hi! hope you’re doing well! i recently made a big oopsie and forgot to send in my supplementary essays for the pcj program (and my mom won’t let me forget about this anytime soon so yay for me). i was wondering if you know if the international relations major needs any supplementary essays? i can’t find it on the program page on trinity’s website, and the calendar doesn’t specify either, but my mom insists that she remembers someone saying i need to write one. thanks in advance! 🙂
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hi there,
on behalf of every u of t student who’s ever made a consequential mistake, i feel for you and want to tell you that things will be okay! it’s great that you’re looking into IR as a backup. honestly, from what i’ve heard, the PCJ program is fantastic and very cool but sometimes a bit disorganized (new instructors cycle through often, the program’s comparatively quite young, etc.). you also have to deal with a lot of big egos because of the high threshold for admission.
i double-checked the IR calendar entry and you’re right that it doesn’t mention any essays. if supplementary materials are required, that will always be mentioned in the calendar. but because i know how moms can be, i also asked a friend who applied to IR in summer 2019 to confirm, and they told me that they needed to submit a short essay.
so, as one does, i put on my detective hat. i wear a lot of hats around here, but this one’s my favorite.
i couldn’t find a gif of The Hat that i liked, so this one will have to do.
after that, a little time travel was in order.
in summer 2019 (july the second, to be exact), this is what the IR calendar entry looked like.
as i expected, all application requirements were listed in the calendar entry, and back then those requirements included a statement of interest — or an essay. so your mom was technically correct in the sense that, in the past, an essay was necessary. but given that the page today has removed the “Statement of Interest” bit, i think it’s safe to say that no essay is required.
i hope this helps! good luck.
be Boundless,
aska