PhD program prospects for a guy in his 30s with a BA, MBA, and JD?

[Mr. Tibbs]

I'll try to make this as brief as possible while still providing a lot of information:

 

Who I am on paper:

 

- BA and MBA from cheap state University in Florida.  2.9 UGPA, 3.2 MBA GPA

 

- 3 Year Gap Between MBA and Law School (lived abroad for wife's med school)

 

- JD from Top 25, but not Top 14, Law School.  3.4 GPA, Top 1/3 class, Climate/Environmental Journal

 

- 3+ Year Gap Between JD (Graduated 2012) and being able to go back to school for a PhD (Fall 2015, playing stay-at-home dad to son born 2012 while wife completes residency)

 

- Non-relevant work experience only (retail management)

 

My Goal/Dream Job School:

 

- To do research, publish, and TEACH.  University of South Carolina, and if not feasible, any other university or college that will pay a solid middle-class wage and allow me to live in Columbia or the north-western part of South Carolina (Greenville, Spartanburg, Anderson area).  Too many years on the move and being a man without a home, too many years seeing parents and a very tight-knit extended family once a year or twice if I'm lucky.

 

My Questions:

 

- Where in the rankings, according to U.S. News, should I be shooting for a Poli Sci PhD?  South Carolina is ranked 51st.

 

- Would being accepted to and actually attending the very same university you'd like to ultimately work for be a bad idea or insanely stupid?

 

- Would having both a law degree (from a great southern school) and a PhD make me significantly more attractive to prospective employers than my peers, or will the JD simply be a minor resume shine?

 

- Just how badly is my awful UGPA going to hurt me?  Will my later performance in any way make up for it?  

 

- I'm an excellent test taker.  I was able to get into a law school I had no business getting into considering my 2.9 UGPA by scoring in the 99th percentile on the LSAT.  This kind of performance on standardized tests is typical for me when I prepare thoroughly.  Let's assume for argument's sake that I can at least score 700 and above on the GRE portions.  Do GRE scores help compensate for poor UGPA in Political Science admissions?

 

- How badly will two separate 3 year gaps and my age (mid 30s by 2015) hurt me?

 

- On a scale from 1 to 10, where 10 = "Don't sweat it, you're golden" and 1 = "Hahaha, you might as well spend the application fees on buying lotto tickets" where would you rank my prospects for getting into a PhD program that will pave the way for my desired career destination?

 

Thanks in advance for any answers, comments, advice, or ridicule.  Questions welcome if I have failed to provide enough information.

 

-Mr. Tibbs-

[cooperstreet]

Wanting a tenure-track position most of the time means being willing to relocate anywhere in the country, FWIW.

 

What are your research interests?

[PhDhopeful2013]

another thing to think about is your recommendations.  do you have 3 letter writers in mind? if so, are any of them political scientists?  if you don't have close ties with any poli sci profs now, you may want to think about taking a few poli sci classes at a local university to establish some relationships.  this would also help you to define your research interests within the discipline and to find programs with the appropriate fit...

[eponine997]

Wanting a tenure-track position most of the time means being willing to relocate anywhere in the country, FWIW.

^ This.  Mostly this... in fact, 1000x this.  

 

Getting a political science PhD (both the process and the outcome) will likely bring less stability to your life, not more.  There are literally hundreds of unemployed PS PhDs who ARE willing to move anywhere for a job and theres no guarantee the a school in your desired geographic area will be hiring for your subfield within 5 years of you graduating.  

 

You have a law degree and an MBA, you have a greater probability of getting a middle class wage and stable job with either of those than with a PS PhD.  If your heart is set on teaching, you can potentially use those to teach at a community college (particularly the MBA).  Otherwise I'd recommend enrolling (now) as a post-bacc/grad student at-large at USC-Columbia or whatever PhD program is closest in their Intro PS grad seminar to a) find out if its what you REALLY want, b.) adjust to the realities of what an academic career would entail, c) develop clear research interests and determine if this is the right field for you, d) build relationships with prof who can potentially write you recommendations - because you will need to do ALL of those things before applying to a PhD program.  

 

You undergrad GPA is not the end of the world, nor is your age.  But before starting down this road you might want to re-evaluate whether it would allow you to achieve your desired outcome (because there might be a better, more effective way for you to reach these goals, (secondary teaching perhaps?)).  Perhaps you do want this badly enough, in which case, go for it, but recognize the potential costs, which are extremely high.  

Edited March 13, 2013 by eponine997

[polisci12345]

My Questions:

 

- Where in the rankings, according to U.S. News, should I be shooting for a Poli Sci PhD?  South Carolina is ranked 51st.

 

Somewhere at least as well ranked. Most schools make their new hires from peer institutions and better ranked ones. 

 

- Would being accepted to and actually attending the very same university you'd like to ultimately work for be a bad idea or insanely stupid?

Insanely stupid. Many schools have a policy against hiring their own PhDs. If your dream job is to work at South Carolina, read the CVs of their faculty (especially the junior ones) and look at where they went to school. How many of them have degrees from South Carolina? The most common schools are where you should be looking. My own quick scan showed that currently no members of the USC faculty received their doctorate there. The modal degree was from UNC. I also saw multiple graduates of Cornell, Indiana and Iowa.

 

- Would having both a law degree (from a great southern school) and a PhD make me significantly more attractive to prospective employers than my peers, or will the JD simply be a minor resume shine?

 

Depends entirely on the research agenda you ultimately create for yourself.

 

- Just how badly is my awful UGPA going to hurt me?  Will my later performance in any way make up for it?  

Its going to hurt you applying to some schools. If you read the posts by BFB on Ohio State's admission's process, you'll note that the have to put the people they want to admit into a school wide competition for funding with a cut-point for undergrad GPA. You will be in trouble at schools that do that. Other schools give their department's an allotment of fellowships to give out to the applicants they want. At those schools, they will be able to weigh the later performance and make up their own mind. 

 

- I'm an excellent test taker.  I was able to get into a law school I had no business getting into considering my 2.9 UGPA by scoring in the 99th percentile on the LSAT.  This kind of performance on standardized tests is typical for me when I prepare thoroughly.  Let's assume for argument's sake that I can at least score 700 and above on the GRE portions.  Do GRE scores help compensate for poor UGPA in Political Science admissions?

A better way to think about GRE scores is as a threshold. As far as I know, departments aren't admitting people because of stellar GREs but they will reject someone for poor ones. They all have some threshold. Once you get over that, how much you are over by is not a very big deal. Again, see posts by BFB for how he interprets GRE scores. Applying for a PhD program where departments are making in the ballpark of 10-30 offers is very different than applying to law schools where places make hundreds of offers and you can explain the majority of the variance in admissions using just LSAT and GPA.

 

- How badly will two separate 3 year gaps and my age (mid 30s by 2015) hurt me?

Again, variable. Depends a lot on what you did with the time. Some places will not like it. If you used it productively and got some insights into what you want to work on, then can be a plus.

 

- On a scale from 1 to 10, where 10 = "Don't sweat it, you're golden" and 1 = "Hahaha, you might as well spend the application fees on buying lotto tickets" where would you rank my prospects for getting into a PhD program that will pave the way for my desired career destination?

Hell if I know, but there are at least a few people posting on this forum who have been on admissions committee or three.

[raptureonfire]

Hey Mr. Tibbs,

 

I'm not in any position of authority on the matter, but here are my thoughts ...

 

I'll try to make this as brief as possible while still providing a lot of information:

 

Who I am on paper:

 

- BA and MBA from cheap state University in Florida.  2.9 UGPA, 3.2 MBA GPA

 

- 3 Year Gap Between MBA and Law School (lived abroad for wife's med school)

 

- JD from Top 25, but not Top 14, Law School.  3.4 GPA, Top 1/3 class, Climate/Environmental Journal

 

- 3+ Year Gap Between JD (Graduated 2012) and being able to go back to school for a PhD (Fall 2015, playing stay-at-home dad to son born 2012 while wife completes residency)

 

- Non-relevant work experience only (retail management)

 

My Goal/Dream Job School:

 

- To do research, publish, and TEACH.  University of South Carolina, and if not feasible, any other university or college that will pay a solid middle-class wage and allow me to live in Columbia or the north-western part of South Carolina (Greenville, Spartanburg, Anderson area).  Too many years on the move and being a man without a home, too many years seeing parents and a very tight-knit extended family once a year or twice if I'm lucky.

 

If I were serving on an admissions committee (I am not, and never have), I would be asking myself about your ability to commit to a field/career.  To be blunt, I'd question why, with an MBA and a JD, you haven't pursued a career in either business or law.  I would question what you said on your applications to the MBA and JD program ... did you say that you wanted to manage businesses or be a lawyer?  What were your stated reasons for enrolling in those programs?  What makes your commitment to teaching any different than your past commitment to law or business?

 

You have a law degree and an MBA, you have a greater probability of getting a middle class wage and stable job with either of those than with a PS PhD.  If your heart is set on teaching, you can potentially use those to teach at a community college (particularly the MBA).

 

Just wanted to second this.

 

Going into a PhD program with the intention of entering academia is maybe the least stable path that you can possibly take right now.  If you're really looking for a stable middle class life, you should be starting your career, not postponing it by 5-7 years.  Particularly given that you have a child (congratulations!), you should be investing in yourself now - particularly if you're hoping to stay in the South Carolina region.

 

As anyone will tell you, when you're looking for a teaching job, "you get what you get, and you don't get upset".  The chances that, at age 40+ with a degree from SC, that you would be able to get a job that allows you to remain in a specific region in SC, are extremely limited ... and then you'd either have to move to wherever you can get a job (and uproot your wife and kid), or just end up taking an unrelated career, having added a few more letters to your business card.