side of things, they will not agree to work with someone whose research interests do not comport their own, and they might also hesitate to work with someone who they believe might not be able to get the work done, do the research, write the thesis and graduate. Additionally, from both the supervisor and student perspectives, who wants to work with someone for 5+ years who they might not get along with, personally or professionally? It's a long time to spend stuck with someone if you don't like them personally or if you don't like the research that they/you are doing. So, in terms of lessons learned and advice I can give, I recommend you do some serious research into the faculty at prospective PhD programs you are interested in. Find faculty who specialize in the research areas you are interested in. Email them and ask them about their research, tell them your interests and ask if they are going to be accepting new PhD students for supervision for your application cycle/year. Consider even going to visit their departments and meeting with them in person. Some schools discourage this, but most are either indifferent or welcome the initiative, and I've had incredible success being this proactive, as have my friends/coworkers/classmates who have done this. Be persistent and proactive in reaching out to potential faculty. Have a CV ready, your best writing sample, and at least a 1 paragraph description of your broader research interests. WARNING: Be careful with stating your research interests to potential PhD supervisors. My experience has been that some professors love specificity and welcome potential candidates who know exactly what they want to do, while others dislike this approach at the pre-PhD phase and think that specificity is a bad thing. It's a mixed bag and personally I have had success and failures trying both (broad vs. specific interests). Personally, I believe you are better off by stating your broader interests (e.g., liberalism, security in the Asia-Pacific region, EU politics, refugee rights, counterterrorism, etc) than really specific interests (" a comparative analysis of 1990's bilateral investment treaty negotiation strategies among southern MERCOSUR states") when you first contact a potential supervisor. The latter type of specificity is actually preferred outside of North America, particularly in the UK (where you need to have a very specific 3000-5000 word research proposal submitted with your PhD application to Oxford/Cambridge), but not so much here, where both US and Canadian PhD programs realize and expect that while your broader research interests should remain relatively the same, your specific research focus/direction will probably change a year or two into the program. Now, with all of this being said, every potential PhD supervisor is different, so it's always going to be hit or miss when you contact them. Some will respond, some will not; some will engage you and ask you for a CV and then write you off after they see your background/degree(s), others will take a sincere interest in you and if they do, an even smaller number will remember you and possibly want to meet with you or talk to you before/during the application cycle, and among those, you might get one or a few who will support your application during the adcom review, and if they do, it will mean more for your application than your grades, GRE scores, references, CV, writing sample, the name on your degrees, or your extracurricular activities. So, fit aside, the other things mentioned at the end of the last paragraph are of course very important too. American universities place a huge emphasis on GRE scores, grades and references. For US top 20 schools, you can get in without having a professor on your side who is supporting your application, but if you're going to get in just based on your application, you darn well better have good grades, GRE scores and references. Also keep in mind that if you are lacking in one area (maybe you have good grades but average GRE verbal/quant scores or mediocre references), you can sometimes offset this and compensate for it with an absolutely stellar background/EC's. For example, let's say you do alright on the GRE but not 90th percentiles, but you have 3-5 years of applicable experience in IR research, diplomacy, military deployments, or another field closely related to political science, and your references reflect and support/corroborate this. If your other stats are good (good grades, good writing sample), I have personally seen this work for multiple former colleagues and classmates who got into even US top 10 programs, including two of the PhD students in the T10 program I attended in the US for my master's degree. One of the two was prior service military with a few deployments to the middle east who was studying counterterrorism, and the other was a former foreign diplomat who worked as a trade representative/advisor representing their country for a few years abroad and then decided to go into academia. Both of these people on paper should not have gotten into a US T10 PhD program just based on their GRE scores, but their backgrounds and experience compensated for other deficits. So, what I'm saying is, if you have your heart set on a US T20 and you can't raise your GRE scores or you have undergrad grades you can't change, I recommend you go get some pertinent, applicable work experience for a few years and distinguish yourself. It's the only way to overcome other things you can't change if you really want to go to a top PhD program in the US. I hope this helps any aspiring PhD students coming from Canada or otherwise non-Americans who might not know this.