dienekes

Sorry, I didn't mean to call you out exactly; I just get really tired of telling people where I live in town and they act like I must be in constant danger of getting mugged or something. Certainly, it's true that the area directly around 13th & F is a high crime area for Lincoln, Nebraska. I guess I'd like to see some kind of comparison of crime statistics, but the point really isn't as important to me as just stressing that the near south area is a perfectly fine and in fact great place to live! Convenient to campus and downtown, cheap rents, and honestly there are a lot of beautiful older buildings in the area; I just don't want "well there's this one bad block" to scare people away from the area.

Things I would add to this conversation, as I've lived in Lincoln for the past five years as an undergrad and then as a not undergrad for a year: based on personal experience, I've never, ever felt in any kind or level of danger anywhere in the city. I live a few blocks from 13th & F, actually, and my block is directly next to a nice little park and a few blocks from a grocery store. I'd actually suggest living in the area directly south of the capital! Rents are cheap, and you're within easy biking/walking distance of downtown, which is basically the only part of Lincoln that I care about. Not to be too harsh on previous posters, but "sketchy" to most people in Lincoln means "poor people and/or minorities are clustered in this area." The vast majority of my friends live somewhere in the area south of the capital, and I've heard exactly one bad story about a particular person's living arrangement but it mostly had to do with an upstairs neighborhood who was a jerk. I should say that I did have a bad experience at a particular building, too, but it was at bottom of the market, month-to-month rental place and basically everyone there was cool except for the guy who lived directly across from me. My current place is quiet and well-maintained and about $365 a month; never had any problems at all in 9 months of living here. That said: yeah, don't live in the North Bottoms. Lots of shitty, old houses that are rented out as party houses basically. And try to find someplace with designated parking, if you have a car. Generally: Lincoln is cheap, quiet, and there's not a lot to do unless you're a sports person (I'm not.). Places worth checking out in my opinion are basically the Coffee House, the Mill (another, less good coffee place in my opinion), Jake's Cigar Bar (great beer selection and you can smoke inside!)....Yia's Yia's (good pizza and good bottled beer selection), Duffy's is okay (get a fishbowl with your grad school pal's!), and I personally like O'Rourke's for the free popcorn and cheap pitchers. The Bourbon Theatre has decent music in-house on a, like, quarterly basis (you can tell if a band you've heard of is in town because there will be a line stretching around the block). Oh, and if you like Independent Cinema at all, there's the Ross Theatre, which is part of campus. And as far as Tornadoes: tornadoes hit the actual town I think like four or five years ago? It's mostly a concern during the summer, obviously, and it's very rare but it's certainly possible. You're probably more liking to get hit by a city bus than you are to die by tornado, though, so I wouldn't sweat it much.

I said this at my last grad school visit, but elections are my least favorite part of democracy and horse-race commentary manages to be both addictive and basically bile. We do ourselves and everyone else a favor by passing on the stuff.

Oh, certainly. Every decision you make about programs at this point (even if you've gotten into a top 5 program) has inherent risks and tradeoffs; all I'm saying is that, having gotten into a few higher ranked programs, UMass seems like a riskier prospect despite my general good feelings about the program currently and about the kind of program they may be farther down the road.

I forget exactly where UMass-Amherst is ranked (40s?), but I'd like to submit it for consideration. They've hired about 15 new faculty recently--most of them early/mid-career folks with serious potential to rise in status (from what one of my LoR professors has told me), and if you, like me, have a serious interest in digital media and politics, they have a number of faculty doing work in that area, including network analysis with serious collaboration with UMass's very good Computer Science department, and they've apparently just secured a large NSF grant to pursue a pretty massive, multi-year survey research project. I honestly really like their program (I was admitted w/ fellowship), but--although I admire a lot what they're doing there--I don't feel comfortable betting on the program they'll be five or ten years down the line.

My favorite is Franklin Pierce. Because (1) I wrote a report about him in fifth grade that was like 10 pages long (I think we were supposed to write like 3?) and (2) he's part of the Fillmore-Pierce-Buchanan trifecta of terrible/forgettable pre-Civil War presidents. In fact, being the middle of the three and obviously outclassed in terribleness by Buchanan, I'd actually argue he's the most forgettable of the three and is probably in the running for most forgettable presidents ever. Also the Kansas-Nebraska act was a big deal during his presidency, and 10yo me was from Nebraska and very impressed that anything important might have happened here that didn't involve covered wagons.

I think that's absolutely okay to ask grad students about that kind of thing. They're (in my opinion) actually the most important part of the visit because they clue you into all kinds of things that may not be apparent and won't be communicated by professors/administrators who either don't know or won't tell you. e: beaten!

Hey! I got the same email. /high five? Also: as excited as I was to get that email, they sure made it confusing to figure out how much the offer actually was. $47k sounds amazing, but it doesn't really answer the "how much money do I have to live on" question very well. I'm still waiting to hear back from three more places (and I'm planning on visiting several of the places I've already been admitted to), but it's getting harder and harder not to feel like Washington is the right place for me. I'm digital media + politics through and through, and the combination of a fantastic comm program, a fantastic iSchool, my POI (Dr. Bennett) currently involved in like four projects that directly address my research interests, and, now, a substantial fellowship offer makes it difficult to resist.

(Yeah I was kidding. I think you were too though so maybe we can be friends?) But also, I just got WashU's funding offer tonight; I was admitted two days ago! I mean, I can't complain too much because Wisconsin is a great school and getting admitted there made the past few weeks much more bearable etc etc, but there's no denying that the immense lag is kind of weird. Also: I hate to bum-out fellow qual-minded people re Wisconsin (I applied there specifically because I really liked the work that Dr. Walsh has done), but I've heard that the department has trended a lot more quantitative in the past few years, both in hiring practices and in the general culture of the program.

But tomorrow it will be clearly within striking distance of "a week and a half." Which, if I remember my rounding-to-nearest-week correctly, would be "about two weeks." Terrible! Absolutely terrible.

Yeah, I got an saying the funding package would be out in "about a week." That was 9 days ago.

I wasn't questioning his/her clarity, I was questioning whether it's actually possible to act upon it, given what I see to be a high level of variability between rankings, and their general all around dubious dubiousness. Ohio State: 4th Best Political Science Program in the World / 17th Best in the Country! Then again, maybe I just think the whole idea of a hard cutoff point is basically ridiculous in a subjective ranking system. If I go to the 26th best school in the country I'll be eating ramen for the rest of my life, but the 24th and I will be revered and respected throughout the field? And how am I supposed to tell the 26th from the 24th anyway?

ME TOO! High five for UW solidarity! And maybe I'll see you the 8th?

Sorry for bumping an oldish topic, but (and maybe this is just my ignorance) I'm genuinely confused as to what this means from a practical advice standpoint. There's no definitive list, but it's imperative that I make precise decisions about program quality anyway? All of the different ranking systems I've looked at place different departments all over the map--I've seen disparities from some schools being listed around 15 in one ranking and 45 in another. And that's a "global" ranking, not subfield specific. Granted, the top five or so schools stay fairly static across rankings, but--particularly if you're applying to public state universities--it seems like the rankings vary wildly. A professor at my undergrad institution who wrote me a LoR has been willing to give his best guess at program quality, but, yunno, that's one professor's subjective take on an already subjective ranking system. And it doesn't account for a fair amount of fluidity in program quality--new faculty, faculty retirements, faculty who take jobs elsewhere, researchers who produce important work, etc etc. I can understand this advice if you're making relative decisions and there's a clear (and large) disparity in quality (say, between a school that's in the 15-30 v. a 35-50 school), but it gets into weird hairsplitting territory between schools in the 10-30 range. I guess I'm just saying that trying to make a measured, rational decision based on imperfect information is a tall order, but, then again, the whole endeavor of pursuing a career in academia seems to require a rather lot of those decisions. Anyone want to weigh in on that?

Oyyy, you and me both. I got an acceptance email from USC tonight and when I went to post it and saw the Washington acceptance, it kind of spoiled the moment because Washington is my top pick right now. I want a phone call

Yeah, I'm confused by people who are intent on dressing up for visitations. I mean, you're already in! They couldn't and wouldn't revoke your admittance if you showed up in sweatpants and a ratty t-shirt, and professors dress pretty casually as a rule anyway. You'd almost certainly be outdressing them if you showed up in a tie or more formal business-y wear. Look respectable but not like you're trying too hard to impress anyone with how much of a sharp young professional you are. I'm planning on wearing jeans, a button-down shirt, a cardigan, and my nicer pair of Chuck Taylor high-tops. I.e. what I wear pretty much every day during the winter. As for questions, I'm struggling to think of questions beyond PickMe! said...but then again I'm vaguely paranoid that I'm going to get to schools and not be able to ask any intelligent questions or say anything smart. I'd love to hear everyone else's ideas though!

Hey Guys! I wanted to ask for some advice here. I've had two separate conversations with professors at my top choice of school--first with my POI (who seemed really enthusiastic) and then with the head of admissions committee (who was nice enough but we didn't have that much to talk about that wasn't "funding/how does the department work, generally" because our interests areas are basically on different planets). Anyway, they've both told me that I'm a top candidate for their school, that my POI is very excited for me to come there, etc...but they won't actually say out loud that I'm in! Am I just being paranoid at this point that I won't get an offer, or have people in this thread done multiple "interviews" with a school and still not gotten admittances? I think the acceptance rate for the school is around 6-7%, so I'm just worried that merely having done a few interviews isn't close at all to a guarantee.

To those of you who were wondering about the the University of Washington "interviews," I can fill in the blanks there (having just finished talking to my POI there). From what my conversation was like, they're less interviews than they are recruitment calls to top candidates to gauge interest, ask/answer questions and generally inform candidates about why UWS is great for them and why they should go there. So, um, don't feel bad necessarily that you didn't receive one, but I take it that it's a Very Good Sign if you did. Otherwise, I'll just say that I'm really happy to be applying to what I consider to be very good schools in the 15-40 range; they're a better fit for me, and--while I have good letters and decent stats--I didn't really decide I wanted to do Political Science until very late in my undergraduate career (second to last semester, actually), and as a consequence I never developed my academic credentials in the area as much as I could have (although I would've been a very competitive Composition/Rhetoric candidate, I think). I've also held off a year to wait for my girlfriend to graduate from college, and my off-year has mostly been spent working terrible minimum wage jobs that have nothing to do with my degree. Still, I've been really happy to find that schools like Washington, Madison and Boulder are excited to have me and (in the case of Washington) actively recruit me for a school that is probably my top choice.

Hey guys and gals! I got an interview request from the University of Washington--Seattle (prolly my top choice, although UPENN would be amazing as well). I'm super excited/happy, but also kind of terrified. Any advice from those who have done an interview already? I want to prepare but I don't really know how. Are there questions I should be asking/have in mind?

I don't actually have much experience with this, but I know that non-profits often need people who can policy analysis on some level I'm currently interning at a really small local nonprofit as a policy analyst, actually. But if you could find a nonprofit in your interest area you might be able to get a (probably not that well paying) job there. Otherwise, there's government work...though arguably it'd be pretty hard to find a job doing "research" there. Try looking into Gallup? I know that they usually have positions open for people who have a stats/research background there. Other people might be able to fill in more details on any of those options, but they're places to look anyway.

Where are you applying/who are you interested in working with? I'd love to hear more about the ideas you're working with; us Pols Comm people gotta stick together.

Hello to fellow UW-Madison admittees! Still waiting for the rest of my applications to get back with responses, but I'm obviously super-pleased to be in somewhere already (even if it doesn't prevent me from obsessively checking my email at work). It's complicated a bit by the fact that my longtime girlfriend is applying to schools at the same time as me and we're going to do everything in our power to go to the same place. She has admittances at UPENN, UT-Austin and UM-Amherst already, but I'm hoping we get overlap eventually. I'm actually super surprised I got into UW-Madison, really; I feel like I had such a weak application on paper, but I know the head of my department at my undergrad institution gave me a rock-solid and enthusiastic recommendation. Okay I'm just kind of babbling now because it's late and I can't sleep. I'm sort of jealous of the various people in this thread who can sum up their interests so succinctly; my research interests are probably best placed under Political Communication (although I put "American Politics" for most of my apps). Essentially, I'm interested in new media/Internet & politics...(outing myself as a giant nerd here)...stuff like intellectual property law, algorithms in social media, political organization online; less specifically, I'm interested theoretically and empirically in civic discourse and democracy, by way of Habermas and the deliberative democracy crowd. I'm also interested in Qualitative Research Methods, so maybe I'm just destined to be a pariah in American Politics. Anyway, I feel like that's pretty weird and esoteric by Political Science standards, so I was surprised that a straight-laced Midwestern school like UW-M was interested. Granted, the PIPA/SOPA issue cropped at exactly the perfect time to make me seem prescient and ahead of the curve, so maybe there are just ~mysterious hands of fate~ at work.

I'm currently a Political Science *3.9 GPA) undergraduate at a large public university in the Midwest, and I'm interested in doing research on technology, law, intellectual property and, generally, the social, cultural and political implications of the Internet. I like Political Science, but I've become a little unenamored with what I perceive to be a kind of rigidity of theory and methodology (particularly in American Politics). I also like that Sociology seems to have made more of a place for Critical/Post-structuralist Theory (something I'm interested in and have some background in, thanks to my minor in Composition & Rhetoric), and it might lend itself better to doing a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods (again, American Politics is currently obsessed with quantitative studies). I started university as a humanities person, and I've never been able to shake that kind of qualitative style entirely but I do find it kind of tiresome to do all the time. In addition, I've noticed that a lot of the research papers I've written over the course of my career have been sociology texts. However, I don't really know that much about Sociology as a field (I've only taken one course, a class on Drugs & Society which was terrible, but I wasn't that interested in the subject and a friend of mine who is a Sociology major and took the course said it was atypically bad), but I feel like my Political Science classes are within the same spectrum as Sociology. I'm also taking a statistics courses right now which could be helpful, and I might take the second half of it next Fall if it seems useful. The soc department at my school, however, doesn't seem to have any faculty explicitly interested in Political Sociology, and so the course offerings don't seem to match my interests very well. Basically, I'm wondering, well, a lot of things: 1. Would it be possible to get into a good grad school in Sociology with a BA in Political Science and minimal (okay, nearly non-existent) background in Soc? 2. What might I not know about Soc as an academic discipline (i.e., does it really vary so widely from Pols)? 3. What's the job market like? I imagine it being similar to Pols; not great, certainly, but there are jobs out there if you get into a good department and publish. I also have some inkling that Soc is somewhat more applicable to certain kinds of non-academic research jobs, but I might be imagining that. 4. Does my research interest have a good match with a particular subfield of sociology? I've been poking around and seen Political Sociology and Sociology of Law listed as faculty research interests, but I don't have a sense of what that would look like and whether Internet-related sociology has taken hold yet as a subfield.