natofone

A program that is specifically called IR will likely be academically oriented. The other poster was correct. You're looking for public policy, not political science. In that case work experience matters. Foreign Policy magazine has a ranking of them on their website.

Work experience is more or less irrelevant. US News and World report has a top 10 in IR. Foreign Policy magazine also publishes a top 25 in IR.

It doesn't seem like you need a PhD for your goals if they consist of teaching part time and doing occasional research or working for a government agency or NGO. A PhD will do you no better than an MA for these goals. People from my MA-only grad program are teaching part-time at community colleges and adjunct already. For government work an MA is more than sufficient. Why not go for an area studies MA instead?

You've heard wonderful things about Columbus, Ohio? Do you consider drunken fights, muggings, and riots after football games to be positive?

Chicago has lost several good faculty in the past 4-5 years and their more recent hires haven't been that great (outside of stealing Wilkinson from Duke). They're also rumored to possibly be losing some of their heavy hitters this year. A few of their big names are also no longer publishing or doing much research. I'm speaking only of IR and CP. I don't know anything about American or Theory.

Only big change is Princeton up 3 spots and Chicago falling out of the top 10 (not a surprise).

I think that you're blurring the lines between ideological and methodological distinctions, or something, with your constant reference to the current financial crisis. What exactly is your argument? I also believe that you are employing a false notion of the goal of statistical research. A standard regression analysis does not argue causality. Instead, it argues correlation. It argues that a relationship exists and can measure the strength of a relationship, but it can rarely determine the direction of causality. It works great for certain kinds of problems, but poorly for others.

There are limits as to what both statistical methods and non-statistical methods can achieve, but both are valid methods. Statistical projects can rarely determine the direction of causation for a specific correlative relationship, but they can make generalizations on a wider scope of cases than can qualitative methods. Statistical projects can establish that relationships exist and allow for generalizations, but qualitative projects allow for the explanation of extreme, outlier cases (which are commonly more interesting, but statistical projects commonly ignore). Quantitative and qualitative methods work great together.

Statistics are no panacea, but they have their place for certain types of questions that pertain to particular topics. I suggest these articles: Robert W. Jackman,

Yah, I just had the print version laying around. They only list the top 25 for the print version. They also list a top 10 for each subfield. Johns Hopkins ranked 5th in theory for the year I'm looking at, but none of those schools made any of the sub-field top 10.

This is from the 2001 survey via US News in the 2005 print magazine: 1. Harvard 2. Stanford Berkeley Michigan 5. yale 6. princeton 7. ucsd 8. duke ucla chicago 11. columbia mit rochester wisconsin 15. ohio state minnesota UNC 18. Indiana WashU 20. cornell northwestern 22. michigan state 23. SUNY-stony brook UIUC Texas (austin) u of Washington Comparative: 1. Harvard 2. UCSD 3. Berkeley 4. Stanford 5. UCLA 6. Yale 7. Princeton 8. Columbia Duke 10. Michigan IR: 1. Harvard 2. Stanford 3. Columbia 4. Yale 5. Michigan 6. Princeton Berkeley 8. Duke 9. UCSD 10. Chicago

Look into housing in one of the neighboring suburbs, like Worthington.

See below:

It sounds good and might be helpful on paper. If you've never done research and/or went to a mediocre undergrad, it seems like a good option to get you research experience, test out grad school, and get better letters from Columbia faculty in your research area. But expect to pay a ton for it. It is a cash cow for sure, but so what if you get what you want out of it.

Plisar, I'm shocked!That is hardly a falsifiable theory. To predict Event A (burn city down) will not come after Event B (a big win), Event B must actually have a chance to occur. (i kid!)

Hilarious. When in the world will they release these?

Maybe. I recently finished an MA from a security-oriented IR program where we met with security practitioners from think tanks, govt agencies, security agencies, etc. and they very consistently said that a PhD will not offer as much in return as it costs. They said that the MA or MPP is definitely worth the effort, but that the leap from policy-oriented MA to PhD wouldn't result in that much of a change in career trajectory. All of this being said, the person in question can usually leave the program after receiving their MA in political science and pursue a career in the security sector, so it isn't like they're locked into this forever. Still, I'd prefer the quant-heavy training of a two year MPP/MA over a highly theoretical political science PhD. It seems like there are very different skill sets involved with each option and the MA/MPP option is more geared towards succeeding in an applied security environment.

Yes, my house at 8pm tonight.

Do those benefits outweigh the opportunity costs of being outside of policy work for 5-7 years to finish a PhD? It seems to me like a MPP or MA in security/IR plus five years of work would at least balance out any possible benefits of an academic (i.e. political science) PhD. A three to four year public policy PhD at a top 5 program, maybe...but political science? Plus, you can make a few hundred grand during the time that PhD folks kill themselves writing their dissertation, destroy their social life, and eat spaghetti on 20k/year stipends.

You can do constructivism and IR at a few places. Off the top of my head, look into Ohio State, Minnesota, Johns Hopkins, and Northwestern.

In regards to statistics/linear regression at Chicago, it might be difficult. You only get one or two pure electives and many people use it as an independent study to complete their thesis. You won't get much out of one political science stats course at Chicago. It definitely won't get you 'up and running,' but it will help with reading the quantitative literature so that you can make sense of the jargon. The intro courses in political science were a bit too impractical and theoretical, so I took did my statistical training in sociology instead so that I could actually do a quantitative thesis. This definitely wouldn't have been possible in the first poli sci stats course. You'd be better off taking more reading seminars and building strong relationships with faculty that will translate into good letters. Be strategic about it and pick out full professors that have clout in the field. There seemed to be a distinct hierarchy in terms of how faculty dealt with different types of students. PhD Poli Sci > PhD not Poli Sci > CIR > Public Policy MAs > MAPSS (general social science degree). I had a professor absolutely flake out on a letter of recommendation despite getting an A in his course , but several others have been extremely helpful. At times it was difficult to get into the political science PhD-level courses, but if you learned to contact the professors before the first day you were usually given priority over those in your cohort that didn't.

http://www.zotero.org/ Free and amazing!

Do you have a tuition waiver? There is no reason to even consider getting a PhD without funding if they don't give you a full tuition waiver. You can't take on that much debt unless you're going to law or medical school.

You're going to do an unfunded PhD at Georgetown?

You think?