Welcome to the 2016-17 cycle!

[resDQ]

38 minutes ago, dododo said:

Hi,

Is it possible to update a SoP and writing sample after submission of an application?

 

Usually no. It varies by program. Sure they may accept an updated CV , but I don't expect much else. 

[Determinedandnervous]

43 minutes ago, Yanaka said:

I realized their are just a couple typos in my CV, which I didn't see yesterday because I had no rest and was so used to seeing all my docs that I became blind to them. I am wondering if I can email them and change a document, it seemed to be possible since they gave an email to write to in case changes were required

If there are a couple of typos, it's not a big deal. There was a grammatical error in my SOP for one of the universities I applied to, and I still got in with a fellowship. Everyone makes typos, and not all of them are easy to spot. They won't be inhumane about it.

@dododo, you can with some schools probably, but for the most part, no. Even with the schools that do let you, you'll have to email them directly about it, and considering they're inundated with applications, it may or may not be updated.

[Yanaka]

@Determinedandnervous I forgot to put two French words in italics (name of a TV show I used to work on, and the name of my school's feminist society), and have a double ".." instead of one single period at the end of a sentence. You think that's fine? Sorry for being so specific. These applications are really nerve-racking!

Edited December 1, 2016 by Yanaka

[dagnabbit]

I really wouldn't worry about it - at this point, the most important aspects of your application are out of your control (research interests / GPA/GREs). If you're a great fit with the department and your scores are above the cutoff, you could probably write your CV in comic sans and still have a good shot. It's tempting to overthink every minuscule detail of your file, but I really doubt that a program ever turned down an excellent applicant over a typo or formatting error. 

I would really encourage everybody to read through the threads from past application cycles, if you haven't already. Doing so really calmed my nerves, as pretty much all of my questions and anxieties had already been addressed by past applicants. Perhaps if we were all to go through past cycles' threads we could avoid certain parts of history repeating themselves (e.g. - "there's an admit on the results page - guess I'm out").

[Yanaka]

Sorry for my questions. I'm still familiarizing with this forum and asking my questions while reading stuff. Thanks for your reassuring words, though!

Edited December 1, 2016 by Yanaka

[PoliticalOrder]

44 minutes ago, dagnabbit said:

I really wouldn't worry about it - at this point, the most important aspects of your application are out of your control (research interests / GPA/GREs). If you're a great fit with the department and your scores are above the cutoff, you could probably write your CV in comic sans and still have a good shot. It's tempting to overthink every minuscule detail of your file, but I really doubt that a program ever turned down an excellent applicant over a typo or formatting error. 

I would really encourage everybody to read through the threads from past application cycles, if you haven't already. Doing so really calmed my nerves, as pretty much all of my questions and anxieties had already been addressed by past applicants. Perhaps if we were all to go through past cycles' threads we could avoid certain parts of history repeating themselves (e.g. - "there's an admit on the results page - guess I'm out").

If you really think those are the most important aspects of a Ph.D. application you are in for a world of hurt.

[resDQ]

6 minutes ago, PoliticalOrder said:

If you really think those are the most important aspects of a Ph.D. application you are in for a world of hurt.

 

I was told the most important things are the SoP and WHO the letters are from. Coming from a LAC the latter is a tad disappointing for me.

Edited December 1, 2016 by resDQ

[dagnabbit]

23 minutes ago, PoliticalOrder said:

If you really think those are the most important aspects of a Ph.D. application you are in for a world of hurt.

What would you say is more important than fit / stats?

[Monody]

Columbia, Princeton, and MIT have the option though Columbia recognizes it as a revised version and they keep both.

[Imperator_Taco]

Just a quick question: does the admission committee read our listed published articles, or do they just limit themselves to reading the writing samples? sorry if the question's a bit silly, just want to better understand how the application process goes. 

[PoliticalOrder]

4 minutes ago, dagnabbit said:

What would you say is more important than fit / stats?

Listen, there is a myth on this board (and other venues) that stats are an incredibly important measure of success. Yet, one just has to look at the evidence to say that is not the case. 

1) Go through past year's results and you will see plenty of applicants who got in to top programs with 'average' stats.

2) There are some universities that have average GPA/GRE scores available (especially public ones) and what you will see is the average GRE Q score (something that is heavily emphasized on this board) is somewhere from 158-163 for even the best programs. That means that half of the applicants getting accepted have scores worse than that or at least very close. 

3) Stats are noisy, ESPECIALLY the GPA. No one knows what GPA really means across institutions, and there isn't much of a discernible difference between a 3.6 or a 3.7 or a 3.8 in the grand scheme of things. Furthermore, there isn't really that much of a difference between a 161 Q vs. a 159 Q; it is a matter of getting a couple of more questions right and people who sit on committees know this.

4) Once you meet certain cutoffs, stats become essentially meaningless. 

With that being said, they do matter sure. But they won't get you accepted. Ideally you want a 3.6+ GPA, and a 160/160+ GRE (or close to these cutoffs) and you'll be fine wherever you apply.

What is going to get you actually accepted to a program? Many things (no particular order):

1) (to address ResDQ) letters are important. Letters from people committee members know are likely to be read more closely. But you need strong letters...and by strong letters that means you have to establish relationships early and deeply with professors. Working 1 on 1 in some capacity with professors is a must for every letter you submit. 

2) Overall trajectory...applying straight from undergrad is fine, but those who have a masters and show clear progress are likely to be perceived as lower risk. For undergrads, taking advanced courses and/or graduate courses and excelling in them matters. Taking independent studies matters. Doing theses matters. Attending conferences matters.

3) Research experience. If you have multiple months of RA experience, you definitely have a leg up compared to those who don't (and this will also show in your letters).

4) Quant background. You aren't expected to have double majors/math minors or anything. But having an intro to probability and stats as well as differential and integral calculus gives you a leg up; even more if you do things like linear algebra and real analysis, ect. Bonus points for somehow getting a grad quant sequence under your belt.

5) SOP. Matters a lot. Be professional, show that you know what you are doing. Clear proposal that is different from established literature and has interesting questions. Show that you have multiple of people to work with and they aren't just people you read off the faculty list.

6) Writing sample. Matters as well. This shows that you are actually capable of doing graduate level work, making a puzzle, and surveying the literature; something a lot of undergrads have trouble doing well.

Those 6 things get you accepted to programs. Lots of people have perfectly fine or stellar stats...getting this is not challenging. Showing committees that you can excel as a graduate student in political science and knowing what you are doing is done by extremely careful attention to those latter 6 things.

[Monody]

41 minutes ago, PoliticalOrder said:

Listen, there is a myth on this board (and other venues) that stats are an incredibly important measure of success. Yet, one just has to look at the evidence to say that is not the case. 

1) Go through past year's results and you will see plenty of applicants who got in to top programs with 'average' stats.

2) There are some universities that have average GPA/GRE scores available (especially public ones) and what you will see is the average GRE Q score (something that is heavily emphasized on this board) is somewhere from 158-163 for even the best programs. That means that half of the applicants getting accepted have scores worse than that or at least very close. 

3) Stats are noisy, ESPECIALLY the GPA. No one knows what GPA really means across institutions, and there isn't much of a discernible difference between a 3.6 or a 3.7 or a 3.8 in the grand scheme of things. Furthermore, there isn't really that much of a difference between a 161 Q vs. a 159 Q; it is a matter of getting a couple of more questions right and people who sit on committees know this.

4) Once you meet certain cutoffs, stats become essentially meaningless. 

With that being said, they do matter sure. But they won't get you accepted. Ideally you want a 3.6+ GPA, and a 160/160+ GRE (or close to these cutoffs) and you'll be fine wherever you apply.

What is going to get you actually accepted to a program? Many things (no particular order):

1) (to address ResDQ) letters are important. Letters from people committee members know are likely to be read more closely. But you need strong letters...and by strong letters that means you have to establish relationships early and deeply with professors. Working 1 on 1 in some capacity with professors is a must for every letter you submit. 

2) Overall trajectory...applying straight from undergrad is fine, but those who have a masters and show clear progress are likely to be perceived as lower risk. For undergrads, taking advanced courses and/or graduate courses and excelling in them matters. Taking independent studies matters. Doing theses matters. Attending conferences matters.

3) Research experience. If you have multiple months of RA experience, you definitely have a leg up compared to those who don't (and this will also show in your letters).

4) Quant background. You aren't expected to have double majors/math minors or anything. But having an intro to probability and stats as well as differential and integral calculus gives you a leg up; even more if you do things like linear algebra and real analysis, ect. Bonus points for somehow getting a grad quant sequence under your belt.

5) SOP. Matters a lot. Be professional, show that you know what you are doing. Clear proposal that is different from established literature and has interesting questions. Show that you have multiple of people to work with and they aren't just people you read off the faculty list.

6) Writing sample. Matters as well. This shows that you are actually capable of doing graduate level work, making a puzzle, and surveying the literature; something a lot of undergrads have trouble doing well.

Those 6 things get you accepted to programs. Lots of people have perfectly fine or stellar stats...getting this is not challenging. Showing committees that you can excel as a graduate student in political science and knowing what you are doing is done by extremely careful attention to those latter 6 things.

Thanks. Will look for more Master programs now. Every time, I read these lists that are probably rather accurate of what's going on I feel ever more screwed considering that point

1) (much more loose connection to professors, no actual office hours to get to know them, no research or teaching assistantship, little knowledge of the system in the US and the letter requirements, no recognition on the other side of the pond),

2) (usually no option to take advanced courses, courses in other areas or independent study),

3)(see 1)), and

4)(see 2, OLS, ML, factor analysis but nothing beyond that; currently doing an exchange semester where I sneakily asked myself into the econ department and am now doing econometrics 1 and 2, econometric policy analysis, and analysis of panel data, but nothing of that will be completed before the applications are being reviewed) 

are quite difficult to handle as an international student. Further, I had probability, calculus, and linear algebra courses in school in Germany, but I doubt that this is considered.

Edited December 1, 2016 by Monody

[dagnabbit]

@PoliticalOrder - This is a good post, but my point in responding to Yanaka was to encourage them not to freak out over their applications. I don't think that providing such a list on December 1st is going to do more than further stress out qualified applicants like @Monody, as it's a bit late to change most parts of our applications.

[Monody]

3 minutes ago, dagnabbit said:

@PoliticalOrder - This is a good post, but my point in responding to Yanaka was to encourage them not to freak out over their applications. I don't think that providing such a list on December 1st is going to do more than further stress out qualified applicants like @Monody, as it's a bit late to change most parts of our applications.

I was stressed out already. Doesn't change my status.

[Yanaka]

It's funny how all these lists go from reassuring to dream killing  

I'm also an "international" applicant @Monody (US citizen graduating from a French BA), and many points are impossible for me to evaluate, such as the grad-level courses to excel at and the independent studies. Let's stay calm. haha!

[Monody]

5 minutes ago, Yanaka said:

It's funny how all these lists go from reassuring to dream killing  

I'm also an "international" applicant @Monody (US citizen graduating from a French BA), and many points are impossible for me to evaluate, such as the grad-level courses to excel at and the independent studies. Let's stay calm. haha!

Caaaaaalm...

[FSOJN]

With all my apps submitted and all my LORs in, it's finally out of my hands. Good luck to everyone else waiting for results!

[CarefreeWritingsontheWall]

Congrats to everyone on getting past December 1st! At this point last year I was panicky, a chronic insomniac and spending all of my free time finalizing my applications (as well as throwing together a handful of last minute ones). In retrospect, there are plenty of things I would have done differently. There are a lot of idiosyncratic factors about admission. I wouldn't view additional components to an application as a series of things that will give you a few additional points, or added percentage points to a probability of success. The application is a holistic process: it's about how everything comes together and one small thing won't be the cherry on top. I rolled my eyes at the extreme number of faculty who told me admission was a matter of luck - but some of it really is. I know I didn't get in based on my GRE/GPA alone. I also know I didn't get in just because I had LORs from well known scholars. It wasn't because of my quantitative training or writing sample alone either. It was about how those things came together to speak to my strengths and motivations, alongside a research agenda I'm really passionate about and how well I was equipped to do that.

The first time I applied to MPP/MA programs, I didn't get in anywhere I applied to. This was during my senior year of my BA. Luckily I had a fallback option that allowed me to complete an MA at my alma matter. In hindsight, there were many things wrong with my application, and surprisingly my mentors at the time didn't tell me. My SOP, for starters, was terrible. It barely articulately my research interests, it barely mentioned my research experience (senior thesis, RA work, and independent research work) and it had a muddled sense of what I wanted to get out of the program. I wrote a draft, my senior thesis advisor edited it, and it was about as stale as stale can be. Given that my advisor was a junior faculty member, this was surprising because they had a particular sense of what programs are really looking for (but then again, they only got into one of the 12 programs they applied to for their PhD...). My GRE score was also abysmal and I should have re-written it. I hadn't taken any statistics or math courses during my BA, though I had taken methods in political science and history. While I had great LORs, a strong writing sample, great research experience, and my CV was great, none of this was well translated to the committees where I applied.

The way you knit your strengths together matters, and for everyone this process is different, given that we're not all the same people. It's important to send strong signals, but also to differentiate yourself. Applications are really about proving that a program is the best fit for you, and that you are the best fit for a given program. This will be no different during job market applications, particularly on the academic job market. Applying two years later, I certainly had more experience as an RA/TA, and a much clearer sense of what I wanted to do research/career wise. Yet, at the heart of my application were largely the same experiences and statistics as my first set of applications. My LOR writers were also all the same people. Had I spent as much time as all of you on them, and applied more widely, I probably would have gotten into another program out my BA. International applicants do get admitted - half my PhD cohort are international students (myself included). Just over a third of us had never studied in the US prior to beginning the program.

Given that most of you have spent a great deal of time and effort on every component of your applications, trust in what you've accomplished, and in the narrative about yourself you've painted for committees. You are all amazing, hyper-qualified and dedicated people. The next 12 days (since December 15th is largely the final deadline for most US programs) will surely be busy editing the last bit of your materials and chasing after LOR writers. Make sure to take some time for yourselves and to take care of yourselves. This kind of stress and anxiety can do some really awful things to your body (been there time and time again). Revise but don't knit-pick. Accept what you've submitted when the deadline passes and look ahead to a new year of changes and transitions to new and great things.

 

 

[sesostris]

I just got through December 1st and was moving on to the next deadlines (some universities have deadlines 6th, 8th and 9ht, they want to stand out I think!). My disgraceful story: Stanford's application system does not have a CV/Resumé field, so in my hurry (no one was chasing me but I don't know, sometimes I start an application and I can't stop until I deliver it or my mind will not rest) I sent the application. Then I went back to their FAQ and realized that the CV should be uploaded to the Additional Documents field, something I hadn't seen before.

I wrote to the email of the person in the Department that according to the website is responsible for admissions attaching my CV. Do you think that they will accept my CV and attach it to my application even though I didn't upload it to the online application? 

In any case: if you are applying to Stanford beware, they do want a CV. It's not the only case that requires the CV in the "Additional - never specified - documents" but its the critical one for which I fell. I felt that I was a good match for Stanford given my research agenda, now I want to kill myself, why wouldn't I submit a CV (it's not an amazing CV but it's a very good one, lots of work as research assistant and jobs outside academia but in important positions in government and think tanks), they will think that I have some really dark past maybe!

[krapp]

I'm in the final drafts/revisions stages with one application submitted already, one due in Monday, then the 9th and the 15th before a huge gap until January 2 for the last one. But I need all the time I can get. I do not recommend starting a new job just a few weeks before submitting!

[Determinedandnervous]

On 12/1/2016 at 11:21 AM, Yanaka said:

@Determinedandnervous I forgot to put two French words in italics (name of a TV show I used to work on, and the name of my school's feminist society), and have a double ".." instead of one single period at the end of a sentence. You think that's fine? Sorry for being so specific. These applications are really nerve-racking!

Hey, sorry for the delayed reply. I'm quite busy nowadays, so I'm not on here every day. I would really not worry about these errors. They are minor and it's quite likely that given they are trying to move through hundreds of applications in a short amount of time, they may not even spot the error. Everyone makes typos, it doesn't send a signal that you're a bad researcher - it just means we can't always catch everything.

[KittenMittens]

On 12/1/2016 at 6:46 AM, resDQ said:

At my undergrad institution, a lot of people did first field American and second Theory, so I don't think it will be too much of a problem provided this is not your main person. 

Thanks, that's very reassuring to know!

@sesostris I applied (unsuccessfully, ha) to Stanford last year and actually made the same mistake with my CV. I emailed the graduate program coordinator, Jennifer Radley, asking whether she'd be willing to attach an additional document to my file, which she did. Plus, it seems you caught your error and emailed them much earlier than I did, so I think you should be fine!

Edited December 4, 2016 by KittenMittens

[resDQ]

Which schools still do interviews? 

Do WashU, Emory, and OSU?

 

[CarefreeWritingsontheWall]

GWU has been flying out their shortlist in early February the last few years.

[krapp]

On 12/6/2016 at 4:38 AM, CarefreeWritingsontheWall said:

GWU has been flying out their shortlist in early February the last few years.

Good to know/keep in mind