Current advanced graduate student

[stolper]

Hello all,

 

I'm a current grad student at one of the top 3 (Harvard, Stanford, or Princeton) about to graduate.  I remember the excitement and highs and lows from applying, visiting, and finally attending graduate school.  I'm sure many of you have some questions that you would like answered from an insider grad student perspective, so I'm here to help.  Post any questions that you have and I'll try to answer them.  Be nice please.  Trolls will be ignored!

[30rus]

how strong are profs at these places?i mean how effective is their decision in the application process? can they get you a funding if you lack in GRE's or GPA just because they like your proposal? for e.g Abass Milani at stanford or stephen walt at harvard, can they get me an acception if they likes my work and proposal, but my undergrad is weak or unrelated or bad GRE?

thanks in advance btw

[Penelope Higgins]

I'm not the OP, but I am a faculty member at a school that gets mentioned on here fairly often, but not one of the three the OP mentioned.

Stephen Walt is not in political science at Harvard. He is in the Kennedy School of Government, which is the public policy school. He has nothing to do with graduate admissions for the Government Department and does not normally advise PhD students in that department, though he does occasionally serve as a third or fourth member of a dissertation committee. Same with Milani at Stanford. You need to find out which graduate programs they work with if you want to study with them.

In general in political science in the US, individual advisors have relatively little influence over the admissions process. That is because funding comes from the department or graduate school, not advisors. Do not count on them to play a major role in helping your case, particularly if your file is weak on GRE scores or GPA. Your file needs to appeal to a coalition in the department, not just to a single faculty member.

[30rus]

Thanks for your detailed response, I like to work with milani and i'll search for where i can apply to him and i just like Walt because of his blog at FP:D

anyways, since your a faculty member, how do you think an applicant like me could cover up a weak and unrelated undergrad when applying to U.S. schools?

[Penelope Higgins]

In my experience, this is where a clear and compelling personal statement and strong letters of recommendation can help you. Your application needs to convince us that you are a stronger student than your record reflects, and that you have a clear sense of how your research interests fit into political science scholarship even if your undergrad was in another field.

The reality is, though, that top schools get 400-500 applications for 30 spots. So it is hard to be competitive for admissions at a top department if your undergrad is really "weak and unrelated." I would make sure to apply to a wide range of schools, including some with a less competitive admissions process.

[midwest513]

I think the applicant is a bit confused as well. In the US you don't apply to specific faculty members. You can mention them in your statement to the department in general, but it's not the case that you would apply directly to Walt for example.

[ThisGuyRiteHere]

To the advanced graduate student:

How is the job market? Specifically, how to do you get an academic job (or how have you seen others do it)? Like what are these "job talks" and other things that students do? So lets imagine your defending your dissertation next may (2014), and you are hitting the job market. What would be a good timeline of things to do from now until you graduate next may?

[ThisGuyRiteHere]

Actually, Penelope could answer my question since she has an academic job already

[phdhope2013]

To the advanced graduate student:

How is the job market? Specifically, how to do you get an academic job (or how have you seen others do it)? Like what are these "job talks" and other things that students do? So lets imagine your defending your dissertation next may (2014), and you are hitting the job market. What would be a good timeline of things to do from now until you graduate next may?

 

 

You should probably ask this in the "Faculty Perspectives" thread as well. 

[Penelope Higgins]

The single best way to learn about this is to watch how hiring works in the department where you're starting a PhD. Go to the job talks, pay attention to how people present their work, the kinds of questions faculty ask, and compare your evaluation of the candidates to that of the faculty. In your first couple of years of grad school, the key thing to do is to think about how each class you take, each skill you build, each paper you write can help you figure out what you will research in your dissertation and what kind of job you want. You can go too far with this and miss out on the opportunity to explore new directions you might find interesting, but remember that graduate school, and especially the dissertation itself, are means to an end. And that end is getting a job and having a successful career.

As for the nuts and bolts of applying for jobs, here's a sketch of the timeline for jobs in the US. APSA has a searchable database of positions online, with brief and not always transparent or informative descriptions of what they are seeking. I don't know if you need to be a member to browse this. You send out a job packet that includes reference letters, writing sample (usually the strongest dissertation chapter and/or an article you have published along the way), cover letter, etc. Most people send out 50-60 or more packets, applying for every job that looks remotely like they might have a shot at it. Then you sit and wait for the phone to ring or new email to arrive - and here you thought those days were over after this winter.

Some departments do brief face to face interviews at APSA in September. These tend to be more teaching-oriented, smaller departments rather than institutions like the ones most people on here are applying to for the PhD. Some departments narrow down the applicant pool through Skype or phone interviews. Basically all departments eventually arrive at a list of 3 to 5 candidates that get brought to campus for a job talk, one on one interviews with faculty, and sometimes a teaching demonstration. Interviews generally though not always happen sometime between October and February, and once you get a job offer and accept it you may find yourself rushing to finish the dissertation so that you don't have it hanging over your head before you start teaching in August or September.

[Quigley]

Stolpher (or others currently attending) --

 

Could you please share a bit about your average daily routine and what patterns you've established that have made you a successful grad student? 

[Zahar Berkut]

I'm not necessarily planning on doing this, but I've noticed that at least one of the three schools mentioned in the initial post has a large number of students who receive a master's in a subject outside the department (usually economics for students doing CPE/IPE, but not always). It's not clear to me how this works. Are students able to sufficiently overlap coursework in order to "take" this different degree around the time they finish quals? Do they continue doing coursework after quals and/or over the summer in order to gain the extra level of expertise (and if so, would that coursework be funded)? Is there really an advantage to doing this that couldn't be gained by doing comparable coursework in PE or methodology within the department?

[polisci12345]

I don't know the specifics about the program you are asking about. My own department lets students take a masters in an outside subject. The way it works is that there are other departments that have MA programs that are entirely based on coursework and we can do that instead of getting an MA in political science. Most degree programs permit some number of outside courses to count, so you are able to count some courses from the outside MA to your political science department's requirement and some courses in political science to the MA. Even with this double counting of classes, you will still probably wind up needing to take more courses than the minimum required by your department. In my own department, this often manifests as needing a few courses after quals. This coursework is funded. Even after generals, we are considered full time students until we graduate, which entitles us to take a bunch of courses for free. Most people don't do more than 1 a semester because of the general time commitments of teaching and dissertations.

[RWBG]

I'm not necessarily planning on doing this, but I've noticed that at least one of the three schools mentioned in the initial post has a large number of students who receive a master's in a subject outside the department (usually economics for students doing CPE/IPE, but not always). It's not clear to me how this works. Are students able to sufficiently overlap coursework in order to "take" this different degree around the time they finish quals? Do they continue doing coursework after quals and/or over the summer in order to gain the extra level of expertise (and if so, would that coursework be funded)? Is there really an advantage to doing this that couldn't be gained by doing comparable coursework in PE or methodology within the department?

 

With my program (which, for what it's worth, is not one of the three mentioned in the initial post) you basically have to complete the coursework required for students internal to that department to get another department's master's degree. I'm planning on doing that with the economics department, which for my school requires completion of at least two of the core first year sequences (i.e. micro, macro, econometrics), as well as two other courses in economics. I'm of the opinion that whether or not you need this kind of coursework in the economics department depends on what kind of work in CPE/IPE you want to do. Outside of a couple of boutiques like Rochester, Stanford GSB, etc. I think if you want to do formal theory seriously, you'll probably need the micro sequence. Beyond that, a lot of CPE/IPE work engages with economic models at a fairly simple level (e.g. you need to know Stolper-Samuelson, Mundell-Fleming, etc. but not much deeper than that), but if you want to do CPE/IPE work that engages with economic models at a deeper level, it's hard to do without being well-trained in both economics and political science. Generally, to the extent that PE courses cover the economic theory, it'll be done quickly and at a fairly superficial level, and often such courses won't even do that and you will be expected to learn it independently; PE courses certainly won't replace a serious set of courses in micro, macro, trade theory, international finance, etc. Nonetheless, I'd say most CPE/IPE students I know don't do this, preferring to stay within the political science department as much as possible.

As to logistics, at my department you can take a number of courses outside the department before doing prelims while still having enough space to complete the courses you need to take your prelims, and you can finish off any extras by taking a course or two after achieving candidacy.