BrunoPuntzJones
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Posts posted by BrunoPuntzJones
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Let me throw in an additional curve: do you think it would be worth it to transfer from a top-75 school (e.g. Houston) to a top-40 school (e.g. Johns Hopkins) after having completed 2 years of coursework (and potentially having attained ABD status)? For the sake of the argument, let's say the person would then have to take half the coursework at Johns Hopkins (the other half being credited), take the comps, defend the prospectus again.
Coach's story on this provides a pretty good assessment. Transferring decisions should depend on who you're working with/what you're studying. Hopkins, for example, is a program that has a strong reputation in a very specific area. If your work isn't in that wheelhouse, you don't gain anything from transferring.
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Second, the professor that I knew said that one of his colleagues who worked there was denied tenure, he went on to say that others were also denied tenure, only from CP and IR as I recall. His explanation was that the old guard at Iowa, who were Americanists he stated, were the ones who denied his colleagues tenure. Now the situation may not be as bleak as that and I am not saying it is a horrible university or department, but that is what I heard, so take it with a grain of salt. It could be possible that there were other extenuation circumstances that I was unaware of that may have led to this decision. Again, I am sorry if I came off poorly I did not mean to do so, all I can say is that is what I was told.
I have no idea if there was a problem at Iowa, but the timeframe for stories like this is important. Iowa had some substantial turnover amongst their senior americanists over the past few years, so if there was an old guard, there's a good chance it's no longer an issue today.
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I know this is a debate thats been brought up a couple times but was wondering if anyone wanted to weigh in again. Since we've all been told to go to the highest ranked school, go where best fit, and not to do a PhD unfunded, how do we square those three maxims with one another? In my case I'm weighing a fully funded offer from a school ranked near 75 with so-so placements but a great fit that has been trying to woo me vs. an unfunded offer from a school ranked near 50 with very good placements for its ranking and a good but not great fit that has put no effort into wooing me. After emailing the DGS it is possible but not likely that I will eventually get funding at the second school. Any thoughts on this? Are there any good reasons to forego the funding and fit for the ranking and placements at this tier of schools?
For schools ranked outside the top 15-20, you need to narrow down two questions regarding the placements: (1) what's the time frame on them? A number of departments will show you aggregate stats from the past 10 years, but the market has gotten much tougher the past couple years. How have their students done recently? (2) what do the placement numbers look like within your subfield? And even more narrowly, how has your POI's last couple students performed? Some lower ranked programs routinely place students well in certain subfields. This boosts their overall numbers, but can be really misleading if you're headed their for something else.
Those points aside, my advice is always to take the funded offer. It's not ideal, but you'll still have the option of looking around down the road if you feel like the school isn't competitive. The last couple markets have been rough, and I don't think a top 50 provides you that much more security than a top 75. Coming out with substantial debt is a nightmare scenario and should be avoided.
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Provided his University has a subscription (which is likely), heinonline has the complete Congressional Record available. This should be what you're looking for. Hein also has some additional material (Senate and House Journals, etc...) for certain dates and that could be helpful.
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It depends on what you want to get out them. If you want advice on graduate school, the application process, etc..., than I know a number of faculty members are happy to help out. I'd recommend e-mailing them ahead of time though.
It won't help you in terms of admission. Penelope's post is spot on (at least for where I'm at). Admission decisions are made by faculty members on the committee and there really isn't any involvement from other folks. There's a post somewhere on this board that describes how one adminssion committee operated that's pretty good. You might want to give it a look.
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Sure, it's possible...There's a decent number of political scientists with degrees in other disciplines (and certainly some in history). How it effects your chances depends on your GPA, GRE, research interests, etc., and will vary from department to department.
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Agree with RW. It's a solid list. I think Duke would be a good addition, as would Vanderbilt.
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If you haven't already, go to your letter writers with this question. Explain the situation and your reasons for considering graduate school. Most faculty are pretty good about responding to these kinds of questions and will be able to give you useful, more specific advice. What you've listed here in terms of interests makes it impossible to come up with a narrow list of schools.
Generically speaking: (1) Don't limit your applications to terminal masters programs. Apply to both. You don't want to pay for a graduate degree in political science. (2) Some uncertainty is expected with first year graduate students. Your research interests will change during the program, and faculty are (generally) accommodating with this.
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In most cases, transferring is acceptable...In this case, it's pretty easy. I generally advise folks against going in without funding, but if you plan on doing so, applying out again should be expected. Most of the faculty I know are pretty sympathetic to students coming in without funding and I'd be surprised if you got any static from it.
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Depends on a number of factors: the composition of the graduate committee, the strengths of the department, the number of available lines, where those lines are coming from (i.e. college/University lines), etc...While I'm guessing some of the top departments are pretty rigid in terms of subfield, most are pretty flexible.
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I think Viva is on the nose with this one...Close call and probably can't go wrong either way. Minnesota has a nice track record placing folks in political psychology. While OSU has a better reputation in American more broadly, they have lost some folks in American/methods the past few years. It's still a great group, but probably a closer call between the two departments than it has been in years past.
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Most phd programs will grant you a masters somewhere along the way. I got one at the conclusion of my second year. It also wasn't uncommon for students at my graduate school to figure out the phd wasn't for them and to leave after the masters. The generic "apply broadly to both types of programs and take the best deal (factoring in program quality, stipend, etc.)" advice makes sense here I think. Also, FWIW, I've found that teaching is much smaller part of this job than I anticipated when I applied to graduate school.
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You don't want them as the cornerstone of your application and you don't want them as your primary adviser. It's fine to mention them in the statement -- I don't think that really matters much either way. In general, it's nice to have an assistant in your area on the faculty. They tend to be a little more accessible and in some cases more willing to co-author with graduate students. The downside is that they're also -- in general -- more mobile, so there's no guarantee that they'll stick around. They're also focused on tenure, so while an advanced associate or a full professor takes some pleasure from the reputational benefits of placing a student in a good tenure track job (and are willing to pick up the phone to do that), assistants generally do not. Finally, and most importantly, when you hit the job market, your letter writers matter a great deal. A letter from a junior faculty member holds much less weight than someone who has a well-established reputation in the field.
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Can a strong GRE (1500+) compensate for my low GPA?
Sure...A strong GPA can compensate for a lower GPA. So can being a good fit for the department. But it depends on the school you're applying to and who happens to be sitting on the admissions committee that year. In my experience, the GRE tends to be the first bar, then everything else in the packet gets considered and given a score by each member of the committee. The process fluctuates a decent amount from program to program. If you're interested, there's a thread titled "Admission Committee Notes" that gives folks a pretty good feel for how the process works (at one program).
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I also don't understand your point about funding at all. How would they admit more people than they could fund? If they wanted a cohort of, say, 10 students, they could send out admits to them, waitlist a sufficient number of others (perhaps 20 or so; a good number could probably be ascertained through trial and error, modeling, or just educated guessing), and reject the rest who under no circumstances would have been admitted. That's the stage of the decisions I'm suggesting could be sent out simultaneously. Granted, being waitlisted is another kind of agony, but at least every applicant gets a clear idea of where they stand.
For what it's worth, we generally put a large portion of accepted applicants up for fellowships funded externally. We usually get a couple of these, though there's a decent amount of year to year variance. There's also a delay in when these rewards are received and it has significant consequences for the rest of our graduate cohort. I don't anticipate this is common, but I wouldn't be surprised if most public R1's have unique processes that make the graduate admission process a little bit more complex.
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In the two grad departments where I have been involved, no publication in a peer-reviewed journal (with the exception of those specializing in publishing undergraduate work) will hurt you.
FWIW, this has been my experience as well.
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No simple answer to this...Attitudes regarding transfers vary from institution to institution and amongst different faculty. Where I'm at, graduate student transfers are pretty common and there don't seem to be much by way of hard feelings (though generally it's during the second year). Assuming you have a good relationship with the grad director (which isn't always the case), I'd keep them in the loop after explaining why you're looking elsewhere. I don't think you need to worry about letters from your current institution...But there is a good/excellent chance faculty there will be contacted.
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Also, how many schools do most people apply to? I'd like to not spend a fortune on application fees.
It's been awhile, but I think I applied to 10-12. I think you can expect to shell out some cash applying to graduate schools. Even with a good record, you're going to want to have as many options as possible at this stage (it'll be a similar situation when you apply for jobs).
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I think a couple of sentences or a paragraph at the end of the statement personalized towards that department makes sense. "I'd like to work with Professors X, Y and Z to study [insert broad field]." Then a couple lines about your interest in the field or the work the professors are doing in it. In retrospect I don't imagine it bought me much, but it really wasn't much work. Anything more I think is overkill.
Best of luck.
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We're starting to see it used fairly regularly in the redistricting/incumbency advantage literature.
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Is BC really considered to be in the top 70-80 (30 places below 40-50)? I have seen it consistently ranked in at least the top 50.
There's a ton of slippage and variance in these rankings when you start moving down the list. This especially true amongst subfields and for departments that made numerous hires in a short span of time (see Vanderbilt in AP). I think that once you get out of the top 20 or 25 schools (or so), who you're working with becomes more important than the school you're at. Can you get a job from a lower ranked school? Sure. It's not as easy, but it happens often enough.
-Bruno
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If you are either (A) in the area or (
have the time/money to burn, then visiting a campus prior to applying might be worth doing. I think the value in it relates more to picking up things about the discipline than helping you get accepted to the University. My view is similar to Penelope's in that regard, which is that you don't get much bang for your buck. There doesn't seem to be much interplay between the few faculty on the graduate search committee and the rest of the department (at least where I'm at).- Bruno
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Both quantitative and qualitative methods play a substantial role in political science research, though they are often dependent upon your specific interests. I wouldn't read too much into the black and white quant v. qual debates you see popping up in the social sciences. Almost all top programs recognize that neither are a panacea and typically you need some combination (along with a good background in research design) to be successful. In short, as long as you're willing to learn the quant training, and approach it with an open mind, I don't think anyone is going to be upset if you choose to employ other techniques in your work.
-Bruno
Welcome to the 2013-2014 Cycle
in Political Science Forum
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I got my PhD from a small department where transferring was rare (though did happen) and work at one where transferring is pretty common. You run into the occasional faculty member that gets offended, but most folks I've met understand these decisions. It can be comparable to changing advisers or committee members in that respect. Read the room first, but at the end of the day you need to do what's best for you.