terefere

Congrats, by the way! Rochester's a really good school.

Good luck to everyone who applied to Duke! I'm pulling for all of you. Are there any other schools rumored to make a decision today?

That's a bit of an exaggeration. For instance, look at Duke stats: https://gradschool.duke.edu/about/statistics/political-science-phd-admissions-and-enrollment-statistics
The average combined score last year was 323, and that means there must have been people with scores below 320 who got accepted.
I think everybody here is seriously overestimating the importance of GRE. It is simply used as a screening mechanism, nothing more than that.

NYU seems set to follow standard early February release date. Spoke to my potential supervisor ( not on committee) today who told me the committee was meeting yesterday and on Tuesday. 

I have made a list for most of the top schools w.r.t. the historical dates of releasing their decisions.

I don't want to sound mean but if you're struggling with getting a better score on GRE because of stress and anxiety, then maybe going to grad school is not for you. PhD level courses, qualifying exams, getting negative feedback at conferences, or rejections from journals, all this is much much worse.

Question to American applicants: what ethnicities are considered minority ethnicities in the US? Is there like a percentage threshold below which a particular ethnic group is considered an ethnic minority? I found this: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Census-2000-Data-Top-US-Ancestries.jpg
Does it mean that if, say, my ethnicity is outside of the top 5, I am considered minority applicant or are there some other official rules?
I am totally not familiar with how these things work in the US.

Well, I'm pretty sure middle class white males can add to the diversity of a department too! In fact, I suppose I could be qualified as a middle class white male and part of the funding that I got in my Master's program was because of diversity considerations.

Well, I'm pretty sure middle class white males can add to the diversity of a department too! In fact, I suppose I could be qualified as a middle class white male and part of the funding that I got in my Master's program was because of diversity considerations.

Well, if you've chosen your programs well, 7 should be enough. In the end, you just need one acceptance. One of the reasons I have 15 is also because of a two-body problem. Another is that I expect a lot of variation in my results, so having more schools is probably a good idea.

I'd send the paper that better reflects what you want to do. That sounds like #1. Your GRE and, to a lesser extent, letters should alleviate concerns about math.