Carousel
-
Posts
31 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by Carousel
-
-
-
Did anybody go to the Duke visit? Anything to report? I wasn't able to go but am still considering it, so I'd love to know the impression anyone got from the department.
-
I have turned down offers from UNC-Chapel Hill, Wisconsin-Madison, and Texas A&M. My subfield is American and all of those offers were funded.
-
For what it's worth, I recommend this espresso maker very highly. The inclusion of a milk frother is key; I like to do half milk and half Italian sweet cream creamer.
Also, I am a fam of north face backpacks--I've never had one last so long; they are excellent.
-
If anyone has an example of a POS that had a length requirement (such as Georgetown's 500 word limit or Washington Seattle's 350-500 word limit), could you please post is as a sample? Several of my programs required such short statements, and I found it very difficult to utilize such little space wisely. I think I ended up cutting out a lot of useful information and fear that it's the reason I probably seem like I lack any sort of focus on what I want to do in grad school. The samples posted so far are all so very long.
I actually did adhere to the 500 word limit for the one school that requested it, and I got in, so it can be done. Mine looked like this:
I wish to pursue an academic career researching public opinion and mass political behavior in American Politics. My current research interests include identifying which characteristics lead individuals to behave in ways that better correspond to elite behavior. I have been able to do research in this area in the context of a senior thesis under the direction of Professor X. In this paper, I show that issue public membership has become a strong and statistically significant predictor of ideological extremity, which indicates that members of issue publics have better mirrored elite trends in ideological polarization than the rest of the mass public.
I am also interested in how interactions between elites and the electorate have compounded polarization over time. I recently explored this interest in a paper for a course on the American Congress, in which I found that while mean ideological position of the electorate is predictive of a Senator’s ideological position on the DW-Nominate scale, electoral polarization also has a positive and statistically significant effect on the extremity on the Senator’s DW-Nominate score.
In addition to developing my research interests, my undergraduate education has afforded me the opportunity to acquire skills and experience which will assist in my pursuit of graduate study. For instance, my thesis has been a useful exercise in framing a research question, independently seeking out and reading the relevant existing literature, formulating hypotheses, and testing these hypotheses using quantitative analysis. I am also currently working as a research assistant for Professors X and X. This project has primarily fostered content analysis skills, but upcoming assignments will consist of collaborating with other research assistants on an essay and annotated bibliography. Finally, several courses I have taken, such as Applied Quantitative Methods, have allowed me to acquire skills in quantitative analysis and become comfortable using Stata software.
I would like to attend University X to obtain my Ph.D. for several reasons. Perhaps most importantly, I feel my research interests fit well with those of a number of faculty members. Specifically, I believe I would benefit from the tutelage of both Dr. X and Dr. X, given their extensive work on public opinion. The presence of these faculty members, in addition to others, makes me confident that I could build a dissertation committee to help me become a well-rounded scholar on the study of public opinion and mass behavior. Furthermore, I feel the department’s emphasis on developing teaching as well as research skills will help me become a professor who succeeds both in research and in the classroom.
After completion of the Ph.D., I intend to pursue a career in academia. I aim to be productive in my graduate work in order to obtain a tenure-track position at a highly regarded research university, which will provide me with the opportunity to teach some of the nation’s top students as well as engage in a research agenda with access to the resources necessary for that work.
-
i think only one person (carousel) ran the table on programs they applied to. I get a chuckle every time i look at adblanche's signature. We both applied to a bunch of the same programs and both had very successful cycles and yet not a single program made offers to both of us. To me, this makes a very strong case for fit mattering more in political science than in econ where if you can't get into one of the top programs, you are a long shot for any of them and they are all fighting for the exact same applicants
Also, that is the same letter I got from Berkeley. So much for personalization...
edit: @grantman big archer fan
I do think that the importance of fit varies not only by department, but also based on the individual applying. I have pretty mainstream research interests (public opinion and behavior and the connection between the masses & elites), which I think lessened how much fit mattered in evaluating my application. There were any number of professors I could conceivably work with, especially at the bigger departments, so even if the people I mentioned in my SOP are unable to take on new students or leave for whatever reason, I'll have plenty of reasonable fallback options. For instance, in the last 2 weeks I've had about 5 professors at Stanford mentioned to me by faculty here based on my interests--none of whom are people I listed I'd want to work with. I think people with more interesting and specific research interests are more likely to be admitted or rejected on the basis of fit.
Just my two cents added to the fit debate.
-
As far as the stipend at Vandy is concerned. I have a few friends that are attending the university in other programs and a lot of the time their funding can be topped off with even more money. Ultimately. they definitely try to make this an issue as Carousel mentioned. I know people at other departments at Vandy netting around 30K, plus travel funds, etc.
Yep--it was made clear to me that they have the authority to match other offers. I was very taken aback by the willingness to volunteer that information.
-
I believe that Vanderbilt is trying to become one of those up-and-coming departments, but I am not sure that it is there yet. They have higher like ten new faculty members over the last four years, and have really been trying to beef up their program. For all of us girls on GC interested in IR, Vanderbilt has a number of female professors which can be very appealing.
In addition, the administration at Vanderbilt is putting their money where their mouth is in terms of the Political Science department. Not only have they been hiring great, young faculty members, they have also told the department to admit more graduate students and offer them fantastic stipends and fellowships. I have been admitted to Vandy (not saying that I am accepting because who knows yet), and have been awarded a $21,000 stipend which is fantastic for the relatively low standard of living in Nashville.
Thus far the placement history isn't there yet, but I think the work and money that Vanderbilt has put in will begin to pan out. Just my thoughts.
Beat me to it! I didn't know much about changes in other fields. I've had professors criticize Vandy's attitude toward getting people with money, but I think it's one of the ways to attract the right people (I'm not sure why they think I'm a right person, but that's beside the point). By comparison, I think Wisconsin is seriously hurt in terms of getting the best grad students because they aren't very competitive with funding.
-
I think Vanderbilt is making moves in American Politics at least. Obviously there were a lot of issues in the department in semi-recent years, but they're bringing in some great scholars and are recruiting hard for the grad students they want.
-
Do schools that contact people by phone use that method for everyone, including students from overseas? If so, I better update my programs about the fact that I'm currently in the States with an American number and I don't have access to the number they have.
I would update them, but I would guess that they will find a way to contact you if they can't reach you by phone, especially with an international number.
-
Yale is supposed to be April 1-3.
Great to know; where'd you find this information?
-
-
For what it's worth, I don't think the Yale posts are necessarily trolls. I got am email from a POI saying I should expect a formal offer of admission soon. I also never had an interview, which is quite frankly confusing.
-
With Stanford at hand, why bother funding in Madison and Chapel Hill?
Valid point. However, I refuse to make any major decisions until after visiting or AT LEAST having funding information. This is going to be a long couple of months of pro-con lists. However, I admit that I have no room to complain/whine. Forgive me?
-
Anyone get their official details from Madison yet?
I've heard nothing so far. It's be an obnoxiously long time, which is fostering some negative feelings on my part anyway. Maybe I'm just neurotic about these things, but I feel much more compelled to seriously consider those schools which seem more on top of things. UNC is slacking in this regard also.
-
Thanks
I'm also curious about the Yale situation - someone posted earlier that they don't believe Yale has to interview all acceptees. Is this a hunch, or is there some info to back this up? I would be surprised if only 2 Grad Cafe users were accepted to Yale this year, but so far that seems to be the only feedback we're getting from the department.That was me, I believe. It was just a hunch based on only having 2 interviews posted. It seems more odd to me that they're doing interviews in waves than it is sending acceptances in waves (like a lot of schools seem to be doing). It all just looks a little fishy.
-
Wow,
just got into MIT
Congrats!
-
Does anyone know anything more about Yale? I saw that a couple interviews were posted, so I am fully prepared to consider that a reject, since I haven't heard anything.
I'm not quite prepared to consider not hearing anything yet a rejection. There didn't seem to be very many Yale interviews posted, which makes me think they might be for the purposes of a university fellowship or they just haven't contacted everyone yet. I'd think there'd be many more if they set up interviews with everyone they might admit.
-
Correction: my call from Stanford was from a professor, but it wasn't anyone I mentioned in my SOP or on the application. I'm under the impression all acceptances will be issued by the end of today.
-
Hey Guys! I wanted to ask for some advice here. I've had two separate conversations with professors at my top choice of school--first with my POI (who seemed really enthusiastic) and then with the head of admissions committee (who was nice enough but we didn't have that much to talk about that wasn't "funding/how does the department work, generally" because our interests areas are basically on different planets). Anyway, they've both told me that I'm a top candidate for their school, that my POI is very excited for me to come there, etc...but they won't actually say out loud that I'm in!
Am I just being paranoid at this point that I won't get an offer, or have people in this thread done multiple "interviews" with a school and still not gotten admittances? I think the acceptance rate for the school is around 6-7%, so I'm just worried that merely having done a few interviews isn't close at all to a guarantee.
While I don't think it's a guarantee, I think an advantage of PhD admissions is that your POI matters a lot. In addition, I think they wouldn't describe you as a top applicant it you didn't stand a good chance of getting in. I think it's their way of getting you to get attached to a school without a commitment on their part.
-
Congrats! Vandy is weird.
Very, very true. I get the impression they're in the odd position of trying to rebuild their program from the semi-recent chaos with the best candidates they can, but also don't want to admit people who won't accept, which would hurt their numbers in that sense. I've always been told that graduate programs are strategic with their acceptances, but I've gotten the vibe that Vandy is taking that to new heights.
-
Were you phoned by your POI, or by directors/staff?
A staff member. I will admit that I was so caught off guard that I didn't catch the person's name, but it was definitely not a POI.
-
What's your subfield and general stats? You seem to be cleaning up everywhere...
American, which I know is possibly the least competitive field, but I have around a 3.5 from a top 20 undergrad and 162/164/5.5 GRE. I truly attribute it to a solid SOP and writing sample though; I was lucky to have great guidance on those. Regardless, I never dreamed it would turn out this well.
-
Okay I don't know who the other ones were, but I can claim a Stanford acceptance.
Actually in shock right now.
- RWBG and wordshadow
-
2
Welcome to the 2012-2013 cycle
in Political Science Forum
Posted
Ditto what Max Power said. Feel free to post or PM me anytime, I'll be around.