Overtherainbow

Yes, you do not need a NetID to use Off Campus Housing office resources, e.g. subscribe to the OFSIL listserv. Not sure how useful that is: not much seems to be happening on the listserv lately.

I have found several Gradcafe threads on housing in Ithaca, and it seems that many people do not like on-campus housing for graduate students. It seems to be far from the actual campus, not really conventient to get to due to the hills, somewhat small and expensive. Here are the threads:

I still have not received my NetID email. How are people going to look for apartments? Is anyone planning to find the apartment from far away? I don't think I will be able to fly to Cornell before August, so that's the way I will be doing it.

As far as I know, there aren't really TA/RA awards in the UK that would cover your tuition and living expenses. You can be a tutor, though, but I think this is arranged after you arrive at the university for your studies. These isn't much departamental funding for tution and living expenses for grad students in Britain. PhD students in political science tend to be funded by ESRC, which is (I think) only for British nationals. In Oxford there are also university-wide Clarendon awards which are not dependent on nationality, but these are very competitive. There are also Rhodes and Marshall scholarships available to Americans, but again, these are very competitive.

I will be going to Cornell for PhD in Government. Does anyone know when we are going to receive our NetIDs? And is anyone else having trouble logging in at the new students website to fill in the required forms?

Just turned down an offer with full scholarship. Hope someone on the waitlist gets it!

Received my last notification. My cycle is officially over!

If you accept Fulbright scholarship, you will have to go back to your home country after you finish your degree in any case. (Unless you go on to the PhD, in which case you would still have to fulfill your 2-year residence requirement after you get your PhD). The purpose of scholarships such as Fulbright (for international students) is to ensure that they use the skills aquired in the US to help their home countries. I don't really know much about MPPs, but it is my impression that MPP and Econ PhD are not equivalent degrees. The backgrounds you need to have to be accepted into those are probably different. You'll need work experience (which you seem to have) for MPP, but not for Econ PhD, for which you'll need appropriate Econ coursework.

This is a very good thread. I am kind of in the same situation myself, will be looking for housing without being able to see the apartments myself. If I look for roommates on the university off-campus housing website, I wonder how the whole thing would work. When do people need to sign the lease? Will I have to actually mail the signed lease from where I am, or is it OK to sign the lease and pay the rent for the first month upon arrival?

The clear research application is very important here. It may be something you might wish to highlight in your SOP. I do not think it is enough to know the language(s) of your region if you are CP. Your knowledge of languages has to be useful in doing research. Say, if you have a research project in mind that entails doing archival research in the regional language, then it is useful. If you write your SOP emphasizing that you want to use quant methods or do not specify the methods, then the likelihood that your language skills will matter is probably low. I am only extrapolating from my own experience, so, of course, I may be wrong.

The deadline is not for scholarship per se, but for the offer of admission. It's April 15th.

I got a full scholarship. Still deciding, but will probably be turning the offer down.

Poor Cornell, too. Cohort size probably needs to be factored into this, though.

So my choice of programs has just got more difficult - the information on MA funding at IHEID is now up. Now choosing between a fully funded MA and reapplying or going straight for Cornell PhD... I think I am leaning toward Cornell at this point, but there seems to be some concern about the weakness of methods training there. Does anyone know about methods training at Cornell?

I am comparative/IR, and I have zero Stats/Quant Methods/Research Methods background. But then, I suspect that was part of the reason I was rejected by most of the places I applied to.