RWBG

I don't submit anything important that isn't formatted in LaTeX. It would be pretty silly for them to think that demonstrates that you're "trying too hard." Edit: Just don't include an abstract

Congrats!

That link is helpful if you're looking at IPE, but IPE is just a subset of PE. A lot of political science programs have people interested in some form of political economy; can you be more specific?

Let's hope it means that there are (anomalously) fewer applicants this year! Or (operating on the assumption that E(applicant|he or she is on gradcafe)>E(applicant)) that it means the quality distribution has shifted favorably from a probability of admissions standpoint. Haven't submitted my applications, as I'm working up to asking one professor to write a reference letter for me, and want some results from a course I'm taking currently before I do so. Beyond that, I am engaged in an iterated process of SOP revision. Edit: There are also probably feedback effects. Less frequent posting => less frequent checking of grad cafe/less interest => less frequent posting.

The listing of HKS and not Harvard Government does seem to indicate to me that the OP was looking more at policy programs; policy focused master's degrees are far less competitive than Ph.D programs. But besides that, I think balderdash's comments on competitiveness hold if you exchange "most" with "many."

NRC ≠ US News and World Report. The IR rankings only go up to 20, if I remember correctly; there is no other publicly available data. For other rankings, see this link:

If you used Excel for data work (or maybe used Solver?) it could be worthwhile to add it to your C.V. However, what I meant was more along the lines of programming languages, STATA, SPSS, LaTeX, etc. I think, in general, you should avoid making your SOP too "CV like," and instead have it contextualize your background within your academic goals/interests. If done in this way, it shouldn't be redundant; you might mention that your RA experience with Prof X taught you Y and influenced your research interests in Z way, and then have the details of the project in the CV.

The thing about a CV/Resume hybrid is that political science admissions committees are not going to care about your work experience unless it in some way says something about you as a scholar. Virtually anything that does can be shoehorned into a CV category (e.g. "Professional Experience"). But you need to be careful about including irrelevant information. The "seminar papers" (maybe "research papers"?) section is, I think, a good suggestion for CV padding, as it gives an idea of your research interests, as well as some basic idea of how you approach questions. You can also include things like computer skills (if relevant), languages, and contact info for your references. That should bring you to at least one page, which I suspect is sufficient for applications.

Mv0027, sorry if my last post sounded a bit pointed; it wasn't intended to sound as such. My main points are this; (1) Your best bet is not going to be to paint yourself as a pure methods applicant if you are without a background in calculus (or a formal theorist applicant, for that matter.) This will lessen your likelihood of admission. (2) You should be sure you have a good conception of what work in political methodology entails before deciding it's what you want to do, and how it differs from applied methods. If you do, that's great. It's just hard for me to imagine having a clear idea that you want to do methods proofs, etc. without a solid background in the calculus required to understand the work being done in the field. I also think it would also be extremely difficult to identify pure polmeth research questions you want to address without that background, which could create difficulties when writing your SOP. Northstar; you mentioned taking algebra - if that's a linear or complex algebra course that involves proofs, that might give you a better sense of whether pure methods work is for you, and might be a better signal for admissions committees. Once again, this shouldn't prevent you from pursuing training in econometrics, and looking to apply it in your research, even if your main substantive focus is not political methodology. However, if you do decide polmeth is what you want to focus on, you should also look at University of Georgia; their current strength in the subfield is not yet reflected in broader rankings, and is probably similarly not reflected in admissions competitiveness.

I think it would be extremely difficult to signal to an admissions committee that you're going to be a strong applicant for a specialization in political methodology without some background in mathematics and statistics. Mv0027 (and maybe the original poster) appear to be conflating applied methods - i.e. using regression and other statistical methods to deal with other substantive questions - with political methodology work, which as Penelope noted, often involves developing new statistical techniques, demonstrating how particular techniques should be used when dealing with certain kinds of political questions, developing new methods of measurement, etc. This requires more than a working understanding of statistical programming; you need to thoroughly understand the mathematical assumptions being made in the model you're estimating. By all means, indicate an interest in learning statistics and applying it in your research, but don't paint yourself as a pure methods applicant if you haven't taken calculus. If you find you're really excelling at it during your Ph.D, then maybe you can shift your focus after gaining admission. Anecdotally, most of the people I know who specialize in methods had an undergraduate math major. As an aside, when thinking about whose advice to take seriously on this forum, Penelope's will be amongst the best. She's served on admissions committees, and her advice is usually sounder than the speculation of a lot of others on this board (myself included.)

Caltech has a broader social sciences department instead of a political science department. Seriously though, look at the faculty and placement and I don't think you'll be so skeptical.

Something I wrote earlier: Keep in mind the different strengths of the department. For example WashU (assuming you mean WUSTL and not UWashington) has a strong focus in formal theory, which means math skills, etc. will be more of a factor in your competitiveness. If you give more information about yourself, I'm sure members of this forum would be happy to give you more specific advice.

In my case, it would involve doing stats work, which would be useful irrespective of its effect on admissions competitiveness. Nonetheless, it would be good to know, if only to have a sense of the degree to which it should be emphasized in the SOP.

I've worked as an RA for two professors in the past, and I'm looking to do some more work for a third. However, time is limited, and I'm wondering what people think the added benefit of doing more RA work is to admissions competitiveness, especially given that this is a professor I likely would not ask for a reference letter. Any thoughts?

@IRdreams. Thanks for the advice/info. I decided to take micro theory.

It appears I didn't include the link to the "this website" I mentioned in my earlier post. Here it is: http://graduate-school.phds.org/university/siuc/program/outcomes/political-science/1807

You may not need a Ph.D from a top 25, but the market is very competitive, and Southern Illinois is far enough away from the top that it may prove tricky to find a position. As a guide, this website suggests that only 29% of graduates from Southern Illinois get jobs upon completion of their Ph.D (of which I imagine a very small percentage are tenure-track), and their drop-out rate is very high. Without knowing your stats, it's hard to assess how competitive you would be at other institutions, but I would recommend you think through it carefully before committing to a program that subjects you to such high risk in the long term.

This thread is heavily oriented towards those interested in pursuing academic work. There's a policy forum that may prove more useful for you: http://forum.thegradcafe.com/forum/11-government-affairs/

The political economy of trade is actually a well-developed sub-sub-field in political science. Off the top of my head, I would check out work by Helen Milner, James Alt, Lisa Martin, Michael Hiscox, Ronald Rogowski, and Judith Goldstein. Also, especially on the formal side, there's a lot of overlap with work done by economists (I think Grossman & Helpman won the APSA award for best book in political economy one year?) so it's worth checking out people like Grossman, Helpman, Rodrik, etc. as well.

Not primarily looking to signal research interests: my thesis and other courses do that well enough, although I suppose more wouldn't hurt. Essentially, I'm looking to balance the possible added benefit (over trade theory) of micro as a signal of formal ability with the possible added benefit (over micro theory) of taking a grad-level trade theory course to my substantive knowledge (I took trade at the undergrad level.) If the signal difference is enough I would probably take micro over trade theory, but if grad trade theory also functions as a strong signal of formal ability, I might be inclined to stick with trade theory. It also would be useful to hear from someone about how much use the content of micro theory would be to future work in formal theory. I should note: I double majored in political science and economics, so I'm looking at the marginal benefit of these grad-level courses in addition to my undergraduate coursework. The micro course would be the standard micro sequence for econ grad students. I'm a little confused by what you mean when you say trade research doesn't involve micro, but just "straight econ." Most trade research done by economists is essentially applied micro, and even a lot of political economy work on the subject (see Grossman & Helpman's Protection for Sale) uses a lot of micro. Perhaps you can clarify your point? Also, @IRDreams, when you say it's suggested, suggested by whom/in what context? Thanks for your responses, by the way.

I'm doing a year-long MA in political science at a top-25ish school, and as part of my MA I plan on taking some graduate courses in the economics department (probably two total, in addition to math camp!). I definitely plan on taking econometrics, but I'm still deciding between a few options for the other course, with a major factor in my consideration being the relative value of different courses in terms of signalling to Ph.D program adcomms. As far as research interests, I'm primarily interested in formal theory applications in the political economy of international trade. The two courses I'm leaning towards are micro theory and international trade theory. The sense I get is that micro theory may be a better signal, but the segments of the course focusing on producer theory/general equilibrium/some of consumer theory may not be particularly useful for someone not primarily interested in economics, especially given that I already have a fairly strong background in micro theory at the undergrad level. Trade theory, on the other hand, may prove substantively useful given my research interests, and it uses a fair bit of math/micro, but I'm not sure how adcomms would view it in terms of signalling. Anyone have any thoughts/insights?

I think PH's point is more about one's desired approach to security studies than which aspects of security one is interested in. It sounds as though FSU may not be a good choice for applicants who aren't interested in game theory and econometrics, irrespective of the particularities of their substantive interests.

I'm not sure if I'll have successfully caught anyone from this past application season before they left gradcafe, but if I have, I thought I'd encourage you to post your personal statements! I'm finding the statements in the previous SOP-posting thread to be very helpful in working on my SOP for next year, and I'm greedily hoping to get even more to work with! Here's the link to the previous thread:

Hmm, maybe the game theory sequences are hosted by the GSB? That does sound surprising!

Also, many people I've spoken with seem to think that Stanford's training generally is the best anywhere. But I can't speak to that directly.