balderdash

I think what Zahar meant was: a PhD has very, very little value to anyone who doesn't intend on using it to teach at a college or university. The skills it imparts are inapplicable to most professions, and the time commitment makes it a poor investment if its something that's you'd like to do just to increase your profile vis-a-vis, say, consultancy jobs, or just out of personal interest. If you intend to teach political science/public policy, though, by all means pursue it.

I think orst has very ably given you a brief introduction. I would also check out some blogs that discuss such issues. Here are two examples, one from Chris Blattman and another from Dan Drezner.

Thanks, dudes. Also, 3 more recs came in, so we're up to 15/24 here. How're you all?

I just know that when I worked in undergrad admissions, we always took the highest scores - "we always want to see the candidate in his or her best light." No idea on whether that holds for grad admissions, though.

Sorry, but it's entirely dependent on your research interests. If you're a post-structuralist African knowledge systems theorist, I'm guessing George Mason isn't for you.

If you're approaching the admissions process from a numbers perspective, I would recommend switching to a "fit"-based set of applications.

You're a Fulbright. To quote a great film, "Chill, Winston."

(I got a SAIS offer but went abroad instead.)

That's not true. They're usually funded by the department or the university, especially at the top.

I didn't want to get too involved, but...



That's a lovely line to take, but the problem is that it's an empty talking point.

First of all, I presume you're talking about the pollster Douglas Schoen, whose findings got widely circulated as definitive, especially the part about them being "an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience and, in some instances, violence." Problem is, the findings - drawn from a tiny sample - show only 4% agreed with "radical redistribution of wealth," and roughly the same for the bit about civil disobedience and violence. So no, they're not out for "explicit re-distribution of wealth." Only 4% are.

Unless, of course, you mean by restructuring taxes, especially on corporate earnings and capital gains. That is definitely a distributive policy that most support. But here's your fallacy: the rules already have distributive consequences that were engineered by the people who wrote the laws. To decry the OWS protesters as being in favor of redistribution is to ignore the lobbyists, bankers, and corporations that are also in favor of redistribution, with the only difference being that they want wealth to go in the opposite direction (upward), and that they have been more successful at getting what they want. The point of the protests is that these rules are out of sync with societal - and economic, given the global financial meltdown - good. That's not socialism, contra FOX News or the GOP.

(Edit: And this is why your argument about "gross misconduct by bankers and corporate execs" is short-sighted. It's not the actors within the system that are the problem. It's the way the institutions - the market, the regulatory agencies, the tax structure, the legislative relationship with Wall Street, et cetera - are structured.)

This "socialism" canard is a technology of power. The neo-liberalism strand of capitalism depends on the argument that "the market is neutral," but this is simply a rhetorical tool that allows the beneficiaries of economic liberalization and deregulation to impose their preferred distributive outcomes on voters who don't know the difference. (There's a reason why the great income divergence I wrote about [on page 2 of this thread] began in 1980; it coincided with the ascent of neo-liberalism and the Reagan Revolution.) The market is not neutral. Protesters who want to adjust its functioning to improve the lot of those at the bottom are not socialists.

End of.

Bauhaus seems like someone applying to only IVY leagues so I wanted to politely remind her of the other schools so she could apply there too lol. I'm a scientist...I know alittle more than a 7yr old when it comes to picking out schools that have good pol science departments.

I saw an incomplete list and tried to complete it ...I didnt plan on making sense...lol

No joke, I got rejected from Stanford today, and this was the fb message my father sent me:

"Hey .... sorry (actually glad) to hear about Stanford. I'm pulling for Harvard. I hated Stanford when I visited there and it's so far away."

Oh, Harvard? Really? Why didn't you mention. I HAD NO IDEA. And yeah, you're right, I'm glad I didn't get into the best African politics program in the country too, for that would have meant you'd have to actually travel to see me. I really have no idea why I even applied.

no1 ever considered the special student option?

bump

Of course I'm talking about the funding.
It's interesting that the political science department in most universities say that everyone admitted into the Ph.D. programs will have fund, still the UCSD says that international student will not have fund there. Who would like to spend 5 years and hundreds of thousand on Ph.D. of political science, you can't even earn the money you spend on your study in the rest of your life.

Then I feel bad for your subfield. Seriously though, 'fun' was probably a bad choice words. I should have said that it's a journal people keep up with (according to psjr) even if they aren't working on that particular topic.

All kidding aside, I was thinking about the how that conversation relates to Saint Louis University's Policy on Academic Honesty, and what Brian Cameron, who teaches part time in SLU's Department of Philosophy might think of the OP.

The funny thing is that if he had come here and just said "I'm in a bind, can any of you direct me to a good summary article that discusses this issue?" then he'd probably have got some help.

I didn't want to get too involved, but...



That's a lovely line to take, but the problem is that it's an empty talking point.

First of all, I presume you're talking about the pollster Douglas Schoen, whose findings got widely circulated as definitive, especially the part about them being "an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience and, in some instances, violence." Problem is, the findings - drawn from a tiny sample - show only 4% agreed with "radical redistribution of wealth," and roughly the same for the bit about civil disobedience and violence. So no, they're not out for "explicit re-distribution of wealth." Only 4% are.

Unless, of course, you mean by restructuring taxes, especially on corporate earnings and capital gains. That is definitely a distributive policy that most support. But here's your fallacy: the rules already have distributive consequences that were engineered by the people who wrote the laws. To decry the OWS protesters as being in favor of redistribution is to ignore the lobbyists, bankers, and corporations that are also in favor of redistribution, with the only difference being that they want wealth to go in the opposite direction (upward), and that they have been more successful at getting what they want. The point of the protests is that these rules are out of sync with societal - and economic, given the global financial meltdown - good. That's not socialism, contra FOX News or the GOP.

(Edit: And this is why your argument about "gross misconduct by bankers and corporate execs" is short-sighted. It's not the actors within the system that are the problem. It's the way the institutions - the market, the regulatory agencies, the tax structure, the legislative relationship with Wall Street, et cetera - are structured.)

This "socialism" canard is a technology of power. The neo-liberalism strand of capitalism depends on the argument that "the market is neutral," but this is simply a rhetorical tool that allows the beneficiaries of economic liberalization and deregulation to impose their preferred distributive outcomes on voters who don't know the difference. (There's a reason why the great income divergence I wrote about [on page 2 of this thread] began in 1980; it coincided with the ascent of neo-liberalism and the Reagan Revolution.) The market is not neutral. Protesters who want to adjust its functioning to improve the lot of those at the bottom are not socialists.

End of.

I didn't want to get too involved, but...



That's a lovely line to take, but the problem is that it's an empty talking point.

First of all, I presume you're talking about the pollster Douglas Schoen, whose findings got widely circulated as definitive, especially the part about them being "an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience and, in some instances, violence." Problem is, the findings - drawn from a tiny sample - show only 4% agreed with "radical redistribution of wealth," and roughly the same for the bit about civil disobedience and violence. So no, they're not out for "explicit re-distribution of wealth." Only 4% are.

Unless, of course, you mean by restructuring taxes, especially on corporate earnings and capital gains. That is definitely a distributive policy that most support. But here's your fallacy: the rules already have distributive consequences that were engineered by the people who wrote the laws. To decry the OWS protesters as being in favor of redistribution is to ignore the lobbyists, bankers, and corporations that are also in favor of redistribution, with the only difference being that they want wealth to go in the opposite direction (upward), and that they have been more successful at getting what they want. The point of the protests is that these rules are out of sync with societal - and economic, given the global financial meltdown - good. That's not socialism, contra FOX News or the GOP.

(Edit: And this is why your argument about "gross misconduct by bankers and corporate execs" is short-sighted. It's not the actors within the system that are the problem. It's the way the institutions - the market, the regulatory agencies, the tax structure, the legislative relationship with Wall Street, et cetera - are structured.)

This "socialism" canard is a technology of power. The neo-liberalism strand of capitalism depends on the argument that "the market is neutral," but this is simply a rhetorical tool that allows the beneficiaries of economic liberalization and deregulation to impose their preferred distributive outcomes on voters who don't know the difference. (There's a reason why the great income divergence I wrote about [on page 2 of this thread] began in 1980; it coincided with the ascent of neo-liberalism and the Reagan Revolution.) The market is not neutral. Protesters who want to adjust its functioning to improve the lot of those at the bottom are not socialists.

End of.

Negative, ghost rider. Just submitting them now gives me two weeks to make sure they mark all transcripts and GRE scores as received (I sent them out two weeks ago, so a full month to add them to my file). If not, I can then contact the offices and still have a few weeks to arrange for the materials to be sent again.

Also, there's definitely some diminishing returns to constantly going back over the files. I keep analyzing the personal statements, stressing myself out and wasting productivity. This is especially inane since I've been working on these applications year-round since around July 2010 and had my first draft of this personal statement done April 2011, which has since been read and reviewed by four professors and two doctoral student friends... so it's better to send them in, forget about it for a while, and look forward to (hopefully) getting an offer.

Anyway, it was lucky I held off submitting them until now. I apologize for the self-congratulations, but I just got word earlier this week that something I wrote would be published in a (well-respected) journal. Just a book review, but still. Chuffed.

I already brought that argument up and runonsentence pretty much ignored it explicitly.

And KitKat, public parks are government-owned and have rules and regulations that are enforced: one being curfew hours. It's the right for any citizen to occupy a public zone given proper sanctions (i.e., either abiding by the curfew hours or obtaining a permit giving one a right to occupy said zone after hours). Also it's fallacious to use anecdotes like your tax-paying friends when they're not a complete representation of the entire movement. If there's no law stating that I can't occupy a public area without a permit, what stops one from building a makeshift house on public property without paying real estate taxes? That's one of the reasons for the permits being enforced for overnight occupations in public areas.

Also, if violence is being directed at OWS unfairly, don't retaliate thinking there aren't any consequences. A lot of this is being caught on video--if you want to go ahead and protest a 'militaristic' and/or fascist police, you can put a dent on them by filing lawsuits against the city and respective police departments. And as much as the KKK is obviously a group that shouldn't exist, they're at least aware of certain laws/rules so that they can't be arrested. Many people in the OWS is either ignorant or willfully ignorant of such rules and subsequently being arrested.

Hello all,

After four months' hiatus, I'm back for another cycle - good to see some old faces (handles?) around. To my knowledge, no applications are open for business yet, but with Yale's coming online Monday, I thought now would be a good time to wish everyone good luck. More importantly, to all the new applicants this year, I'm going to try and give some unsolicited advice. Here goes:

Last year, I went into applications humble yet confident. I had a 3.90 at a top-10 national university with a reputation for difficulty, research experience, was doing a master's at Cambridge, had worked in government for 9 months in addition to various internships, was awarded Phi Beta Kappa and other honors, had 3 good recommendations from tenured professors, submitted a capstone paper for a sample, and had a 1570 GRE.

I went 0 for 7.

So this year, I'm focusing on what actually matters: the personal statement. It is the single most important part of the application. Never mind what the departmental websites say about holistic approaches and solid backgrounds; that all matters, but only as an initial check on the candidate before the real admitting and rejecting happens based on the PS.

Focus on matching your research interests to specific professors, and write why they will want to supervise you and why your research will benefit from them. And spend some words doing so: I've been told about 40% of the PS should be discussing this (last year, I used about 15%). Don't just look at their subfield ("comparative politics") and confirm that their area focus ("Africa") matches yours. Read their bios, but then analyze their CVs. Find recent articles and/or books. Then read the works themselves. Quickly, you'll find the professor you thought was a perfect match is actually only tangentially related to your research.

Which is the second most important thing: have your research absolutely sorted out. Have a research question. Make sure you could explain to your grandmother it in 100 words or fill 10,000 words discussing its intricacies, because you'll have to do both at some point. They won't take you on interest ("I want to look at political violence") and credentials ("I have an MPhil from Cambridge") alone. They want to know that you can formulate and articulate a proper scholarly inquiry. This should also take up about 40% of the PS, according to academic advisors with whom I've spoken (last year, I spent about 25% on this).

Maybe these things were obvious to other first-time applicants and I just lost my way, or stupidly ignored it. But I certainly wish someone had drilled this into me before I started work on my applications. Perhaps I would have got an offer last year. Perhaps not. Either way, my personal statement was concise and well-written but completely useless for my application. I deserved my rejections. And so will you if you don't take this advice.

Best of luck.

Any ranking that doesn't have Rochester in the top 10 is flawed.

I think many would be interested to know that according to firsthand accounts, the median age of protesters is 26, with a mean of 29. That's older than most would have guessed, with many "old" people mixed in. (Do you think yourself "just some young hippie, hoping to live some 1960s fantasy?" Or would you consider yourself a reasonably-informed political actor?)

Also, median income for bottom 90% in America grew at 4.2% p/a pretty stably 1933-1980. Then the Reagan Revolution occurred, neo-liberalism ruled, and it shrank at -.1% p/a 1980-2007 (growing from $10,000 to $30,000 in average annual income through 1980, then stagnating).

The figures for the top 1% are 1% growth p/a, then 4.7% p/a since 1980, tripling average annual income from $400,000 to $1.2m. Source.

We don't just have inequality. We have Ivory Coast inequality. (No offense, Ivory Coast.)

I think many would be interested to know that according to firsthand accounts, the median age of protesters is 26, with a mean of 29. That's older than most would have guessed, with many "old" people mixed in. (Do you think yourself "just some young hippie, hoping to live some 1960s fantasy?" Or would you consider yourself a reasonably-informed political actor?)

Also, median income for bottom 90% in America grew at 4.2% p/a pretty stably 1933-1980. Then the Reagan Revolution occurred, neo-liberalism ruled, and it shrank at -.1% p/a 1980-2007 (growing from $10,000 to $30,000 in average annual income through 1980, then stagnating).

The figures for the top 1% are 1% growth p/a, then 4.7% p/a since 1980, tripling average annual income from $400,000 to $1.2m. Source.

We don't just have inequality. We have Ivory Coast inequality. (No offense, Ivory Coast.)

You're a Fulbright. To quote a great film, "Chill, Winston."

(I got a SAIS offer but went abroad instead.)

Hello all,

After four months' hiatus, I'm back for another cycle - good to see some old faces (handles?) around. To my knowledge, no applications are open for business yet, but with Yale's coming online Monday, I thought now would be a good time to wish everyone good luck. More importantly, to all the new applicants this year, I'm going to try and give some unsolicited advice. Here goes:

Last year, I went into applications humble yet confident. I had a 3.90 at a top-10 national university with a reputation for difficulty, research experience, was doing a master's at Cambridge, had worked in government for 9 months in addition to various internships, was awarded Phi Beta Kappa and other honors, had 3 good recommendations from tenured professors, submitted a capstone paper for a sample, and had a 1570 GRE.

I went 0 for 7.

So this year, I'm focusing on what actually matters: the personal statement. It is the single most important part of the application. Never mind what the departmental websites say about holistic approaches and solid backgrounds; that all matters, but only as an initial check on the candidate before the real admitting and rejecting happens based on the PS.

Focus on matching your research interests to specific professors, and write why they will want to supervise you and why your research will benefit from them. And spend some words doing so: I've been told about 40% of the PS should be discussing this (last year, I used about 15%). Don't just look at their subfield ("comparative politics") and confirm that their area focus ("Africa") matches yours. Read their bios, but then analyze their CVs. Find recent articles and/or books. Then read the works themselves. Quickly, you'll find the professor you thought was a perfect match is actually only tangentially related to your research.

Which is the second most important thing: have your research absolutely sorted out. Have a research question. Make sure you could explain to your grandmother it in 100 words or fill 10,000 words discussing its intricacies, because you'll have to do both at some point. They won't take you on interest ("I want to look at political violence") and credentials ("I have an MPhil from Cambridge") alone. They want to know that you can formulate and articulate a proper scholarly inquiry. This should also take up about 40% of the PS, according to academic advisors with whom I've spoken (last year, I spent about 25% on this).

Maybe these things were obvious to other first-time applicants and I just lost my way, or stupidly ignored it. But I certainly wish someone had drilled this into me before I started work on my applications. Perhaps I would have got an offer last year. Perhaps not. Either way, my personal statement was concise and well-written but completely useless for my application. I deserved my rejections. And so will you if you don't take this advice.

Best of luck.