interista

Depends on the school, though the trend is toward admits first, rejections later. But there are some notable exceptions (last year Yale rejected a bunch of applicants at once, then accepted/rejected/wait-listed the rest over the next several weeks).

Subfield: Theory Interests: Historical and contemporary liberal political thought (Locke, Mill, Rawls, Berlin), distributive justice, theories of freedom, political ethics

I hope so, given my own GPA/GRE (3.5/800/710). I think you'll at least be considered with similar scores, but I'm well aware that my GPA is in the lower range among accepted applicants.

I've been lurking on here for the past few weeks checking up on admissions results and figured I throw myself into the mix. GPA: 3.5 from top 10 liberal arts college, 3.8 in major, 3.7 junior/senior GPA Graduated with departmental honors in political science, minors in philosophy and sociology Recs from major advisor (well-regarded political theorist), minor advisors GRE: 800Q, 710V, 5.0W Strong writing sample (awarded honors for senior thesis on Rawls' theory of justice) I applied last year as an undergraduate and was admitted to a top-15 program with a small theory section but rejected at the other 5 places (admitted to MA programs at two of the schools). I ended up rejecting the offer since I wasn't sure if I wanted to do philosophy or poli sci as a grad student, but decided to reapply in poli sci for this coming fall. I have a stronger application this time around, and I think I have a decent shot at a top program as long as my GPA doesn't kill my chances (I'm hesitant to spend 5 years at anything but a top program given the dire job market in theory)

I agree that a 3.2 from a typical American university would make it difficult to apply to most PhD programs, though I can't speak for the Russian grading system. It seems that your experiences would make you a solid candidate once graduate programs take a closer look at your credentials. However, since schools have to look at hundreds of apps each year, they probably only give a closer look at those which meet certain GPA/GRE requirements (this is just an educated guess, feel free to correct me). I think your best bet would be to get the GPA up to 3.4-3.5 and give a good deal of time to studying for the GRE (mostly vocab; the math is pretty easy as long as you don't spend too much time on the ones you can't get and run out of time).