rob.smith255

thats the point of this thread...im trying to figure out what all the stuff means and how they match my interest...i KNOW my interest therez no confusion bout that ... im just trying to figure what what matches my interest best...and since im only applying next year, i have plenty of time to do that

Hi! As you can clearly see i am a noob in the poli sci area. I am an economics undergrad planning to do grad study in political science. I was looking through various online resources but still could not be absolutely clear on what comparative politics means. Accrording to wikipedia "Comparative politics is a subfield of political science, characterized by an empirical approach based on the comparative method. Arend Lijphart argues that comparative politics does not have a substantive focus in itself, but rather a methodological one: it focuses on "the how but does not specify the what of the analysis."" So would it be correct to say that it is like quantitative methods? But folks in this forum have mentioned those two as being separate entities. Some help would be really appreciated.

yes ...testmagic is the one everyone uses for econ

lol u guys seems to have forgotten my question altogether (which is totally cool haha)...so here it goes again (in the above quote)

it would have been nice if a lot of other fields were also as popular ... for instance the Econ section is pretty dead

ok i need some more advice from you guys ...i have interests in both political philosophy and international relations and i plan on doing both of them (in grad school and beyond) but i also plan to do a lot of my reseach using quantitaive methods, econometrics and so on .... since i donot know much about how poli sci works (econ undergrad) i was just wondering if i could apply for concentration in all three, ie. poli theory (philosophy), IR and quantitative methods? or will they think im just crazy? and considering my profile, which subfield do you guys think im most likely to get into .... and one more question, since i have one year before i apply and no school what would you guys recommend i do to boost my application?

damn dude start your own thread for your profile .... this my area homie... lol just messin .... anyway, i also wanted to ask you guys whether i will get some leeway regarding the 650 verbal and 5.0 analytical score considering the fact that im an international student from a non english speaking country

oh ok..i guess i came to a hasty conclusion without much research. anyway, i also wanted to ask you guys whether submitting my econ senior thesis as a sample paper for grad. school application would work...my senior thesis is pretty much political economy stuff and my guess is that it should be quite related to a poli. sci research

First of all, thanks all for the prompt response...Ya i didnt work as much as i should have for the verbal part since i was applying for econ programs. in econ, as you might know, even top programs dont care about verbal so long as u get around 450-500. but i probably wont take the GRE again since i have already taken it twice and also considering the fact that the 650 verbal is better than both my SAT verbal scores. it is funny how 650 verbal was overkill for econ and 780 quant was barely enough and when i come to poli sci. the 780q is overkill and the 650v is now not enough.

Well, I already applied but all of them are for a PhD in economics. Hehe, I recently had a brainwave and decided I would like to do poli science. So will do that next year.

PROFILE: Type of Undergrad: Small Liberal Arts (pretty unknown i suppose) Undergrad GPA: 3.76 Type of Grad: N/A Grad GPA: N/A GRE: 780 Q (90 %tile), 650 V (93 %tile), 5.0 A (77%tile) Undergrad: Economics(major)/ Math(minor) Letters of Recommendation: Should be pretty solid Research Experience: Senior Thesis Teaching Experience: None Research Interests: International Affairs SOP: Standard Other Info: International student doing undergrad in US OK, so I was wondering what my chances were of getting into a top 10 or top 20 school?