natofone

You think?

I would like to encourage my competition (next year) to do exactly this. Every one of ya!

If you are planning to pursue a career outside of academia then you should avoid the political science PhD. You won't even get into a program if you put that on your statement of purpose. A public policy PhD is a better option because it'll only take you 4 years (as opposed to 5-7 for political science) and you can write your dissertation on a very real-world, policy-oriented topic. The nice thing about many public policy programs is that you can often start off with an MA in PP and then transition into a public policy PhD program. I think the MA option might be the best place to start at this point. When I did my MA (in IR), our advisers made it very clear to us that the leap between BA to MA was huge, but that the leap from MA to PHD wasn't going to make a huge difference in terms of career trajectory.

What is up with UNC? Are they still having some bizarro-world admissions process?

Most people from my cohort at uchicago did NOT go into academia. Of the 45 or so, three are in PhD programs at this point. Most people went on to work in washington for some type of government agency, research group, or something along those lines.

I think that it is a bad idea to include political theory/philosophy if you're applying to programs for IR and CP. It seems like your interests fall largely into comparative politics camp, but IR scholars cover many of those same topics. I would suggest looking up some syllabi for different graduate seminars at top schools and reading through some of the titles on them. You'll then get a good idea as to how you really want to cover these topics. You should just try to figure out which literature you think your interests fit into best. Plus, this will help you answer this question yourself and give you information to work with on your personal statement.

I completely agree with you (expat) about IR/CP approach, but I don't think that same logic applies as well with CP/theory. I think that it would be a challenge to illustrate how all of the sub-fields, research areas, and methodologies mentioned fit well together.

Before you apply, make sure that you have a decent command of the literature pertaining to your interests (political economy of development, democratization, etc.). If you don't like this literature or can't fit yourself into a specific literature, then it'll be hard to craft a SOP that will illustrate how you fit within these sub-fields. If you specifically want to combine theory/ideas/philosophy with more of an applied approach to your questions, then you might want to look up some of the constructivism literature within international relations. Wendt and crew seem to look at more of the security side of these issues, but some scholars on the other side of international relations do some interesting things with norms, ideas, etc. For example, Keck and Sikkink's Activists Beyond Borders: http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=3056. Minnesota, WashU, and Northwestern are all strong in constructivism and might have good overlap with your interest in development and its concomitant sub-fields. I would pick one direction and go with that, at least in terms of your application. Either apply as a comparativist or a theoretician.

Two of the 'second-year option' people from my year ended up getting into Chicago. It won't make or break your application to Chicago, but it is by no means a stepping stone into the program.

Hi Guy. I am a Chicago CIR alum. Feel free to PM any specific questions.

I wonder why it is that I'm literally the only one that has been rejected from Northwestern already. They're acting like they haven't made any rejections from what everyone on here is saying. Has anyone else yet been rejected from NW this cycle?

Sorry to hear fenderpete. I hope that misery loves company, because you're not the only one. I struck out at thirteen programs total...and I have pretty good stats (3.5u, 3.7g, 720v/730q/6w).

They updated the website with a rejection letter. No emails or anything. I just stumbled upon it randomly...so I'm not sure why I'm the only one rejected. I couldn't have been THAT bad compared to other candidates.

I am somewhat annoyed that I am literally the only person to have been rejected yet. I wonder what I did to warrant that treatment. But, I'm glad to know...

hopeful2 - You applied to only extremely competitive schools, so don't take it personally that you didn't get in. It may, or may not, have anything to do with your policy background. I know several poli sci PhD students at good unis that had public policy backgrounds. You need to clearly demonstrate that you know exactly what political science is and that you have some very good reasons for switching towards a more theoretical and less applied discipline.

On another topic (China/IR), someone mentioned that his/her school is moving away from area studies. I've also heard that it is a dangerous practice to focus your application around one specific geographic location because of the debate over area studies vs. generalists. What are the general contours of this debate? Are there any articles in major journals discussing this debate? Which schools generally eschew area studies specialists and which school still embrace them? It looks like I'll be applying again next year after an unsuccessful admissions cycle and any help that you can offer would be great.

I really doubt that lower grades in a few math classes is going to sink your grad-school ship, or will even matter at all, if your overall GPA is within reason. The GRE is probably more of the culprit. Many schools use it as an arbitrary cutoff in order to filter out applications. An admissions committee can't read all 350 applications, so they toss 2/3rds of them because of arbitrary GRE and GPA cutoffs. The great thing about the GRE is that it is that you can retake it and it is merely a product of how much work you put into it. Study some of those GRE guides, take the math section once a week for two months, learn the exact formula for the essay, and get a good night of sleep before you take it.

Berkeley!

I beg to differ, as I have a definitive rejection.

Sorry, but I got this same response (exactly word for word) and then my rejection was posted on the website last night.

Anyone even slightly to the left of the far-right, troglodytes of talk radio and FOX news are denigrated as socialists. They say the same thing about Pelosi, Frank, Clinton, etc. It is just nonsensical propaganda. If he's a socialist then Sean Hannity is a Nazi.

I emailed and they said that decisions (the rejections I'm guessing) would start to be posted early next week. It seems like they have an internal waitlist that they'll fulfill spots from if people turn down the original offers.

Congrats...what else did you get into, and will harvard trump those places?

So you got in jackassjim?

Was it sent out/written in such a way that we should assume rejection if we didn't get anything?