Middle and Lower Tier Programs

[uncapp]

I sit with jealousy towards the many posters who are weighing which top 20 program they want to attend. Who else on here is applying to mostly middle and lower tier programs like myself?

[nina gorman]

I applied to U of Az - pol sci got rejected - they took only 8 out of 70 this year and if they do what they did last year half their slots are for specialized demographic based fellowships. :cry: Got shot down by U of Md to study comparative politics within their soc. program and just found out am waitlisted for CUNY poli sci - they didn't even want a writing sample. I'd like to find out more about middle tier programs like these. (I don't know how to post that list that everyone puts up on where applied to and dispositions). :?: nina

[UndraftedFreeAgent]

I don't know how to post that list that everyone puts up on where applied to and dispositions). :?: nina

Click on the link near the top of your screen called "user control panel" and navigate until you find where to create signature. You can put whatever you want, but they limit the number of letters/numbers.

[alanapsci]

Hey!

I was one of those crazy Ph.D. hopeful students who decided NOT to look at the ranking list... (ok, well yes, I peeked at it) but I did not make my decisions on where to apply based on rankings. I based my decision on what my professors recommended and what programs seemed to suit me the best.

So with that said I was rejected by UVA, probably rejected by UNC (since I never heard!!!-- how frustrating, just send me the darn rejection), I was accepted at UConn and was assigned the Chair of Comparative Politics and Methodology as my advisor (doubt I could have gotten that at a top 25!). I am awaiting GWU and American.

The way I see it... if one funds me, I am extremely happy. I know the other forums talk about how below 25 we won't teach but that is total BS... I know MANY professors who teach at "good" universities who came from no where!!! As for me, I want to teach at a large state university...

Sorry, sometime this board can get me down with all this talk about top 10/top 25 and talking as if you are throwing away your degree to be getting it at any lower university... then why would they have so many programs.. I think over 350 in the country????

Ok... rant done

Accepted: UConn :mrgreen:

Rejected: UVA, UNC (never let me know!)

Waiting: WUSTL, American

[iheartplato]

alanapsci said:

Hey!

I was one of those crazy Ph.D. hopeful students who decided NOT to look at the ranking list... (ok, well yes, I peeked at it) but I did not make my decisions on where to apply based on rankings. I based my decision on what my professors recommended and what programs seemed to suit me the best.

So with that said I was rejected by UVA, probably rejected by UNC (since I never heard!!!-- how frustrating, just send me the darn rejection), I was accepted at UConn and was assigned the Chair of Comparative Politics and Methodology as my advisor (doubt I could have gotten that at a top 25!). I am awaiting GWU and American.

The way I see it... if one funds me, I am extremely happy. I know the other forums talk about how below 25 we won't teach but that is total BS... I know MANY professors who teach at "good" universities who came from no where!!! As for me, I want to teach at a large state university...

Sorry, sometime this board can get me down with all this talk about top 10/top 25 and talking as if you are throwing away your degree to be getting it at any lower university... then why would they have so many programs.. I think over 350 in the country????

Ok... rant done

Accepted: UConn :mrgreen:

Rejected: UVA, UNC (never let me know!)

Waiting: WUSTL, American

I like your attitude. I, too, have been reading all the talk about how you have to get into a top 15-25 program or else you will essentially NEVER get a job teaching ANYWHERE, EVER(!!!!) and the way I see it, your education will be what you make of it. Not everyone can get into a top program, even with relatively good stats. It's just the luck of the draw. As much as it would be great to go to a school with a good reputation, there are no definites in life, so I say get in where you can and give it your best shot. There isn't going to be some dramatic doomsday apocalypse for your career if you get into a lower-tier school and complete your degree there.

I'm also still waiting on GWU, fingers crossed!

[alanapsci]

Thanks, iheartplato! It's nice to hear someone else who understands! Good luck with GWU and the rest of your apps.

I went to two big state schools... Virginia Tech and George Mason. They had professors from no name universities and also those from Princeton, Harvard,WUSTL, etc.... It just depends what happens to you in life, publications, pull from other professors, not all is lost with a mid-tier/low-tier school. I can't say for way way below though...

[iheartplato]

Thanks--good luck to you as well! I'm a firm believer in making your own destiny--I mean granted, you shouldn't try to attend Billy Bob's Political Science Farm Academy in Boondocks, WV, but I can't really imagine that getting into a program that may be a bit lower on the rankings, but that fits you and has good mentors, etc., can ever really be a bad thing. Of course, succeeding in any program is a necessary factor as well...but that's just putting your nose the grindstone and churning out a heap of Nobel Prize-worthy work.

[Quarex]

I am looking forward to tearing it up in whatever mid-tier M.A. consolation acceptance I take, and actually having people in the correct field who are interested in what I am doing able to come up with suggestions for places to apply. There is a reason my application process took from June until January; I wanted to try to find every school in the country (or Canada, or England, or Australia, or South Africa, or Ireland, or Wales, or Scotland, or the Antarctic, or ) that had two or more people on staff interested in my general field. It really does not seem to be too big a shame to go somewhere not high-ranked if you are working with someone whose work you admire; one of my acceptances has a professor on staff who is currently not mentoring anyone and who wrote a fascinating book that is right up my research alley. In some ways, that would likely beat going somewhere that every professor is guaranteed to have dozens of other voices clamoring for his/her attention at all times.

What I clearly need to do this next time is find out where people actually working on my specific interests are. I have no idea how you do this, short of actually reading every single piece of academic work written by each of about 10,000 people working in your field. Reading all the curriculi vitae took long enough. All the research I did for my thesis barely helped, either, in that regard, since almost everyone I heavily cited was either not a Political Scientist, retired, dead, or all of the above. I cannot imagine doing all this again without someone on THE INSIDE helping me choose. And hey, I only ended up applying to like 3 of the top 20 programs in the country, through the sheer confusing fact that security and defense policy seems hugely underrepresented in a time of constant fearmongering. Maybe things will have picked up in a few more years!

[rebelrita]

I admire you and others here prioritizing their research interests and prospective professors/mentors in their research areas over the tier of the school. I am turned off by the high competition focus of some folks. which i imagine is partly due to the fear of not getting a full time professorship (easier in soc than poli sci but in my 20 years of adjuncting, I have seen a wide range of tier representation and publishing extent among the faculty and I've seen publishing take precedence over ivy league at Temple and other schools).

Has the intellectual spirit,i.e., the drive to contribute to the world via nurturing one's intellectual gifts, become a scarcity? There seems to be a tunnel vision for the ivy league PHD as well as for the tenured professorship.

I also have been turned off by the arrogant attitudes of some of those who apply to high tiers who seem shocked that a program turned them down- they seem to feel entitled for some reason and don't seem to appreciate their privileged position academically and economically. I admit I'm a little green too- never had an ivy league background or a 700 Quan GRE)

RE: how to find professors in your interest. I would focus on your interest and see to whom your research takes you and find where the hottest ones (to you) are teaching. (It's not an easy or short task and is impossible to be sure who are the best people out there to work with- if you grow as an intellectual this will likely flux).