firefly28

I get the impression that Chicago places much more emphasis on writing than many other universities, at least in regards to the consideration for grad school admittees. I think some of that has to do with the strengths of the program. Pitt is a more quantitatively focused program and is thus more concerned with the GRE-Q, undergraduate coursework in statistics and similar subjects, etc.

Still a few months away, but I'll have activities at the local church branch. Beside that, I hope to take up yoga and badminton. I don't drink, and I hate parties/clubs etc., so I won't be doing any of that.

Hmm...If you can find a few other people, you might be able to get a place in Sq Hill for around $300 a month each (that'd be a very good deal). I think you may want to consider living outside of the city. Your student ID functions as a bus pass so you could ride the bus in and out of town for free. There are cheap areas in Oakland, but you really don't want to live in them. And Bloomfield and (particularly) Shadyside is more expensive--again, if you're splitting an apartment with two or three other people, the cost comes down quite a bit and it can be manageable. For instance, you may be able to swing a place like this in Homestead, which is right by the very popular Waterfront shopping area: http://pittsburgh.cr...2186452062.html For food, there are places to buy in bulk. Check out the ethnic grocery stores, which often have bulk rate prices on rice. Load up on rice, wheat, etc. and use them for at least one meal a day. You can get a good lunch at the food trucks for $5; you can make that the main meal of the day and just have smaller home stuff for the other meals (ramen noodles ftw). If you find a roommate, that's $250 a month each for rent. Paying that little, I think you could live on $800 a month (get all the free food you can find at CMU and Pitt).

I talked to someone who advised to keep the SoP short and put the most important stuff first, because at some point, they were going to stop reading it--just a reality of having to go through a fairly large body of applications in a fairly short period of time (and balancing that with research projects and teaching, no less). I'm sure the same holds for the writing sample. Personally, I think the writing sample and LoR were my strongest attribute, as the former showed that I understood how to use statistics up through linear regression, and the latter showed that I had produced good work in serious classes. This was particularly importDoes anyone know if there are any other political science depts that don't require / don't pay attention to writing samples? ant since my GRE-V score (610) wasn't near as good as my Q score (730). Pitt doesn't require one, and if you do give one, it has to be in paper form, which is a good way of discouraging some people from doing so

Herbst is good, though I'd recommend having another book for a different outlook. I don't have one off by hand but if I come across one I'll add it.

When I called UNC a few weeks back, the person I talked to expressed something approaching the gradual dispersal of notices. Some of this may be that they need to check with their initial admittees to see if they're still interested, as for some, UNC may be a fallback for if Harvard, Stanford etc. don't offer admissions. Then, based on those initial reactions, they can adjust the rest of their admissions as necessary and send out the next round, doing the same. My third school first asked me if I was still interested in pursuing them (to which I quickly responded "YES").

Being from Pittsburgh, I concur. Pitt has a very strong Latin American studies faculty. I know someone who's getting a phd in Latin American literature, though he's concentrating on political literature and music from earlier in the 20th century. I can't speak for Michigan but I can say that Pitt is very good.

What subject within the humanities, and what concentration within the subject???

Haha no, that'd be Brownshirt community Browncoats are fans of Firefly and the movie followup, Serenity. Check out the following: www.fireflyfans.net www.serenityfirefly.com And, watch Firefly when it runs on Discovery Science starting March 6, at 8:00 EST. It's only the greatest show ever.

I also haven't heard back from UNC yet. With three acceptances though, it's not weighing too heavily on my mind. I'd like to get accepted and be able to check the place out and see what they have to offer, but if not, ok.

I fond this to be more representative of the GRE test I took, though the composition of the test, in terms of question focus, may vary year by year. I actually spent some time reviewing over geometry formulas etc. leading up to the test, but found that the test was seemingly aimed at gaging how intuitive your feel for mathematical concept was. I scored a 730, so I was plenty satisfied (I took nothing beyond a college algebra course and a course in basic statistics while an undergrad, though I've been teaching myself calc through the Khan Academy). Whether or not it was wise, I used the GRE-Q as a measure of how good my chances were at each university. I mainly applied to unis whose average of admittees were 50 or so below mine (but who still had good faculty).

Yes, no disrespect to folks who work in political economy--it's a great field, it's just not remotely what I'm interested in. The number of Indianists, or Africanists (particularly with respect to East and Central Africa) who do work in public opinion, campaigns, etc. seems to be rather lackluster :\

Thanks for the response and good luck, I'll look forward to reading your work. I hope to branch off into India at some point in my career, though I'm less interested in a given region (hence why I'm not applying to be a comparativist anywhere) than I am in certain countries across the globe. India is ripe for an incredible amount of work due to the complexity of the nation (and the fact that it's actually a functioning democracy, unlike, say, Congo DRC).

I've met Dave Barker; he's a reasonable guy. I think you'll have luck getting that all straightened out. Pitt guarantees funding for all admittees, so I don't know why they'd want to play games. I do think that they are under some budgetary constraints this year.

Indeed, good suggestion. Sumit Ganguly at Indiana does more than just India but he's done some noteworthy research specific to India. But beyond those two and Parikh at WashU... I can't imagine that in 20 years, most major departments won't have an Indianist. Prospective comparativists take note

True; it's even harder to find someone who specializes in India (and most people who do India seem to be more interested in political economy). So far, I've only found Sunita Parikh at Washington University in St. Louis. https://polisci.wustl.edu/people/sunita-parikh

One thing you may want to consider is applying to a broader range of schools. It looks like you were applying to top 10 schools; perhaps broaden that to top 20 or 30, depending on what your exact emphasis is? A few years back I talked to a doctoral student at Pitt who was in your exact position the first time he applied for programs--he applied to schools in the top 10, and didn't make the cut at any of them. The following year he broadened out his app range and got accepted at a few, ending up at Pitt. EDIT: I see what your interest is; that makes it a little harder to find a good track because there just aren't too many schools in America that have people who do significant work there :\ I actually share that interest; I even took Swahili as an undergrad, and I've read several books about Rwanda. Good luck!

True, with Egypt (and now Bahrain and elswhere), Wisconsin, etc. it's a very fun time to be an aspiring political scientist.

I'm currently constructing my own spreadsheet to evaluate the schools that have accepted me. I'm going to include: Stipend Prestige of the financial award Number of faculty with common research interests Methodological strength of the training Rapport with faculty (this will be entered after I visit the schools) Transportation around campus (I don't drive) Church community Browncoat community Haven't quite figured out how I will weigh each variable.

"Dear Wisconsin, I got the message the first time. Since you apparently think that messages need repeating, I will oblige: Dear Wisconsin, I got the message the first time." Ok maybe you shouldn't--after all, maybe someday you'll want to apply for an opening there.

Yes, that was my point. I don't care that Rand is considered to be poor philosophy--I think that the SDS had a horrible, awfully constructed political philosophy as laid out in the Port Huron Statement and elsewhere. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be studied. Also, Rand isn't really in keeping with the tradition of American conservatism--she's been more influential in libertarian circles. American conservatives condemned her when her material first arose--check the original review in the National Review, for example. Burke is the biggest influence on what we can identify as American conservatism, and among more contemporary writers, Schumpeter and Hayek, along with Friedman are probably the most influential and significant writers.

I have more problems with Rand the novelist than Rand the philosopher. Rand the novelist is utterly awful--if her books were to stand merely as works of fiction they would be among the poorest written ever to reach a wide audience. Rand the philosopher I'll give a bit more credit. I think she's as flawed as Marx (ironically, in some of the same ways, namely in deterministic thought), but like Marx, the flaws don't negate her significance.

Oh good, I'm still waiting to hear back from UNC Congrats to the folks who have been getting recent admission notices. I'm making my first trip to a prospective university in a few weeks. It'll also be the first time I will be flying somewhere

I'm no Objectivist but I do think that her philosophy is pretty notable and significant for American political thought.

A few recommendations: Game Theory: Games of Strategy Game Theory for Political Scientists A Course In Game Theory (note that these are listed in ascending order of difficulty; Osbourne's CIGT is very technical) Political Behavior: Democratic Phoenix Citizen Politics The American Voter (also, the American Voter Revisited) An Economic Theory of Voting Political philosophy (American) Dahl's On Democracy is a good broad overview Democracy In America The Road to Serfdom and/or the Constitution of Liberty One of Ayn Rand's books