Helix

Re: Asia specific journals and articles. You'll find some of the best stuff in the journals Penelope mentioned (and I would also check out the list APSA keeps: http://www.apsanet.org/content_5376.cfm ). Beyond that I would first look at some of these: Asian Affairs, Asian Survey, Pacific Review, and the Journal of East Asian Studies with the caveat that they are very interdisciplinary and also international in perspective (by that I mean, keep in mind that the way that Europeans do political science is different from how Americans do it). Because Asia is so broad and expansive, you might have to modify the above approach a bit to get a sense of where folks are going. Pick a few professors who do work on Asia that you know you like and see where they have published (look for tenured professors if possible), then review those publications for additional articles by names you aren't as familiar with. Also check out the papers being presented at conferences or in smaller journals (take a look at the Association of Asian Studies, for example) if you want to get a handle on what some recent department grads are up to. I think your main sense of the work that you would find interesting should come from the broader polisci journals irrespective of the region of focus, since these are the articles that are getting noticed and shaping the field. Really I think the aim with the regionally focused journals should be to see whether anyone has applied those ideas in countries you're most interested in already. If not, you've set yourself up well to make an argument for "fit" (e.g., "Prof X wrote an article about this concept in the Middle East which is great, and no one has written about it with respect to China so I want to do that and Prof X is the perfect person to help me do it.")

Good point--I was considering them for comparative.

Not to dominate the line of queries this week, but wondered if any current students/former applicants were still around for a quick one. I considered adding GWU to my list of non-reach schools to apply to, but noticed that the acceptance postings from the last several years were almost exclusively "admit with waitlist for funding" or "admit with no funding." Is that actually universal or extremely common? If you applied to GWU and got that kind of offer, where do you wish you applied instead (or if others want to cut in, where would be about equivalent to GW that *does* guarantee funding?)

I think the annotated chapter outline + 1 full seems to make the most sense since I have "chapters" laid out just as a progression through the argument (e.g., intro, lit review, methods, cases, analysis, conclusions) rather than thematically--I was just worried a single chapter from that set would make no sense without the others to support it.

I'm in the throes of nail-biting and mental blockage as this application season gets underway, and the two components of the application I'm still working on are the SoP and the writing sample. The SoP is something I intend to dedicate a LOT of time to and is more dependent on the schools, but I'm still trying to figure out how to select the best writing sample and get those edits underway as well. Which leads me to this question: Many, many folks have suggested to me that a writing sample, pared down to 25 pages or so, can basically be your best writing with original data and that you can cut out the lit review section to make it fit, no problem. My issue is, my master's thesis is probably my best *writing* and I have original data, but it's quite long (~100 pages) because that data is in the form of interviews that are woven into more than a dozen case studies. My next best option is already 25 pages but involves no original data whatsoever (it's a lit review, argument using secondary sources, and some graphs with a publicly available dataset--no regressions, etc.). I'm aware that the writing sample should show that: (1) I can write (2) I can conduct research on my own and make an interesting argument (3) ideally, that I have cohesive interests (i.e., it has to do with what I want to study). But how do you do that with a ton of qualitative data that doesn't easily lend itself to being truncated to "sample" form?

I'm not an adcom so I can't say for sure, but the advice I've heard has kind of contradicted Wesson's: (1) If you *only* like the school because of assistant faculty who were just recently hired, beware. As you note, they might leave for greener pastures and leave you up a creek. If they did only recently get a PhD and you're interested in their work, you should look to where they got their PhD instead potentially. (2) If you're applying to a school because of a series of faculty that you like, and let's say of 3 folks of interest, one is an assistant, you can feel free to list them all by name, but make sure to list the professors in order of their rank (i.e., don't list the assistant professor as your first POI and then the tenured folks last).

These are super helpful suggestions--if only because it confirms a lot of what I've been hearing from other folks. My biggest concern (besides fit and placement of graduates) is just making sure that I have a good "spread" of programs and am not too "top heavy" in my program choices so that I'm better positioned to get in somewhere at least. So certainly the 15-30 isn't a hard and fast rule, but more an indication of places that probably wouldn't make someone's top 10 list, but which are definitely strong and produce academics who are contenders for good placements. In terms of departments with Asian Studies--it's a decent suggestion, but also one where I can't rely too much on rankings. I've hit up the listings of all the national resource centers as a first pass, and am trying to make sure I'm not too California-heavy since I know the UC system has been hit hard this year. Some of these seem like they might be red herrings with respect to polisci though (for example, Pitt is an East Asia National Resource Center, but their polisci as I understand it is heavily LatAm). I'm not familiar with Canada's university system, but isn't UBC one of the better schools? I'm looking for things that are great fits to help me fill in, say, between UCSD and Emory-level. But I'll definitely look into it!

Ok so to tackle the substantive questions here: (1) The degree designation *might* matter, depending on what you want to get your PhD in and how you sell your master's. If you want to do a PhD in public policy, for example, you would be significantly better off pursuing an MIA or MPA at SIPA than you would getting the Master's in Human Rights Studies in the general studies program at Columbia. One reason is that some PhD programs in policy fields (e.g. SAIS) want you to have the equivalent of their professional master's in order to apply. A second reason, which applies to really any PhD program you might want to apply for, is the possibility to make contacts that would be great recommenders to catapult you into a great program. I'm not familiar with your undergrad situation so I can't comment on how it would be viewed, but let's just say that your situation could only be improved by getting a stellar letter of rec from a well-known prof at a great school like Columbia or possibly even at LSE, in a reputable field. The last part is the kicker as the above posters noted--"human rights" is not generally considered reputable as a field academically (although if you want to work for UNDP or in a professional/policy setting you should be a-ok), but political science or sociology or history professors who teach on human rights related topics are another matter. Another point, though smaller, is that you degree should be something that you can market in a variety of contexts. For example, what would happen if you didn't get into law school or decided you didn't want to go? Would the MA in Human Rights Studies propel you down a path you want to go regardless? If not, I would say don't do it. As someone with a professional master's, I promise that you'll only feel it's worth it if there's added value to the degree above and beyond what you could be doing by getting a year of work experience or getting a certificate. (2) Largely, see #1. A couple other points on this matter specifically though: --It depends, like I said, on what you want to do. If you want to work for a think tank instead of Big Law, there's value to having a degree from a known entity (SAIS, Gtown, HKS, SIPA) beyond just your academics--employers will recognize the degree, recruit at the school, etc etc. And you can always market your specialty in human rights and concrete interests, and parlay those into a career you're happy with. --Related to the other point I was making about your degree needing to apply in a variety of contexts: think about your long game in addition to the short one. What might you want to be doing when you're 50 years old? Is it absolutely human rights? Or could it be something a little more nuanced that intersects with human rights, but for which there would be value in knowing other things and having concrete skills? Not to beat up on the MPhil or MA options, but a professional master's at least certifies that you have any understanding of metrics and evaluation techniques, etc., that are really indispensable in a human rights career and go above and beyond knowing what the UDHR says and how to interpret it legally. (3) This depends on your endgame. If you want to be doing a PhD/working in the nonprofit field/doing other things that aren't well known for their compensation packages, you should really think hard about your strategy for affording this and strongly consider the cost/benefit. Not just because debt is scary but because it can very literally limit your options and ability to do what you want in the immediate term (a friend of mine finished an MPP and a JD with aspirations of pursuing a nonprofit work but was so heavily in debt she had to take a big law job to pay the bills--it's not uncommon). I assume it's this concern that leads you to the 1-year programs in some part. Another option you should strongly consider if you want to go the law route for sure is targeting law schools with strong human rights programs and clinics (some even offer certificates and designated emphases that fulfill the kind of professional role I think you want the MA to). Law school is expensive anyway, but 3 years is plenty of time to invest in some great complementary education in human rights. I respect your desire to get the best education you can with the best name you can--and it's definitely not a bad idea, particularly if you're setting your sights on working in an international context where name recognition can be particularly helpful. But the most helpful thing I think would be to lay out exactly what your ideal game plan is: if everything went your way, what kind of career would you want? Where do you want to be 10, 20, 30, 50 years down the road? Once you think through these in vague terms, I'd suggest going through to google the kinds of organizations you want to work for, find the people you want to be, and see what they did. Do they have a law degree or a master's? Check out the hiring guidelines at the organization--is a PhD necessary? Do they recruit at particular schools? Are 99% of their employees alums of the University of Kansas? LinkedIn is super helpful with this actually. The point is, when you have a lay of the land you'll be able to better evaluate how worth it $40k for a one-year master's is vs. 3 years in law school vs. a PhD for your career.

I'm working on my list of schools for Fall '12 and simultaneously working through an SoP that makes better sense of my interests, but I want to make sure I have a good, broad range of places selected and seem to keep running into walls. I have my top choices pretty well hammered out, but what I'd really like are some *good* programs generally agreed to "rank" somewhere in the 15-30 range and to be decent for comparative. My regional interests are mostly in Asia and I'm broadly interested in themes having to do with democratization and non-democratic entrenchment, political economy, and violence (gee, broad enough for you?). Without giving too much away about myself, what kinds of places would folks recommend I look into to fill out the "safer" end of my list of schools? My biggest challenge has been making sure these schools have *anyone* who works on anywhere in Asia at all, and also concerns that some of the schools might not offer funding to everyone they admit--definitely don't want to end up in that pickle. Thoughts anyone?

Oh definitely--I meant more for the folks who do the joint PhDs (like PE&G) and have to literally move back and forth between departments during their time versus having a more integrated experience. Also the faculty are very distinctly affiliated in the HKS/Gov department case.

That's super helpful--thanks! I was concerned that the distinction was a bit more severe (like the HKS/Gov department dynamic at Harvard or the SAIS/main campus dynamic at JHU). This sounds somewhat workable from either angle.

Does anyone know anything about how exactly it works between IR/PS at UCSD and the political science department? The IR/PS website is fairly sparse, and I gather that the curriculum is somewhat shared, but I'm more interested to know if anyone has insights about: (1) Whether faculty at IR/PS can/do serve as advisors, etc. at all for political science PhD students who are not in the joint program; and (2) The relative competitiveness of IR/PS vs. the political science department (IR/PS is unranked, there's very little info on their placement, but the program is smaller and therefore maybe more selective?) Any ideas would be super.