law2phd

FWIW, my advisor, who was on the faculty at HYP for decades, told me that my 163 might hurt me with his former school, as it would be weakly competitive with most of the formal theory people he saw admitted when he was there. All of this is school/subfield dependent. But if someone blanketed the top 15, the probability that a high 150s score would be a deciding factor in denial for at least one school is not trivial. Given the myriad uncertainties involved (that one school could end up being OP's top choice), it's at least worth consideration. With that said, I wouldn't retake a 159 unless I had an over-abundance of time on my hands.

160 and 90th percentile (around a 163?) are common cutoffs which are floated on the application pages of top programs for what they expect from applicants. While I don't think the 159 will hurt OP at many places (if any) and he probably shouldn't feel the need to retake, especially if the publications are in respectable places, I would be hesitant to tell applicants without qualification that they do not need the scores that the schools themselves say they need. Good luck, OP. Assuming your letters and SoP are solid, I would be surprised if you weren't accepted to a couple of top 15 programs, and I wouldn't be surprised if one of the more elite programs took you as well.

It would be far easier to compile a list of programs which are not fully funded, since almost all are. And the only programs I can think of worth attending on such a list would be some of the UC schools--for out-of-state residents only--because of budgetary issues with paying the additional ~$20k per year it costs to keep such students at a state university. Edit: And to be clear, even these schools fully fund their top recruits. They just might accept a few students per year without full funding.

Good programs have a minimum cutoff somewhere just above 160/160/4.0. Substantially beating the cutoff will not grant you extra credit. Panic only if you cannot reach those scores.

You'll be fine. Do not, however, completely bank on being accepted to a top three program. Find another fit or two in the lower top 10 or T15 besides MIT.

I think that your professional experience may make you a somewhat more desirable candidate, at least for teaching undergraduate con law and introduction to U.S. government-type courses, than the typical student with your academic background (although I don't have sufficient experience to be confident in that judgment). With that said, you still need to shoot for as elite a program as you can possibly get into for your PhD. In regard to your advisor, I would imagine that there are a lot of faculty at OU who frankly have no idea how to place students in TT jobs at either research universities or LACs, given the department's ranking (this isn't a slight on the professors; I just can't imagine that they have experience with regularly placing people given the ranking). You may want to independently do anything that you can to assess what your department's successful candidates had to do to land at a good place, in addition to learning everything you can from your advisor.

Political science is not even mathy by social sciences standards (that distinction would probably go to macroeconomics, followed by micro). I don't have a degree in math, but it's my understanding that most of the upper level math done in poli sci is the sort of thing which would be taught in a graduate-level statistics department (think Andrew Gelman) or economics/business schools (think John Patty), not mathematics departments. For better or worse, most political science adcoms are going to evaluate you based on your background in and aptitude for political science, not fields vaguely related to political science which may (or may not) be further up to the intellectual ladder.

It sounds as if you are fundamentally opposed to the social sciences in general, with the inherent limitations on macro-level theory building which come with the territory. It also seems as if you thought you would be doing political history--which I assume you could actually do in a history department, but not (to any appreciable degree) in most contemporary political science departments. As such, the only advice that a bunch of social science grad students (and undergraduates) can give you is to get out now. The opportunity costs of leaving will never be lower than they are today. As to what you should do afterward, I would advise speaking with people in the fields you are considering. At length. You certainly do not want to waste several more years in another academic discipline in which you have absolutely no interest.

I don't want to seem overly negative, but I think that, absent a substantial improvement to your GRE (which you say you probably will not retake), you are highly unlikely to be admitted to the Top-10-ish programs you list. The GRE is the only apples-to-apples comparison between you and the recent undergrads you will primarily be competing against, and regardless of whether you feel the GRE Verbal is relevant, your present score suggests a substantially lower base aptitude than a large percentage of the people those programs will be admitting. When you add that to the fact that you have a proven track record in a lower-tier PhD program at which you did not perform spectacularly well, I think you will have a massive uphill battle in convincing elite programs that you are a better applicant than the top-notch 25 year olds they typically admit. If you want a reasonable chance, you will, at the least, require an exceptional writing sample and SoP. If, as rising_star suggests, you can get special accommodations which might help on the GRE, it would probably be highly worth taking the opportunity. I know nothing about admissions at the other programs you list, so I can't comment in regard to them.

Possible? Sure. Something any rational person would attempt? No. The trend over the past few decades has been for graduate students to spend more time in graduate school perfecting their CVs, not to enter the market with as little preparation as humanly possible.

You aren't providing nearly enough information about your situation to address the question. In any event, what's stopping you from applying both to PhD and MA programs at the same time? Unless the application fees are prohibitive or you clearly aren't a candidate for decent PhD programs at this time, this would probably make the most sense.

Your undergrad and masters GPA are below average (but not terrible) for top programs. As someone else suggested, the MA GPA is probably worse for you at this point than the undergrad one. Whether true or not at your school, the general idea is that almost everybody at a terminal MA program is there to boost their stats for a future PhD, that grade inflation is even more endemic in MA programs than BA programs, and that something is likely wrong if you aren't pulling straight A's and A-'s in an MA program. On the bright side, your GRE is good enough that it would only be a limiting factor at a handful of the top 10 programs, and it sounds like you could evidence a research record substantially better than most PhD applicants. At the end of the day, this (along with solid LoRs and a focused SoP) could convince at least one solid program to overlook your GPAs and admit you. It's impossible for anyone to predict, so you really have to just try and see what happens. With all of that said, you should consider applying to better programs. I don't think many people entering the process with their eyes wide open would consider attending most of the places you have listed. At least for U.S. jobs, a PhD from most of them isn't going to do much for your career.

You realize that this board is populated almost entirely by undergrads, and that you're going to get better results from talking to anyone at your own department?

While it's true that some schools will allow you to avoid doing a lot of quantitative/formal coursework, I wonder how many jobs there will be in the field going forward for people who are completely math averse. OP, if your last post suggests that you were worried about being able to get into a program without doing a lot of math, I think this thread should have been enough to allay those concerns. And it's true that there are plenty of top programs which will not force you to take an advanced methods sequence against your will. If you're math averse in the sense that you really do not want to do math going forward at all, however, the field is probably going to leave you behind. Likely exceptions: theory and the few pockets of qual-based comparative and IR that might survive

Anyone should be able to pull around a 90th percentile on the GRE quant with a background in high school level precalculus and a couple weeks of dedicated practice (from personal experience). That should be a sufficient signal for most top programs that you aren't mathematically impaired enough to be denied admission on that basis. You most certainly do not need to have taken Calc II.

I'm still somewhat confused regarding what you are hoping to do. I don't know much (if anything) about Canadian academia, but in the U.S., you are highly unlikely to be paid to conduct research or teach without at least being in the final stages of a PhD program. I don't see how an MA advances either of your goals unless (a) you plan to use the MA to pursue a PhD, or ( you consider the RA/TA experience you might receive with an MA position (but will not in most programs--those positions are usually reserved for PhD students as well) to be 'teaching' or 'conducting research.' A does not seem to fit what you are describing here, and B seems pretty myopic, since RA/TA gigs are supposed to be short-term stepping stones while you are on to bigger and better things in academia. Maybe I'm just dense (likely), but it might be useful to get just a bit more on what your thought process is here.

Fair enough. I must have misunderstood what you meant by POI. You're quite right in stating that PS is not a field where you are going to be tied to one mentor for your entire graduate career. Planing ahead, I'd ideal want at least three or four people that I would like to work with at a department I was applying to. You never know who's going to go on sabbatical, switch universities, be too busy to take on new students, or just in general be a bad mentor. Perhaps I'm too risk averse, but five (or more) years is a long time to be left on an island where your interests are not properly supported.

I don't necessarily agree with the first half of this statement, especially since roughly half of the schools I applied to specifically asked me to name POIs in my SoP. If you can't name anyone that it would make sense for you to work with, then you can't show that you've sufficiently researched what you're getting into and that you're a good fit for the program, even if you're the best fit in the world. In short, if you can't name a POI, you can't possibly make clear that you fit into the department.

The impression that I get is that non-theorists at a political science department do not care much about (nor, often, take seriously) political theory. I can't imagine that you'd have any use for prior study of it if you have no intent to declare it as a subfield. Since I'm a theorist, I would be very happy to have someone correct me, if I am wrong.

You've received a lot of good advice here. I think that getting into a Top 20 or so program is going to be a massive uphill battle without something really special about your file (a solid publication, a couple of stellar LoRs from famous professors, etc.). Given the school that you are at, the publication is probably the most doable. It's my understanding that the GRE quantitative is probably the easiest aspect of your file to bring up, since it requires only practice of high school level math (albeit with somewhat tricky problems); you should be able to enhance both your pattern recognition for types of problems and speed at which you work them. I would think that 160/160 would be an absolute minimum; you are going to want to use your GRE to prove your competence despite your undergrad-GPA, which will require a higher score than you would need with a good GPA. I don't want to be negative, but I think we would be doing you a disservice if we didn't caution how difficult you might find it to get into a reputable program. You have an enormous amount of work ahead of you in convincing reviewers that you can succeed despite your undergrad GPA. Even if you do everything right, I would think that your chance of admittance to a good program will be far lower than 100%. The good news is that if you're really certain this is what you want to do with your life, you have plenty of time to enhance your file.

Your professors (and DGS) have email addresses precisely so that you can ask them this type of question, as opposed to entrusting it to strangers on the internet who know nothing about norms and policies at your school.

Hopefully my prior comment wasn't overly negative. I agree that 160 isn't bad, but it would fully explain the NYU and Princeton rejections, especially considering a game theory-heavy expected concentration. I don't know anything about the other programs which have been mentioned. It's also the only thing below median in OP's application which can reasonably be brought up: changing letter writers usually means another degree (not worth it), and nothing can be done about the undergrad GPA that OP hasn't already done. OP, I'm very sorry about your luck. I had a pretty disappointing application cycle the first time I applied to law school, so I know how it feels. Evgeny's advice for next cycle is generally good, although I would caution against being too general in your next SoP. Especially since you have an advanced degree already, you need to display that you understand the field and what a meaningful research project in it would look like. It should still be general enough that there are several people at each department who could plausibly advise you in case someone is going on extended sabbatical, leaving the department, etc. There's a fine balance to be struck. Best of luck next cycle, if you choose to apply again.

Was the 160 GRE your verbal or quantitative score? It is quite low for an elite program in political economy if it's quantitative, and you might have better luck improving it. I don't see anything else in your application which could explain your admissions performance. I would have to think that your MA GPA would make up for the undergrad GPA, especially given your concentration.

If you have absolutely no idea where to start, the subfield rankings at http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-humanities-schools/political-science-rankings beats nothing. Barely.

It's hard enough for good programs to maintain that standing. I would never count on a program's ranking increasing significantly between the time I matriculated and the time of dissertation defense. Really, you should be looking at things the opposite way: if a few of GM's top people resign or are poached by better departments in the next five years, would you still feel confident in the quality of training provided there? I know nothing about the department specifically, but based on what you've said in this thread, I don't feel that great about it.