Zahar Berkut

I plan to quit my job and hike the appalachian trail. I've already convinced myself I am not going to get in anywhere and, thanks to my back-up plan, I'm ok with it / excited!!!

Another "yes." Even if it's pro forma, it was great to see something from a grad program in my in-box. I also got a personal email yesterday from a POI (at another school) who was interested in my application, which made it the very best day ever.

Why are you doing this to yourself? Unless there is an incredibly serious red flag on your application, the only thing anyone can say is that you have a shot and that you need to wait and see. It is not like you are asking about what schools you need to consider, or what part of your application you can improve - you have already applied. The application season is over. There is nothing you can do anymore. You just have to wait and see. Obviously your numbers look fine enough to get you considered everywhere you apply. Other than that, maybe (hopefully) you will get into all of these schools, maybe none.
 
Please don't get me wrong, I mean no offense whatsoever. Having gone through this process more than once, I understand - probably more than most - the need for even a tiny bit of security and certainty. However, it is nowhere to be found. Bear with us and join the gradcafe community. We will help each other out in soothing and controlling our anxiety. We will also share your good and bad news. However asking for your chances on January 9th, when you have no control over the process anymore, will not help you.
 
Best of luck to you!

Statements like this blow my mind. I mean, even if you had some type of inside info, I would believe it for one school, but four schools?
 
I dunno. Maybe I'm totally clueless...

I would like to amend this statement. Single-spaced 9-point Arial Narrow with half-inch margins is a bit much.

What?
 
ETA: Reported as spam.
 
 
Confirmed. Stand down red alert.

The part where you said now that your "best friend" is pregnant you don't want to continue your friendship - at a time when she could probably seriously benefit from having a good friend around - is where I stopped caring about what you want for yourself. You have a lot of maturing to do, and you need to stop making yourself the center of the universe. It's beyond unattractive.

For your sake, I really, really hope you get as far away from home as possible and practise some growing up and independence. Good luck.

Don't be shy about taking care of a guy's needs, if you get my drift.

Neocon - If you have nothing nice to say, then you shouldn't say anything at all. Judging by your other inappropriate posts I am not surprised by your behavior. 

gokpinar - Your profile, minus your GRE scores, is good. If you don't get in this cycle, you can easily fix that problem. It is hard for any of us to say anything about your chances because we've never served on an admissions committee. 

You're either trolling or very naive/optimstic.

DONE!!
 
Every application is out and it feels great. The real break starts for me now. Next: Enjoy the new year festivities with copious amounts of alcohol.
 
Happy new year everyone! May 2014 bring all of us the great news we crave for. 

I've seen British D.Phil's occasionally sitting on American political science faculties, but almost never another European doctorate. I think it has a lot to do with methodological styles and networks, since you're less likely to spend a lot of time interacting with US professors before applying to a US department, and immersing yourself among the people driving those discourses. I also believe that European faculties often publish in different journals, which also makes a huge difference. But someone correct me if I'm off-base here.
 
And welcome!

A couple of thoughts on the rarity of European PhDs in teaching posts in American universities. This is a general statement that should be read as a description of reality that is neither an endorsement, nor without exceptions.
 
There are few recent PhDs from non-US schools teaching at US universities. Of those, the vast majority come from Canada and England. This is largely a result of the fact that American political science is quite different from political science in Europe. Different research questions, different standards for qhat makes good research, different emphases of methods, etc. The result is the emergence of two largely separate communities. These overlap to some extent in studies of European politics, and in some parts of the political theory subfield, but otherwise they largely exist independently of one another. US universities tend not to consider hiring European PhDs partly because of the lack of network connections between the two, but largely because they are concerned that PhDs trained in Europe are not equipped to teach classes or train graduate students in ways that reflect the American version of the political science discipline.
 
I have co-chaired a dissertation with someone at a prominent university in a non-England European country, and discovered that we had completely different expectations, not only in terms of the formal dissertation requirements but in terms of what constituted good research. These are the sorts of bridges that are hard to cross. And that, in my view, is why doing a PhD in most places in Europe, in most areas of study within political science, will limit your access to jobs in the US.

Sounds fine, but you're sure to get a better evaluation and advice from the government affairs section of Grad Cafe. This part of the forum is mostly interested in academic political science (Ph.D.s and research). For what it's worth, you sound like you're in good shape. Study for the GREs. Maybe start learning another language (if European, German, but otherwise consider Turkish, Arabic, Chinese, etc.).

I'm pretty confident that most of the people who are hearing back are in other disciplines. No need to be anxious yet. Use the search function in the results database and you'll find that most schools get back to their applicants in late January to early March.

The same goes for answering questions about Rochester---and lots of good luck to all.

I'm thoroughly enjoying it so far. The collegiality among graduate students and the availability of the faculty are some of the things that have stood out to me (it did so during the visit as well). Even though all students are assigned two first-year advisors, you are still able to approach any member of the faculty to ask questions/discuss research/etc. Last weekend I walked into the office of our acting head and got stuck there for 45 minutes and ended up walking out with two books...
 
Due to timing of when I entered the program my first year is mostly spent on methods (depending on whether you want to consider 'formal theory' to be methods or not). Unless they have neglected to share with those of us currently in the program, I don't believe that an official methods subfield is opening up. However, all students are required to take a substantial amount of methods courses and almost everyone takes more than the required amount. We have at least one advanced student who is specializing in methods as a compliment to their primary subfield.
 
If anyone has specific questions about Illinois, or general questions about this wonderful process, I'm happy to reply via PM or here in the thread! Good luck to all of you!

Absolutely! You're NOT writing for the adcom, you're writing for the department as a whole!

I had to calculate it myself for some applications based on what I know were the courses that fulfilled the major. One of my applications specifies that the numbers should be reflected on the official transcript, so I'm leaving that major GPA blank.

Submitted my last application today. Very anticlimactic, but glad to be done with that step. Now the waiting begins... starting first week of February and stopping at the end of March. That's going to be quite a two-month period.

I suspect that these sorts of statements could play a role in the final cut, when the department needs to almost arbitrarily throw out applications to make a limited number of offers. The sort of thing that can't hurt, but might help.
 
I'm dealing with mine right now, for my only program that requires it, and I'm really scratching my head on how much detail to go into in how I "really" decided to apply to a doctoral program and how my life experiences shaped that decision. They also did not specify a length limit-- I plan to keep it below 1000 words.

Submitted my last application today. Very anticlimactic, but glad to be done with that step. Now the waiting begins... starting first week of February and stopping at the end of March. That's going to be quite a two-month period.

Submitted my last application today. Very anticlimactic, but glad to be done with that step. Now the waiting begins... starting first week of February and stopping at the end of March. That's going to be quite a two-month period.

There is nothing wrong with doing the calculation yourself, and some schools will specifically ask for it, in which case you are expected to calculate it (if your school didn't). It's beside the point, but in my opinion you should be proud of your GPA - a 3.5 with a double major in econ. is quite respectable. That said, I would not add anything to your transcript. If you are compelled to include this information, I would add it elsewhere in your application, but I wouldn't do anything that could appear to be tampering with a transcript.

Good luck.
-adapt