zudei

You mean "not used to", right? Yes, it is nitpicking, but now that the substantive portions of my application are more or less taken care of, I'm fine tuning things. Thanks a lot for your opinions. The majority opinion seems to be in favour (dammit, I did it again!) of changing, so change I shall.

Thanks takemycoffeeblack. I had not thought of it but most American journals will probably require American spellings, so I shall change my SOP.

This might seem like a strange and/or stupid question to ask, but after having several private discussions about my SOP I realised that there were a disproportionately large number of comments on my usage of British conventions and spellings in my SOP. I never quite felt the need to switch over to American style spellings, and indeed I find it a little trivial to do so because the meaning remains the same. I have been brought up (rather strictly) with British style spellings and conventions and find it hard to let them go lol. So in your opinion does it REALLY matter changing my spellings in my SOP? Will I be expected to follow American spellings if admitted to a PhD programme in the USA? If yes, I guess I better start changing my habits now! I don't particularly want to and I don't particularly feel the need to. But if it really is all that important I don't mind changing.

Thanks a lot takemycoffeeblack, cooperstreet and luckyducky. I guess I was just a little shocked not to break the 165 barrier. I'll just finetune the rest of my app now. That's the most I can do! luckyducky, I made a mistake, I am interested in public choice - elections, voting etc.

I've heard from some other people that some political science programs put an emphasis on AW, but to be honest your scores are great and I'm sure your 2013 AW score will not hurt your file one bit.

Hi everyone, I just gave the GRE and was a little disappointed with my results. I was aiming for >165 V and Q, especially Q because I am applying for formal theory and I only have a master's degree in Economics to my name, with very few maths courses. My grad GPA, according to online conversions (it is a French master's degree in Economics, very quant heavy) is 3.5. I gave the GRE today and got the following score: 163 Q, 166 V, I don't know what my AW score is yet, but I am hoping for >=5 (my writing skills in general are quite tidy). Will this "profile" stand me in good chance at top political science programmes, given that my research interests are formal theory (behavioural game theory and social choice theory)? I have tons of research experience (3 Research Internships + currently a Research Fellow at a Think Tank working on environmental policy), a masters thesis and a conference presentation + subsequent submission for publication (in January) on behavioral patterns from two recent indian elections. If you'd prefer I present all this information in the standard "profile evaluation" format, let me know. I began this post just to speak about the GRE and GPA but thought it prudent to include further information about my "profile". Thanks!

Do you mean that we exchange and review each other's SOP's?

Hi, I'm an applicant for Political Science PhD programmes in the USA for entry in 2014. I have just finished a generic version of my SOP after going through the countless suggestions and tips on this forum. I was wondering if there was anyone who would be interested in reviewing my SOP as I would really appreciate having second opinions on it. My interests are in Positive Political Theory, Methods, Political Economy (Voting and elections), with some secondary interests in Comparative Politics (Electoral Violence). I would appreciate your help, just post here or send me a PM and I'll PM you my SOP along with a list of my target schools (I don't feel comfortable sharing it on a public forum). Thanks a lot!