Profil - international applicant

[rimbaldienne]

Hi everyone,

I am an european student from a canadian uni applying for MA programs in Canada. I am looking for a good prep toward a PhD. I have no idea how my chances are. This is why i am looking for some advice and outside perspectives on my profil.

Profil :

Undergrad: top 4 research intensive university, canada

Bachelor : BA Political science, Honors program. Will get my Bachelor in 2.5 years (don’t know if it’s a good thing or not)

GPA: 3.48. (3.6 last semester, I leaning toward an A / 3.7 average this fall semester), good grades (A) in tough class, B-/B+ in mandatory class. No grades below B-. I only took class at senior level, excluding mandatory class during the first year.

Methods Prep: good research Methods training (research seminar and quant analysis class), R-studio

Research Experience: honors thesis, 30 pages paper with public presentation, research assistant. I have to mentioned that an undergrad is not supposed to hold a RAship at my university in political science. RA are mostly for graduate (RAship is part of their funding package). I am an exception with another undergrad student 

Letters of Recommendation: Faculty at my uni (IR), hopefully my thesis supervisor (IR, security) and my research project supervisor 

SOP:  done, reviewed by a professor

Publication: none except articles for the website of a well-known chair in Canada (reviewed by professors)

Professional Experience / extra-curricular : I don’t want to share a lot about it in public but I worked for 5 years at a very (very) high level for a foreign gov. Also : part-time RAship (paid), internship at a research Chair (unpaid). I also hold a leadership position on campus for an academic student project

GRE : don’t need it for a MA

Programs I'm Looking At: UBC, University of Montreal, McGill, Toronto, Simon Fraser university 

Field: Us Foreign policy, Asia-Pacific, US-Sino relations, IR, security, alliance building.

Language: French (native), English, Mandarin(beginner), Arabic (beginner)

I am worried about my GPA and Letters of recommendation. I am not a student who used to spend a lot of time with professors during office hours. They don’t know me beyond my grades and, I guess, it could be a problem. 

Please let me know what my chances are.

 

Thank you!

 

[rimbaldienne]

Anyone, really ? 

[CarefreeWritingsontheWall]

Canadian MA programs are a good place to get your feet wet when it comes to seeking academic MA programs that will prepare you for academically oriented PhDs. I think your profile has good foundations, but a few things will need attention to give you a good chance of admission (particularly at English speaking institutions). First, your GPA is a little confusing. A shift from a 3.6 to a 3.48 indicates a pretty stark degeneration. I'm assuming as a native Quebecois that you're completing your degree in 2.5 years because you attended CEGEP. Overall this means you've probably taken fewer courses than the norm. Your CGPA will be the one that matters - and a CGPA of 3.7-3.8 is what will make you competitive for admission at programs like McGill or UofT. The other issue is whether you intend to study in English or French. Based on the grammar in your profile, it's evident that you're not a native English speaker which isn't a huge disadvantage (McGill and UdeM will prioritize you as a Francophone applicant) but others might be wary. Be sure that if you can submit a writing sample that it's clean. If your professor isn't a native English speaker (for those statements that can't be submitted in French) it might be to your benefit to have an Anglophone friend, or someone at a writing center on campus who is Anglophone, review it.

When it comes to your research agenda, this also has to be clear. For 1 year academically oriented MA programs like UofT they really want to know what you intend to study because you won't have time to explore a number of topics. You do coursework, and then you write and then you're done. The same applies for two year programs like McGill. For every application you should also specify who you want to work with.

Lastly, you really should do what you can to get good letters from professors. Given that there isn't much time left before most deadlines, try to be good about keeping in contact with those who know you well, and getting closer to those who don't. If you haven't gone to office hours a lot before, be sure to do so now. Seek advice about applications. Ask about what they think of their peer institutions, and be inquisitive about the courses you're taking with them more generally (which shows interest). Given that you've worked in policy it would also be good to indicate what you prefer an academically oriented MA to an MPP or MPA. Given that you want to pursue a PhD, I would include this in your SOP.

[rimbaldienne]

5 hours ago, CarefreeWritingsontheWall said:

Canadian MA programs are a good place to get your feet wet when it comes to seeking academic MA programs that will prepare you for academically oriented PhDs. I think your profile has good foundations, but a few things will need attention to give you a good chance of admission (particularly at English speaking institutions). First, your GPA is a little confusing. A shift from a 3.6 to a 3.48 indicates a pretty stark degeneration. I'm assuming as a native Quebecois that you're completing your degree in 2.5 years because you attended CEGEP. Overall this means you've probably taken fewer courses than the norm. Your CGPA will be the one that matters - and a CGPA of 3.7-3.8 is what will make you competitive for admission at programs like McGill or UofT. The other issue is whether you intend to study in English or French. Based on the grammar in your profile, it's evident that you're not a native English speaker which isn't a huge disadvantage (McGill and UdeM will prioritize you as a Francophone applicant) but others might be wary. Be sure that if you can submit a writing sample that it's clean. If your professor isn't a native English speaker (for those statements that can't be submitted in French) it might be to your benefit to have an Anglophone friend, or someone at a writing center on campus who is Anglophone, review it.

When it comes to your research agenda, this also has to be clear. For 1 year academically oriented MA programs like UofT they really want to know what you intend to study because you won't have time to explore a number of topics. You do coursework, and then you write and then you're done. The same applies for two year programs like McGill. For every application you should also specify who you want to work with.

Lastly, you really should do what you can to get good letters from professors. Given that there isn't much time left before most deadlines, try to be good about keeping in contact with those who know you well, and getting closer to those who don't. If you haven't gone to office hours a lot before, be sure to do so now. Seek advice about applications. Ask about what they think of their peer institutions, and be inquisitive about the courses you're taking with them more generally (which shows interest). Given that you've worked in policy it would also be good to indicate what you prefer an academically oriented MA to an MPP or MPA. Given that you want to pursue a PhD, I would include this in your SOP.

 

Thank you for your advices. It's really helpful :-)

Regarding my GPA : my CGPA is 3.48. I constantly get 3.4 GPA per semester until the last one where I ended up with 3.6. So instead of a "stark degeneration" it's more like a progression, a positiv one. I guess because my english is not that great I was a little confusing in my first post. Sorry about that ;-)

Also I didn't take fewer classes during my Bachelor and I didn't attend CEGEP. I am french, from France, I spend a year in Law school in France before I get into a political science degree in Canada (Montreal). I am just used to take 6 courses per semester and summer class. That's the reason why I am completing my degree a semester early. I don't know if I should empahis this in my SOP but It's certainly have an impact on my grades and I don't want the committee to miss that fact. At the same time, I also worked as a research assistant, get involved at my university, doing an internship in a top research institution. It's a lot, that's why I would like to underline the fact I get eveything done in a short amount of time. But again, I don't Know if it's red flag for an admission committee to get a student who graduate early. 

About the LOR : is it a bad thing to get a LOR from a visiting researcher at my university who's not a professor ? Or I have to stick with an LOR from Professor ? 

By "research agenda" do you mean that I have to give the subject of my thesis, the method i plan to use or I should just mention my area of interest ? I don't want to miss my chance to be a good fit by being too specific. 

Finally, I only aim an academically oriented MA. My first goal is to get into UBC. Then comes McGill and UdeM. Toronto is horribly expensive for an international student, there is no founding. Plus I think it's out of touch for me. 

Again thank you for your advice and sorry for my english. 

[CarefreeWritingsontheWall]

15 hours ago, rimbaldienne said:

Thank you for your advices. It's really helpful :-)

Regarding my GPA : my CGPA is 3.48. I constantly get 3.4 GPA per semester until the last one where I ended up with 3.6. So instead of a "stark degeneration" it's more like a progression, a positiv one. I guess because my english is not that great I was a little confusing in my first post. Sorry about that ;-)

Also I didn't take fewer classes during my Bachelor and I didn't attend CEGEP. I am french, from France, I spend a year in Law school in France before I get into a political science degree in Canada (Montreal). I am just used to take 6 courses per semester and summer class. That's the reason why I am completing my degree a semester early. I don't know if I should empahis this in my SOP but It's certainly have an impact on my grades and I don't want the committee to miss that fact. At the same time, I also worked as a research assistant, get involved at my university, doing an internship in a top research institution. It's a lot, that's why I would like to underline the fact I get eveything done in a short amount of time. But again, I don't Know if it's red flag for an admission committee to get a student who graduate early. 

About the LOR : is it a bad thing to get a LOR from a visiting researcher at my university who's not a professor ? Or I have to stick with an LOR from Professor ? 

By "research agenda" do you mean that I have to give the subject of my thesis, the method i plan to use or I should just mention my area of interest ? I don't want to miss my chance to be a good fit by being too specific. 

Finally, I only aim an academically oriented MA. My first goal is to get into UBC. Then comes McGill and UdeM. Toronto is horribly expensive for an international student, there is no founding. Plus I think it's out of touch for me. 

Again thank you for your advice and sorry for my english. 

No worries. Just wanted to be clear that it wasn't your CGPA that was bouncing around. It is a little low, but with how busy you've been in terms of completing 6 courses at a time it's evident that you expedited the process. I would explain why you chose to take a higher than normal course load - 6 courses on top of extra-curriculars and RA work is certainly extreme (power to you!). UBC, McGill and UdeM all offer great academically oriented MAs. It will still be important to show them that you want to do academic research since your profile (at first glance) seems suited to both MPP/MPA and MA programs.

This is why I mentioned the importance of having a more concrete research agenda. You should give a general sense of what you're interested in (your subfield of interest, and specific topics within that: e.g. IR, nuclear proliferation, or IR/CPE and ethnic conflict in region X). Because MAs are short, being specific doesn't hurt you - especially if you can point to particular faculty that work on similar topics with a similar approach to the one you want to take or have done before. Methodologically, you don't need to speak to how you intend to specifically answer a research question, but it's worth it to show that you appeal to a department's particular ontological bend (quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods focus etc.). By this, I mean it wouldn't be a good idea to apply to McGill only wanting to do comparative historical analysis and process tracing unless the particular people you want to work with predominantly take this approach in their own work. I wouldn't say that being too specific hurts your chances at being a good fit. A strong SOP will highlight how a candidate fits within the department more broadly, and how they are the ideal student for faculty members A, B and C. I hope this makes sense? At least in talking to people when I did my MA that were on admissions committees, this is what they told me (Canadian here). You should highlight why a particular program is also perfect for you and what you like about it (e.g. McGill has an MRP track that allows you to focus on taking a greater number of courses vs. a thesis track that allows you to focus on research and only requires you to take 5 classes over two years. McGill also funds students by offering them TAships every semester, where as UofT doesn't offer TAships to MA students at all).

When it comes to LORs, a visiting researcher that knows you better than a professor isn't a bad choice. I would say to select the person who knows you and your work best. You can always balance out their rank with other professors since you're expected to have more than one LOR per application.

 

[xxxxxxxplz]

Chinese applicant here!

I have applied to UBC, UoT, McGill, UVic and Sciences Po in Paris, good luck to all of us! 

Edited January 12, 2017 by xxxxxxxplz