Quigley

This is mostly me.
 
I admit that I have some plans to "get ahead" for school, but I would still advise getting creative and enjoying some hobbies for awhile. My to do list includes:
 
-building a sous vide bath from a slow cooker, current regulator and probe thermometer
-finishing at least four of the ever-growing stack of bedside novels
-teaching my dog to fetch beer from the mini-fridge
 
Don't ever, ever, ever wait around for your life to start. 
 
Another piece of advice I got during law school that's super valuable: define a reasonable amount of time per week that you'll dedicate to work. Stick to it. Do other stuff in your off time. You could work every minute of every day in a PhD program. Don't.
 
We keep hearing that the PhD is a means to an end; the end is the job we want. That's partly true. The job is a means to an end, too; the ultimate end of a fulfilling, well-rounded life. No matter where you are, no matter what else is going on, your plan of attack to live that life should be multi-front.

By the standards of where you're coming from, even most quantitative and formal work in American politics won't compare. There are departments (like the one coach is attending) that are exceptions, but in general most grad students in American aren't developing new methods or models. Look at the American politics syllabi and at the work of faculty and you'll get a sense of this.

This statement, to be honest, isn't based on direct experience: I am not an Americanist. But I have served on hiring committees for American politics and in economics, and the difference in methods expectations is dramatic.

Superfly, I'd definitely recommend talking to someone outside of an internet forum about this. What I'm hearing is that you're looking to get into a policy-type PhD program focused on development and diplomacy, and you'd like to tailor your studies in such a way as to both build upon and subsequently further your current career trajectory. 
 
The PhD in the U.S., from what I've gathered, can be a huge minefield if you're not careful. The best school for me may be a horrifically bad school for you. Off the top of my head, I'd point you towards looking into any school that's attached to a lot of professional institutions: major schools in metro areas like Georgetown and Tufts might be a good starting point. Other possibilities include a policy-focused degree program like Columbia's SIPA or JHU's SAIS, or even UCSD's IR/PS if you're into Pacific Studies. Like Lemeard said, your scores may prevent you from getting into a top program, but this isn't an area that I have any experience in (i.e. policy/practice-oriented PhD applications) so I just can't tell you for sure whether your professional background will help mitigate it.
 
You just have to be really careful. That's my best advice. Talk to an academic, get in touch with a school's graduate coordinator...anything you can do to sift through the incredible diversity of programs out there. You don't want to get into a situation where you get into some big-name school only to find that they either don't do the research you want to do, or that they take a radically different approach than you wish to take. Especially since you seem to be coming in with enough background to really know what you're focusing on, I feel like that makes it all the more important to do your homework. Sorry I can't be of more help.

I didn't contact professors prior to submitting my applications.  After reading on this site about others who had made contact with faculty, I sat down to draft something a few times.  In the end, I never sent the e-mail to anyone because it always felt overly contrived -- due to the fact that I was writing the e-mail for the sake of e-mailing them and not because I had anything particularly important to ask or say to them at that point in the process.  
 
I believe a post from Penelope Higgens (above) in another thread is what led me to my final decision that e-mailing "POIs" in political science didn't really seem necessary.  When talking with other applicants at the accepted students weekends in March, there seemed to be a pretty good mix of those who had e-mailed professors and those who had not.
 
That being said, an important part of your Statement of Purpose will be to identify professors with whom your research interests align and explain why you believe that working with them would be beneficial to you as a graduate student.  Among other things, this shows the admissions committee that you've given some consideration as to why you want to attend their program and why you would be a good fit in their department.

Pressure and insecurity about the future are not good reasons to apply to graduate school. The main thing I gather from reading your post is that you're really not sure of yourself but grad school just seems like the "logical next step." I think you need to get yourself out of this mode and do some soul searching. A good approach is to try and reverse-engineer this problem: what kind of job/career would you like to have in the future? (are you sure? have you talked to people who have similar positions, read about the position, know that you understand what it's really like?) what kind of qualifications do you need to have in order to obtain such a job? does it require a Masters or PhD, and if so, in what field? That is, think of a graduate degree is a means to an end, not a goal in and of itself. Figure out your goals and then how to obtain them. Don't apply to grad school out of inertia -- it's hard enough even when you're very passionate about what you do, and even more if you're not that excited about it to begin with.

Right back at ya!

I didn't contact professors prior to submitting my applications.  After reading on this site about others who had made contact with faculty, I sat down to draft something a few times.  In the end, I never sent the e-mail to anyone because it always felt overly contrived -- due to the fact that I was writing the e-mail for the sake of e-mailing them and not because I had anything particularly important to ask or say to them at that point in the process.  
 
I believe a post from Penelope Higgens (above) in another thread is what led me to my final decision that e-mailing "POIs" in political science didn't really seem necessary.  When talking with other applicants at the accepted students weekends in March, there seemed to be a pretty good mix of those who had e-mailed professors and those who had not.
 
That being said, an important part of your Statement of Purpose will be to identify professors with whom your research interests align and explain why you believe that working with them would be beneficial to you as a graduate student.  Among other things, this shows the admissions committee that you've given some consideration as to why you want to attend their program and why you would be a good fit in their department.

by Passion Pit

I write this as a faculty member at a school that gets mentioned on here occasionally, in political science. Your admission depends, in part, on your ability to make the case that your interests fit well with those of some of the faculty at the department to which you are applying.

The 'POI' model from the natural sciences just doesn't apply. Generally you will work with a committee of several faculty rather than in a lab with a single advisor. Make sure you can make the case that your intellectual interests match those of some of the faculty. You do NOT need to have contact with faculty before applying. Nor does your funding come from a faculty member, with very rare exceptions. Your admission is determined by the department as a whole, or more accurately the representatives they choose, and funding comes from the department or university. You're applying to join a department not to work with an individual.

You do not need to read every word of every article. I always read the abstract, results, and conclusion/discussion. If I find something especially novel in those sections, then I'll skim the intro and methods for more detail.
 
When I'm working through a pile of articles for the background/intro section of an assignment, I'll make a spreadsheet to organize the information. One column for the basic citation info, one for the study design and sample size, and one for the most salient findings. For me, the process of distilling articles down to those basic points helps me retain the important stuff and it serves as a guide for skimming/speed reading. I go back and forth on printing artciles. I prefer reading on paper vs. a computer screen, but hate printing so much. Now I'll do the initial skim on screen, and only print if I think the article will be heavily used for studying or writing. I also have a nook, which is great for reading articles on the bus if I remember to download them.
 
I prefer hand writing for in class note taking, but I'm old school like that. I find it is easier to engage in the class when I don't have a screen in front of me. If ppt slides are available before class, I print 6 slides to a page and write notes in the margins. When my notes are right next to the slide, I only have to jot down a few key words to remember the point. I keep my annotated slides in a binder, and use that like a text book.

One other thought for reducing paper usage, and I'm not sure if this works for you, but I convert my PDF's into MP3's. Sounds crazy, but there are a few programs that you can buy that do it. I went with NaturalSoft, which has a free version (not cool) and a basic version (very realistic voices). It takes me an hour to convert all my pdf's for the week into a read-aloud version, and then I put it in my ipod and listen to it on the train, in the car, while I walk, whatever. If I'm on the go, I stop the playback where I want to take notes and use my voice recorder to tape them. Later that day, I open up the computer and put my thoughts down in organized fashion into my notes. The process could probably be simplified by someone with better knowledge of the app world, in fact you could probably do all of the above with an iPhone. The only downside is that, as a visual learner, I have no reference for what the articles look like, so if I actually need to go back and read a few I have to search through my notes for the author's name first.

Uh...why? You think casual dress in general is fine, but the moment you wear athletic shoes, that's crossing the line? Newsflash...that line is arbitrary.

I'm of the opinion that academics should be concerned with academics and not fashion. If you happen to like fashion, then by all means feel free to dress up. But don't think for a second that "underdressed" people are less professional. That's nonsense.

NO WHITE SOCKS. EVER. This is a strange pet peeve of mine, but I always feel that an otherwise perfectly professional or casual look is completely ruined if I can see even half an inch of white sock. Just don't do it.

I tend to dress more formally during the first several weeks of the semester (black pants with button-up shirts, professional-looking skirts + dresses), and then introduce more casual outfits from there on in (jeans, the occasional sundress with cardigan, etc). I see my students three days a week, so I also try to avoid wearing the same outfit twice within a 2-3 week span of time. Variety is the spice of life.

I'd like to throw in another two cents in support of the comment in post #4 regarding a pair of black or brown shoes. Please do remember to get also socks and a belt to match your shoes.

As a master's student, I taught several genetics labs on my own (i.e. the supervising professor wasn't normally around). I told my students to just call me by my first name, because anything else would be weird. Most complied, but one student kept calling me "Professor [Firstname]." When I explainer to her that I wasn't actually a professor, she just called me "Mr. [Firstname]." I said that "Mr." was still too formal, so she moved on to "Sir." I get that she was trying to be polite, and had probably been raised to address people in this manner... but it was weird for me. Especially since I was raised in a part of the country where the most common way to address a stranger is, "Hey, you!"
 
Eventually, we compromised... I let her call me "Captain [Firstname]." We both thought it was funny. A couple other students even joined in. I love it when a group of students has a nice sense of humor (now if only their work ethic had been just as good...).

My students call me by my first name.  I usually call everyone else by their first name too, unless they are part of an older demographic and I respect them in a sort of old school way (then I call them, "Dr. so-and-so").
 
When people make a big deal about how they are addressed (specifically, "doctor"), I usually see it as a sign of insecurity.

Honestly, I'd wait to visit until you've been accepted.  I almost visited a couple of schools more than 2,000 miles away and I'm glad I didn't because I wasn't accepted to either one.  I love the program that I'll be attending but I waited to visit until they made me an offer of admission.
 
Your post doesn't say what kind of program you're applying to, but one way to look for a good fit is to find professors in a given department that share your research interests and will be good mentors during your grad program.  This can be done by looking at the faculty listings on the department websites, reading their CVs, and skimming their recent publications that might align with your interests and allow for opportunities to co-author.  Your application essay will likely need to have a section that explains why you want to study at this particular school, including which professors you would like to work with in your research. 
 
If you do visit, it is definitely helpful to meet with students and professors who might potentially be your advisors.  I visited the two schools that accepted me and learned the most from informal conversations with current students.  What I learned from these conversations with students were a huge factor in my final decision.
 
When you do meet with students, helpful questions for me were things like - why did you choose X school?  What do you like about attending here?  What would you change?  Are faculty generally helpful and welcoming?  What is the climate like among students -- competitive?  Supportive?  Cooperative?  Are there opportunities to get published while you're here?  Are your peers finding jobs when they graduate?  Where are they finding jobs?  What opportunities are there during the summer months for TAships or funding? 
 
Before making my two visits, I honestly had no idea where I'd go.  I liked the first place well enough and thought I could be happy there.  Then after just a few hours on my second visit, I knew that school #2 was the place for me.  I loved everything about it and I just felt at home there. 
 
Good luck!

I would stop emailing faculty if you have not truly picked a topic area. You have a little over 5 months to do research. My suggestion is to see if there are articles you like and google the author names to see where they teach.

Here is what you should do:

1) First find schools that are interested in your broader research area. For example, what about Russia are you interested in? Is it security? If so, look at schools that are good with security. 
2) Do research to see where those who specialize in Russia are at. 

I would recommend not only applying to schools that specialize in Russia, but also your broader interests. Just make sure to tie it all together in your SOP. This is what I am doing, but my research interests are more niche than "Russia." Of course, don't blame me if you don't get your desired acceptance results. Apply widely!

Do you not want our help? I think three people have now told you the exact same thing, and whoever you contacted that told you that the faculty will choose your topic was spitting bull. It's true that they don't expect you to come in knowing everything, but they do expect you to have some idea, and they know that it's likely to change/evolve.
 
And no, it's not impossible to find universities with faculty focusing on Russia (in Political science), it would just require you to actually do some research yourself, which I believe should be possible. What I did is look through the top 25 unis in my subfield, and check whether they have someone on staff doing something in my substantial area of interest and in my regional area of interest. If not, they were discarded, if yes, they got onto some preliminary list that I'm then cutting down.
 
I will be ignoring this post from now on, as I feel I'm just wasting my breath, and you don't really want to hear what we're saying.

If someone is an introvert, just putting them in grad housing (with a random room mate possibly) isn't going to magically make them an extrovert.  That's not how that works.  It's like just because you go to a bar doesn't mean you're going to pick up a chick or a duder.  You still need the compulsion and incentive to initiate the next step.  Realistically just having an outgoing room mate, that you get a long with, is the better path to social success, and that can happen anywhere (and cheaper than grad housing).  
 
Also, simply by virtue of graduate programs being destinations for non natives, you will make friends with fellow Sheamus's who will more than likely ask "Hey, are you up for exploring this fine new city."  
 
Also I second apartment/house renting because of the "Me-time. . ." factor.  I live alone in a house far from most everyone else in my program (relatively speaking); there was no way in hell I was going to do apartment living - especially if I could afford not to.  While the folks in my program are just darling, I need a spot that isn't bumping music 25/8 or heavily foot trafficked. . .which is not a requirement met by certain places popular with graduate students.

I thought about it when I moved for my PhD program but, the graduate housing isn't a "residential college" with a common dining area, it's set up as apartments. And, it would've been $150 more per month (not counting having to pay for on campus parking for my car) to live in a 4 person graduate apartment than it was to live a mile from campus in a house with two roommates. There are lots of reasons why people don't choose to live in graduate housing, whether they be personality, cost, the quality of the housing (lackluster in many places), or otherwise. And while you don't have to accept them, you also don't have to be so negative or judgmental about other people's choices.

I'm going to deal with it by doing the residential college thing, just like in undergrad. Going to be living in a building with around 600 other grad students, so I don't imagine I'll have much difficulty meeting people; especially considering my residential college holds tons of events (movie nights, parties, day trips to places in the city e.g. plays and concerts, weekend e.g. snow trips, guest speaker events) throughout the year (the calender on the residential college website shows multiple events every week, and pictures posted on facebook after the fact show that tons of people attend). They also apparently hold a bunch of events at the start of the semester specifically to serve as ice breakers and to make sure new people get to know one another and current students.
 
A very small proportion of grad students seem to want this sort of life (or at least are aware that choosing otherwise may be socially crippling). Most of the people in my potential programs (and the one I've chosen to go with) I met with on the visit days all want to live in their own little off-campus apartments with only a roommate or two who they'll get to know (because it won't be the kind of environment where people get to know their neighbours to a large degree).
 
Then I read all these people on the internet complaining about grad school being lonely. Well no shit Sherlock, you don't say. Moving off-campus during undergrad generally works ok because you've already established friend groups, figured out places you can go and groups you can join to meet people etc. You get the benefits of your own kitchen and space to study/relax/etc without any downsides since you already know a ton of people and the area. But this reasoning doesn't hold when you move to a new area and don't know anyone.
 
If you move into your own little apartment that is, for all intents and purposes, walled off from the rest of the world, you're likely going to get to know very few people. You'll get to know a few roommates, and the people in your program. In contrast, if you live in a residential college of grad students, you'll get to know a ton of people.
 
Housing was one of the single most important decisions to me when it came to deciding where it is that I wanted to pursue my PhD. I wanted to live somewhere where grad students lived as friends rather than strangers, where the community went to great effort to ensure that there is always some event/trip/party on whenever students can find the time.

I'm under no illusions; I'm going to be really busy very often. I'm not always going to have time to do this sort of stuff. But when I do, I want to be able to walk out of my room, across the hall, and into awesomeness. I don't want to be spending half my free time organsing with friends who live elsewhere in the city what we're going to do with the other half. I also don't want 90%+ of my friends to come from my department/program. I'll be spending so much time with them for the next 5 years that I'm going to need the variety. Most importantly, I want to live somewhere that facilitates meeting a ton of interesting people.
 
So my advice is to avoid committing the social suicide of choosing to live independently and "off-campus", at least in the first year. I think a lot of grad students think they are past community living, but don't necessarily recognise that the reason they were able to do so was because they had already established themselves in the area; this will not be the case when starting at a new university in a new location.
 
Anecdotally, I had the time of my life living in a residential college in undergrad. The grad students I know living in residential colleges (or who did so for a year or two before moving out into a standard apartment setting; mirroring what undergrads often do) are also significantly more happy than those who moved straight into apartments or rented houses. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the lack of recognition of the importance of making a firm social bedrock (i.e. by living in a residential college) in a new area before striking out alone (or with a roommate or two who you may or may not have ever met before) is a key reason that graduate students are often such unhappy wrecks.

As September creeps closer and the reality of moving to a new city to start my Graduate degree sinks in, I find myself worrying about how I'm going to settle into the city/school socially. I do have a SO but he will not be moving with me (instead we're hoping he'll be able to work in some decently long visits). I don't know anyone in the city I'll be going to and I haven't met anyone in my program.

The reason I'm worried is because I'm very shy, especially in certain circumstances. If I'm confident in the material, I can give a great speech or presentation, but as soon as it comes to something like striking up a conversation with the person sitting next to me, I'm hopeless. Either I never work up the courage to start or join a conversation, or when I do I'm so nervous that I end up looking like a fool. That being said, when I'm around people I know and am comfortable with, I am very confident, so it's not like it's impossible for me to relate to people.

I just know that in my undergrad degree, I didn't become friends with anyone in my classes. The closest was one or maybe two people from groups I volunteered with that became decent acquaintances/mild friends (but we never had frequent contact). I'm worried that if the same thing happens in grad school, I'll be totally isolated (except for my cat) because I won't have my community of family/friends nearby.

Is there anyone out there, maybe with similar social anxiety and shyness, who has any advice/insight/experiences to share?

In the United States we have something called the "zip code rule" for this situation.

my SO is being a jerk and I'm pretty sure we'll break up before we leave. We're going on almost 5 years and me moving only 5 hours away is making him leave. Oh well, I'll have a new city at my fingertips and school work to make me forget... Plus I'm probably better off, right?