annae

I learned that the board meeting is now pushed to July 15. So I think it will be a bit of a delay ?

Anyone else apply for this? Supposed to hear back soon.

Anyone hear back from or apply to the Hodges Foundation fellowship for PhD students?

Can anyone invite me to the slack group? I've been trying to get an invite with no luck. Thank you and best of luck to everyone!

After a year of waiting for feedback, I received an R&R on my first journal. I was ecstatic. The feedback was mostly cosmetic, and I fixed it all right away. When I submitted it, I didn't actually show it to anyone - I know, what was I thinking - so I decided to show it to a handful of people. I took a fairly controversial and unpopular position, about which I feel very passionate, and I was not prepared for a lot of the negative commentary. Ideologically, I can tell that the other person was very much against the entire foundation of my work and I can't help but take it personally. As a new and young-ish academic, I know I have to get used to this, particularly when I take the positions I do. Any advice on how to grow a thicker skin? I do plan to use some of the feedback and improve the paper as best as I can, given how close the deadline is. But knowing how sensitive I tend to be, I feel a little doubt about my ability to succeed in this area long-term.

My first solo paper that I wrote a year ago, which has been under review for an entire year came back today with minimal revisions. I submitted it without any feedback from my advisors or colleagues, which was a big gamble. I am beside myself.

This may sound incredibly obvious, but I was wondering if the bibliography was meant to only include those items referenced in the rest of the application (which would mean to include parentheticals throughout) or if it is something that is meant to be included as an overview of the field?

Hi, seconding the request for a Slack invitation. Thanks!

Anyone here applying for Jordan? It's my second time. Super nervous!

I applied a few years ago and included an Arabic evaluation with my proposal. I understood from my evaluator that a brief statement that you are capable of carrying out the work, have had x years of preparation, lived in the country, etc. is sufficient. I believe there are also some "button" questions to be selected, but I do not recall the specifics. Best of luck!

I'm about to begin the field research part of my PhD. My supervisors are great, but I have been doing a lot of correspondence via email (I'm in another country now) and I'm having a hard time getting some questions answered. I was wondering if it is normal to expect a supervisor to review survey questions and other specific aspects of your methodological tools before actually collecting data? My approach has been approved generally via my proposal but no one has looked at the actual survey I'm conducting. I've been asking if I need to have these approved before departing and instead have been getting institutional forms to fill out. I know that these need to be done, but I am more worried about the specifics. Is this something a PhD student should have confidence in doing alone, provided the proposal was accepted? I do not want to sound needlessly insecure, but I do not want to make a mess out of my dissertation either.

I'm doing it now and it's very, very tough. You will be behind your peers and if you have any interest in academia, you won't have time to form those relationships or publish that you need to do be doing alongside it. If I had the funding I would not be working.

I may do this. It's definitely frustrating. I finally heard back that they were able to get one review but were waiting on another. It's been seven months now!

Hi, I recently submitted my first solo article to a journal and upon receipt was told that I would hear back after five weeks. I contacted them around this time and it's now been seven weeks and I have not heard back. Is this normal to not hear anything even after further inquiry? How long should I wait before submitting elsewhere? Thanks!

Is anyone on here doing a three-year PhD? I know one of the pitfalls of European programs is the lack of time to publish, present, etc. outside of the dissertation. I'm getting a lot of conflicting messages from professors and students about expected productivity in projects outside of their dissertation. Most of the students in my program I've spoken to don't seem too worried about anything besides their dissertation. My adviser wants me to present 2x a year and to simply "read everything" - not worrying about writing until later. If I'm writing a full paper for a conference, I'd like to publish if I can. On the other hand, I have to finish a big chunk of the dissertation in the first year if I'm to upgrade. I'd like to be competitive for jobs when I graduate and I'm sure my classmates do to, but as far as I know I'm the only one that's thinking this way. What are your thoughts? How would you balance writing on the side in such a time frame? What is reasonable?

Anyone interested in swapping SOPs? I'm going for political science, but any discipline works. Thanks!

Great, thank you!

I'm looking at applying to a PhD program in the UK and have some questions about the research proposal that normally accompanies the application. I hope this is the right section. I'm used to writing grant proposals and I've written several research proposals now, but the length is much, much shorter. I'm wondering how specific I need to be (explaining exact data sets, methods, etc.) and how important these details are as opposed to the general intent of the project and demonstrating background knowledge. Also I'm adapting it from a much larger proposal and am concerned about feasibility, especially for the site of the field research. If the timeline is too aggressive or the amount of data collection, activities, etc. too much for just a few years, will I be given the benefit of the doubt and/or counseled on this later? Is it reasonable to run it by prospective supervisors first and asking, or should I have it completely together before making contact? It seems like in US applications they expect you to change but UK programs are shorter so I am thinking that the proposal should really be the one you carry out? Thanks!

Oh, wow. Ha. Thanks! And that's exactly what happened, too.

I wanted to piggy-back on this question. I'm studying for the GRE and I'm also quite weak in quant. Is it a good strategy to use GMAT materials for extra preparation? If it is harder, I would think that you would only do better on the GRE having done so.

Wow, okay! I feel much better. Thank you. I'm still not entirely sure what focus I will take, but it's good to know that there are still attractive options for the less math-inclined. I re-read some of the information I saw before and I did see that I misinterpreted it. English-language mathematics courses are not a fundable nor available option at my institution this year as I'm doing my master's abroad. It sounds like it won't be as limiting as I thought so long as I choose my topic wisely. The only alternative would be to assist some professors with quantitative work, but maybe this isn't absolutely necessary if I don't intend to go that direction in a PhD.

Forgive the stupid question please, I'm still a little bit new in this area - I've been exploring the requirements of some of the top-ranked programs (just to get an idea of where I could land next year) and saw that some of them require math through calculus. I'm a little bit confused about whether this applies to less quant-heavy, theory-oriented disciplines in pols. I've been reading about the importance of GRE quant scores in selection and it sounds like, based on these discussions, that this high level of math can't possibly be used as an absolute cut-off across departments. Forgive my ignorance, but if it's a requirement to study through calc II at top programs, how could anyone applying there have issues with their GRE quant scores if they're just basic math? I know that the GRE math is supposed to be easier for people with less math - maybe because we overthink it? - but this still seems strange to me. This leads me to believe that the math requirements are what the average admit has, as political science is becoming more quantitative and less qualitative. Is this a correct assumption? I hope this makes sense. I'm not really in a position to take more math classes at this point so I am really banking on the GRE! Thanks!

I was hired to help a friend of my boss re-write her Doctor of Education dissertation. We've been working on it over the past three or four months and she is ready to submit. I feel strongly that it will not pass a committee. While the English has been corrected (her first language is Arabic), her methodology is still a total mess. It's a qualitative study, but it's really just a collection of her thoughts from her research diary and the responses from parents' interviews. There's a little bit of triangulation with other data, and I think I did an okay job justifying (to some extent) what she did, but I don't feel like she really answered any of her research questions. I read and integrated her supervisors' comments, which were barely substantive (ex - cite everything that isn't yours, etc.) and I think it is still very problematic. Her supervisors did not say anything about her research design, which is confusing to me. I want to prepare her for her defense, if she gets that far, and I was wondering if anyone had any information about University of Derby and what she should expect. It's my understanding from my boss that it's really a mail-order degree (she isn't living in England and doing it entirely by correspondence) and that the degree won't enable her to teach at a university, get a post-doc, etc. It's just for salary purposes. So I'm thinking it will be a walk in the park for her. But she really seems to think that this is going to be a huge deal and that she will go on for a post-doc, so I am worried for her. I can only do so much to fix it at this point, and it is her PhD, but she's a really sweet lady and I feel like I'm sending her to the wolves. Do you think her defense will be difficult? Is it a bad idea to send it in with these issues? Or do you think they will pass her if her degree isn't really worth anything? Does anyone know anything about the value of this degree? I have a friend from England and he's never heard of the school and it looks pretty low-ranked from what I gather online. I'm from the US and preparing myself for the admissions process in a different area of study, for more competitive schools, so I haven't heard of "an easy defense" or know how it works in education or in England. I do know that some master's students at less competitive schools (my alma mater) got passed with little difficulty, regardless of how bad their masters thesis is, but this is a dissertation. Any guidance is appreciated!

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I was wondering what everyone's thoughts are about the value of a master's thesis as opposed to published, peer-reviewed articles, in the context of PhD admissions. I know the benefit of publishing an article is that it is peer-reviewed, so your thoughts are validated by others. Are there any qualities or characteristics of a Master's thesis that are different or more beneficial than a published article? What are the benefits to having one over the other? Or rather, does the peer-review process capture all of the benefits of a formal thesis when applying for Phd programs?

That is unfortunate, but thanks for the advice. I didn't realize how long this would take. I think in this time frame I would do well to get the one paper I worked on published.