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Pretty much any Ph.D. program. You don't need to be your advisor's clone. Any half-decent IR scholar could work with you.

I'm guessing the OP is leaving a lot of things out to garner sympathy.

If you have a 2.90 GPA by American standards, you could get into a really low-tier master's program at some small college who could use the tuition money. Doubt you'd get a scholarship with that.

I don't want to seem overly negative, but I think that, absent a substantial improvement to your GRE (which you say you probably will not retake), you are highly unlikely to be admitted to the Top-10-ish programs you list.  The GRE is the only apples-to-apples comparison between you and the recent undergrads you will primarily be competing against, and regardless of whether you feel the GRE Verbal is relevant, your present score suggests a substantially lower base aptitude than a large percentage of the people those programs will be admitting.  When you add that to the fact that you have a proven track record in a lower-tier PhD program at which you did not perform spectacularly well, I think you will have a massive uphill battle in convincing elite programs that you are a better applicant than the top-notch 25 year olds they typically admit.  If you want a  reasonable chance, you will, at the least, require an exceptional writing sample and SoP.
 
If, as rising_star suggests, you can get special accommodations which might help on the GRE, it would probably be highly worth taking the opportunity.
 
I know nothing about admissions at the other programs you list, so I can't comment in regard to them.

If you have documented vision problems, you may want to seek test accommodations from ETS (see here) and take the test again. It sounds like options such as screen magnification, extra breaks, or an alternate test format would allow you to perform to the best of your abilities. You should definitely look into it!

A three legged dog with alzheimer would be accepted in UO's masters program.
 
(I have yet to hear about somebody not getting in)

Fwiw, if I could change one thing about my undergrad/grad training, I would have taken more political theory, or at any rate have read more of it outside of class. That others might deem it "irrelevant" is, well, "irrelevant." You're preparing yourself for a lifetime of scholarship in a particular discipline. Why one wouldn't want a solid background in the core texts of the field escapes me.

With all due respect to the collective wisdom represented on these boards, to crowdsource this decision strikes me as crazy. You should be talking to your advisors, and to key faculty at the two excellent programs to which you've been admitted. Then follow recent placements at each and see which place does better placing graduates doing the kind of work you wish to do at the kinds of places you wish to work.
 
Congrats on your admission and best of luck.

Tips:
1) Study calculus. Get as comfortable with derivatives as you can. If you find you have an aptitude for math, push forward to even a basic intro to matrix algebra. All of this will make a standard first year methods sequence easier.
 
2) Identify some data that you'd want someday to analyze. Methods are much easier to learn when you have an application.
 
3) Don't every use the phrase "undergrad cherry" again.
 
Congrats on your admission and best of luck.

I'm somebody who finished my PhD in a top 3 program. There is definitely a correct answer here. And the correct answer is that you should go to the program that is higher ranked and has a better placement record.
 
I will tell you right now. It is absolutely not worth it to go to a crappier program because of "fit" because
 
1) Better programs offer more opportunities
2) The goal is not to study under the faculty member that does exactly what you want to do. You want to be your own person. This means learning from other smart people who DO NOT do what you do. If you're trying to go to a program to work with one person and study just what they want to study, you're thinking about grad school and academia incorrectly.
3) And I can't emphasize this enough, there is about a 60% chance that you will end up specializing in and writing your dissertation about something that is different than what you think you want to do now. I came in as an IPE person and left as a methods person. 
 
So to put it bluntly, going to a lower ranked program because of something you think you want to do or someone you think you want to work with is a decision that you will most likely regret. Go to the best program, period.

Bing. But with one caveat: rankings are at best categorical, not ordinal, no matter what the US News & World Report might want us to believe. So there's a difference between a top-tier program and the next rung and so on, but I wouldn't put much stock in the difference between #4 and #6.

This is an exceptionally interesting and useful set of posts - following on ResearchFrontier's comments from March 4.  I'd only underscore that you need to think about subfields, too. If there's a terrific person who's taking PhD students at the 7th "best" school, that's better than a terrific person who's *not* taking on new PhD students at the 2nd best school.  All the top schools are in the business of producing the next generation of scholars - not necessarily the next generation of "teachers" - and be very clear about what your own preferences are in both dimensions.  Also pay attention to whether recent graduates have a track record of publishing with professors, because you want as much of that on your resume as possible.  Good luck everyone!

Hi there,

I am a 2nd year political science student from Canada. I took a gap year and have done a lot of travelling and soul searching, so at this point I'd say I'm fairly sure that I want to go into academia. I am specifically interested in political theory, as well as the interplay between politics and culture. My question is this:

Do you have any advice for an undergrad student? My GPA from my first year is 3.71 but I'm hoping to improve that. I've been finding it hard to get involved with research at my university because I'm not a graduate student and they don't accept volunteers. What can I do to make myself a competitive candidate for grad school when the time comes in 2 years? I am really hoping to get some funding so that I don't drown myself in student loans. If you were to redo your undergrad, what would you change?

Thanks

I didn't know where else to put this but I thought some people coming to canada would be interested.

For anyone interested in Arabic TV, I got an email this morning from Talfazat-ART that was advertising a free month of their service.
Talfazat-ART is an Arabic IPTV service that broadcasts only Arabic Channels.

Looks like they are running with a model similar to netflix where they want you to try their service out before you put down any money for it.
Plus... with all the stuff going on in the region it's a pretty eventful time for Arabic TV.

I've got this for my parents (The TV Receiver version) and it works pretty good. I watched a lot of the Egypt Revolution coverage on Al Jazeera English , which was pretty amazing.
They've been also covering lots of what's going on now in Libya, Bahrain and pretty much the whole region.

In any case, this isn't in the freebies section because you do have to use you CC to sign up... but like all promos like this, you are free to cancel anytime before your renewal date.

Their video quality is good, and they've got a pretty decent viewing interface(web player), and some pretty neat time shifting features.

If you haven't seen it before you should check it out.... I've been a subscriber for a while and they run promos once in a while... but I've never seen a "Free Trial" one before.

Below is the link from the email, but if you head to the website the offer is on the main page(www.talfazat-art.com) anyway. Promo Code I was given is TRYPCFREED4
http://www.talfazat-art.com/?&ref=E_...er_EMV1-010411

EDIT- Looks like this offer has been live since the beginning of April and it expires April 30th.