The Student Room Group

MSc International Politics from SOAS; Comparative Politics from LSE

Hello everyone,

Great forum, very interesting and informative posts. I am a student at Tufts University in Boston, USA, and was just accepted to the MSc International Politics at SOAS.

I wanted to know if anyone had any thoughts about the program. Specifically I wanted to know whether it would be a good program to choose if I wanted to pursue a Phd further down the line - that is to say, would it be considered an equivalent to a more formal 'comparative politics' program from other schools.

I'm also waiting to hear back from LSE, where I applied for MSc Comparative Politics (democracy). I'm keen on visiting the two campuses in March (during my spring break) to look around the schools and get a feel for them.

--> Does anyone have any initial thoughts about the two programs (SOAS Intl. Politics vs. LSE Comparative Politics), ie. how they would match up against each other, prospects for Phd work afterwards (assuming I do well in either!), student body, location, etc.

I'm torn, because I grew up in Southeast Asia and would like to focus on the politics of the region. SOAS is obviously the 'specialist' school, but looking at the prospectus it seems like they don't have as many political scientists as they do linguists, historians or anthropologists specializing in the region. LSE on the other hand seems to have a larger and more comprehensive political science faculty, and could provide maybe the more comprehensive 'political science' education. They also have one superstar Southeast Asian politics professor (John Sidel) that I would look forward to taking a class with.

Sorry if this post was long - so many questions!
Soas and lse, both great places. shady lane does global politics at lse and says its really good.

If you want that whole asia/africa paradigm of study go for soas, but lse really is top notch.
I have friends in comparative politics and they seem to like it.

They're both great universities and great courses. Student body at SOAS is much more left wing, but the people are cool at both. Visit the two and get a feel for them, that's my best advice. Also, look at the profs in the department and see who's doing research you're very interested in. I've taken two classes at LSE that had SOAS lecturers do a few topics, so there is some overlap when it comes to things like development.
Reply 3
i heard back from LSE today and was accepted to the MSc in comparative politics, but with a conditional offer that i graduate with a GPA of 3.5

i have a 3.45 now and after doing the math of my remaining grades i found that i could possibly graduate with a 3.47 - 3.48...the 3.5 however, would be very very very difficult.

are they going to rescind my admission? How likely would it be to appeal to the department to lower their criteria for me?
I got in with just under a 3.5 although my major GPA was 3.7. They still accepted me. I told the department it was mathematically impossible for me to get up to 3.5 in one term, and they said I shouldn't worry about it.
Reply 5
thanks thats a little comforting
do you recommend contacting the department of government right now to ask them about it, or after i've received my grades for the term?
I did it before I got my final grades, then I sent off my grades in the summer.
Reply 7
Both good schools, with preference for LSE because of reputation (and because I chose it over SOAS). My only hitch with Comparative is a professor there who really drank the Kool-Aid on the question of "Is China a democracy?" But that's not really germane. You'll probably find a better political mix at LSE, and in general, the cross-discipline classes on offer (e.g. taking an IR or econ course) are pretty good.

A note on facilities. It's going to be a shock to travel from Tufts to either school. I also went to a NESCAC undergrad, and the most generous description of either LSE or SOAS' grounds is "sub-par". LSE probably has better buildings now because of their current capital campaign and remodeling push, but that's not saying a whole lot. Anyway, just thought you'd like to know.
Reply 8
how difficult is it to switch streams once enrolling?
i was admitted to comparative politics (democracy) but am very interested in comparative politics (asia)...is the dept. of government, or LSE in general, very strict on that?
LSE ain't that good for Politics apparently.

Not in the league tables at least, which is the most we have to go on. The name is good, of course.
Hmm well LSE is ranked #3 in the world for social sciences, and the profs in the Government Department are pretty big names. I think it's pretty good at the MSc level from my experience.
shady lane
Hmm well LSE is ranked #3 in the world for social sciences, and the profs in the Government Department are pretty big names. I think it's pretty good at the MSc level from my experience.


Yeah, I do trust your word. However, York for example has a better politics department according to tables. LSE is well down the list. I was very surprised.
Reply 12
maybe according to the thes survey, but in the guardian university guide 2006, rankings by politics departments, LSE comes in third after oxford and cambridge
see: here:http://browse.guardian.co.uk/education?SearchBySubject=true&FirstRow=0&SortOrderDirection=&SortOrderColumn=&Subject=Politics&Institution=&Tariff=4
Reply 13
how difficult is it to switch streams once enrolling?
i was admitted to comparative politics (democracy) but am very interested in comparative politics (asia)...is the dept. of government, or LSE in general, very strict on that?


I've only met people who have switched departments (i.e. European studies to IR). I wasn't really impressed with those individuals, both because of their mental capacity and as the odds of getting in (4 applications for 2 spots) is much easier.

However, I imagine switching streams within a department should be fairly simple, but would pretty much depend on the department convener. You should probably sit down with that individual when you get there, or write them now to see what the prospects/procedures are.
2nd in the Times behind Oxon (for Pols)

But I saw a website that I annoyingly now cannot find and the LSE were well down in the Politics tables. Something like 20th.
Reply 15
no i agree, i have seen the one that you were talking about.
http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/gooduniversityguide2005/20politics.pdf

but sometimes its so futile to get hung up on rankings. i'm a senior at tufts, and i remember when i was applying to US universities how importantly people placed rankings as a basis for their choice of college without considering all of the other important factors.

tufts is ranked 28th in the US now, but i think that the rankings system is problematic for several reasons:
1. we are competing against universities that are often 4-5 times our size (michigan, berkeley, stanford, harvard, etc etc)
2. if we were to compete against colleges that are closer to our size (williams, amherst, swarthmore), which are in fact the same colleges we compete against in athletics, tufts would undeniably rank in the top 10

but instead tufts is stuck in a weird position of being a 'middle-sized research university' which disadvantages us in many ways in regards to the rankings system....

....sorry for the rant about tufts, maybe that has been building up for four years!

what i was trying to say is that rankings are one factor to consider amongst many other. i have my reasons for being excited about LSE, whether the politics department is ranked highly or not
LSE is the place to go. For its better bigger campus (it's city based) and the reputation in economics and politics. If you want to specialise in south east asia, why not do a PhD on it afterwards?