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My question was more about the criteria that you use to judge whether a particular placement is strong. It's really not obvious to me how to compare these. I don't think anyone on the job market thinks about their future work place in terms of graduate program rankings. Most people I know look at other criteria in choosing their ideal job, like location, especially important for those with families or those from outside of the US, fit with the department, personal preferences as to the type of institution (research university/liberal arts college), the resources available including salary, research budget, etc. Yes, prestige and all that matters, but it's hardly the sole criterion. Secondly, comparing placements without comparing subfields is meaningless because of the large discrepancies in available jobs. While I would agree that Michigan median placement tends to be better, to me those of Duke, MIT and UCSD are really no different, and in that sense, I disagree with the premise of your original question.

I'm curious - what is the metric that you use to judge the placement as poor? And how does it compare to other schools?

@CherylMinn,I just wanted to add two points about Duke. Thirst, even though you will be an MA student, you will likely take most of your classes together with PhD students. I think this is a big advantage, also because your future letter writers will be able to compare you to them. Second of all, being an MA student, I think you should look at the faculty more broadly. You are not searching for a dissertation advisor, who does what research should be much less relevant. There are other faculty members who can give you the guidance you may need. Even for PhD students who research authoritarian politics, just look at their dissertation committees.

To me, a statement that's double what is allowed just sends a terrible signal - that you're a person who thinks s/he entitled to special treatment and who thinks s/he's not bound by any rules (I'm not saying this about you personally, just in general). You can hope nobody will notice, but honestly, why take such a risk?

I think mentioning particular faculty members you want to work with shows that you have done your homework on the department and chose to apply to it based on some degree of fit. The downside of course is that you don't know a lot of things - you may mention somebody who is about to retire or move or be denied tenure, or simply not taking new doctoral students for whatever reason. Because of this, if you do list faculty members, make sure it will be three or four professors.

What was your undergrad in? Many applicants with interest in formal theory will come from an econ or math background. Not having those does not disqualify you in any way, but I would imagine schools want to think you can handle the coursework. I think your GRE and choice of writing sample (+ LORs, hopefully) signals that. Your choice of schools looks reasonable, but if you were looking to add more, I would add Chicago Polisci, Stanford Polisci, Columbia and maybe even Caltech.

From my experience, verbal scores are less important for some fields and international applicants are generally treated more leniently when it comes to those. To me, 157 for a non-native speaker is totally acceptable. 165 quant is fine too. None of those stand out to me as good or bad as such, it depends on other things. What I would want to know is what is your intended field and how does the rest of your application package look like. If you're applying to theory and to comparative, you want to signal different things. What is your math background? Have you taken a bunch of math courses, maybe you have a more quantitative degree? How is your writing sample? Quality of language in cover letter? What's your TOEFL score? Was your previous education in English? Basically, if your GRE is better than the rest of your application, you should send it. If it clearly isn't, maybe better not.

"departments" are in the end people. It's really up to the individuals and how important they think the GRE is. Nobody will be able to give you a definitive answer. I think @munch22 has a correct take - if you have taken GRE and your score is great, send it.

Mine was about 1000 words, +/- 50 dependending on the school. I would say this is the upper limit of how long a statement should be. I did have a bunch of things to say, though. Try to cut yours by 200 words or so. Make sure you don't repeat stuff from your CV (unless you wanna highlight somethng), and do away with some very general sentetences that are not backed up by anything concrete and don't bring much - almost all SOPs will have plenty of those!

It certainly is true that the academic job market in the US is a tough as never before and most people do not appreciate the extent this is true until they near the end of their PhD programs and are on the job market. I think YOU SHOULD think about this carefully when applying. But there are a few 'buts': 1. There still are academic jobs in the US, just less (and more PhDs competing for them). While this means that competition is higher and so are expectations, you can still get hired. You just need to have realistic expectations - not everyone will get an R1 job (not that everyone wants one!) and you may need to first do a postdoc or two after you graduate. 2. Check out the latest APSA Graduate Placement Report. 26% get TT jobs straight out of PhD. 85% get jobs. 15% are unplaced. These numbers are for all PhD granting institutions. They vary between universities. With some exceptions, your best bet on getting a job is to go to the best department possible. The jobs prospects of somebody from a top 10 department are vastly different than for somebody from much lower ranked schools. It's not just the number of jobs but also the type of jobs that will be available to you that differs. 3. There are still jobs in Europe and an increasing number of good jobs in Asia. Many are willing to take these! In fact, this may sometimes be the preferred option for non-US citizens. 4. Be prepared from the start that you may need to consider non-academic jobs. Many upper year PhD students will actually prefer those, even if they came into their program with academic aspirations. Make sure you invest in skills that are useful both in the academic and non-academic paths. This will be both helpful in actually getting a good non-academic job and also will help reduce the stress and pressure of the academic job market, knowing that you do have an outside option.

It's very limited information we have, but if I were you I would probably aim higher and apply mostly to top 20. Much less attention will be given to your GPA compared to US applicants since professors realize grading outside of the US is different but at the same time they may be unfamiliar with the particular system you're coming from. On top of that, you have an MA, so undergrad will generally matter much less.

I'm not exactly sure what other than GRE can you improve given that, as I understand, you are applying this Fall. Is your question: should I retake the GRE? Well, my suggestion then is: yes, if you can, do retake the GRE. The Q score seems on the low end for top 10 IR.

If money is not a constraint, follow the advice above: apply to both PhD and MA programs and see what happens. But honestly, IMHO the lack of political science coursework is not the problem. You can easily get into a Political Science PhD program without having taken any political science classes. It's the LORs that are the problem. What you need are letters that can attest to your research abilities and ideally written by people who understand what it takes to produce political science research. It sounds like none of the 3 letter writers would be able to do it. Do the 2 managers have PhDs? The rest of your background looks good. Of course, you will need a cover letter that convincingly explains why political science. My advice: don't talk about advocacy and campaigns beyond the research aspects of it. An MA from top international programs will look great. But to me, the question is: can you get better letters by doing a political science MA? It's not clear. And given the application cycle, you would have 2 semesters to impress at least 2 political scientists. That means taking classes with a heavy research component (e.g. term paper). Not common in political science for MA students, but if you could become an RA to a political science prof while in the program, that is another great way to get a letter. Your background would make you relatively attractive as an RA. But I imagine the chances of being hired vary vastly between all these programs you mentioned. In either case, you want to make sure you are careful picking MA programs. There are also good research focused MA programs in the US as well (Duke, Columbia). Worth considering, perhaps.

I doubt that this is a "Duke problem" since this is just generally true across schools in the discipline. It is just a fact that women are less likely to apply to political science programs. Just like men are less likely to apply to, say, psychology.

It's difficult to tell where you would have a shot without actually seeing your application materials etc., and comparing to other applicants. But I would suggest first browsing through faculty directories at top30 schools and seeing how many faculty members have research interests that are close to yours. Stick to schools were you can find at least 2-3 faculty members who do something that is interesting to you. This should help you narrow down schools. Generally, your fit to the program will also be a criterion for the schools to decide whether to admit you, so it's a useful exercise (the result of which should go into your SOP, btw, mentioning why THIS school). My second criterion would be funding availability, especially since you are an out of state international applicant. Ideally, you would want to have 10-15 schools to apply to.