DualCitizenIR

Will you have undergraduate debt?  How do you plan to finance your graduate studies?  Do you have experience earning money, having taxes/social security taken out, and living off of what's left over?  If not, you should spend some quality time with someone who has and/or an online budgeting tool to get a good picture of how loan payments can affect your standard of living after graduation. 
 
The career options your list are not especially high-paying.  For example, if you start out as a federal employee with a masters degree and no real full-time work experience you'll be making about 55k/year.  After taxes and social security, you'll be left with somewhere around 40k/year.  If you want to live in Washington or another expensive city, it'll be manageable on 40k/year, but that'll be a lot more difficult if you're paying $600-900/mo in loan payments like you'd have to if you take out $60K-$80K in loans.  Also, even if you think that's manageable, consider that 100k in loans with a 10-year repayment at 6.8% interest equals a $1,150/mo payment and, with the interest you actually end up paying $138k.  That's a house in some parts of the country and at least a decent chunk of a condo in a place like DC.  The opportunity cost is higher because if you invested that $1,150/mo in a fund with a 10% annual return, you'd have $237k after 10 years.  Even if your investment only hit 5% a year, you'd still end up with $179k in the bank after 10 years.  So, not only are you paying $138k, you're not saving or investing that same money, so you're losing out on interest and investment gains.
 
You've got impressive stats, and it wouldn't surprise me if you get in to some great programs.  However, your lack of professional experience will also hurt your competitiveness for funding.  So, you might consider casting a wider net when you apply to increase your chances of getting funding somewhere, so you don't start your professional career under a mountain of debt.  Certainly apply to top-tier programs, but maybe check out the next rung down, too.  Getting a full ride at a top 10-20 school could open up more doors than a top 10 education with crippling debt that limits your options since you have massive loan payments. 

Can I ask which school mranderson? I studied abroad at Bogazici Universitesi last spring in the Dept of Political Science and International Relations. VERY high quality compared to my top 100 undergrad (for PoliSci). I agree with lost_0101, if you want to learn Turkish and work in Turkey, you'll be pretty well off with a degree from one of the best schools there like Istanbul U, Bogazici, ODTU, Bilkent, Koc, etc. (I'm originally Turkish but born and raised in the US... have visited Turkey SO many times though.)

If you want to get work experience in Turkey (politics/IR related) for a number of years, finding work in Europe or North America will be based on your experience more than your school.

Another thing is that top Turkish unis tend to be pretty well known in the regions of the Middle East, the Balkans, and Central Asia, so that is a plus.

Oh man, this stuff drives me crazy. Some schools' sites it takes me a full half hour to find the information I'm looking for.

I'm almost starting to judge schools based on their websites.

EPIC. I have not laughed like that about something online for awhile. Well, at least not since I read the reviews for this product. I am sending this to everyone in my lab group life.



For my part, I usually anticipate weekends...but then have a moment like this:

http://whatshouldwecallgradschool.tumblr.com/

No further explanation necessary!

Trying to do my readings:

Expectations:


Reality:



When's the weekend???

Syllabi may be easily available in courses where lots of reading is required (it says your program is English, so I will assume that is your case), but for others who may read this general forum, organization of graduate courses may be very informal, especially in the physical sciences.

The prof may not have prepared our syllabus until the first day of class (other than an email possibly to say what textbook we will be using) and most of the time, we won't have time to cover everything on the syllabus. Also, most profs I know are not in "2012-2013 mode" yet, that is, they probably have not prepared/decided on the material in the courses (and in some cases, the courses to be offered this fall aren't even decided yet).

When I was in courses, I had recurring nightmares about my instructor! It's funny now though. One example nightmare was that all the students in the course were put into one big house (reality show style) owned by the instructor and each day, he would introduce challenges or other rules that were designed to make our lives harder.

computer science undergrad, political science phd

Thanks for all the tips guys. I accepted LSE last night!

That's great, DualCitizenIR. I've been keeping up with your progress ever since you were in the IHEID forums. You're going to have a blast in London!

Thanks for all the tips guys. I accepted LSE last night!

Previous Schools: Top 10 LAC
Previous Degrees and GPAs: BA Political Science & South Asian Studies, 3.38 (3.6 last 2 years)
GRE Scores (Verbal/Quantitative/Analytical Writing): 690/640/4.5
Previous Work Experience (Years, Type): 4 years when entering school this fall, 3.5 when applying. 2 years overseas. .5 years in microfinance internship in Asia, 2 years permanent position at democracy NGO in DC, 1.5 years consulting for democracy groups in Asia
Math/Econ Background: Intro to Econ (pass/failed it- pass), Methods/Statistics of Political Science (B+), Principles of Micro (A), Principles of Macro (A)-- last two were at night school at The Graduate School in DC.
Foreign Language Background (if applicable to your program): Intermediate Spanish
Intended Field of Study in Grad School: Democracy and governance policy and programming
Long Term Professional Goals: USAID Governance Foreign Service Officer, think tanks on DG work, etc.
Schools Applied to & Results: WWS (Rejected), Tufts Fletcher, American SIS, Johns Hopkins SAIS, Georgetown Government, GWU Elliot (All Accepted)
Ultimate Decision & Why: Johns Hopkins SAIS!! I wanted to go to Georgetown Government since I was an undergrad, so I am still in a bit of shock with my decision to turn down that acceptance. Ultimately I realized I wanted to be more on the policy side of things rather than the theory side of the democracy field. Plus, SAIS's resource, career services, student morale and cohesiveness are one of the absolute best in the country. The Government program was very small, only a few years old, with far fewer resources than SAIS or other Georgetown programs. Whereas larger schools like Fletcher, Elliot, and SAIS sent lots of informaiton, held online chats, provided clear and helpful financial aid info, I felt I had to squeeze it out of Georgetown. This is understandable for a small program, but I realized that's not what I wanted for the next two years. Lastly, even though I would love to study democracy all day long, the broader degree and curriculum at SAIS would be advantageous for future careers should foreign aid continue to be put on the chopping block.
Advice for Future Applicants:
- Work Experience. I would say really focus on the WORK part of that phrase. Volunteering is good, teaching English in a foreign country is good, interning is good, but try to secure a full-time, staff position with increasing responsibility and promotions before you go to grad school. You will be able to speak articulately about your field and you will increase your chances of acceptance. If you are moving to DC after undergrad graduation, the job market is tough- take an unpaid internship (I did without financial support of my parents, worked in a coffee shop for 3 months while interning), or an admin job sort-of related to your field to get a foot in the door. You'll work your way up quickly. Others may disagree, but I really think there is no substitute for working in a full-time permanent position.
- International experience. Get you some! No, study abroad doesn't count, everyone has that
- SOPs. A lot of people say to write about your goals + their school = where you want to be, but I took a slightly different approach. I included analysis of the democracy landscape through an illustrative anecdote, what needed improving, and how I needed a degree from THEIR school to positively effect that change. I emphasized why I wanted them, not just a general IR degree, and why they should invest in *me*. I think this underscored my understanding of my sector beyond just 'I want to do this work' and that I really understood what made them and their degree unique
- GREs. Nail them. I didn't put enough time into it and wish I had. They could have helped with scholarship money and definitely put me on the edge because of my fine-but-not-amazing GPA.

Thanks to everyone at Grad Cafe for your sage advice and support over the past few months. I am so grateful! Good luck to future applicants

LSE will treat you well (ie it is well know in the US and Europe). The alumni networks of UK universities Oxbridge, LSE, St Andrews, and Edinburgh (the top unis with strong US representation in the student bodies) are growing swiftly in the US especially on the East Coast in NYC, Boston, and Washington DC, feel free to PM if you have any questions. Second, you may be hard pressed to get a work visa on the continent but in London you will most likely need a firm to sponsor you if you wish to stay for any lengthy amount of time. The industries that tend to do this are: banks, management consultancies, and corporate law firms.

Well then by all means, craft personalized emails for these instructors you have had these substantive conversations with who I am quite sure will remember you in 5 or 10 years.

I just accepted BU.

"You only applied to ONE program?!?"

Just got accepted! No longer need to defend myself from incredulous looks/questions!

my mother, after i told her i got into all the schools i applied to:

"is it easier to get into grad school than it is to get into college?"

I can speak from personal experience and say that I had a very bad semester early in undergrad with two F's and a D-. Even better, two of those courses were in my major. I retook them under my school's course forgiveness program and got much better grades, but they do still show up on my transcript, it just indicates that I repeated them and the original grades have been excluded from my GPA. I didn't address it at all in my SOP, and I was admitted to every school I applied to, including GPPI, Ford, SAIS, etc. So to answer your first question, your chances are very good.

As for your second question, none of the schools I applied to asked for an explanation of a failing grade. However, there is a section on some school's applications where it asks "Have you ever been the subject of disciplinary or academic action at any college or university? If yes, what were the circumstances?" Obviously you are going to want to be 100% truthful. I believe you can be confident that your information would be kept confidential. Admissions Directors just don't have time to share dirt on 1000+ applicants with all their peers, and that's besides the professionalism/integrity issues. Whether your history will have a big impact on your chances, I can't predict. I will say that your specific case seems to be comparatively minor - it is not on the same level as sneaking answers into an exam room, plagiarizing other work, or paying someone else to write your papers. If I were in your shoes I would apply to all the programs you are interested in without hesitation. The cost of grad school is > $100k, do you really want to wonder years down the road if you could have gone to your dream school but didn't even try because you didn't want to spend $80 on the application fee?

I get what you meant, cannotdecide! And I agree that it's interesting to see folks accepted at one place, rejected/wl at another, other folks the opposite, etc. Just goes to show all of these schools are competitive and all of us should be quite proud of what looks like a great admissions season on gradcafe

So I went to Indiana University to tour the program and meet faculty/students. Absolutely fell in love with SPEA and will happily pursue my Masters of Public Affairs there.

When I got home and checked my email, I was ecstatic to find I had been awarded a Fulbright ETA to Poland for next year. Excited to defer admission at IU for this opportunity.

It's so funny how a day ago I had NO idea where my life was going.

Congratulations on all acceptances to date and those to come! Make the best of your experience in grad school -- it goes by relatively quickly!

I have accepted my offer to IHEID.

Good to know that it is by email first... That will make it a few days quicker: a lifetime in the admissions process!

Maybe today is the day! Though I am across the country from Boston...

For some reason when I read this I thought: "There's no place like grad school. There's no place like grad school..."