Count de Monet

Normally you are to send in your transcripts "as is" to the departments, and then submit your Fall grades to them once they are available. I don't understand why they wouldn't be considering you anyways with the grades that you have submitted. They should understand that with many deadlines before grades are submitted that not everyone will be able to get their fall grades in to them before applications are due. Princeton, for example, wants people to submit their transcripts, and then applicants are to submit an additional form with Fall grades once they become available...but they still consider you anyways even if you don't submit that form is my understanding.

This is my third attempt. The first one yielded a Masters program acceptance from a great program. Last year, I was basically shut out. This year...well, here's to hoping that something comes through

I hear you...I find myself getting irrationally irritated, especially when I'm asked about PhD programs.... the waiting is the hardest part...

Harvard trolls are pretty obvious, so maybe last year's Harvard trolls are making their trolling more realistic and stealthy

You shouldn't go to grad school unless you're sure about what you want to study. Grad school isn't the best place to sort of tinker around with different sub-fields until you find the one you like.

PS had one in their April 2010 edition, but it was just for political theory programs I believe...

Why upwards of 10-15 schools for some people...mainly because of how competitive certain field are. You need a couple safety schools for "just in case", and maybe you want to shoot for the moon and apply to a HYP to see if you might squeeze in. Sure, maybe there are 3-4 where you know you'd love to go; however, while you may know where you really want to go, you have to figure that with so many applicants (they doubled last year and it figures not to drop much this year) and fewer spaces because of budget cuts you need other places to apply to to increase your odds of acceptances.

email two professors from college who you took either more than once, or in whose class you know you put forth a great amount of effort. They might remember you. If not, start emailing professors in whose class you got an A in. If any of them even vaguely remember you, ask if they will write you a recommendation providing that you give them your SoP, writing sample, resume and a copy of the papers you wrote for their class (you do still have them saved right?). Giving them all those things will make it so much easier on them to write the letter. That's your only option. No recommendations from professors means no grad school.

to have been safe, I should have taken out a massive loan and just bribed people. Forget all this hard work and crap!

The problem with polls like this is a lot of people don't know about "university X" so they pick some mediocre school that they do know about over it. Or they don't know much about either university and guess because one sounds better than the other. Or they go upon past reputations. For example, University of Toronto is an excellent Poli-Sci institution, and I believe it has the largest Poli-Sci faculty in North America, but it's rated with Pittsburgh (!!!!!!???????) on this poll. Another example is having to compare Claremont Graduate University to American University (as an example). Obviously American University being in DC should rank higher than Claremont...I mean, seriously? Claremont. They're good? However, Claremont has a wonderful reputation for theory, but most people don't know that so they go ahead and pick American University. Finally there's the example of UC Berkeley. Berkeley was once a poli-sci powerhouse and pumped out good quality professors (especially in Theory); however, despite still having that reputation their faculty has really gone down in quality. People may pick Berkeley because it's a big name with a past great reputation.

I hope they're not googling potential students because odd are they're not going to find much on the actual person. It would be a massive waste of time. Now, if they wanted to look at facebook pages......

Your professor is a flipping moron. He IS paid by the university to do that stuff. It's part of your job as a professor to write letters of recommendation. As one of my professors put it, "we (meaning professors) have a social contract with students for life. If you need a recommendation from us and we can write an effective letter, it is our duty to do it for you."

what brain defect causes people to spend thousands of dollars applying to graduate school multiple times....

mine is from Mel Brooks' "History of the World Pt. 1" where one of the characters is "Count de Monet" pronounced "count the money" Good ol' Mel Brooks humor!

I did in the introduction of my SoP because my particular background and upbringing were important in explaining why I wanted to study a particular issue. Basically, if it's not relevant to why you want to go to that school or what you want to study you should not include it because all it does is take up space that you may need.

It's not a new hobby, but I've been playing more and more bocce ball and taking out frustration and anxiety on opponents

The AW score isn't so much about how well you can write, but how well you can write a GRE essay. What they look for is quantity. How much can you write and how much of it makes sense. Quality over quantity does not apply. That was my mistake the first time I took the GRE. Perhaps that was yours as well?

If you email him then you're doomed. No professor will believe that you went 2+ weeks without checking your email. You need to go to his office, be honest with him, and pray that he takes the paper. Rule number one is always be honest with your professors because if you plan to go to grad school they will become your colleagues and you don't want your colleagues thinking that you're a cheater.

these are rounded numbers including my GRE stuff and 13 applications... 1200 for GRE prep. 180 for GRE scores 360 for transcripts 150 for mailing additional documents via fed-ex (damn you Fed-Ex for claiming my writing sample was not a letter but a package!!!) 900 for application fees about 2790 dollars...give or take. That's some nice air miles that I added onto my United Card. Thank God they sent it to me before the application process.

A lot of the responses here are very good. There are many factors to considered before deciding if a car is necessary or not. The first is how far away are you going to live from campus? Then, how good is the public transportation in the area? Also, factor in weather...are you from a "warm" state and going to a place where you could face ice, snow and sleet? If so maybe you don't want to have to learn how to drive in that on the fly. When I did my MA i only knew two of my fellow MAs who had a car at their disposal and used it every day.

Stanford Poli-Sci will make decisions in early Feb. Which is both good/bad I guess....

You should sue them for your moving expenses and rent and cost to move back. Also, some states allow this but I believe you can sue for lost expected income. For example, if you had accepted an offer elsewhere for a stipend of 15K, you can sue for that 15K since you were denied the opportunity to make that income through fault of another party. It's just like with a business. If you agree to cater a party and then they call and cancel in a way that violates the contract you can sue for lost income that you would have made had you catered the party.

Certain professors: "hmm...GPA in UG and Grad school are great. Well written letters are from respectable and known professors. SoP presents a 'sexy' topic in political philosophy. GRE scores are not bad, but could be better. So far I think I like what I see here; now for that writing sample. Ooooo, a paper on a relevant debate in political theory maybe we've got a winner here.... ...... ...... ........ ............. .................... BURN IT!!!!!! BURN IT!!!! How dare any student dare to attack the conclusions by Leo Strauss on Hobbes! BANISH HIM TO THE REJECTION PILE!!!!!!"

The best thing is not for you to contact professors, but for one of your letter writers or professors to put in a phone call on your behalf. Seriously, it's all about who you know not what you know.

I was really hoping that when they said they were going to redo the GRE, that they'd create two tests: One for people in more math related fields (engineering, physics, etc) and then one for people in humanities, poli-sci, etc. The reason for this is that if you look at the breakdown of scores you have people in engineering, physics, etc scoring an average score in the low 700s. That dramatically shifts the total average on the quant section up high. The first time i took the GRE I got the exact same score for my quant and verbal, but the percentiles were 40% apart. It's almost absurd. However, if you take a look specifically at people who took the GRE and were going into humanities or poli-sci the average quant score was in the low-mid 600s. Big difference. It's really a bad system to have almost everyone going into grad school taking the same test.