Welcome!

GRE Institution Code 4837
GRE Department Code 1902

THE APPLICATION IS AVAILABLE ONLINE ONLY AND MUST BE SUBMITTED ONLINE TO BE ELIGIBLE FOR REVIEW.

Online application will be available September 6, 2011.

Deadline for all application materials due December 1, 2011
No extensions will be granted.

Thank you for visiting the graduate program website and for giving us the opportunity to introduce ourselves. We take special pride in our Department’s high national ranking in the discipline — and in the shared determination of our faculty to continue to build an exciting intellectual community. Our graduate program combines outstanding faculty and students, a broad-ranging curriculum oriented toward research, and the resources of one of the nation’s great universities.  In addition to housing many leading departments in the social science, humanities and natural sciences, UCLA offers one of the world’s foremost research libraries, exceptional computing facilities, and an extensive network of interdisciplinary centers and institutes that foster linkages across disciplinary boundaries.

Our Department is a fairly large one, staffed by approximately 45 core faculty.  Each year we aim for an entering class of about 20 to 25, which allows for considerable personal attention to each of our students.  Currently, we have about 150 students in residence.  We consider ourselves a “full service” department: our large and intellectually diverse faculty offers coursework and opportunities for research in all of the major sub-fields of the discipline.  In addition, our graduate students have found that our curriculum facilitates intensive study in a number of cross-cutting areas – empirical and theoretical, contemporary and historical. Among these interdisciplinary concentrations are political economy, American political development, race and politics, women’s studies, and the philosophical, historical, and literary dimensions of political theory.  Because UCLA is home to a large number of centers for language and area studies, our students often focus their doctoral research on the politics of specific world regions while drawing theoretical and empirical leverage from sources that transcend conventional boundaries.

Our emphasis on rigorous academic training and independent research creates a diverse and intellectually exciting graduate student community. Most of our doctoral graduates go on to careers in academic institutions, but many have also found challenging employment in the public sector or in private organizations that emphasize research and analytic skills. In the past decade or so, our graduates have obtained tenure-track academic positions at Princeton, Yale, Harvard, Harvard's Kennedy School, Stanford, Pittsburgh, Rochester, Michigan, UC Berkeley, and UC San Diego.  Others have joined such institutions as the World Bank, the State Department, the Federal Reserve Bank, RAND, and the Carnegie Endowment.  Click here to see a list of our top twenty academic placements in the last five years.

Curriculum

The curriculum of the graduate program is divided into six general areas: American Politics, Comparative Politics, Formal Theory/Quantitative Methods, International Relations, Political Theory, and Race, Ethnicity & Politics. Prospective applicants are encouraged to visit the field websites and the faculty pages to explore the variety of research programs underway in the Department. We encourage our students to be well-rounded in their study of politics: the Department requires study in two major and two minor fields. One result of this is a collegial atmosphere among our graduate cohort.

The boundaries between these general fields are intentionally permeable, as are the boundaries between our Department and other academic disciplines. Formal theory and methods, for example, offers training that supports research across most of the subfields. Political Economy, an area of marked departmental strength, overlaps Comparative Politics and International Relations, and also invites interdisciplinary work with the Department of Economics. Similarly, the subfield of Political Theory is linked, through cross-appointments and the various interdisciplinary centers on campus, with a variety of departments including history, public policy, philosophy, classics, sociology, and literary & cultural studies.

Coursework

Students take at least 16 courses, including a survey of statistical methods (with an associated lab) that cultivates critical judgment about empirical social research and, for many students, provides a gateway to advanced methodological training. The program requires fourteen additional courses: four in each of two major fields, one in each of two minor fields, and four electives. There is also a language/methods requirement which students satisfy by taking whichever is most appropriate to their plan of research. Taken together, the major and minor fields work in tandem to provide breadth of background and depth of focus for crafting sophisticated research projects. The elective courses, whether taken within or outside the Department, permit students to tailor their studies to their individual needs and interests. Needless to say, students are free -- indeed encouraged -- to pursue coursework beyond these minimum requirements and most do so. Generally, students satisfy these requirements within the first two years of study. At the same time, they prepare to write their field papers.

Field Papers

Since the principal academic objective of the program is to develop students’ capacities for independent research, we have chosen to focus graduate studies on a requirement that each student complete two field papers (rather than, as in many other programs, a set of general exams). The purpose of this requirement is to encourage disciplinary breadth while facilitating in-depth research on a particular topic. Field papers are expected to resemble studies published in professional journals, not only in structure and format, but by making original contributions to the scholarly literature on their chosen topic. These papers often emerge from seminars and frequently serve as preliminary explorations of dissertation research. They also commonly serve as prototypes for conference papers and many eventually find publication in refereed journals. In multiple respects, then, they assist students in defining and developing their own professional agendas. Both papers are typically submitted no later than the third year of enrollment, though earlier submission is both possible and encouraged.

Both the field papers and graduate seminars provide many opportunities for graduate students to develop mentoring relationships with members of the faculty. Such relationships expose students to the informal lore of our discipline and prepare them to become active participants in a professional community of teaching and research. Mentoring relationships can blossom into longstanding intellectual collaborations, at the dissertation level and beyond, and play a basic role in developing young scholars at UCLA.

Dissertation

Once the coursework and field papers are completed, students proceed to the dissertation stage. The first step is to delineate an original research project in a dissertation prospectus. Presented to a faculty examining committee, the prospectus provides the principal basis for discussion during the qualifying oral examination which advances the student to PhD. candidacy. Sometimes the dissertation emerges directly from earlier field papers; but students often extend themselves in unexpected directions as they open new avenues of discovery. Either way, we take it as our obligation to try to provide constructive guidance without usurping the student’s intellectual autonomy. In the usual course of things, we expect students to complete their graduate training in five to seven years.

Admissions

Admission to the graduate program is highly competitive, and all students admitted to graduate study in the Department enter the first phase of the doctoral program. The MA is granted along the way at the successful completion of the coursework requirements, the statistics or language requirement, and the first field paper. Students coming to UCLA with the master’s degree in hand may petition to waive a portion of the course requirements, but must complete the field papers and dissertation prospectus oral examination to qualify for doctoral candidacy. We do not admit students whose goal is the MA degree.

Admission to the program is based on a careful review of applicants’ academic qualifications. Typically, successful candidates have completed, with a high GPA, an undergraduate major or program that prepares them for advanced study in any of our major subfields. But not all candidates fit the typical profile and in all cases the admissions committee will consider the student’s general qualifications and overall record of accomplishment.

Please be advised that you must go online at http://www.gdnet.ucla.edu and apply with your fee by December 1, 2011.  No extensions will be granted.

UCLA prides itself on being one of the most diverse and excellent research institutions in the United States. In its admissions and fellowship practices, the Political Science Department shares this two-fold commitment.

Further information can be accessed through the UCLA Graduate Division.

Graduate Advisor
UCLA Political Science Department
4289 Bunche Hall
Box 951472
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1472

If you have questions regarding particular areas of the program, faculty information, and the like, feel free to contact any of the department members listed below:

American Politics: Tom Schwartz
Comparative Politics: Michael Thies
Formal Theory/Quantitative Methods: Jeff Lewis
International Relations: Leslie Johns
Political Theory: Joshua Dienstag
Race and Ethnic Politics: Lorrie Frasure

Funding

Virtually all our graduate students have some form of financial assistance. The department awards merit-based fellowships and assistantship guarantees to incoming students on the strength of their individual applications as a whole. We give careful consideration to letters of recommendation, to the skills and capacities evidenced by writing samples, and to educational achievements indicated by test scores, grade-point averages, and academic honors.

All applicants are automatically considered for a variety of funding options. Departmental support takes many forms, ranging from full fellowships and tuition to competitive aid packages offering various combinations of fellowships, tuition and/or fee credits, teaching or research assistantships, and/or loans. In addition, there are a number of University-wide competitive fellowships. Among these are the Cota Robles Fellowship to encourage diversity and the Chancellors Fellowship, both of which must be specifically applied for as part of the on-line application . Applicants interested in these possibilities can access information about them at the Financial Support link on the UCLA Graduate Division website. Particularly qualified applicants across the various subfields are encouraged to consider extramural application to nationally competitive graduate fellowship programs, information on which can be found under Extramural Financial Support.

The department currently offers three special fellowships -- one in American and Comparative Politics and two that are not restricted by field of study -- that provide three years of straight support ($23,000 per year plus tuition and fees) and a teaching assistantship for one additional year. In addition, we offer a variable number of four-year fellowship packages. These consist of straight financial support for the first year (typically $23,000 plus tuition and fees) and either (1) three years of TAships or (2) two years of TAships plus an additional year of straight support. These multiyear fellowships and fellowship packages are awarded to the most competitive candidates for admission. Occasionally, we also offer fellowships for the first year only, with subsequent support contingent upon performance in the program. Not all entering students receive fellowships.

After the first year, TAships are the basic funding vehicle for most students. A number of graduate students are also employed by externally funded research projects organized by members of the faculty. We are often able to provide dissertation research fellowships for top ranked students admitted to candidacy, and our dissertation students are generally very competitive for both campus-wide and extramural fellowships.

UCLA graduate application is available only online.