DKSL

oh and you have a great background and your GRE scores are great, so don't worry so much about that. Just polish up your SOP and writing sample.

You said you want to do comparative politics, but then you mentioned Barry who is an Americanist. I was at Wisconsin during the visitation weekend (didn't end up there because of family reasons), but it is a great program (I kind of regret not choosing to go there). I think placements, at least in the IR subfield, should be on the rise because the awesome hires they made over the past 5 years or so (it takes a while for new hires to have an impact on placement). The comparative politics faculty, in particular Melanie and Scott, are fantastic. A caution about judging schools solely on placement: I know for a few schools you mentioned (NYU and Wisconsin, for example) some of the students they placed were severally restricted geographically, which makes things difficult in academia. Some had options to go to great R1's, but chose lesser schools because of their restrictions.

What good that did them, but I digress.

The real question: HOW OLD ARE YOU (MAC2809), 5?

This is a great post. I did not go down the MA route, but when I was comparing programs, I found the UK ones to be superior when it comes to the # of substantive and methods courses available.

Quant GRE can be easily increased. Head over to the GRE forum for great study resource advice.

I don't think a terminal masters in political science will be of much help to you, unless it included lots of stats courses. I would say that a "safer" option would be to do an MA in econ, applied econ, or stats. That way if you decide to not pursue a phd, having an econ/stats background should open up more job opportunities (I think, I wouldn't know because I didn't go down that path).

HC, have you gone through a cycle yet?

No. * You also don't get those type of jobs just because you have a Ph.D. Experience in think tanks is probably necessary.

Just a thought, if the presence or ability of one professor to take on new advisees will determine whether you will apply to/attend an institution, then it is probably not a school you should be applying to. Interests do change, but you still want to make sure that you like the department overall and that there are 2+ faculty members (who are not married to each other) that you could see yourself working with when applying.

Not at all. In fact, I would say you are better off spending your time doing other things to aid/improve your application. From all of the schools I visited (almost all in the top 20), no one I talked to contacted faculty, the only exception is OSU. If you go through the blogs of Professors who provide application advice, all say that contacting faculty is not necessary. Edit: One faculty member at a school I visited admitted that he hated getting prospective student emails.

Seconded. Going into debt over a Ph.D. is a terrible decision. Whether you get a job in the US has nothing to do with whether you attend a public or private university.

I agree with the thought of taking a small paycut, but in my case one school is offering X and the other 3.5X (have an external fellowship that is tied to this one school), so the pay cut is not that small. Glad it worked out for you! I hate asking for more money. The visits did not help me that much. There were some schools where I was like "No way in Hell," but I hate basing a decision on one weekend, so I am still considering them because they are all fantastic programs. In fact, I am still considering all of my schools. :/

All of my offers are fully funded, but they vary greatly in amount. Trying to decide whether to go for a fully funded great fit or for an even better funding package with less "fit."

Anyone else having a hard time deciding?