firefly28

With late night stuff it depends on where you live; some routes go very late into the night. Some areas aren't exactly the type that you want to be coming home from late at night though. There are a bunch of grocery stores around and several within bus range.

It depends on where you're living. You can do a lot through public transportation, but if you're living out of the city I'd definitely get a car. That being said, some of the best places (eg the Strip) are absolute nightmares for parking and actually easier to get to through buses. Just be aware that port authority buses are old, tend to smell, and often are populated by crazy people. In three years, I've seen a guy pee on the floor of a bus, a drug deal, semi-regularly people talking to themselves, and most recently, a guy bragging to his friend how he intimidated a witness into not testifying against him in a jewelry robbery case.

I just turned down one super great package to accept another. Both departments were really good, slightly different strengths but both suited toward my interests. With the departments and financial offers roughly even, I ended up considering the respective locations, and this is where one school prevailed over the other: one location is definitely nicer than the other. Also, one location is much easier to get by on public transportation than the other, which is a major issue for me since I don't drive. But turning down a terrific offer from a school that made a wonderful presentation is still very hard to do

If anyone was waitlisted by ASU, a spot just opened up as I declined their offer of admission. Beautiful campus, good faculty, just not financially competitive with my other offers.

Yes, I definitely wouldn't advise choosing American if you're a qualitative researcher. Comparative can be ok, as can IR.

So, I'm considering one school that has the CCES and one school that doesn't. I'm entering as an Americanist so if I attend the school that has it, I'd be using it. How good is it? Is it a big advantage for the schools that have it? Is it used for journal articles in the top journals? Etc.

I agree. My interest is more topical than field, but I'm entering as an Americanist. I will say this: I think that currently IR is the most popular field. Even schools who are a bit stronger in American are getting tons of very good IR students. That's not to say that you should give up IR if that's your thing, just know that the competition is the strongest and in 5 years, the jobs will probably be the most competitive. Well, unless you choose theory.

I agree with the folks who've already replied. If you check faculty listings at some universities, you'll find that some professors have undergrad degrees in math, or economics, or psychology. I actually know of one doctoral student whose undergrad is in theater(!). A math background gives you a nice head start on the quantitative end of research, and I'd STRONGLY suggest applying to quantitative-heavy departments. And yes, leaving out the CR part--depending on who reads your file, they could junk it just due to that. So the question to ask really is "given my interest in (x), where should I apply?" I'm guessing you're one of those IPE people.

Not bad advice, but the methodological concentration issue is one factor in my decision-making process: one of the two schools I'm considering has more folks with a background in experimental, the other has more of a focus on other methodology.

I'm thinking about what avenues of research to concentrate on once I start my doctorate in the fall. I already have a collection of ideas, about half of which are experimental in nature and half of which are not. Think it's better to concentrate on the non-experimental research topics? Experimental is costlier and harder to do, and I'm not sure if it's harder to get published in the better journals.

I also use Ubuntu. I can use R but I won't be using any proprietary stats programs that might come up in classes, at least not on my own computer. Which doesn't matter since R is better than them anyway.

That does help. Are you familiar with the area that is the FSU graduate apartments?

One of the worst parts of waiting: fear that someone will come out with a very similar research design as you have in mind. It's happened twice already :\

This is anecdotal, but I spoke with an MSU graduate not that long ago who said that they would not recommend the program. I did not inquire as to why but I get the impression that there might be some hostility and ego issues in the ranks of the dept.

Behavior, possibly with methods as a minor field. Have you heard anything about likely turnover at FSU? I've heard that it has a bit of a reputation as a school with high faculty turnover, which is a bit discouraging.

Ah too bad. What field are you interested in?

I'll be at FSU, in the Sunday to Tuesday group. Is that yours too?

Already posted in the other thread but I loved my visit to UGA. Will it affect my decision? Well, UGA set a very high bar. They're ahead. I need to get a sense of comfort from the other universities, or else it won't even be a contest.

I'll provide one for: University of Georgia Faculty: I met nine different professors, all of whom were very friendly. Georgia has an interesting mix--Keith Poole, one of the top 5 methods people in the country (and probably one of the top 2 on polarization, along with Morris Fiorina), and there are a few other older faculty, but a lot of the faculty is younger. The faculty also seems to genuinely enjoy it there. Georgia has a VERY strong methods crew--along with KP, Ryan Bakker, Jamie Monogan and a few others have terrific backgrounds in methods. Cohort: Can't answer this one too well as I didn't meet a sizable amount, but from whom I met, I can say that I do think it will be a strong crop of serious but not cutthroat graduate students. Grad students: Only briefly met a few. They too seem to enjoy it and there is good rapport between students and faculty. Misc. stuff: I'm from a lousy-weather city. Athens was absolutely beautiful when I visited--temps in the lower sixties, sunshine. It had apparently been even warmer the week prior. Athens is every bit as football crazed as you might have heard. 'Dawg' stuff everywhere. If you like college football (I'm meh about it), you'll like your time there. The overall student population is more diverse than I would have expected. There is definitely a large party scene--as someone put it, 40 restaurants and 40 bars. That being said, I get the impression that one can also mostly avoid this contingent of the population. It is very possible to get around the city without having a car. There's a pretty good bus system--the buses look newer and nicer than the ones in my city, and Athens isn't geographically a huge area, with most of the relevant restaurants etc. in relatively small clusters. I ate supper at a nice Indian restaurant. The dish had some veggies in it, and the onions were the freshest and best tasting that I've ever had; I'm guessing they buy them local. I didn't notice much in the way of 'suburbs'. Basically you go from Athens to the country (and I mean country) pretty fast. I only noticed one confederate flag, and it was way out in the country in between Atlanta and Athens. Finally, about the program: I get the impression that the program is going to rise up in the rankings over the next few years. Keith Poole will be doing some very interesting stuff, and a few of the younger professors have some very good stuff in development. I think that in 4 years, UGA may be ranked at Pitt's level. So, right now I consider it to be one of the best deals in the country. The school seems to really be ramping up efforts to distinguish itself. At the undergrad level, the average SAT score admitted last year was 1300. So, if you're thinking about a poli sci program for next year and have an interest in methods, I'd certainly endorse applying to Georgia. Note that Georgia splits international politics/affairs from American/comparative, which is somewhat uncommon. As a grad student you can still take an IA course but it is a different department in a different location. As a result, I know fairly little about it, though there are a few professors who do work on subjects of interest to me (violent political conflict, ethnic politics) All in all, I was very satisfied with my visit to Georgia. The faculty (and the weather) couldn't have been nicer.

It seems everyone is familiar with ICPSR. I am wondering, besides ICPSR, what other summer methods training (or other such training) programs are there? There's also CQRM (http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/moynihan_cqrm.aspx?id=36507224403) And Stanford has a summer training in political psychology (http://www.stanford.edu/group/sipp/) What else?

So, I've now visited one campus, and I was very impressed. They've been very generous with their financial offer, they have some outstanding faculty and they seem like a very non-neurotic, non-cutthroat group. I have two more visits scheduled but I'm wondering if I shouldn't just cut it down to one more. I wouldn't say that I've eliminated the third school, but their offer is significantly less generous financially (as in roughly half as much money) and I just don't think they have enough of an edge in quality to cause me to choose them with that financial aid package. I suppose there is always the possibility that they could find more money, but that may not be too plausible.

It makes sense for two reasons: 1) More and more people are getting bachelors degrees, meaning that the degree is worth less than it used to be and more people are naturally inclined to seek a graduate degree. 2) The economy still sucks and has sucked during the entire app window. Gallup's numbers are different (and more pessimistic) than the BLS, and I'm inclined to believe them: 10.8% unemployment, and 19% underemployment. This also is going to increase the number of applications. If it wasn't for the fact that I'm already 25 (26 in June), I might have even considered waiting another year to apply just because I would've likely gotten in at several schools that I ultimately didn't apply for. But I'm an old man. And anyway I'm happy with the schools that accepted me.

Your username is ironic given mine. Browncoat, or just a coincidence?

Chicago is also a fairly expensive city. Would you be able to cover living expenses?

I agree about the issue of ETS' monopoly. They charge usurious fees for taking the test and then subsequently for sending it to more schools, and they can do so because they have no competition.