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I honestly don't think course selection matters that much--including how much math training you have.  Even top departments will teach all of the math you need, provided that your GRE score indicates that you have the aptitude to learn.  To be competitive for all of the schools you selected (I'm particularly looking at Stanford and possibly NYU), I would focus on a minimum 165 quantitative, which is doable with a lot of practice at high school level math.

I think the SoP may be the most important aspect of your file.  The rest proves that you are minimally competent to be at the department; the SoP shows that you know what you are getting into, that your interests are in areas of strength for the department, and that you are likely to do the sort of scholarship in your career that will bring prestige to your degree-granting institution.  It's good that you have the better part of a year to make it as strong as possible.
 
I would particularly focus on reading articles from recent editions of top publications.  Pick up a few recent issues of the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, etc.  Read all of the abstracts.  This will give you a lens on which subfields and sets of research questions are of most interest to you.  Read some of the articles that seem most interesting to get a feel for how political scientists talk (how do you say what you want to say in the SoP as a political scientist?) and argue.  Be able to convince admission committees that you know even more about the discipline than your credentials indicate (although your credentials are strong as it is).
 
This is the stuff I really wish I had known when I was applying.  I focused on research topics and subfields as they were discussed in the poli sci classes I had already taken.  Unfortunately, those classes are often largely restricted to landmark articles and ideas that are a decade or three out of date.  The methodology I'm suggesting is what I've been using to find advisors post-admittance.  I think I would have been accepted to more programs had I been doing this from the beginning.

Two Harvard results have been posted. One of them has to be a troll because Thom Wall never calls people to notify them of their acceptance. But the other one? Can somebody claim that one?
 
 
Sometimes POIs will informally call, but most are notified via email.

Oh! Also don't forget that professors leave universities. One way to choose would be to imagine all of your potential PIs took jobs elsewhere and then to decide which school would have more resources & infrastructure to support you.

I'm somebody who finished my PhD in a top 3 program. There is definitely a correct answer here. And the correct answer is that you should go to the program that is higher ranked and has a better placement record.
 
I will tell you right now. It is absolutely not worth it to go to a crappier program because of "fit" because
 
1) Better programs offer more opportunities
2) The goal is not to study under the faculty member that does exactly what you want to do. You want to be your own person. This means learning from other smart people who DO NOT do what you do. If you're trying to go to a program to work with one person and study just what they want to study, you're thinking about grad school and academia incorrectly.
3) And I can't emphasize this enough, there is about a 60% chance that you will end up specializing in and writing your dissertation about something that is different than what you think you want to do now. I came in as an IPE person and left as a methods person. 
 
So to put it bluntly, going to a lower ranked program because of something you think you want to do or someone you think you want to work with is a decision that you will most likely regret. Go to the best program, period.

Plot twist: Each time someone calls Harvard, the announcement is pushed back a day.

I e-mailed one of the program assistants listed on the website, Colin:
 
http://www.ssrc.org/staff/bradley-colin/

Having done some research, it appears that those who have not received word from UCLA as of now are on a waitlist and should expect to hear a result around April 15. It also appears that UCLA will not verbally confirm that individuals are waitlisted.

I understand not emailing everyone they are waitlisted, but if am applicant calls or emails with that specific question, it seems unprofessional to lie. I am strongly considering withdrawing my application due to their obscufation and discouraging several future applicants from applying under the assumption that external facing behavior is an upper bound on internal facing behavior of administrative staff. I have read through several other boards and this appears to be a routine failure of UCLA.

I think the reason that we all whistle past the graveyard when we start out is because we come from places where we were distinctive. Students that apply to and get accepted to PhD programs were elite undergraduates. Part of us thinks that we have risen to the top before as undergrads and we have beaten odds before in the application process, so we can easily imagine doing it again.
 
All of those people who didn't get any job offers and just drifted away, or who shuffled around a couple post-docs until settling into an adjuncting career were just as special and elite as the rest of us when they started out.

A healthy dose of realism is hugely important at this stage, and a lot of people are not happy to hear it, which can be sad. 
 
The number of graduate students in good programs who earnestly believe that they all will get tenure track jobs at R1s is huge. Far, far greater than the number that will or even can get those jobs. 
 
Very many of them don't realize how bad the market is until close to the end, when they really don't have time to easily make themselves attractive to non-academic jobs by gaining alternative skillets. 
 
You may very well not be one of these individuals. You may have thought through exactly all the sacrifices you'll need to make, and know your odds. You may have a lot of non-academic experience, and know how to translate your work to a non-academic job, or even not be doing a PhD for the job prospects. That's great. But if you fall into these categories, you are very likely the vast minority of the entering cohort for next year. 
 
Go to the chronicle forum, and see the constant laments that undergrads won't listen to faculty trying to steer them away from grad school, or about the lack of realism and preparation of their entering classes. It's a systemic problem that the large majority of people applying to, and getting into, graduate programs have no strong idea what getting the degree will entail, what they need to do to do well after the degree, or what the degree will qualify them for in a job. 
 
They simply liked undergrad, have done well, and see continuing that education as a natural extension. 

It's probably worth recognizing that you still need to go to a highly ranked program if you want to work at a LAC. See, for example, the faculty at Oberlin, which includes grads from Yale, U Chicago, Harvard, Minnesota, Columbia, and Berkeley. Wellesley is similar: Princeton, Columbia, Duke, Harvard, Stanford, U Chicago, UNC-Chapel Hill. Alright, those two are pretty elite. So maybe a less elite LAC is what you're interested in. Well, how about SUNY Purchase, #171 in the US News and World Report rankings for National Liberal Arts Colleges? UT-Austin, University of Houston, UNC-CH, Rutgers, the New School. I listed them all since they only have five faculty. New College of Florida is tied for #87 in those same rankings. The faculty there are from Duke, Michigan State, Indiana, and UC-Davis. 
 
I say all this to point out that it's a fallacy that you can go anywhere and end up at a liberal arts college. (BTW, it's a good exercise to look up the CVs of folks working at places you think you might want to work at. It'll help you see what the qualifications for that job might be, assuming such a job is available in 5-7 years when you're on the market.) The Chronicle has a bunch of threads on this. Such jobs look for elite scholar-educators, often who have attended a LAC for undergrad and thus know what it's all about. And, if you don't love teaching, you'll hate LAC life with it's 3/3 (or more) teaching loads, 25-50 advisees (at a minimum), and expectation that you are in your office and accessible to students from basically 8am-6pm on weekdays. 

I don't mean to pick on AultReekie by quoting this, because this is a common myth on this board (and something I thought when I started). State directional schools and non-selective liberal arts colleges are not consolation prizes. They are prizes that newly minted PhD's from very good programs compete to get.

You sound like you've gotten one too many rejection letters. Sour grapes much? Have you considered that maybe you're just a mediocre stident and no one wants to invest their time in you?

Congratulations! Many of you have the opportunity to become political science PhD students in the fall. Now that most of you have gotten in somewhere, though, it is necessary to examine whether going to grad school is right for you.
 
The reality is harsh and won’t be something you hear about at the recruitment weekends or from the DGS that spends his time here. At the best departments, only about half of the students finish with PhDs. It is far fewer as we go down the ranking tree. Of those, maybe half will end up with tenure track jobs somewhere. Of those, a little over half will receive tenure. Only one in eight members of your cohort will be in the discipline. Think about that for a little bit.
 
If you’re not that one person in eight, you’re wasting your time. It’s as simple as that. The skills you acquire in grad school have negligible applications to the professional world. Each year you spend at a PhD program is a year of work experience you don’t have and everyone who didn’t go to grad school does. Each year you miss will also have a new crop of college graduates enter the workforce for you to compete with. It’s not worth falling that far behind, especially when you know there’s an almost 90% chance you ending up right back on the non-academic job market.
 
So, you’re asking yourself, “why would faculty be so welcoming and inviting to me as we get closer to April 15? Don’t they realize that they’re likely sending me down a path to failure?” Well, guess what. They know and they don’t care. You are cheap labor to them, at best. Research assistants, teaching assistants and co-authors who do all the work on a paper (if you’re lucky). They need you. But that’s not even the half of it. Some faculty just enjoy recruitment for the sake of competing with old friends or rivals at other departments. Not only do they not care about you, their promises will literally disappear from your life as soon as you accept. That’s the world you’re entering. Be very wary. I know I wish I had been. 

Personally I want to see them exchange dick pics.

You guys are making something very simple, complex. It is foolish to be concerned about the prospects of earning a job or not. I have followed this following maxim: There are steps that must be taken to achieve success, we all generally have those resources or some degree of access to them, combine those resources with your own fortitude. (i.e do what you need to do) and you'll reach the desired destination. It may not be a clear path, as it never is...but just enjoy the journey and as long as you build positive relationships, work hard, and put your best effort into your work then it will almost always work out!

Do you have the data on Binghamton? As far as I can tell, no place (even Harvard) has near a 100% placement rate. Even ignoring the quality of the placements (e.g. Canisius College), and counting post-docs along with other research fellow positions, VAPs, etc., there were 16 placements from 2010-13, or 4 per year at Binghamton. Given a class of 47 and assuming on average 1/6 of those are on the job market, that's 7.83 people or ~51% placement. To get to 80% would require 1 in 10 students go on the job market in that period in a given year. Feasible but unlikely.
 
 
I'm not sure what you mean by "academia is potentially the most comfortable occupation to do research in."  If anything, it is less comfortable compared to public policy careers prior to the exceedingly rare achievement of tenure. Additionally, the research of academia and policy analysis/embassy research are completely different along several dimensions.  There are huge differences in questions, methods, communication, end-goals, and even data sources between political science - as found in academic journals - and the policy research you are referring to. While an optimistic approach toward potential failure in achieving an academic career is terrific, it is crazy to think the research and writing itself is really that comparable. This is even the case of RAND, Brookings, and the CBO, and is particularly the case for anything in an embassy, politician's office, or consulting firm.

There are many paths to the policy research destination. I suspect a PhD in political science is not the most efficient nor really all that helpful for that path. Graduate education is necessary for these roles, but more often than not the PhD in political science offers little improvement over an economics MA or rigorous MPA/MPP, with the PhD in economics or public policy being more attractive than political science to others.
 
Not sure if trolling...

It is below mediocre. I would be very hesitant to attend UConn (read: I would not attend UConn) if I had any aspiration toward obtaining a job in academia. If you do not want a job in academia, I would hesitate to recommend you to pursue a PhD in political science - instead I'd direct you to a PhD in social research methods or some sort of MPP or MA.  Of those places you are applying, I would strongly discourage spending 5-7 years of your life at UConn or Cincinnati if you want to go into academia, or even if you don't. The other schools in your list are terrific. Note that currently I am only in at Wisconsin and even for Wisconsin I am hesitant to attend - academia is just THAT competitive.

Yeah, I know it's not likely -- but on the other hand, someone has to be those 80... why not us?

A week ago tomorrow (Tues 7/22). I just randomly logged, went to the proposal status page, clicked on my proposal (which had been updated to declined) and there they were.

Just got a response from B. Humes: "You will hear shortly"

"It does not show in the rankings but I read some good reviews about the politics division. "
 
Unless those reviews are, "I WENT HERE AND NOW I HAVE A GREAT JOB" then they don't matter.

CONGRATS!
 
   
Going to a PhD without funding is a terrible idea. My advice would be to work on your application and try again next year. If you're going to do this, pick the better fit between Florida and Claremont (unless there is a big difference in cost, in which case I would go with the cheaper one). But seriously, reapply next year. Doing a PhD without funding is a terrible idea.

I don't disagree with this. I think of course professors should devout time to all students, ie. being welcoming during office hours or outside of it, willing to go through material again to understand it fully, give advice when asked, ect. But I think these are just normal duties of professors for any students, whether undergrad or Ph.D.
 
That being said, to expect any more than that is kind of foolhardy. Of course, some profs are just much more supportive of their students, but many are not. Depends on the situation.
 
I also think an important factor is developing relationships with profs. The better your relationship with professors, the more they are willing to help; at least that has been my experience. If you show you are a hardworking, interested, and driven student, then your mentor ship from them will be greater.
 
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Regarding the transfer thing: I don't think it as big of a deal as people make it out to be. Leaving after a year to go to a program that is a better fit and is better ranked isn't going to rustle too many feathers, if any at all.

I did precisely what you are considering. My first round of applications was not very successful. One acceptance off the waitlist at a school ranked 25+. I accepted the place because being somewhere was better than being nowhere. I retook the GRE over the summer before I started grad school, reapplied in the fall, and now am at a top 10.
 
You need to think about what is best for you in the long term, given your academic goals. The market is tough. I knew if I stayed at my original program, I was going to struggle to get a job. Even now, being at a top 10, the market is still going to be tough, but I'm in a better position. I'm getting much better training and my interests are a better fit.
 
I wouldn't worry too much about betraying any future advisor by leaving. First, it's not uncommon for a student or two to leave the program, for whatever reason, after one year. Second, most faculty are not going to invest heavily in a first year student...it's not like the sciences where you are working in their lab for them. In fact, when I told my assigned advisor at my old program that I had been accepted to a top ten and would be leaving he was super supportive. (I hadn't told him about my applications until I got the acceptance).