doigetmyowntardis

I had a GPA like this from an American school and am now set to graduate from a ~50 program later this academic year to head for a TT job. It is totally possible to get where you want to if you essentially had some early college foibles and you are prepared to work your ass off to move on up. Don't get me wrong now - this is not easy to do. You are going to have to demonstrate scholarly potential and an ability to commit to working hard. This can mean doing an internship or two, it definitely means doing well on the GRE and networking, and anything you can publish in any format will help. You may not be able to get in this year without that stuff unless the fit is insanely good, but you can take a couple of years to build up and compensate for the low GPA. And yes, an MA is one way of compensating, though of course you will take on debt. My advice on that front is that MAs not in Polisci directly might be a better investment and will still have the same impact on admissions (economics, MPP, specific regional studies, statistics). Your biggest task is showing good fit, so reach out to professors at places now and start getting them interested in you.

Hey all, long time lurker and new commenter. Since there is a threat about GWU in this light, I wanted to ask a similar question about George Mason just outside of DC. I've been accepted there and a few other places that are higher ranked. However, when I asked more than half a dozen faculty at different places to name up-and-coming programs that will be strong academically in the near future, every one of them named GMU (as well as FSU, so congrats to those admits !). Now, I have good (great) fit with multiple faculty and the package is good. I'm not expecting it to be in the top 15-20 anytime in the near or even far future, but people have been telling me to consider it in the same tier as GW, Uva, UMD, etc., etc. because of the power behind the DC location and the amounts of money it has. I also don't know if this is a good way to gauge any program, but because their polisci is relatively new and their pub. policy/econ degrees are far more established, I was using those other programs as at least a general indicator of what the institution writ large is capable of .... and the placement for those degrees is awesome. Anyway, does anyone have any thoughts?