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biginternational

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    Ph.D. Political Science

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  1. If you have funding and don't need to worry about earning alot of money: take a methods course; compile a reading list of journal articles in your sub-field (small but representative); put real effort into identifying some of the technical elements of good academic writing and research; and, not least important, reserve time for r & r. All of these things will prepare you for the rigours of gradschool and will go a long way towards helping you function with greater efficiency and focus once the real work starts. Signed, Hindsight is 20/20
  2. I think York is notoriously slow; in previous years some applicants have heard back from them as late as the end of April (!). And, they receive hundreds of applications and feed everything through the Office of Graduate Admissions so it seems there is quite a time lag. Still,they have a relatively early deadline. Does anyone know what stage of the process they're at? I'm inclined to think that departments would get in touch with successful applicants to give them some kind of informal indication that they've been admitted and that silence just means that I'm somewhere in the middle of the denial file pile waiting to be processed... Not really a priority I guess.
  3. Of course they read the forum, particularly if there's a thread related to their department. Everyone's curious about what is said about them / their professional affiliation. One only has to look at the PSJR board to see that big important political scientists also sometimes fritter away their time with trivial online stuff.
  4. You're in, go for it. There's nothing wrong with an honest inquiry, and I doubt the feathers of any reasonable person would be ruffled over a simple question on an issue that's of great consequence to every grad student.
  5. LSE is a degree mill of sorts for those willing/able to pay the international student fees. The school depends on these admits for revenue. You'll find that an LSE cohort has many mediocre, fee-paying international students.
  6. Some second-hand info, for what it's worth; a former classmate of mine left Rutgers because he wasn't happy with the faculty. This person described the atmosphere in the department in less than glowing terms. He subsequently moved to a higher ranked program. I do not believe it was a matter of aptitude.
  7. I once applied to a job and misspelled the company's name in the cover letter -- three times. At least it was consistent. In the case of the misspelled professor's name, it's plausible that many on an adcom won't even know how to spell all of their colleagues' names properly, so perhaps they won't notice.
  8. Maybe we should consider what our propensity for applying to high numbers of programs does to complicate the admissions process, what with a lot of departments within a particular tier / specialization sifting through a similar pool of candidates and (likely) making offers to many of the same qualified individuals, then waiting for those offers to be accepted or denied before filling the ranks with a second or third round of selections. Obviously no one wishes to compromise their chances for the sake of exercising a little moderation, but com'on, submitting 12-20 apps is ridiculous. No one should feel the need to carpet bomb the length and breadth of the higher ed universe in order to get a feel for whether they're qualifed to do grad work. This could be done a lot quicker and simpler.
  9. Tough situation, from one potentially facing a similar decision. I too wonder if the maxim against unfunded Ph.D. work should apply in (what are supposedly) these exceptional times. My inclination is that it should. It'll be hard, but if the funding doesn't come through for me I'll have to seriously look at putting plans to rest and pursuing my interests along another route. The lure of grad study is great but realistically it doesn't make sense to incur that level of debt without reasonable assurances of being able to recover the investment upon completion.
  10. Linz & Stepan : Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation
  11. Is anyone waiting on decisions from schools in the UK or Canada? If so, which programs have you applied to and what have you heard?
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