Charlie2010

I DID say math scores AND abilities. I recognize they are correlated, not identical. But every admissions committee in every quantitative discipline in the country finds them to be a strong indicator. If there were students out there with weak math GREs who a program could identify as undiscovered gems using other indicators (and thereby steal away from the narrowly GRE-focused programs) they would do it. Kind of a "Moneyball" story. But no one has found such a formula. In any case, I agree with Balderdash about the threshold scores. How much weight to give those scores relative to other factors you can argue over once you're on an admissions committee.

Are you talking about an IR program or a poli sci program that has IR scholars? If the second, you'll need to improve your math scores and abilities, since a good chunk of the leading edge material (though by no means all) uses quantitative techniques. You have to at least be able to read these and evaluate the quality of the analysis. Otherwise you'll be stuck either having a knee-jerk negative reaction to what could be good stuff or (just as bad) being bamboozled by pseudo-sophistication wrapped in greek letters and computer code.

The original poster is coming from an econ background. In that field, everyone might agree that it's handy to have Krugman/Obstfeld on trade, Varian's undergrad micro text, and a few others, as palatable references for the basic concepts you should have down cold. There really is nothing like that in political science, because of the field's more diverse views on how to do social science and what it even is. Also, many people will come from non-PS backgrounds, or will come from a school that teaches a very different flavor of PS than you will be learning where you go. (e.g. they read a lot of Aristotle and Hobbes and can blow you away with that stuff, but now they are going to have to start from zero with a lot of empirical methods that will be easier for you). So don't worry too much about prepping before fall unless the program you are entering offers you specific guidance.

A great honors thesis is as much research experience as you need, as long as the rest of the app is strong.

Exactly.

I'll echo Penelope's and RWBG's comments, and also say that they both seem to really know what's going on in all their responses. To be crystal clear (and a bit rude), if you tell any top twenty (thirty?) program that you want to be a methodologist, but have not taken calculus, you will be laughed out of town. Stats courses that do not require calculus are not considered to be particularly rigorous or demanding by the standards of this group. Better than nothing, but that puts you way behind where any methodology specialist should be starting grad school. That said, I think what you really mean is that you like doing applied work using statistical methods. That's great! Lots of people are doing that, in every subfield, in every department, and many of them start out without the necessary calculus background (although this is rarer and rarer). So really any department would be fine. If what you mean is that you want to be in a program that will let you take more stats and calculus, and will trade off by requiring fewer book-intensive seminars, then you could try one of boutique departments, Rochester, Stanford GSB, or Caltech Social Science, with a second tier being NYU or WUSTL.

Well, no political scientist will argue against you if you believe politics matters!

That sounds more like development economics than poli sci. Look at Esther Duflo's work in India.

Then UCSD, Berkeley, Rochester, Princeton, Stanford GSB all spring to mind as good options where there is at least one tenured IR modeler, and some opportunities for interesting advanced courses.

Core micro theory is hard everywhere, so it makes for a better signal. Trade theory at at the grad level can be softer, depending who teaches. Also, a strong micro core will make trade theory easy to pick up, as well as set you up to do formal theory if you want to. You made the right choice.

I'd agree you shouldn't pick a program for just one professor, and especially not an untenured one, as they are the most likely to move (both voluntarily and involuntarily). Any place that has a strong group of quantitative comparativists and at least one China person should work. And even if they don't have a China specialist, you could still make that research program work since you already have the language and institutional knowledge. UCSD and Wisconsin would be great choices.

A terminal masters from a PhD program will not help you much, except to the extent that you're applying for a job where they require an MA but don't really care what it was in (which is true for some government jobs and policy jobs). But a good policy MA program will give you much more relevant training and, as important, a link into an alumni network that can get you internships and later jobs.

Very useful!

Rochester, WashU, and Stanford GSB are the three best known "boutique" departments specializing in mathematical approaches to political science. NYU is also up-and-coming in this niche. It's not clear to me if Caltech will be as influential in political science down the road as it has been in the past. Their recent placements have been more in economics: http://www.hss.caltech.edu/ss/phds/alumni#2012 Any other top-ten department can also put together a strong methods+formal program for you, although you'll have to read more books along the way and learn how to interact with people who don't think math can usefully be applied to the study of politics.

Having served on a committee, I would disagree with Balderdash's emphasis on customizing the SOP to fit the profs at the school. Most of the people we accepted just did a little bit of that at the end, a tacked-on paragraph that helped us know which faculty might want to review the SOP if the overall application is strong. However, displaying a good sense of what an interesting and tractable research question might be IS important. You don't have to be certain you'll actually do it (you probably won't) but articulating it will convince us you know what you're getting into and have a shot at doing something interesting for your dissertation. Balderdash sounds like someone who I would have expected to get in somewhere. Hopefully you have discussed your last SOP and the rest of your record with your advisors, and have a fresh recommendation from someone at Cambridge saying how impressed they are with your research potential. Other than it may just be luck and fit, and the tastes of those on the committees.