I'm hoping someone here has relevant experience, as it's a bit of a specialized question. I have a master's in politics from Oxford and am now looking to apply to Top 25 political science PhD programs in the US. The only problem is, while I did fine on my master's degree overall, had a great undergraduate GPA, am anticipating good GRE scores, and have relevant work experience with a politics research program, my master's thesis mark is only a low pass. So my question is, how important is the thesis mark? Will top departments take one look and decide I'm not suitable for research, or will they only see "Oxford" and not care? Can I afford to aim high? I know master's thesis marks are important for British PhD programs, but I'm less familiar with the US context. Any insights would be greatly appreciated!