Determinedandnervous

I mean you can find political scientists who study gender in the context of all kinds of things. It definitely has a sociological component, but really you could do either. I think you should do your best to get your GRE scores up a little, and I'm not sure if your TOEFL score qualifies. Most want a score of 100 or more. I would apply more broadly than 2 programs if possible, as well. I think the previous poster is right, putting off the application process a year may make your file stronger, but it's really up to you.

This is the wrong subforum. Government affairs is probably what you're looking for, and they'll be able to provide you with better information than we can.

I mean, any PhD program worth its salt pays you to do it. UT is not necessarily known for its strengths in East Asia, but most top programs have at least a handful of professors who do it. I also know Cornell and University of Washington both have faculty who have strengths in East Asia.

Hey all, I went through all this last year, so if you have any questions about the process or would like to know more about my program (Penn State), by all means post here or send a message.

You have time to retake the GRE, and I suggest you do so. Low rank/unranked programs may not have an issue with that score, but competition is fierce at the top.

You should probably try to get your GRE score up if you can, since your GPA for your MPA and BA are low and they use GPA/GRE as a cutoff very often before looking at much else. It would also help to know what you mean by unknown journals. Are they Brazilian journals? European journals? American journals? If they're American journals that will make you pretty competitive, but otherwise it's nice to have but may not add much.

^It doesn't really matter all that much. If you're interested in methods, pick that. I had about the same level of quant experience and got into quite a few schools. Methods sequences are generally constructed with people who don't have a lot of experience with advanced math in mind. There are usually math camps at the beginning of the first year. After all, most of us majored in social sciences, which aren't usually too heavy on math.

If you're referring to publications, the fact that you have one, co-authored or not, will help you significantly. Almost nobody has publications when applying to grad school.

Regarding your first reason, then maybe a master's is better. However, just to offer a counterpoint, you could still take courses in the PhD program and if you find it's not for you, you're not locked into the program. For your second reason, it's not as difficult to make the jump as you think. None of my courses in my undergrad years were at all related to my current research interests. Just read some of the literature and use your substantive knowledge to fill in certain gaps. For the third point, that would really depend on what part of American politics one is studying. If it's public policy, then sure, a master's in that may be quite beneficial. However, if one is studying the behavior of legislators or voter behavior, it may not be. PhD cohorts vary widely. Some programs only want 5-6 people (i.e. WUSTL). My program (Penn State) targets 9-12. Others, like Harvard, have cohorts of 25-30.

You don't need a publication to get into a PhD program. People who are on the market sometimes don't have publications. If you would rather apply to Masters programs for another reason, then by all means do it. However, I would recommend applying to PhD programs since they are funded (masters programs are not), and I would specifically not recommend applying to MIT's masters program. It seems that nobody actually gets in to the program.

^ I would just clarify that WUSTL, Rochester and Caltech are not hostile to quantitative methods. They train formal theorists (i.e. game theory, decision theory), who use calculus (specifically derivatives) in their work. In certain ways, it's more demanding in terms of prerequisites for quant skills than statistical methods. With statistical methods, one can drive the car without knowing what's under the hood, in a manner of speaking. With formal theory, you have to.

Your GPA is relatively fine, though you should get a high GRE score to be competitive. Your research experience is good to have, including the things that were non-academic in nature. If you can angle these as having helped hone your research interests or methods skills, it's an asset. If you haven't completed a thesis (which does count against you a bit), be sure to write something for your writing sample. Unfortunately, your research advisors cannot help you there, since it has to be solo-authored. It's not bad at all to have LOR's from your research advisors in the field, it's probably better. They don't need to know you did well in classes (that's usually a given), but they do need to know you have what it takes to be a good researcher. I'm not sure what you mean by program-specific rankings, but if you mean the political science rankings, they have those as well as subfield rankings. However, ranking is a proxy for many other things, so still check out how good the schools are in terms of fit and placement record. It's hard to gauge your ability to get into top 20-25 schools without full knowledge of your GPA/GRE scores (which are sadly more important than they should be), but if you get a good GRE score I think you're on the right track towards a top 20-25 program.

Adding to the above comments, I did not have any RA experience as an undergrad either and I did fine in the application process. Most people just have a thesis at this point in the game. As long as it's a strong thesis, it's fine.

Just to weigh on on the methods debate, PoliticalOrder is absolutely right. Political science in the United States is trending towards quantitative methods, and the pendulum will probably never swing towards qualitative methods again, though it has been swinging to different types of quantitative analysis other than regressions on observational data (i.e. social network analysis and experiments). There is still room for mixed methods. As far as I'm concerned, pretty much all work is mixed methods. Every substantive question answered with quantitative social science has to be grounded in a theoretical framework. Otherwise, the numbers don't mean anything. This framework is always qualitatively explained before it is quantitatively verified. I highly recommend reading Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research by Gary King, Bob Keohane, and Sidney Verba. The authors lay out a brilliant argument as to how both methods can be used with similar thinking to answer similar questions. It certainly helped me mentally bridge the divide. Like you, I originally was more interested in mixed-methods, and I'm presenting qualitative research at APSA this fall, but I chose a quant-heavy school and after getting more comfortable with statistical methods, my work from here forward will also be quantitative. If upon further reflection you do not wish to pursue a quantitative social science, there is always the option of doing your PhD in Canada, the UK, or the European University Institute. These places have a much more qualitative bent still and though you most likely won't have access to the US market, universities there can have great placement internationally (especially Oxford and Toronto). If you're in a third world country (and especially if you live in the British Commonwealth) then you would have no problem getting funding from a British university.

Holy moly, am I jealous. I wish I had half your profile when I was applying. I would say that you should get the letter from the person with the PhD and who has researched with you in an academic capacity. You don't need to work hard to frame your work experience as anything other than the methods training that made you want to be a methodologist. Your chances are great.

If you're applying to public policy schools, they care much less about your GPA. With political science programs it matters much more.

Well, in terms of political science Georgia Tech does not have a PhD program in it. I think your GPA for certain programs may be low, but you more than make up for it in independent research experience. That being said, do as well as you can on the GRE. They frequently just pick a cutoff and throw out applications below it without reading. For the public policy stuff, go to the Government Affairs subforum here (I think that's what it's called). It's in the professional programs category.

^ Even if you're assigned somewhere that doesn't seem related to your interests, odds are unless you're working on a fixed project you have a little leeway with what you want to do there. I'm sure you can use the lab's resources in some way that is beneficial to both the university and you. Plus, this gives you an opportunity to expand your network.

I mean you don't really need to do much, though if you wanted to rework your MA thesis for a publication you could do that and even if you don't finish during application season, you could put it as a working paper or a work in progress on your CV. Not having peer reviewed publications when applying to grad school does not hurt you by any means. People go on the academic job market without publications. The fact that you have 2 solo-authored policy reports (even if they're not peer-reviewed) indicates that you have the ability to do independent research, which would be the same signal having a paper under review (which as you know would be likely the case since journals take their sweet time getting back to people on their submissions). If for any reason you don't feel confident enough about your MA thesis at this point, you could use one of these solo-authored pieces. Therefore, rework your thesis for a publication during application season only if you think you can juggle that and the application process. It can be quite difficult, so if you end up needing to prioritize, prioritize your application. Your profile is incredibly strong, much stronger than mine when I applied. Just work on making a killer SOP and there's nothing stopping you from getting into a top school.

Your file is quite competitive and should give you a decent shot at a top 10/15 school. The gains you would get from increasing your quant score are marginal. However, if you want to do it just to have the peace of mind that you have a 160+ score, then do it.

They have far more placements at LACs relative to research institution placements than other schools in the top 20.

In the final cut, you're absolutely right. It depends on way more than GRE. You can have something even at 155-160 and still get in (usually provided you have a lot of independent research experience). However, in the first cut, the way to cut a few hundred applications in half easily is to have an arbitrary cutoff for GRE score and GPA and throw out any application below the cutoff. Multiple people who have served on adcoms have said as much on here. That's why I'm suggesting the OP retakes it. When there is a cutoff and the score is 152/143, there's no sense in accepting that score when there is still the option to retake it and make it to the final cut where all of the other aspects you mention matter. Last year, I had 163/155 and it was nearly unanimous on this forum that I should retake it, and they were right.

Fair enough. Still, I'm curious where you found they were the least predictive.

I'm curious as to where you found they were irrelevant. I would agree if you mean strictly on admittance (no stats can get you an automatic in) but they certainly can keep people out.

I contacted POIs at three schools I applied to last year. In one instance, i was accepted with a fellowship nomination, in two instances I was rejected. I suspect contacting POIs had a role in the acceptance and one of the rejections, but not the other. I would say that unless you're emailing them to make sure they're taking advisees, don't contact them.