PoliSci 2007-2008 Cycle

[ShamPain]

I envy econ majors their math/stats background. It will be a bit painful to play catchup in grad school.

Anyway having any, "Oh crap, I can't believe I'm actually doing this!" moments?

Me? No. Why would I?

[UndraftedFreeAgent]

I envy econ majors their math/stats background. It will be a bit painful to play catchup in grad school.

Anyway having any, "Oh crap, I can't believe I'm actually doing this!" moments?

Undergrad econ really means nothing in terms of "having a math background" (I was a math and econ double major). At most schools, a BS in econ requires maybe 1 semester of of calculus and 1 semester of statistics. Any graduate study in econ (I have an MA in economics and econometrics) is a bigger deal, because it requires knowledge of multivariate calc, linear algebra, statistics, and real analysis.

Anyway, it doesn't sound like "playing catchup" will be too much of a problem at most schools, because way more people will be in your situation than in mine and they will be teaching based on that fact. In another 10 years, I'm willing to bet that this will change, and you will see poli sci grad departments requiring more calc... especially in places that like game theory and methods.

Sorry if that sounded like gloating in any way. I've suffered through higher level math since AP courses in high school and this is the first time any of it has worked to my advantage.

[Quarex]

These are all great responses; seems like people without Political Science degrees may be in much the same boat as everyone else; if your interests and aspirations happen to match up well with a department, you will get in. If not, you will not.

I don't have a degree in Political Science. My BA is in Asian Studies and my MA is in Security Policy Studies (albeit from an International Affairs School).

Your master's degree sounds like what I ultimately tried to turn my Criminal Justice master's degree into, which I am hoping will be abundantly obvious from my research focus and thesis. What was your main area of interest in security policy? UIUC did not reject me yet, so that and your acceptance/background have me wondering if they are looking to expand their security research. Of course, if I get rejected tomorrow, this will sound very dumb.

I had a BA in English, actually--and when I went though the first round of PhD applications that wasn't enough. So now I'm picking up an MA in POLS and applying to PhD programs from there. And yes, now I have some outright acceptances. It was worth it to me to get the MA first to try for a better ranked PHD program than I could have been admitted to w/an unrelated BA.

For what it's worth I think schools are looking for a commitment to the field (hard to show w/out a related degree), a demonstrated potential/history as a researcher (i.e. understanding what you're getting into w/a PhD program), decent GRE scores, and frankly, a big-name school for your undergrad. I didn't have that last one, but I think that if I had, it would have really helped...

It is interesting; you may well be reading the proverbial tea leaves of my own future, since I have little doubt that a Political Science M.A. would have done wonders for my viability as an applicant. Of course, I have also only heard back from a tiny percent of the schools to which I applied. But so it goes for everyone here, really. I was under the distinct impression that mid-late February would have produced many more answers than it has. Of course, there are effectively three days of postal mail coming tomorrow ...

I got my B.A. in Economics, with specializations in International Trade & Financial Economics. I did pick up a minor in Poli-Sci, though. I had a great GPA (magna junk laude) and pretty good GRE, great LORs, and came from a mid-range (i.e. not great) state school. So far I have only received one notification: acceptance + funding to UNC.

In my case, having an Econ B.A. might actually help me, since I'm going into Intl. Political Economy. I had some research opportunities in Econ that I probably wouldn't've had if I'd been in Poli-Sci. Also, the Econ department at my university is probably stronger than the Poli-Sci department. Much stronger Quant training in Econ than in Poli-Sci also.

You seem to be in a pretty good non-Political Science situation, with the overlapping political economy interest. Particularly since, as far as I can tell from my research, political economy is already huge and only gaining in prominence.

Also, I suspect that the word filter for this bulletin board may be to blame for your "magna junk laude" degree. The worst part is that the profane version is not even spelled that way, according to the dictionary, but so it goes.

[slickj07]

i didn't apply there for political science, but i see someone got into michigan. good deal.

[MissingVandyCandy]

I kind of think the whole undergrad major thing is a little bit of a misnomer. Political Science really isn't much of a squared discipline despite the use of subfields to try and define it, it's purely a diaspora... I mean methods and public administration are much more closely related to undergrad majors in organizations, mathematic modeling and even economics. On the other end of the spectrum (or diaspora) of Political Science you have theory and American Political Development which are actually not even close to the "science" in Political Science in that they are anti-behavioralist. Instead this segment of the diaspora is much closer to an undergrad major in History or Sociology. The point is simply that Poli Sci is an enormous discipline that isn't well defined even by its standard bearers (attend an APSA conference and you will know what I mean). So my entire point here is simply to those of you who didn't major in "Political Science" it really bears no relation to your preparedness or what admissions committees will think about you. If you were a math major and now want to apply to Stanford's Political Science department to study methods and formal modeling you're probably going to be more of what they want than the applicant who earned their B.A. in Politics and wrote a thesis on campaigns and elections at Harvard... At this high level specialization is the name of the game.

Just my 2Cents...

Anyone else just itching to get some decisions? I've had none yet and anticipate the majority will be coming in late March. Sucks waiting when you have mentally moved on from your job and ready to figure out where you will be laying roots.

[JordanJames]

I had AP credit, and haven't taken a math class since high school (7 1/2 years ago). Do you think that hurts my chances at getting into comparative politics? I talked to a professor at a quant heavy school, and he said that as long as my quant GRE scores are high enough, they won't mind me having not taken math courses in college. But I was wondering if this is true across the board. I realize that most people won't have heavy math backgrounds, but will having no college math background hurt me drastically.

[MissingVandyCandy]

It's really hard to say and the answer to your query is probably not generalizable but rather on a program by program basis. Some schools I applied to directly asked on a supplement form the highest level of math/quantitative courses I had taken. Generally the Big 10 schools are very empirical. Despite the fact that I am anti-behavioralist myself and very much an APD prospective graduate student who really wants to take the bear minimum, I applied to some of those Big 10 schools (hey maybe diversity will work in my favor). Again some programs may worship at the altar of the GRE Q portion, but I think that really isn't the case. It depends on what you want to study. I wouldn't expect to get into Ohio State to study judicial politics with Laurance Baum if you're a self-professed qualitative and historical Americanist. Baum would want to see that you took Calculus and probably scored 700 and up on the Q section. But for comparative it depends what programs you applied to and whether you were able to identify a prospective mentor who was open to a diversity of methods and not wedded to numbers crunching.

[JordanJames]

It's really hard to say and the answer to your query is probably not generalizable but rather on a program by program basis. Some schools I applied to directly asked on a supplement form the highest level of math/quantitative courses I had taken. Generally the Big 10 schools are very empirical. Despite the fact that I am anti-behavioralist myself and very much an APD prospective graduate student who really wants to take the bear minimum, I applied to some of those Big 10 schools (hey maybe diversity will work in my favor). Again some programs may worship at the altar of the GRE Q portion, but I think that really isn't the case. It depends on what you want to study. I wouldn't expect to get into Ohio State to study judicial politics with Laurance Baum if you're a self-professed qualitative and historical Americanist. Baum would want to see that you took Calculus and probably scored 700 and up on the Q section. But for comparative it depends what programs you applied to and whether you were able to identify a prospective mentor who was open to a diversity of methods and not wedded to numbers crunching.

Thanks for your reply. Do you think having AP credit equivalent to the amount of calculus most people have taken in college actually comes back to bite you in the ass because you haven't taken those classes in college? My problem is I love the number crunchers, and many of the prospective mentors I've applied to are number crunchers (although none come from an undergraduate math background). Also, I didn't do so well on the verbal portion of the GRE (610), but I did ok on the math portion (750), so I felt like my chances were higher with the formal theorists and other quant heavy comparativists, but now I'm starting to doubt that. The professor I spoke to was the DGA at a school I'd like to attend. After I applied, I emailed him asking if my math background was sufficient, and whether he would recommend me taking any math courses now or over the summer. He replied saying that based on my GRE score (I guess he pulled up my file), he doesn't think I would need to take any math classes, but that taking a linear algebra course over the summer couldn't hurt. But I agree with what you said, I wouldn't imagine that most schools would substitute GRE scores for multivariate calc and linear algebra classes. Anyways, I guess I'll find out soon.

P.S. Great quote.

[MissingVandyCandy]

Honestly now that you filled me in with this detail, I think you're fine. You have a great GRE score and the difference between intro Calc courses at the undergrad level and AP Calc is really not much. To which schools did you apply (assuming you're comfortable sharing). BTW 610 Verbal isn't horrible. That would be in the 80s percentile wise right? Nothing to be ashamed of. And when it comes to math, a lot of these poli sci guys are posers. Sure they can get up there at the lecturn and run on and on about methods and statistical significance but that's mostly due to years of using SASS and Probit and Stata, whoppee dee do. If you had a real mathematician in the room they could make intellectual mincemeat of these guys. If Alan Krueger at Princeton started to question/scrutinize half of these behavioralists in their methods there would be blood flowing out of the tower and it would no longer be ivory but pink.

[JordanJames]

I applied to Brandeis, Chicago, Illinois (rejected), Florida State (I just applied a week ago after freaking out about the Illinois rejection), Northwestern, Penn, UC - Riverside, UIC, WashU and I threw one out to the big H. I'm prepared to be rejected by all but 2 (UIC and UCR) at this point. Anyways, you're 100% right. If the math guys look down on the economists, imagine what they think of the poli sci quant guys. Anyways, I'm praying that I get a chance to be one of those posers one day.

[MissingVandyCandy]

Ha... i hope my comments were not offensive. They weren't intended to be - just a lame attempt at academic humor. I think my own personal biases against moving the discipline further away from historical, interpretive and APD approaches probably causes me to look down at the number crunchers who think they can predict judicial behavior via the Larry Baum Antonin Scalia Judicial Insensitivity equation LB + AS/Clarence Thomas - Alito = the end of Abortion Rights.

Though I confess I know nothing on the comparative side. I do get scared of people who think they can use numbers to predict global volatility and wars. I mean is it helpful sure. But as someone who never even took calc, color me an ignorant skeptic but i just happen to be a contrarian within Poli Sci who thinks human behavior is a little to contextual to use equations to deconstruct it with any accuracy. But I do hope you get into your schools. I hope to be one of those posers period one day who can make his own schedule and teach 2 courses a semester.

[JordanJames]

lol, I don't think I've ever been offended by anything in my life, so don't worry about that. I agree with you to a certain extent, I just think there is a seat for both in our pursuit to advance intellectual masturbation. In the end, aren't the vast majority of us just trying to be posers that act like we know all of the answers while looking down on politicians, CEOs and regular working people who create the dynamics and phenomena we study. It's funny that academics are looked down upon in their community whenever they publish for a mass audience and try to reach the people who control policy. God forbid an academic ever made money while trying to advance society's understand of something. Anyways, the greatest achievements in quantitative analysis in political science are actually made by applied mathematicians, so your point has merit. But there is a place for the number crunchers to show how the things we observe playout mathematically.

I hope you get into your schools too. As long as I get in at any school that gives me a desk, a stipend I can live on, and a mentor that stays out of my way and lets me do my thing, I'll be happy. Whether it's Harvard or UIC matters very little to me right now, I'll worry about finding a job when it's time for me to cross that bridge.

[eve2008]

But as someone who never even took calc, color me an ignorant skeptic but i just happen to be a contrarian within Poli Sci who thinks human behavior is a little to contextual to use equations to deconstruct it with any accuracy.

You can make a very similar argument as to why qualitative methods are BS. I used to fall into the "human behavior is too complex to quantify" camp until I got a proper introduction to quantitative methods. There is good and bad work being done in either camp, and the best work, IMHO, uses BOTH methods. Imagine how much stronger your argument is if your field work, survey number-crunching, and abstract modeling all point in the same direction.

Even if you don't want to use the methods, I think everyone has to learn them now. That's the direction the discipline is heading in, and you at least want to be able to understand others' research well enough to be able to successfully absorb and/or critique it.

Also, so many economists are now using their methods to study social and political phenomena (although many do a very very bad job of defining their variables because they have never been in the field and theoretically speaking, have no idea what they are talking about) and the only way to be able to respond to that literature and move everyone forward, IMHO, is to be able to do BOTH.

In brief, this is not the binary, zero-sum thing some make it out to be.

I've heard a lot about academics thumbing their nose at academics who write for popular audiences. I think this boils down mostly to jealousy. But it's retarded. Academics more than anyone else in society have the luxury of being able to think and dig deep, and owe it to society to engage directly with a broad audience, to transmit whatever knowledge or message they have. Otherwise, we cede that space to politicians and journalists, the former having questionable agendas, the later, in my view, having the tendency to be a bit hysterical and sensationalist. There are, of course, exceptions. I worship at the altar of Phillip Gourevitch. Biologists who remained silent when the whole intelligent design debate crept back into the mainstream are now regretting it, and a whole generation of children are being taught creationism.

Anyway, I know that academia is incredibly conservative and slow to change, but I think (I hope) that our generation can encourage. At least, many of the young academics and graduate students I know demand more from their role, want to make a direct contribution. I hope the system doesn't quash that idealism.

[JordanJames]

I agree

[eve2008]

If you were a math major and now want to apply to Stanford's Political Science department to study methods and formal modeling you're probably going to be more of what they want than the applicant who earned their B.A. in Politics and wrote a thesis on campaigns and elections at Harvard... At this high level specialization is the name of the game.

Although the stereotypes of various departments do reflect some real, underlying methodological biases, I think they can be overstated. I know of at least one person who was accepted to Stanford who has no quantitative background (and I have been told this is not uncommon), although a willingness to at least become literate in those methods is probably welcome. Similarly, for all of Berkeley's "squishy" reputation, there are several grad students there doing hard econ/stats work and they've begun hiring faculty to offer more courses within the department in game theory, advanced statistics, and other aspects of formal modeling.

Anyway, I want to learn it ALL. The more tools I have in my toolbox, the better, no?

[flyingwalrus]

MissingVandyCandy said:

But as someone who never even took calc, color me an ignorant skeptic but i just happen to be a contrarian within Poli Sci who thinks human behavior is a little to contextual to use equations to deconstruct it with any accuracy.

You'd better not tell that to psychologists.

One thing you've got to understand is that a lot of the methods employed by political scientists aren't all that complex. You don't need a background in calculus to understand regression, probit, or logit. Then you've got cross tabs, which are an even more simple method of disaggregating and communicating data. I think it's fair to say that you'd need to learn some calc in order to use a lot of formal modeling, but not everyone uses it. I'm not sure I will. Good formal theorists (such as Randall Calvert from WashU) write well enough that their readers can understand their models even without a background in formal theory.

eve2008 said:

Even if you don't want to use the methods, I think everyone has to learn them now. That's the direction the discipline is heading in, and you at least want to be able to understand others' research well enough to be able to successfully absorb and/or critique it.

We're already there. The discipline has been highly quantitative for some time now, so tech up as much as possible. It'll give you a broad understanding of a lot of the literature and will only help you in your own research endeavors. I know many departments aren't emphasizing theory as much as they used to. Indeed, some have cut it entirely out of their curriculums. My understanding is that this contributes to the already tough job market for theorists.

[silencio1982]

I applied to Brandeis, Chicago, Illinois (rejected), Florida State (I just applied a week ago after freaking out about the Illinois rejection), Northwestern, Penn, Rice, UC - Riverside, UIC, and I threw one out to the big H. I'm prepared to be rejected by all but 2 (UIC and UCR) at this point. Anyways, you're 100% right. If the math guys look down on the economists, imagine what they think of the poli sci quant guys. Anyways, I'm praying that I get a chance to be one of those posers one day.

Hey Ammar, I am in a very similar situation to you- except your GRE Q score is higher than mine, and I did take 1 semester of calc in college (got a . I am really concerned about this hurting my app now that I haven't had any good news. Right now I am praying for just one school to let me in. Aggh. I'm not opposed to blending quant and qual at all, I just have no background in quant. I guess I reached too high in my choice of schools... should have applied to some safeties. Eek!

[flyingwalrus]

I'm not opposed to blending quant and qual at all, I just have no background in quant.

That's part of what grad school is about; providing you with a methods background. Even if you don't take methods as a field, you'll still be required to take a few courses. Don't worry about it so much.

[polisciphd]

Your master's degree sounds like what I ultimately tried to turn my Criminal Justice master's degree into, which I am hoping will be abundantly obvious from my research focus and thesis. What was your main area of interest in security policy? UIUC did not reject me yet, so that and your acceptance/background have me wondering if they are looking to expand their security research. Of course, if I get rejected tomorrow, this will sound very dumb.

My primary research interests were Asian regional security (focusing on China and North korea, lots of security posture and nonproliferation policy stuff) and the use of Intelligence in the formation of National Security Policy.

UIUC has a very strong security program, the majority of their IR faculty conduct research in the field, even the political economists have a security bent. The Chair wrote me and said that he was very impressed with my research background related to arms control and nonproliferation issues, and he suggested that I might be a good fit in their ACDIS program (Arms Control, Disarmament & International Security).

[silencio1982]

Rejected from UW via mail. One down, 5 to go. Agggggggggh.

[JordanJames]

Hey Ammar, I am in a very similar situation to you- except your GRE Q score is higher than mine, and I did take 1 semester of calc in college (got a . I am really concerned about this hurting my app now that I haven't had any good news. Right now I am praying for just one school to let me in. Aggh. I'm not opposed to blending quant and qual at all, I just have no background in quant. I guess I reached too high in my choice of schools... should have applied to some safeties. Eek!

Well, lets hope somebody wants us. Maybe somewhere out there we have a professor going to bat for us trying to sneak us through the cracks.

[eve2008]

The last thing I would say is don't worry about your math preparation. Few people have extensive quantitative backgrounds coming out of undergrad, and they will teach you want you need/want to know when you get there.

[zephyr]

The last thing I would say, is don't worry about your math preparation. Few people have extensive quantitative backgrounds coming out of undergrad, and they will teach you want you need/want to know when you get there.

yeah, i've taken a few PhD poli sci classes at a top 25 dept., and pretty much anyone in the cohort that plans on possibly using quantitative skills in their studies takes the same intro quant classes, so don't sweat it too much. i took the first quant class w/ the PhD students - its not that hard.

[polisciapp]

Here's a question about a "Status Checker." Why do schools use these if you can't actually get information about your status? I realize that sometimes they are used to monitor document intake, but even that process doesn't usually work. I am convinced schools use them to divert attention away from the Ad. Coordinator. Nevertheless, they are incredibly frustrating.

[iulixa]

Email from Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL), full funding!

And I think I'm out of the race for Ann Arbor and Maryland, since I didn't get anything yet..