UNFUNDED CIR - Worth it????

[brandnewtothis]

Well my PhD cycle is over.  I'm have no funded offers.

 

I'm going a little crazy over what I should do.

 

I've taken very few poli. sci. classes and didn't have any serious research papers (or really anything at all) to show for my writing sample.  I think this was my biggest weakness.

 

What should I do?  Is going to Chicago's CIR unfunded actually worth it?

[ThisGuyRiteHere]

If you could take the cost, and make good connections with profs, maybe.

[MyUSofWhatever]

There are a couple different ways to look at this. 

 

Making connections with professors, both for advice and as possible recommenders, is an obvious plus. Plus, you'll hopefully have connections that could come in handy in the medium-to-long-term. The flip side to this, as was pointed out in a similar thread from last year-ish, is that you'll only be 3 months into the program by the time applications (and recommendations) are due. You would have to really hustle to get any meaningful recommendations by December, meaning that it might make sense to put off your re-applications to PhD programs until after you finish. If you don't think you need different recommendations, than this is less of a consideration.

 

You'll also get the coursework and writing samples to bolster your resume.That will help your SOP since you'll be able to make more connections between your interests and other people's work/debates in the field. It will also help you either confirm that you want to go onto a PhD or to re-think whether you want to spend the next 5-6 years doing a PhD. For what it's worth, CIR does have a pretty good track record of placing people into good PhD programs, at least according to their website.

 

Of course, that's all contingent on whether it works financially for you. It is only a year, so it's still cheaper than doing a two-year MA at a private university or is probably roughly equivalent at the in-state rate for a public school. It's a big investment, but even if doesn't lead to a PhD program afterwards, you'll go onto the job market with an MA from a really good and well-known school. 

 

That's my two cents, having not done an MA or knowing much more about CIR than what I've read on this forum and on their website. I was thinking about doing an MA after not getting in last year, but I'm a couple years out of college and decided that spending an extra year or two before re-applying meant that I would be starting a Phd program later than I wanted to. I re-applied this year, having only overhauled my SOP, and got in somewhere, so there is more than one way to skin that cat.

 

Yikes, that's long - Ima stop typing now.

[Zahar Berkut]

MyUSofWhatever hits all the key points. If you can afford it, I am sure it will be excellent preparation for PhD admissions, but you need to be sure you can handle the costs (it may not be worth it to go into debt for the MA, but that depends on your finances). The support they give for writing the master's thesis is particularly valuable, probably better than what PhD students usually receive for any comparable master's paper. And if you need a new writing sample, you may not have one ready for the following admissions cycle. Depending on your field, you could wait until you complete the thesis, defer for the following admissions cycle, and take a year to travel or maybe do research on a fellowship (Boren, Fulbright, etc.) Just an option.

 

The flip side is that getting the master's from UChicago can also make you more marketable outside academia, and you can try to hedge for that possibility by developing skills that might be useful on the job market (quant methods, language, substantive knowledge related to economics, etc.). I believe that about a third of the students go on to PhDs, another third go public sector/non-profit, and the last go private. But you'll need to gauge the value added by examining your own interests as well.