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Hello everyone, I am currently very unsure how to decide between two master options I have to then further continue with PhD applications: Background: Bachelor in IR (top 10-15 European school) with decent, but not crazy good grades (maybe top 20-30%) Currently enrolled in US master in a PoliSci related, but interdisciplinary field (top 10 school), with currently a top grade standing Decent (international) research experience, a few well known scholarships, a few publications (nothing too extraordinary), 6 fluent languages, lack of quant knowledge, no GRE done yet, good letters of recommendations in sight Goal: Top PhD program, ideally in the US Topic Area: IR or Comparative Politics, potentially on the more theory heavy side and with a focus on South Asia as a region Options: I have two second master programs lined up for the fall (both one year), both are quite research heavy and fall into the area of regional studies: MSc in Modern South Asian Studies (Oxford) MPhil in Modern South Asian Studies (Cambridge) Both would be fully funded (including living costs) through scholarships Question: I am really unsure which program to choose. Both are quite similarly structured and have a strong research component. Cambridge is more established in South Asian Studies, seems more academic (also is named "MPhil"), and somehow the department seems more up to date and "healthy" Oxford, however, seems more flexible and would allow me to focus a little more on the political science side of things, which might be important considering my wish to do a PhD in PoliSci Oxford might be more prestigious and relevant from a US perspective? Does anyone have experience with with South Asia within PoliSci or can give me any information about the standing of Cambridge and Oxford in the US PhD market or just generally evaluate my profile? Any comments are greatly appreciated!

Hello, everyone! I'm waiting on applications to the following Master's programs in Canada for Fall 2023 intake: Master of Design at Concordia University Master of Visual Communication Design at University of Alberta Master of Digital Media at York University Master of Digital Media at Centre for Digital Media/Simon Fraser University Has anyone heard from these programs? I'm still waiting on updates on all of them

Hi! So I am still in search of reputed master programmes that prepare strong candidates for future Ph.D. application in the U.S. I want to specialize in clinical child psychology/ developmental neuropsychology. Thoughts? (I am quite desperate and open to new ideas, I appreciate any advice!) Many thanks!

Hi I was admitted for the EPFL 2021 master program, but after confirming my registeration I did not receive any email from EPFL or my IT credentials. Is there anyone who has recieved an email from EPFL? Thanks

Hello guys! I have an intention to do my postgraduate studies in Europe. Especially UK, Netherlands, Denmark… But as a non-EU citizen, finding scholarship or tuition waiver it’s harder than I thought. Do you know any scholarships or grants that may help me to meet some of my expenses for an MA program? Or any university that proivides tuition waiver for some of its students? Besides, I’m a social science student. I am open to any tips and recommendations! many many thanx!!

Hey guys! Wanted to get a conversation going about Fall 2021 admissions into UMSI masters program. I applied before the January 15th deadline, anyone know how long it takes for admission decisions? Also, does anyone have an idea on the acceptance rate of UMSI Masters in Information?

I got accepted into both ETH Zurich Mechanical Engineering Masters and TU Delft Aerospace Engineering Masters. From a practical point of view, both are almost equivalent in cost since I can stay with family in Delft. Although Delft seems to be a bit more applied than ETH, I think I would be happy academically in either program. Since my end goal is likely to be a PhD I was leaning more towards ETH, but I am unsure since Delft seems to have gained in reputation quite a bit in aerospace. Am I missing something here? I can't really find a a real reason to go for one over the other.

Hello dear forum, I have been reading here quietly for a while now, since there are two questions in particular driving me around that I haven't been able to answer properly yet: 1) Should I apply for PhDs this year (for a start in fall 2022) with my current profile and thus have only studied a few months in my Master? and 2) Which of the Master's programs best fits my focus and could still best "push" my PhD applications? Goal: I would prefer to do a PhD in Comparative Politics or IR theory, keeping a focus on South Asia. Most of the exciting programs I am having an eye on are in the US and unfortunately at the usual, very competitive universities... Background: - Bachelor's degree from top-10 European university in International Relations. Our different grading system would just confuse the GPA, but unfortunately I was "only" top 20-30% of my class. Semester abroad at well known US university for IR/PoliSci - took classic IR courses with unfortunately less quantitative focus - I only took a one year course in quantitative and statistical models for Political Science (but did very well there) and learned R, SPSS and Stata (partly introductory). - RA at a prestigious US political research institute and internships at embassies. - Publications: 10+ op-eds, 3 short academic articles in niche publications ---> currently working on publishing my bachelor's thesis as well as 1-2 other "larger" paper projects before applying - Other: 8 languages (5 of them fluent); contact to many professors for LOR, but all European and all from the Bachelor-level - GRE: currently studying for it to write it in the summer Current: I finished my Bachelor in 2020 and am currently taking a gap year to work / do internships. I am also taking a one year Economics program at the same university, but it is "basically" not graded. Master's: I will be starting a Master's in Fall 2021 and am very undecided about the program. I have the following options: - LSE MSc in IR -> 1 year - Columbia M.A. (interdisciplinary program with slight regional focus -> notPolitical Science per se, but possible focus; very renowned profs in my field)-> 1 year (Fulbright scholarship secured). - Cambridge MPhil (similar orientation as Columbia, but research related and with a clear focus on South Asia) -> 1 year - IHEID Geneva Master in Political Science / IR -> 2 years My questions: 1) I would like (for personal reasons) to continue with a PhD in the US right after my Master, but I also know that my profile is definitely not the strongest. Since most programs only go for one year, I would have to apply already this year and thus would not be able to benefit from the professors for LOR nor from the final grade or from my Master´s thesis for the PhD applications. --> How much would the fact that I am doing these masters but that I am applying with mostly the material from the Bachelor count? --> Should I wait a year to focus more on my Master´s degree in my application? 2) I would like to apply for a PhD in Political Science, but maintain a South Asia focus in my research. Therefore, I also have two masters in the list that are more interdisciplinary and exactly at the interface in which I am interested in. However, I would not do traditional Political Science there and will only come into contact with a few Political Scientists. --> So does it make more sense to choose the LSE / IHEID Master to work clearly towards a PhD in Political Science? --> Would an interdisciplinary Master in South Asian Studies be more of a hindrance for a Political Science PhD? --> Does the reputation of the university play a role for PhD applications in the US? If so, how do these universities compare? I thank you all so much for your help and already apologize for this way too long question... All the best

Hi! I am here to ask for help in choosing a good master program in political science. I have now received admission from Duke, UChicago, UCSD (MCEPA), and U of T. I am particularly interested in authoritarian politics and the political economy of development, with a specific focus on China. I can't decide upon Duke or UCSD. Here are the pros & cons of both schools. Duke: PROS-good placement (except for this year), small class size, good training. CONS-People studying authoritarian politics basically reach out to Professor Manion and Malesky. I am afraid that I can't stand out and get a strong LOR from them. UCSD MCEPA: PROS-more diverse, good faculties, a good place to study China, intensive training in quant, and probably more RA opportunities. CONS-no one entered into top Pol Sci PhD programs before (the cohort is relatively small and only 13 students graduated from this program in the past three years.) Too many required courses are focused on China and I can take only up to four PhD-level courses from the pol sci department.

Hi guys! I'm an applicant for the CMHS year 1 program fall 2021 at UPenn GSE. My application was complete on 02/05 and I still haven't received any updates regarding my application, so I'm getting really nervous. I know this may be a long shot, but does anyone who submitted their application in early February hear back from the program?

Hey! For the Severe Disabilities track, has everyone who applied gotten an interview? Heard anything else?

Hi everyone, I was just wondering if any of you had receive any news regarding the decisions for the 1st round of admissions ? The deadline for the 2nd round is tomorrow and it is going to be more than 6 week? This is stressing me out...

Hi every one. I have a question and it's kinda emergency. Can you please help? I got the admission for Mcmaster university for fall 2017 master program and I accepted the offer, but the problem is that the offer is a conditional one. It states that (here is the exact sentences from the offer): This offer is conditional upon the receipt of an official transcript confirming that your Bachelor's degree has been conferred with at least a B- average in the final year (in the discipline you are entering) I assume B- is equal to 2.7/4. I understand that B- is not a high GPA but the problem is that last semester, I did not do well at all. Currently, I am studying for my final exams (for the last semester) but I'm afraid I cannot meet this condition. My professor is very interested to have me in his research group and my overall GPA is still above the minimum required to be accepted in McMaster, but I predict my final year GPA will not be so good. I am really worried about the situation. Will my offer really be rescinded if I don't meet the condition or I can do something about it? Thank you

Hello. I am a 27 year old peruvian currently living in Peru and I am enrolled to study a master's degree in Media and Communication Sciences in the Technische Universität Ilmenau starting in april 2021, I have already been accepted to the course but in order to get a VISA, the embassy of Germany in Peru demands me a formal guarantee letter (Verpflichtungserklärung), this is a German citizen that signs a letter that guarantees that i will have money while I am in Germany. I have enough money for my living, I just need someone to sign that letter, that person will not spend any money, otherwise i cannot get the visa. I do not have family or relatives in Germany, I'm on my own. Can someone please help me?

Hi everyone! I'm thinking about applying for the DAAD scholarship this year (deadline is very soon) and, therefore, I need to choose 3 master programmes before I apply. I'm now at the nuclear department in my Uni and I want to specialize in theoretical physics in my master course. The reason is, since my scientific work is about extending Standard Model to describe massive neutrinos (rougly gauge models), I feel that I don't have necessary deep knowledge in QFT and other theoretical fields. I don't want to be so shallow in my scientific work Can someone please recommend the best places to study theoretical physics in Germany?

Hi political scientists. I have been preparing my application for 2021 MA application at UBC. I was hoping some one may have some advice about what classes should I take and an evaluation for my profile. Here are my stats. Undergrad Institution: Known research university in Vancouver, Major Communication (current CGPA 3.85) Minor Political Science. Relevant courses: Pre cal (A-), Introductory Stat (A-), Communication quant research (A+), Communication qual reseach (A), Political Economy (A-) Political Science courses: Introduction (A), Introductory game theory (A+), Intro Pol quant in R (A+), 2 courses in Pol Intermidiate quant (A, A-), International Relation (A) GRE: not required Type of student: International female Applying to: UBC MA Pol Sci, SFU MA Pol Sci, U of Vic MA Pol Sci Research experience: only through coursework, can coworking with a PhD student in writting a paper. My profile is weak in many dimensions. Fortunately, I have 2 more semesters to improve. Unfortunately, I have no idea what committee is finding at applicant. Could you please advice; Could you please advice me on what additional classes I should take to improve my chance of getting into these programs? What should I do to improve my current weak profile And, generally, what makes a good candidate applicant for UBC MA? in term of GPA, courseworks, research experience Thank you for your help!! I appreciate any input, bashing, etc.

Is there anyone who has not received the application result for the application fall 2020? Has anyone been waitedlisted?

Hi all, I hope this finds you well. I am currently writing my PhD in Near Eastern Archaeology. I used a very useful database that helped me organising my data. I thought that might be of interest for some of you. I think it could be also used to record finds on excavations. I am not sure if I can post the link to it in here? Otherwise I am happy to provide a review. Stay safe and take care

It’s quite a hard choice for me… Let me first describe a bit about my struggle. I wanna pursue an academic career in the discipline of international relations. My main research interests include international cooperation, IR theory, IOs, and Asia-Pacific. Both schools have very significant pros and cons in my view. ANU is a leading institution in Asia-Pacific studies and very rich in academic resources. However, I tend to complete my doctoral studies (PhD) in the US. As you guy may know, ANU is a base for the English School (emphasize the value of traditional research methods, which means I won’t have enough quantitative training if I choose to study at ANU). And I worry that if my quantitative background is weak, it might hurt my chance to get into top US universities (well, honestly, I found the English School is attracted to me, whereas I still more fond of scientific behaviorism with regard to research methodology…). Also, the location of ANU make me even more hesitate… (in Canberra). University of Kent, Brussels + VTech (DC campus) can hugely widen my perspective I guess since these two cities are the political centers and have plenty of IOs. In addition, I suppose if I get a US degree (by VTech), it would be easier for me to apply for other American universities. And I might be able to build my networking in the region of DC. But these two schools seem not as prestigious as ANU in the field of IR. So, I am concern about it might influence my academic career if I cannot get good enough academic training in these two schools. Hence, my questions can be simply summary as follow: 1) Is ANU’s IR programme highly recognized in the US? Will it affect my chance to get into US universities for PhD? (in the negative sense) 2) Is VTech’s Government and International Affairs programme (the programme I admitted in) known in the US? Or would you say it good? My apologize for type a lot, but I really want to describe my concerns clearly. Thank you guys!

It’s quite a hard choice for me… Let me first describe a bit about my struggle. I wanna pursue an academic career in the discipline of international relations. My main research interests include international cooperation, IR theory, IOs, and Asia-Pacific. Both schools have very significant pros and cons in my view. ANU is a leading institution in Asia-Pacific studies and very rich in academic resources. However, I tend to complete my doctoral studies (Ph.D.) in the US. As you guys may know, ANU is a base for the English School of IR (emphasize the value of traditional research methods, which means I won’t have enough quantitative training if I choose to study at ANU). And I worry that if my quantitative background is weak, it might hurt my chance to get into top US universities (well, honestly, I found the English School is attracted to me, whereas I still more fond of scientific behaviorism with regard to research methodology…). Also, the location of ANU makes me even more hesitant… (in Canberra). University of Kent, Brussels and VTech (DC campus) can hugely widen my perspective I guess since these two cities are the political centers and have plenty of IOs. In addition, I suppose if I get a US degree (by VTech), it would be easier for me to apply for other American universities. And I might be able to build my networking in the region of DC. But these two schools seem not as prestigious as ANU in the field of IR. So, I am concern about it might influence my academic career if I cannot get good enough academic training in these two schools. Hence, my questions can be simply summarized as follow: 1) Is ANU’s IR programme highly recognized in the US? Will it affect my chance to get into US universities for Ph.D.? (in the negative sense) 2) Is VTech’s Government and International Affairs programme (the programme I admitted in) known in the US? Or would you say it good? I apologize for typing a lot, but I really want to describe my concerns clearly. Thank you guys!

Has anyone heard from EPFL regarding their master's applications?

Hi Everyone, I just wanted to start a forum on those waiting for admission to Fall 2018 University of Michigan School of Information Master's program! Here is a space for you to discuss your worries, get information from others applying, and ask about acceptances/denials. We're all in the same boat! UMSI '18!!

Hello, I'm currently a fresh graduate student in economics from reputable university in Indonesia. I have 3.48 GPA, scored 7.5 on IELTS, and scored 164 in GRE quant and 161 in my verbal. I have several working experiences, as teaching assistant for Introduction on Microeconomics, internship at a local social enterprise and currently I'm a research assistant at independent think tank. I seem to have chance for not relying on financial aid (self-support). My biggest consideration is time, as I have to start my master degree by 2020. I plan to apply into several universities, but I strongly prefer Boston: 1. Boston University-MA. Economics 2. Illnois-Urbana–MSPE 3. UCL, Warwick, LSE–Economics 4. Erasmus, UvA, Tilburg–Economics Do you think I have a chance to get into one of the program considering my low GPA and imperfect GRE? Thank you

Just wanna start a post for Columbia Data Science 2019 fall applicants. Has anyone heard back yet? Or what is your process?

Hey everyone here, I'll be applying to various universities this December onwards, I'll graduate next year in May. I plan to pursue a Masters degree in Statistics, and would realistically like to know my chances at one of the top 10 universities (ETH Zurich claiming top spot). Thanks! Here's my profile: Undergrad: IIT Guwahati (India) - Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Computer Science - CGPA 8.39/10 Profile: Indian, Male, 20y TOEFL: 116/120; GRE (expected): 170Q 162V 4W Relevant coursework: I have attached my course structure for MA101,102, 201 as well as the CS courses down in the attachments section since I didn't know how to filter stuff out. Here are the minor course (CSE) contents: Functions, relations, partial orders, recurrences, summations, generating functions, asymptotics Graphs: basic concepts Elementary Logic and proof techniques. Alphabets, Languages, Grammars Finite automata: regular expressions, regular languages Context free languages: pushdown automata Turing machines: recursively enumerable languages Chomsky hierarchy. Review of fundamental Data Structures Models of Computation: random access machines, space and time complexity measures, lower and upper bounds Design techniques: the greedy method, divide-and-conquer, dynamic programming, backtracking Sorting and Searching Graph algorithms Hashing: separate chaining, linear probing, quadratic probing Search Trees: binary search trees, AVL trees, B-trees NP-completeness. Boolean Algebra Minimisation and realisation of switching circuits Basic building blocks of combinational circuits: Multiplexer, De-multiplexer, Encoder, Decoder, Adder, Subtracter Design of synchronous sequential circuits: Flip-flops, Registers, Counters, Finite State Machines, State tables and diagrams, Excitation functions of memory elements.Instruction sets with various addressing modes Memory organisation: ROM, Cache, Main Memory CPU design: ALU, Control unit design: hardwired and microprogrammed I/O transfer: Program controlled, Interrupt controlled and DMA. Introduction to structure and organization of computer systems, operating systems, and networks Processes and threads and their scheduling, synchronization, deadlocks in concurrent processes Memory management basics, demand paging and virtual memory implementation File system design and implementation.Basics of digital communication, digital transmission of data, modulation Multiplexing Data link control with sliding window protocols, error control Local area networks, Ethernet, wireless networks Concepts of switched networks Internet addressing and routing algorithms Transport protocols, UDP, TCP, flow control, congestion control Application layer protocols such as DNS, SSL, Web. Introduction: software engineering principles, life cycle Requirement specification: styles, operational and descriptive Design: a brief concept on objects, data abstraction,inheritance, polymorphism, data encapsulation, software design using functional andobject oriented approaches, architectural, component-level and user interface design Brief introduction on database system (specially SQL, MySQL) Verification: testing, validation Software reuse: design patterns Software management Software Modeling: UML. Research experience: None, haven't released a paper in my undergraduate studies. This might be the weakest point on my profile along with the subpar CGPA (I think). Letters of recommendation: I'll probably get good letters from my BTech dissertation supervisor (reinforcement learning) and I have a good one from a company I interned at this summer (neural networks). Other than that I'll be able to get one from the Mech Dept professors. What do you guys think? Please let me know if I haven't mentioned anything important, I tried being as clear and open about it as possible. Thank you! ❤️ CS101.pdf CS110.pdf MA101.pdf MA102.pdf MA201.pdf