First Year Student Information

Welcome to the program!

We are very excited you’re joining us this fall! We hope that your transition to the PhD program and moving to Minnesota is a smooth one. 

Next Steps

Financial Certification Form for International Students on F-1 Visa

F-1 Visa students will find a link to the Financial Certification form in their Graduate School admission letter, which needs to be completed to obtain the I-20. Once completed, the Graduate School issues the I-20. Note: for the purposes of the Financial certification form, your first year fellowship stipend is equivalent to a 50% Teaching Assistantship and includes health insurance and tuition.

International Student Information

Most of the next steps for international students are available on the Graduate School's website (Visas, I-20, etc).

International graduate students will become familiar with the International Student Scholars Office, which provides a wealth of information.

Learn how to succeed academically and how to prepare for a career after graduation with Global Gopher Experiences.

Arrival time: The rules state that international graduate students may arrive up to 30 days prior to the start date. Our payroll start date is 8/31/2026, however, students may want to attend our Math/Stats Camp which begins the week before.

Temporary housing is available for admitted international students. More information is on the University's temporary housing website.

Orientations

The political science orientation date is to be determined. Please plan to be on campus no later than August 31, 2026. Orientation itself will likely be September 1-4, 2026. Orientation is in person and mandatory

We expect you to complete GEAR1 before August 31.

GEAR 1 and GEAR+ (Graduate Education Resources)

These online tools provide an orientation to the University, Minnesota life, what it means to be a successful graduate student as well as further resources focusing on every phase of your academic and professional development.

Registration

Fall 2026 registration may be accomplished any time after July 1, but you will want to communicate with your advisor and the GPC before enrolling. All students must enroll no later than Monday, September 7, 2026, but enrolling before August 10, 2026 is preferred (classes begin Tuesday, September 8, 2026). Prior to enrolling for fall 2026, incoming first years should meet, via Zoom or in-person, with the GPC and their incoming advisors. The sooner these meetings occur, the sooner students can enroll. International students should review the ISSS website for registration information.

All Political Science PhD students will be given online permission to register for any 8xxx level PoliSci courses - even if they appear to be closed. Courses sometimes fill early, so please do not procrastinate in reaching out to the GPC about them (email [email protected] if a course you want to register for is closed). If you take courses outside the department, you may need to email the instructor for class permission to enroll or to see if they will hold a space for you in the class.

Faculty Advisors and Student Mentors

New students will be assigned their initial advisor in early summer; students should consult with their advisors about their initial course enrollment. First and second year students typically register for 9-14 credits.

Members of the Graduate Student Life Committee (GSLC) will assign you a student mentor sometime in early summer.

Graduate Student Health Insurance

The department provides first-year students on fellowship with health insurance through the Graduate Assistant Health Plan (GAHP). Our program will cover the costs for the plan (except the 5% you pay for the student's portion of the GAHP premium). Please let the GPC know if you will or will not enroll in the GAHP.

Graduate fellows are eligible for the GAHP since their stipend is equivalent to a 50% nine-month graduate assistantship, and the department agrees to pay the full departmental cost of coverage during the academic year. The GPC submits the Departmental Authorization form in August. Students must also enroll in the plan.

Fellowship Stipend

The fellowship payroll letters are sent out in August via UMN email. Until then, here are a few of the payroll details:

Appointment/fellowship dates for the academic year: 8/31/2026-5/30/2027. Your first full paycheck is 9/30/2026 and you are paid biweekly. On 9/16/2026, you will receive a partial paycheck.

Make sure to sign up for Direct Deposit (on MyU) once you have established your checking account.

All Political Science fellowships are considered non-service awards and are subject to federal and state income taxes. The Office of Human Resources has further information on tax withholding and year-end reporting.

Fellowships are generally subject to 14% tax withholding for non-resident aliens under the federal IRS rules. 

What about departmental summer research fellowships? Learn more about the department's summer research fellowships.

Living in Minnesota

Math-Stat Camp

Math-Stat Camp Sample Schedule.

The Department of Political Science holds a Math and Statistics Refresher Course (Math-Stat Camp) before the start of the academic year. While the dates of Math Camp will be determined in May 2026, math camp is generally held sometime after August 15. Lunch will be provided. Please contact [email protected] before August 1 to sign up.

Math-Stat Camp is optional, but students are encouraged to attend. Even if you do not anticipate using math and statistics in your research, it is nonetheless important that you know “the basics” so that you can be an intelligent consumer of the political science literature (indeed, most top departments hold similar “math camps” for their incoming Ph.D. students for this very reason).  Our goals are to provide students with a solid grounding toward achieving this basic “quantitative literacy,” and to prepare students who hope to pursue methods training for the courses they will encounter in our department.

Opportunities to Learn R

Join LATIS this July for an online R workshop series! This workshop series will teach you how to get started using R to clean, manipulate, summarize, and visualize data, with an emphasis on data used in the social sciences. They will be focusing on skills you, the human, need for using R for your research responsibly, especially as AI tools make it easier to generate code. Each workshop will have asynchronous content on Canvas, a live demonstration on Zoom, and opportunities to ask questions and get help. You can pick and choose whatever workshops you want to take. However, they recommend taking "Introduction to R" before any other workshops if you are brand new to R or would like to brush up on your basic R skills.

Learn more about the workshop series and register today.

Workshops will be held on Zoom on Wednesdays from 10:00am - 12:00pm (CT):

  • July 1: Introduction to R
  • July 8: Aggregate and reshape data
  • July 15: Merging data
  • July 22: Visualizing data with ggplot2
  • July 29: Data management and reproducibility in R