Paulcg87

Congrats on getting into some amazing programs! Keep in mind, even if UBC is offering you good money, the cost of living in Van is outrageous. Generally speaking it ranks just below Hong Kong in terms of costs. The only two situations in which I'd advise choosing a Canadian Top 3 (UBC, McGill, UToronto) are if you're Canadian and want to come home and/or if you didn't get into a US top 20 program. In your case, you have mentioned you aren't Canadian and that you did get into three US T20 programs. You've also mentioned your plan is to stick to academia and go to the US for a PhD; under these circumstances, unless none of the US programs offered you funding, I'd go to whichever US program offered you the most money. Oh, and your parents are right about prestige when it comes to working in academia in the US; having personal experience as a Canadian working in IR in the US, name and ranking are extremely important there. Name/ranking are not nearly as important in Canada, so it was a bit of a shock to me, but the name on your degree does matter if you want a US tenure track job or the most competitive postdocs.

Hi, congrats on your admission to some great programs! UCSD is fantastic for IR. My question to you is, do you already speak Russian? How in-depth is your academic background in Russian? Have you visited, ever lived there, etc? I ask because if you already speak Russian, have studied it extensively as an undergrad, maybe even lived there on exchange, then I'd go for the master's at UCSD. With that said, if your background in Russian so far has been purely a personal hobby, and the Yale MA program would give you more of an academic background, perhaps even the chance to publish, then I'd go with Yale. It also goes without saying that funding is extremely important, and I assume since you did not mention it, that you received full funding for all three programs you were admitted to. If not, I'd go where the funding was better between Yale and UCSD. Just my take.

@ValeriaAM - congratulations! The questions you're asking have been asked quite a few times on here recently during this application cycle; recommend you read the two separate Canadian political science threads here to get answers to all of the above.

All three are great schools. UBC is a much better location for quality of life (weather, obviously!) but the cost of living is as high or higher than UT. If it's not a large amount of money, I'd go with UT. If it's a significant difference in money (say, half of tuition versus full tuition), go to UBC. I don't know your personal savings or resources but both Van and Toronto are so expensive that it's not worth going into significant debt for either, in my opinion.

Hi. Everything Waterloo does is good, so I can't imagine the MPS is any different. Keep in mind, the Munk program is an MPP, and Master of Public Policy (MPP) programs generally tend to have some universal commonalities/similarities and are not always the same thing as public affairs/admin/service degrees. MPP degrees in North America are very methodology-based and emphasize quantitative policy analysis using economics and statistics; they also tend to be two-year degrees instead of one year and have more coursework/course requirements. MPA/MPS/MPPA/etc degrees tend to be more qualitative, some focus more on course work and others more on practical experience, and some are two years while others are just a year. Looking at Waterloo's MPS program, you get a methods course and two econ courses, which is great. As far as the co-op, I guess it depends on what you want to do. Do you want to work for the federal government, provincial, private sector (consulting, non profit, etc)... Waterloo is great for tech co-op's, including policy analysis in tech/STEM. It's not as strong in terms of federal government placements. If you want fed, go to Carleton, which has a similar program but better connections in Ottawa. Also keep in mind that the co-op/internship option is becoming pretty common among MPP/MPA/MPPA programs. Munk's MPP requires a mandatory paid internship during the program, as do a lot of other schools now, so it really isn't just Waterloo and Carleton that offer this.

Everyone asking about Carleton/Queens/Ryerson/[insert school here] versus UT: If you want rankings, go to Macleans, or if you want global rankings, go to THE, QS, or USNWR. I don't mean this in a snarky way, I'm just making a point that everything said on here is subjective and opinion-based. It is an objective fact that UT is at the top of every single global ranking, as well as best overall and highest quality in Canadian (Macleans) rankings. Subjectively, having worked for a big 4 consulting firm in the US, for a boutique firm in Canada, a provincial government and having received my master's in the US, I can tell you that literally no one in the US outside of academia has ever heard of Carleton/Queens/Ryerson/Waterloo (the latter, add tech/silicon valley, but that's it). Many Americans, Europeans and Asians haven't heard of any Canadian schools at all, but I've found most commonly that they've only heard of the "big 3" (UT, McGill, UBC). None of this makes UT, McGill or UBC better than Carleton/Queens/Ryerson/[insert school here] if you have good reasons for attending a specific program. If you plan on staying in Canada, if you have a great funding offer, if you have personal connections to a program/faculty/location, if you like the job opportunities/connections/networking at a certain school, then that should make the decision for you, not the name on your diploma. For example: If you know you plan to stay in Canada, don't want a PhD (thus making your master's degree a terminal degree), and you have a strong interest in working for the federal government, go to UOttowa, or, if you don't parlez Francais, go to Carleton. Excellent networking and co-op/job opportunities with the feds, affordable, and if you don't mind Ottawa, they're both great. If you want to work abroad (not just US but anywhere outside Canada), go to UT, UBC or McGill. We don't care as much about rankings or name brand recognition here in Canada, and that is one of the things I love about this country, but much of the rest of the world (especially the US, Asia and the UK) do care about rankings. In the US and Asia, private sector employers get neurotic about rankings and name to the point of being obsessive. This is based on my personal experience but you can see it on your own simply in how religiously Americans and Chinese/Japanese people talk about rankings and prestige. No one in Washington DC has heard of Waterloo or Carleton, I promise you (again, based on personal experience). Most haven't even heard of UT or McGill, but at least there's a few. Go where your fit is best based on those things I just mentioned. But don't kid yourself. Even in Canada, UT is at the top. Other schools are great too, but if you're going just based on "prestige", go look at the Macleans rankings, compare Canadian universities in USNWR/QS/THE global rankings, look at which schools have the most publications and citations and endowment, and for all of these it is unequivocally UT. Disclaimer: SM in polisci from MIT, current PhD student in polisci at UT

No worries. If you have specific questions about UT feel free to message me.

Hi @slut4cdnpoli - Dwar is right, go wherever your debt will be the lowest. I'm a polisci PhD student at UT. They're both great schools/programs. UT seldom funds master's students (tuition is about $7,800 CAD for the full degree) but it does routinely nominate SSHRC applications that cover everything. I strongly recommend you read the two main Canadian political science threads on this specific forum; your question about academic/professional comparisons has been asked and very extensively covered quite a few times including as recently as this week. Good luck!

@dag17 no bother at all. The best way I can answer your question is by asking what your plans/goals are after your master's degree? Do you have a specific school or country you want to get your PhD in? I ask because the answer matters. Most of the English speaking world outside of the USA typically offers a 1-year master's degree for polisci, including most Canadian universities and British institutions like Oxford/Cambridge. The fact that UT's polisci MA degree is one year is not unusual for a commonwealth/anglosphere country. Even in the USA, it just depends on the school. Some still have a two-year polisci master's degree, for others it's a year. I did a one year thesis-based master's in polisci at an American school and I don't think I was disadvantaged in the job market or in PhD admissions compared to my American friends who got their masters degrees from two-year programs. I appreciate what you're saying about trying to make connections though I think this is an issue with most one-year master's degrees. The only potential issue really with the UT polisci master's degree is that it is rarely (if ever) funded. It's just a fact that the department doesn't fund the master's degree. With that said, tuition in Canada is significantly cheaper than it is in the USA; for Canadian students, an entire year's tuition in the UT polisci MA program is about $7,800 CAD ($5,700 USD), which is cheaper than a lot of US community/junior colleges. Cost of living in Toronto is high but there is graduate student housing available that is affordable. Given that you are a foreign student, your tuition will be higher but still significantly less than at most major US schools. Unfortunately, I can't tell you your chances of getting into the UT PhD program specifically if you do the UT master's degree. It seems to be much more dependent on finding an advisor/supervisor who is a good fit, your existing grades and EC's, etc... What you really need to know going into this is that UT only admits a limited number of international students into the polisci PhD program each year. Strong preference is given to Canadian citizens/permanent residents and approximately 2/3 of PhD spots each year are allocated to Canadians and the rest to foreign students.

My mistake; I remember the conversation that you and I had in the Canadian polisci thread about UT and I think I mixed your US schools up with another user who was in a similar situation (applied to the Canadian top 3 plus a few state & private US schools). Sorry about that.

Absolutely no problem. If you end up at UT let me know, happy to help if you have additional questions. Best of luck to you!

@Theory007 apologies to you/anyone offended! No intent on my part to escalate anything, just a disagreement. I guess we can agree to disagree

@needanoffersobad Penn State and Vanderbilt? I thought you said it was between Ohio and Northwestern? Just curious.

I don't know if it makes any difference but Cal (UC Berkeley) is in an interesting situation right now. The school just recently ended all in-person courses like Harvard and Stanford and has decided to go with online classes for the time being. This, combined with the fact that GSPP is supposed to release admissions decisions this week for the MPP program, has probably put their program admin and a lot of the faculty in a situation where they are not terribly responsive. Whatever you do, good luck!

If your pet peeve about using the wrong C and M in CHYMPS is why you disagree with me about it being subjective, that's your choice, but the word "subjective" is defined as being based on one or more personal factors including opinion. The link you provided states "RANKINGS OF DOCTORAL programs in the social sciences and humanities are based solely on the results of peer assessment surveys sent to academics in each discipline." This isn't that different from the "expert opinion" I mentioned earlier, which was taken from the USNWR undergraduate ranking methodology. We can go in circles and dance about whether the graduate social science ranking methodology using "peer assessment" surveys is so substantively different from the term "expert opinion" that one is subjective and the other is not, or more subjective, but both appear to be subjective to me, ya feel?

A friend of mine from an old job is currently getting a polisci PhD at UCSD, in the same program/department (SGPS). His stories of the quality of life there over the last two years have actually made my girlfriend and I visit twice so far, with plans to visit again this October. I'm not an expert on UCSD and I don't know anything about Denver, but I can tell you a few things from what I've seen: 1) I was struck by the fact that La Jolla is NOT San Diego. It's called UCSD, but it's in La Jolla, 20 minutes north of San Diego, and La Jolla is very different from downtown San Diego. With that said, La Jolla is maybe the coolest city I've seen in California. Swimming/snorkeling/diving at the nearby La Jolla cove, the great shops and nightlife, the proximity to the picture perfect beaches in Ocean Beach/Pacific Beach, the weather (literally the best, most consistently perfect weather in the continental USA). I can promise you, having met my friend's classmates, that there is a social life at SGPS. I'm not sure if you heard otherwise from another student, but the people we've gone out for drinks with there seemed very close/tight knit. 2) In terms of quality of life, La Jolla is still just a 3 hour drive from Bear Mountain and several other ski resorts. Denver is 16 hours from the closest beach. La Jolla has snow nearby when you want it, but no blizzards when you don't want it, and Denver can't say the same thing. La Jolla is expensive but last I heard, Denver isn't cheap. 3) UCSD polisci/SGPS is very quant intensive, similar to UC Berkeley and the program I was in (MIT). If you're more interested in qualitative policy research, maybe Denver is the better bet. With that said, I want to emphasize that quantitative data methods are at the forefront of policy analysis and IR research right now in the USA, Canada and a lot of other places. If you truly dislike stats and don't want to do it, I understand. But if you want a solid foundation in something that is in demand right now (quant policy analysis), go to UCSD. 4) You mention DU's prestige. I've spent the last few years working in policy/IR research since finishing my master's and I'm starting an IR PhD this fall. I can tell you that UCSD SGPS is also very highly regarded in the USA, having worked with several of their grads in the past. I don't mean this in any way as disparaging DU; great school. I'm also not trying to conflate the SGPS PhD (which is a joint venture with the polisci department) with the SGPS MIA, but overall, UCSD is first rate with regards to both polisci/IR and SGPS and I'm not sure DU is as prestigious let along more so when it comes to the job market. Unless DU offers you significantly more money or you really don't want to do math, if I were you, I'd go to UCSD in a heartbeat.

Hey, congratulations on getting waitlisted! It's better than a rejection and you've still got a fighting chance. I sincerely hope you get in. Good luck!

I continue to be fascinated by how much emphasis Americans put on rankings. Every single school in the top 10, 20, 50, etc., undoubtedly deserves recognition, but the amount of energy and effort that some people on this forum (and some of my American classmates and coworkers in real life) put into rankings is astounding to me. UC Berkeley and Columbia are both great schools; the USNWR ranks one higher overall, one higher in polisci, etc., and the same can be said for many others. Ultimately though, the USNWR rankings are based on more than just graduation rates, alumni giving, etc... A full 20% of the criteria that goes into the USNWR ranking formula is "expert opinion". Contrary to what @BunniesInSpace and some others on here might argue, "expert opinion" is completely subjective. Some of these schools also mis-report data, as evidenced by UC Berkeley's recent removal from USNWR (https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherrim/2019/07/26/uc-berkeley-removed-from-us-news-college-rankings-for-misreporting-statistics/#31432c247578). Seriously, every one of these schools is great. If you get worked up over whether your school is top 10 or top 20, or where in the top 50 you are, you're going to have a hard time in the real world when you realize in your mid 30's that rankings didn't matter anywhere near as much as you thought they did.

Hi. Your observations appear to be well informed, thoughtful and accurate, particularly with regard to York vs. UT. York is a great school and there's no one who could definitively say that going there will lessen your chances at PhD work in the US or publishing. What can be said based on fact is that UT does publish more and it is ranked higher in Canadian, US and overseas rankings, both overall and in polisci. We as Canadians love to point out that ranking doesn't matter in Canada; no one here really cares, and that's true. But ranking does matter in the USA and Europe; it is what it is. You need to decide between being happier in the short term at York versus having a name on your diploma/CV in the long term (for the rest of your life) that will mean more outside of Canada. Also keep in mind, if you do really well at York and you have a high amount of discipline and publish, you can largely make up for the lower ranking and lesser reputation versus UT. It's not a given and you'll need to work really hard, but it's achievable, and people from York do get accepted into US PhD programs. So, if York is really that much better of a fit and you know going into it that you're really going to need to stand out and work incredibly hard, go to York. If you're less willing to take this gamble and want more certainty, go to UT. It seems like you already understand the tradeoff and recognize that UT's culture is one of individualism, competition and a sink or swim mentality. Only you can decide what you are willing to do.

Have you considered UC Berkeley? They're one of the few schools that has both a top rated public policy and a top rated political science program. Schools like Princeton are incredible for polisci but surprisingly not ranked that high for policy, particularly policy analysis. Michigan is another school that pulls of top notch public policy and polisci programs, and obviously there's Harvard. I had a work associate who got a PhD at UC Berkeley and spoke very highly of their political economy faculty in their policy PhD program at the Goldman School.

@dag17 - First, congrats on getting into both programs! Second, tuition/finances. I assume you qualify for domestic tuition rates. The polisci MA tuition is just under $8k total and is one year long. The MPP is a little over $19k per year and is two years long. With a $15k scholarship, you'll still owe over $4k/year for the MPP, so assuming you get the scholarship for both years, you're still paying a bit over $8k in tuition for the two year MPP, versus just under $8k for the one year polisci MA. So, really, you're going to end up paying the same tuition regardless of which program you choose. Ultimately, the MPP is a more expensive degree overall because it's two years of having to live in Toronto versus one year with the MA, but the MPP offers a lot of things the MA doesn't so it's not really an easy comparison. Third, what do you want to use the degree for? Consulting, government work, a PhD, etc? If you are genuinely interested in public policy and you want to work for a few years after graduating, definitely get the MPP. If you want to go into a PhD program as soon as possible and you're more interested in IR or another polisci subfield, do the MA. Good luck!

Hi @Mercutio - You're right, it's difficult to find this info. For some reason, most UT departments just provide a link to the SGS Fees Schedule without just stating the tuition. Assuming you are a Canadian citizen/permanent resident and unfunded in the MA in Political Science program, 2019-2020 fees for the year were $7,850.90 Canadian Dollars (CAD). Source: Table 1A, http://www.fees.utoronto.ca/Assets/Student+Accounts+Digital+Assets/19+20+Fall+Winter/sgs_domestic_fees.pdf

There’s no need for condescending, snarky replies. Dwar has helped more people on this forum with useful feedback than most. Your comments are a great reminder of why this forum is not PSR, thanks. I hope we keep it that way.

Mmmkay. Thanks BunniesInSpace.

I tend to agree with Dwar on this. Ranking isn’t everything. It’s definitely important and if you were debating a choice between a first and fourth tier school I think it would be more important. In this case, I don’t think IU and UCI are so dramatically far apart that it should overrule considerations about fit and quality of life. Remember, you will spend 5+ years of your life here, and how happy you are and how well you get along with your supervisor/committee affect both your success in your program and your post-grad job prospects at least as much as ranking when both schools are in the same tier. As a side note, as a Canadian who has lived mostly in Canada and the eastern US and is intimately familiar with Indiana-style weather, I personally would also choose UCI under these circumstances because it is unequivocally in a location with far better weather (no snow! No summer humidity!) access to 4-5 major airports (Orange County, LAX, Burbank, San Diego plus Ontario), a much more diverse/international region, and most importantly, In n Out