2017-2018 Application Cycle

[deutsch1997bw]

@izmir and @audre.bored I am retaking the GRE for the third (yes, the third) time next week. My verbal score is really high, but my quantitative score is much lower than I'd like it to be. My SOP is almost finished and has been revised numerous times by a couple of trusted professors, and I'm almost done revising my writing sample. 

I'm applying to study comparative politics.

[izmir]

@audre.bored I am also applying to study Comparative Politics. @deutsch1997bw I believe as long as you got 160 over on both sections, you should be fine. That’s why I only took it once and also not to give another $200 ?. Which schools are you applying to? I am thinking of Cornell, Yale, Duke, UT-Austin, and maybe some safety schools.

[gradcafe71]

Anyone currently working on writing samples? Just seeking advice on how to edit a writing sample from 34 pages to 20 pages, considering 9 pages of my writing sample includes data that can't be removed. Any suggestions? 

 

Good luck everyone!

[deutsch1997bw]

@CP->APIf I were you, I'd cut the literature review. I think it's more important to show that you can analyze data and draw new conclusions from it.

[gradcafe71]

6 minutes ago, deutsch1997bw said:

@CP->APIf I were you, I'd cut the literature review. I think it's more important to show that you can analyze data and draw new conclusions from it.

Excellent point. I've become so attached to the paper as a whole that I'm finding this process to be particularly more painful. But I'll keep at it. Thanks so much!

[guest56436]

9 pages seems excessive for methodology/analysis. This can probably be reduced as well. I'd be hesitant about cutting the lit review completely if it is tied to your theoretical section.

Edited November 9, 2017 by Comparativist

[Hamb]

I've seen a lot of mixed things on this forum and elsewhere on writing samples, so I'll see what all of you are planning. 

Thoughts on using the most well written paper you have versus one that is a bit more quant heavy? My standout paper is in Political Theory even though I'm not applying for that, and I can't decide whether it's better to submit a weaker paper with a more standard political science approach or just stick with the best paper. Some seem to suggest that having a paper that replicates your focus is best, while others just say that professors want to see what your best writing level is.

Edited November 9, 2017 by Hamb

[audre.bored]

@Hamb My inclination is to go with your best piece of writing.  I've been creating edited versions of my thesis for my samples.  Figuring out which sections best display my research abilities (and can stand on their own) has been my issue.

[gradcafe71]

1 hour ago, Comparativist said:

9 pages seems excessive for methodology/analysis. This can probably be reduced as well. I'd be hesitant about cutting the lit review completely if it is tied to your theoretical section.

You're correct. Some of the data is extraneous. The original paper was 54 pages, so it's come a long way (currently at 27). I've managed to remove several pages of data that, while interesting, veered from the main argument of the paper. 

My primary issue is that there are several appendices in this paper that present vital information, but take up multiple pages. I'm hesitant to remove them or attempt to present the same information in a different format. I also can't cut the lit review much more for the reason you stated. 

[Hamb]

One thing I've researched a good amount but can't seem to get a grasp on is how specific we should be with our research proposals? Is the concept to have  a specific region or area of interest, but versatile enough to appeal to multiple members of the faculty? Or should we really be describing specific questions and specific methods?

Seems like a hard thing to balance, being specific enough to ensure that research fit is there, but vague enough to make sure more than 1 professors work interest me. Am I doing something wrong or is that kind of the intention?

[guest56436]

1 hour ago, Hamb said:

 Or should we really be describing specific questions and specific methods?

Seems like a hard thing to balance, being specific enough to ensure that research fit is there, but vague enough to make sure more than 1 professors work interest me. Am I doing something wrong or is that kind of the intention?

The bold is the most important. Puzzle -> Questions -> Possible ways to answer it theoretically and methodologically. Area is not that important, although it should be obvious based on the empirical founding of your puzzle.

Research interests do not need to be a perfect match for good POI signalling. Think about these different approaches for identifying POIs and demonstrating fit:

- Broad interests.

- Independent variables

- Dependent variable(s)

- Broad research interests

- Methodological approaches

- Theoretical approaches

- Geographical area

You can make plausible connections based on any of these things. Let's do an example. Say you are interested in the socioeconomic effects (i.e. the persistence of poverty) of clientelism in Africa and you are applying to Yale. So your (broadly speaking) independent variable is clientelism and your dependent is poverty and your region is Africa. Let's also say you are interested in mixed methods broadly speaking (say game theory, interviews/ethnography, and quantitative analysis). 

You have so many POIs to identify in this instance that it's almost hard to be economical.

Susan Stokes (independent variable, methodological), Ana de la O (independent and dependent variables), Frances Rosenbluth (broad interests), Steven Wilkinson (independent variable, theoretical approaches), James Scott (broad interests, methodological), and Kate Baldwin (dependent variable, geographical area).

 

Edited November 12, 2017 by Comparativist

[Hamb]

5 minutes ago, Comparativist said:

The bold is the most important. Area is not that important, although it should be obvious based on the empirical founding of your puzzle.

Research interests do not need to be a perfect match for good POI signalling. Think about these different approaches for identifying POIs and demonstrating fit:

- Broad interests.

- Independent variables

- Dependent variable(s)

- Broad research interests

- Methodological approaches

- Theoretical approaches

- Geographical area

You can make plausible connections based on any of these things. Let's do an example. Say you are interested in the socioeconomic effects (i.e. the persistence of poverty) of clientelism in Africa and you are applying to Yale. So your (broadly speaking) independent variable is clientelism and your dependent is poverty and your region is Africa. Let's also say you are interested in mixed methods broadly speaking (say game theory, interviews/ethnography, and quantitative analysis). 

You have so many POIs to identify in this instance that it's almost hard to be economical.

Susan Stokes (independent variable, methodological), Ana de la O (independent and dependent variables), Frances Rosenbluth (broad interests), Steven Wilkinson (independent variable, theoretical approaches), James Scott (broad interests, methodological), and Kate Baldwin (dependent variable, geographical area).

 

Awesome, that's fairly close to what I've been doing. I have overall subjects and variables within my subfield of choice, I was mostly just worried about not posing specific questions. My topic is inherently broad and covers a wide spectrum of variables, but I've been posing topics with roughly the specificity you included. 

[izmir]

Maybe a dumb question but would you write UT-Austin or only UT in your SOP?

[phyanth]

You want to write the whole name of the university, no abbreviations. 

[izmir]

@phyanth actually I did not mean that my bad. I meant “the University of Texas” or “the University of Texas-Austin”?

[TheWalkingGrad]

1 hour ago, izmir said:

@phyanth actually I did not mean that my bad. I meant “the University of Texas” or “the University of Texas-Austin”?

You'll be fine with "University of Texas", but you might want to do the full name the first time you mention it.

[phyanth]

@izmir Ohhh okay. Yeah, University of Texas should be fine. No need to add the "Austin" 

[Hamb]

I've tried to do some research on this topic, both on this specific subforum as well as gradcafe/other websites as a whole and I'm hoping some past applicants or faculty members who lurk here can give me some advice.

I've read really conflicting things regarding potential POI's. Political Science doesn't operate under the same lab system as a lot of hard sciences do, and so it's always hard to know whether general advice is applicable to us or not. As such, I'm always skeptical of the "contact POI's" advice. From what I gathered, the general advice in political science is that it's a good idea to email a professor if you actually have a legitimate question regarding their research, but that if you're just contacting for the sake of contacting, that's typically frowned upon. Am I correct in arriving at this conclusion, or is this misguided? 

edit: Answered my 2nd question I think, so I'll just leave the 1st up.

Edited November 14, 2017 by Hamb

[audre.bored]

Here's a very specific question for the group, has anyone included CITI training or similar training on their CV? If so under which section?

[ElySiae]

I'm curious, what are your stats/universities you're applying to?

[deutsch1997bw]

Update: I retook the GRE today. My verbal score is pretty high (91st percentile), but my quantitative score is a lot lower than I'd like it to be. My hope is that my quantitative training pushes me over the edge.

[puddle]

On 5/26/2017 at 3:56 PM, IR44 said:

I'm looking at a few tenure-track professors as potential POIs, though the vast majority are tenured. Is it problematic to highlight faculty you'd like to work with that aren't tenured yet? My initial instinct is 1) they may not get tenured at the current university and leave to be tenured elsewhere (though POIs leaving is always a concern). 2) they will undoubtedly be highly concerned with publishing/be generally swamped. Thoughts? 

Late to the game here but I wanted to say something about this. Some top schools have high department turnover (even of tenured profs... not that I'm bitter about 1/2 my committee leaving before I finished my prospectus or anything) and so the tenured professors tend to get "stuck" with a lot of grad students when un-tenured faculty leave. Then new faculty come in and the department tries to foist off grad students on them. So when you are applying, it would be best to reference a mix of tenured & non-tenured (especially new) faculty. The strategy here is not to pin your admissions prospects on a tenured faculty member who is already overseeing a ton of projects but to show that your work speaks to both the department's established scholars and the direction they are hoping to take things in (their new scholars who aren't towards the end of their tenure clock yet). Make sense? Maybe not. I need more sleep. Send help.

[jnewcomb08]

I figured we might as well start posting our stats since the first applications are going to be due soon.  Fill this in and let's see what happens next year!  Come back and edit your results, so people know how you turned out!

PROFILE:
Type of Undergrad Institution:   Top 10 Public University
Major(s)/Minor(s): Political Science
Undergrad GPA: 3.96 Upper Level/4.00 Major
Type of Grad:  N/A
Grad GPA: N/A
GRE (V/Q/AWA): 160/160/5.0
Any Special Courses:  Political Science Research Methods
Letters of Recommendation: 1 From Department Chair senior thesis adviser who is leader in field;  1 is from Graduate School Coordinator who was my adviser the previous semester while chair was on sabbatical;  1 is from Associate Professor I took 2 classes from 
Research Experience:  Senior Honors Thesis revolved around creating a unique data set from 2016 Florida General Election vote totals and break them down by method of vote to determine an phenomenon that contributes new knowledge to the American Politics field.
Teaching Experience: N/A
Subfield/Research Interests: American Politics - Citizen Initiative; Voter Behavior; Social Movements
Other: Non-traditional  38 year old student;  Outstanding 2 Year Scholar Award recipient at upcoming graduation ceremony;  Phi Kappa Phi

RESULTS:
Acceptances($$ or no $$):
Waitlists:
Rejections:
Pending:  University of Iowa, Columbia, University of California - San Diego/Riverside/Davis, University of Wisconsin, University of Maryland, Princeton, University of Florida, Emory, Vanderbilt
Going to:

 

LESSONS LEARNED:  To be determined

 SOP:  Going to keep this for my eyes, but it followed a general track of introducing myself, what influenced me to get involved with political science that included past work experience and activism, what my scholastic road has been like (including transferring to a 4-year program after my AA was completed), my undergraduate research, why I want to apply to whatever school I was applying to, who teaches there and research they have done recently, and what I want to do with a Ph.D.

 

Good Luck!

[deutsch1997bw]

PROFILE

Type of Undergrad Institution: Top-ranked public liberal arts university

Major(s)/Minor(s): Political Science

Undergraduate GPA: 3.94 Major (should increase after this semester)

Type of Grad: N/A

Grad GPA: N/A

GRE(V/Q/AWA): 162/pretty low quant GRE/6.0 AWA

Any Special Courses: Two courses in quantitative research methodology

Letters of Recommendation: One from a political methodologist (hopefully he will be able to vouch for my quantitative skills), one from a professor who I have a decently-close relationship with (2 classes), and one from a professor who I've done research under. 

Research Experience: Experience with both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies, though most of my formal training has been in quantitative methodology (regression analysis, factor analysis, spatial modeling, and data visualization). I am also proficient in R. I will be presenting at three conferences in February and April 2018.

Teaching Experience: N/A

Subfield/Research Interests: comparative authoritarianism, political behavior, political economy, and Russia and the post-Soviet region.

Other: I studied abroad at a top 5 German university in summer 2017. I possess high intermediate proficiency in German.

RESULTS

Acceptances: 

Waitlists:

Rejections:

Pending: University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Texas-Austin, Northwestern University, Emory University, University of Minnesota, Indiana University-Bloomington, University of Washington, and University of Iowa. I'm also applying to Indiana University-Bloomington's MA in Russian and East European Studies as a backup, which I would use as a stepping stone to a PhD if I had to.

Going to: 

Lessons Learned: Overall, I feel really good about my application, except my quantitative GRE score. I really hope that my extensive quantitative experience will help me out here, considering that my verbal and writing scores are high. 

SOP: Not posting here.

Edited November 24, 2017 by deutsch1997bw

[izmir]

Hey everyone! Do you know if the adcomms read all three letters starting with the one that came in first or the one that you listed on the top of your list? I am worried because my most important letter writer did not submit his letter yet and I want the adcomms to read that letter carefully.