Bdeniso

I have 0 idea about adcoms, but I have heard that this can sometimes hurt in hiring.

Late Feb, early march for me at least.

Best thing to do is call the graduate admissions office or whoever handles the online application. This way they know your situation and may be able to let the department know before they send it to them.

you are interested in Civ Mil relations - Duke should be on your list as well. Very well, just the perceptions I have heard, apoligies for misrepresenting.

As a security studies person, you should look at Chicago, Georgetown, George Washington, and WashU. In addition, all of these places are very open to policy interests so that should be helful. Side note, I wouldn't call Rochester too quanty. They do formal models, which is slightly different than quant. Quant usually refers to statsitics. Now, if you want to do qualitative work, some of those schools you list may not be too open to qualitative methods, so just be clear what you are wanting.

I was also going to link this today but from a different blog http://politicalviolenceataglance.org . As a side note, many should follow these blogs to keep track about the current scholarly agendas, debates, and tips often discussed.

Can't help much, but I know of gender scholars in American, Comp, and IR, so it might help to know which subfield you would like to focus in, because even if you think gender issues cut across the subfields, most departments will want you to be in at least one nominally.

I have no idea about American (IR sorry) but some good advice is only apply to schools you could see yourself at, safety school serve no purpose for a PhD. You should figure out the top programs for your interests and apply to any you feel you could do well at. Hope it all works out!

I think it is important for you to decide what you would like to do and move from there. Honestly, I think the best Sec Studies work is done with mixed methods, but all departments are different. And don't let what you think of as good rankings sway you. For example, some departments have high or low total rankings, but specifically in sec studies or latin america comparative etc... they are very good. Unless you know that there is someone there who would help and encourage you at that school, it is not worth going. Don't just apply to schools based on tiers but ones you know you could do the work you want to do and have faculty who would be open to it. Of those you list, Brandeis sounds good for what you want but A&M I am not sure about for your interests. For the others I know nothing about them. Do your research and then make a list!

GT and GW would be good choices I agree. In terms of total poli sci many of those listed are rated over Georgetown. They are not elite schools for Poli Sci Phd like applying for undergrad would be. Do you have any idea what type of methodology you want to use? That would also determine some other places you may want to apply. For example you wouldnt apply to UCSD if you hated game theory and if you wanted to do game theory you wouldnt want to go to Brandeis. The key is to find what you want to do and schools that will help you with that. Honestly, off the top of my head Ohio State would be a good place as they are doing some great stuff on foreign policy decision making, also if you are interested in security studies Notre Dame would be a great place to go as well. As for A&M, if you want to do qualitative, it would be a bad choice, but if you like quant and game theory, it would be good, but they don't do much in security studies per se. The rest of the schools you listed I have no idea about because they did not have a security studies program I was interested in when applying. Hope that helps.

All I have to say is that don't assume CHYMPS are the best programs for what you want to do. UC Berkely, Michigan, U Chicago all are top tier for different things. Since I really don't know more I can't say what is the best but I feel it would be folly to think that those schools are the best just because of reputation and not look at what the poli sci departments are known for and are best at.

I dont know about American, but I know that places like Ohio State are doing things on decision making including looking at fMRI scans and seeing how the brain reacts when making political decisions. So there are places out there doing things you seem to be interested in.

If you want Qual IR, I am not sure those are the only/best schools to be looking at. Also with the GRE, your math may in fact be higher than your verbal, but almost everyones is so that would make the percentiles different. For example, you could have a 750 math and 700 verbal, but that 700 verbal would probably be in a higher percentile. Just an FYI,

I dont know about other think tanks but I do have some good knowledge about RAND. You can get a job at RAND with just a Master's, but it will be only for three years and you won't have any chance to move up, run your own studies, and just will basically be a RA the whole time. You need a PhD to be a full researcher at RAND. However, another aspect to this is that you have to find people to fund studies so you don't just get to right about what you want, but instead have to find funding from different agencies to pay for your studies, and often they won't have the exact interests in studying what you want. There is also some bias I feel in the organization as it initally was developed for the Air Force and most their studies (at least in the Project Air Force side) just come down to "Air Power is Awesome". That being said, I do know a few people who have worked there as both RA's and full researchers, some love it some hate it so it depends on the person. Hope this helps!

That is one experience. I know at my undergrad theory classes were not highly demanded, and at Notre Dame it seemed that Theory students had to TA IR classes because there were more studented in IR than theory. That said, I think there may be more diversity in theory classes with just less students in them.

I am attending Notre Dame this fall, and as someone who has a qual interest as well, I can tell you it is in fact one of the programs you should be looking at. However, you are going to have to be very quant literate even if you want to do qual work because you will have to speak to and understand the quant work that has come before and others will respond to your work with. I am not sure exactly what you are interested in, but the subfield of IR also leads to different liklihoods of qual work being accepted. Security Studies seems to have more qual whereas IPE has more quant. If you have any questions about where to look and my impressions can just pm me.

There are some fully funder MPP/MIA programs in the US as well just a thought.

As someone who is leaving a public policy type program and now going for my PhD, I actually disagree with some of the above posts. While agree that taking on debt is a poor decision (I did have good funding for mine), I would have had no chance of getting into a decent program from my undergrad as I didnt really understand what good research was, and more importantly I would not have been ready. Now I understand everyone has different situations, but if you did not do much research with professors, or write a thesis in undergrad, then getting a master's would help in my opinion. Also public policy schools are increasingly hiring pretty big names in Poli Sci (at least IR) and in my field (security studies) it seems like there is a high % working in public policy schools. In addition, many times if you talk to the professors they will help you on your path. For me, after I told my advisor I was interested in PhD, I had tons of oppourtunities and he helped me immensly with the process. If you feel that you need more prep or time to go to PhD school and can find a good program with your interest and not take on debt, then it can help. p.s. I did serve on a search committee this year at my university, and it seems that there is an increasing number of (at least IR people) are going to a master's policy type school before PhD, and I believe that good scholarly work should impact how policy is made in the long run I think it would be good to be exposed to.

Downtown Bryan is a nice place, but outside of that its pretty bad. So thats why you get contrasting opinions. Really just don't live in a mega student apartment complex and you'll be fine.

I actually plan on keeping my laptop, I wanted a desktop in addition to my laptop. I also agree that printing at school is best, but with print quotas schools have now and sometimes printing at home so you don't have to go to school is helpful.

I mostly meant traditions at the football games. I am not a fan of basically being assaulted for wearing something so I don't get sunburnt. I like some, some I do not. Most of the other traditions around campus are good.

Be prepared - they will expect you to know all the traditions even for your first game. I went to a big undergrad with a giant football team (went to a BCS bowl this year ) and I was not prepared for A&M games. I actually found myself turned off by how stuck in tradition they were. You have to stand for whole game (not a big deal) do the yells when they tell you to, but I think most annoying is the rules people have that arent actually traditions. My very first game was in August and was super hot and I was wearing a hat. Some people think you are supposed to take your hat off for every chant (which isnt true and if it was then you wouldnt wear the hat ever) someone actually took the hat off my head and threw it on the ground. Then people will crowd into your seats so they can sit with your friends so you have no where to stand. Hopefully moving to the SEC will fix some of this.

I personally wouldn't recommend grad housing as you can find fully furnished apartments cheaper and better IMO around town, but that is up to you. I moved from PA so had a similar concern and found plenty of places offered fully furnished. Also remember that it is still April and the program doesn't start til August. Right now everyone is gearing up for finals so I bet you will hear much more in May. When I got accepted my Master's offer, most information about what to do when I got here came around may so I wouldnt worry much. I know for sure there is a grad student orientation in August. And as far as grad student social life - I think there is a big social life here, although it may be different than california. There is a bar district downtown that is fun, plenty of local sports leagues to participate it, big cities short drives away, Downtown Bryan which has some more unique places to visit and people do make friends outside of the department if they go out and meet people. There is plenty to do here and people to meet.

In my program I am really only friends with my department, however we are slightly removed from every other program so we are a close knit group. Not sure about other programs on the main part of campus.

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