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I agree with the pessimistic posters. The only thing that could get you into a top 25 based on what you said is if multiple letter writers, who are themselves well-known prominent political scientists (whom the admissions committee will recognize) explain in their letters the specific details of your situation and why, despite that, you have redeemed yourself as one of the best students they have ever seen. High GRE quant is nowhere near demonstrating aptitude the way taking a few tough econ, stats and calc classes (even if the grades were less than stellar.) It is a signal that you didn't care to study this before, so why would you put the needed effort into mastering quant skills in grad school? (Doesn't matter if you are going into theory or an explicitly qual program.) At top 25 programs, you will be competing with many people who have perfect GRE scores, strong GPAs, better schools, and better prep. You need to figure out quickly what very unique and stellar thing you can do to distinguish yourself - I agree that an MA may be your only option.

That's a really bad sign for the department.

Just received an emailed rejection letter 5:01 pm.

I would be very cautious about reading this article optimistically. This person already has tenure. I wonder if he would write the same article if he was working at McDonald's with a humanities PhD. In a very elitist fashion, he also does not acknowledge that one can "live the life of the mind" without getting a PhD at all.

I fully agree on the hard, specific questions, exactly as Foucault had pointed out earlier. What I do not agree on is being "spontaneous." Yes, they are trying to impress you right now, but if you come off as self-important, you will not have made a positive first impression, and this will hurt you in the long run. Ideally, these are your future committee members, co-authors and colleagues. You want to come out of the box running, which means having a short elevator speech about your interests, and a lot more questions about their work, interests and the department. Most people need to give this some forethought and have something written down.

Oh no, please do not be spontaneous. Most professors are incredibly busy and you are lucky to have time with them. Not preparing for a meeting, just like anything else in life, risks making you look stupid and thinking of questions later on you wished you had asked. Make a list of questions and go through it, writing down their answers. You will be glad you did later on - especially if you do this at multiple schools and can compare. So far, Foucault's potential questions are the best. I would only add to that, the best way to make a positive impression on someone is to ask them questions about themselves and their work. Do not talk about yourself or you risk sounding like a bore and pretentious - whatever you have accomplished, they have done way more than you. Whoever you are meeting with, even if outside your research interests at this time, do a little research (i.e. read their most recent publication) so you can have an intelligent discussion with them. Otherwise, you are wasting everyone's time.

Your second GRE is fine, I wouldn't worry about it. A letter of recommendation from someone you work for is worthless unless they have a PhD in political science, and even then PhDs in political science are suspicious of people who leave the academy, with few exceptions. If you are applying to PhD programs in political science, why didn't you have any letters from political scientists? Part of it is snobbery, but part of it is a genuine concern that you don't know what you are getting yourself into. A PhD program in political science is nothing like policy, it is not better or worse, just a different skill set. About half the programs you mentioned are highly quantitative and are looking for demonstrated competency in math (not just a good GRE score.) Do you have a lot of math classes on your transcript and did you do well in them? Do you have letters from those professors saying as much? Hope your next round of notifications goes better!

You have a good track record despite your history. I don't think any admissions committee would be shocked that you dropped out of a philosophy program, given the job market. Address it, but put a positive spin on it, it was an opportunity for you to realize that your primary interests were in the public sector.

Well, you will have to make your own decision, but I completely disagree with the previous poster. If you have the opportunity to get a PhD without going into debt, you should take it. Some of the best master's program's can set you back $60,000. It would be good preparation for grad school to do a calculation of how long you would have to work to break even, even if you assumed the same salary upon graduation. While you are working on your PhD, you can do internships at all your favorite organizations, which can help you make the contacts you feel may be deficient due to the quality of the program. If you know you need a PhD to get where you want to go, why wait? Your opportunity costs only go up over time.

I never claimed that admissions were not highly competitive, only that it may be difficult to end up with an academic job.

It sounds like you are definitely on the right track. I echo the advice to stay in undergrad - it will be cheaper and no one will notice you spent an extra year, although they will notice the better writing sample and extra classes. As for math classes, take both calculus and statistics. If your school offers econometrics, take that, as it will jump right out to quantitatively-oriented programs. When you take that class with the department chair, go to office hours every week prepared with really interesting questions. They will note this in their LOR and it looks good. I also went to a small school and I think there are opportunities to be a research assistant if you are persistent. If your professors do research at all, they need research assistants. Whether or not they can pay you is another question, but I would argue that it is worth it to work as an unpaid research assistant to the right person. It will give you actual research experience, which makes you look like you know what you are getting into with grad school. If it goes well, it would look even better in a LOR that you not only were a great research assistant, but you were unpaid. Finally, it could turn into a co-author opportunity, which is really valuable. A good professor will figure out a way to get you paid eventually if you are doing a good job. The only way to do this if there is no formal program is to walk into professor's offices, ask them about their research and tell them you want to work for them. Since very few if any students do this, you will stand out right away.

This is all well and good, but the way the job market is going, you are likely to be competing with scores if not hundreds of people for that directional job. And some of them likely will have come from better schools, with better records in both teaching and research. Many of them may even be happy with and seeking that job. (There is a particular directional I would go to in a heartbeat for family reasons.) Maybe it is because I don't come from a long line of academics that I am cynical - I don't have the connections, name and inside information on how academia works that is no doubt useful. I also suspect that the job market for counseling psychology is probably very different from political science. I don't pretend to assume I know anything about other fields, and, with all due respect, it is likely that Realist knows more about political science than you. *edit* by "you" I was referring to PsychPoet, sorry for the confusion. To be fair, Realist definitely knows more about political science than me.

I agree, of course. My point was more that he/she needs to get caught up in the literature of a discipline that is new to him/her. Writing a great SOP is kind of pointless if you are proposing to answer some question that was answered 20 years ago. Someone in this position is slightly vulnerable, and risks looking like they don't know what they are getting into with political science.

I am a graduate student at a top 10 program, and I agree with 95% of Realist's comments. Listen carefully. I am surprised by the comments about the rude attitudes of people in such programs. I don't want to give too much away, but my colleagues are fantastic, friendly, supportive people. I hope no one assumes that all top programs are populated by jerks. I disagree on the political science PhD not being applicable in the real world, although most people in academia seem to believe it. Political science trains you to be a political scientist, but it doesn't mean one cannot use those skills in many ways. They are really not as special or unique as people in this field seem to believe, although they do require a lot of hard work to obtain. Also, Yale not a meritocracy? Who is surprised by this? Academia is not a meritocracy, the real world is not a meritocracy. The sooner you figure this out, the easier life will be.

Much good advice already, here's a little more. Stick with your econ major, it is looked upon favorably. But at this point, you will have to write an honors senior thesis on a political economy topic for admissions committees to believe you are serious about political science and not just looking for backups because you cannot get into econ programs. Being a research assistant IS a game changer. DO IT! Impress the professor, get a great letter. This letter should be a POLITICAL SCIENCE (ideally, econ is OK but not quite as good) professor from one of the schools you are interested in, ideally, or another highly ranked program. Your SOP is not a place for you to talk about yourself, it should be written like a research proposal, addressing a question that is important and exciting in the literature (which you will know because you will have read the last 2 years of APSR or whatever your subfield journal is.) Save personal stuff for your personal statement. This is where you talk about why you had to go to your school for financial reasons. This can be a tipping point for your if you are competitive on everything else (high GREs, lots of math classes, great letters and SOP etc.)