Determinedandnervous

You can mention your teaching experience in your CV or even say how it's enhanced your research interests, but @PizzaCat93 is right. Don't put it on your SOP for top schools. For mid-rank schools or top schools that cater to the LAC market (Cornell), by all means, do it. That's not to dissuade you from having your goals. At the recruitment events you attend, you should look for if they encourage your pedagogical development. Even at the top schools, you can be open about your desire to be at a teaching school. However, at the application stage, for top schools don't say it, for mid rank schools it wouldn't hurt you.

I happen to like honesty. However, pure honesty isn't always the best policy when it comes to stuff like your SOP. Leave out the stuff about your choice being against all advice (not necessary and can rub people the wrong way) and how you deeply love research and teaching (everyone does). Focus more on your interests, your projects, and you can keep in the stuff about how you arrived at your interests. You should tailor your SOP to every program and show why the program is ideal for you.

Your GPA is fine. Your GRE will keep you out of most schools, save for low ranked or unranked ones. I suggest studying hard and retaking the GRE to improve your odds.

161 as a quant score would not get you rejected anywhere.

If you have 170/158/5.5, then your high verbal makes up for the 158 quant score. However, if your verbal is lower (which is understandable if you're international) the quant has to make up for it. You're fine, @Wanumman.

Just to add to @CarefreeWritingsontheWall's remarks, don't sweat it if you can't do it. People go on the actual academic job market without a publication or even an R&R, and it's not totally unheard of for them to get jobs (though this is decreasingly the case).

Being from a Brazilian university should not hurt you and your language skills should help you. However, you should try to retake your GRE. Your verbal score is great for a non-native speaker, but your quant score should be 160+ to be safe.

If the article puts too much on your plate (it sounds like you have quite a lot, I've been there too and having that extra thing can be quite cumbersome), there is no reason why you have to finish the article and put it under review during the application process. I was working on an article during my application season and simply referenced what it was about, who I was working with and where I intended to submit it. It sends a signal that you're already researching and that you're already socialized into the field enough to know a potentially suitable journal for it. I'm not sure if you use LaTeX, but I would highly recommend it. You could use something like TexStudio so you can get the ropes of it and then switch to something like Gedit or Notepad and write .tex files there. It sends a good signal, but also I've noticed in my own work it's a good productivity hack. Because it's not a word processer with an interface that looks like a page, and I have it open on full screen, when I write it looks like I wrote less material than in it would look like in a word processer. It then tricks my brain into wanting to do more. I've been able to write entire sections so quickly this way. Of course, your mileage may vary, but it's helped me greatly with my conference paper as of late.

The way to avoid that scenario is not necessarily during the application stage, but when you're making the decision of where to go. I'm not sure what subfield you are, but the polisci methods sequence should be sufficient unless you are a methodologist who wants to specialize in a specific thing the department doesn't have to offer, in which case you'd take courses in another department or at ICPSR in the summer. If this part is of vital importance (and it really can be depending on your research interests) then you may want to check out the courses that make up the methods sequence and see if the courses within it satisfy your needs. If not, look up the requirements for earning the PhD and youll see if they allow outside courses to count towards it. This will help you narrow down schools in the selection process. I don't think there's any reason that requesting to take courses in other departments would be offensive, but I would word it in a different way so you can further sell yourself in terms of fit. You can mention something along the lines of the department's openness to an interdisciplinary methods training if necessary is crucial to you having the specific skill set needed to answer your research questions. Therefore, the quality of your research would increase and the research you do in the department's name would be higher quality too.

The fact that you even know R and Netlogo exists helps your profile. I wouldn't necessarily worry about crime with LA or Chicago, most areas near the universities are fine. However, they may be expensive areas to live in, so that could be an issue worth looking into. If you have the data and the research question, you're already halfway there. If you have a grasp on the literature you need to use to construct your argument then it's a matter of writing it up. Bonus points if you use LaTeX to write it. In my experience, it's difficult at first and for months I had issues using it but then one day it all just clicked. You could easily get the paper sent out within 4 months if you work at it (maybe not an answer back from the journal but if it's under review that's good still). What journal were you thinking of targeting with it?

Just to add to @CarefreeWritingsontheWall's words about R vs. Stata, I really don't think you need to worry about that sort of thing. Where I visited during my application season. most people told me that they didn't know how to use either going in. These were methods-heavy schools, too. The fact that you can use both is frankly amazing (I can't even do that, going from Stata to R has been tough). In addition to the schools you listed, I would also check out OSU and Penn State (I'm biased on the latter though as that's my program) if you're interested in conflict. Also, @CarefreeWritingsontheWall, is Stanford's cohort really only 5-7? Wow. For some reason I thought they admitted an exceptionally large cohort since they have an extraordinarily large amount of faculty.

It depends. Is the rest of your file in tip-top shape? If so, you have little to worry about. Another user on here last cycle got into a bunch of top fives with a very similar score because of a wealth of independent research experience. If your file is lacking in other places (i.e. gpa, research experince) maybe either retake it if you feel you can get a better score or spruce up your independent research by working on a publication. Even having something in the works/under review puts you ahead of 98% of people applying.

Considering the vast majority of people only have a thesis, the fact that you have something either under review or forthcoming puts you way ahead of most of the competition. If you can use it as a writing sample this year, that would be great. EDIT: I just remembered - if it's co-authored you can't use it as a writing sample. However, you can link to it in your CV if you upload it somewhere like SSRN.

It's not a hard cutoff, and it's simply anecdotal. Most of the feeders into top political science PhD programs are the top research universities (US and foreign) and elite liberal arts colleges. Since you are at a university in one of these categories, it does benefit you. On the surface it seems like elitism, but it's more networking than anything. If you're at one of these top schools, odds are higher that your professors are connected to the universities you are applying to in some way or have higher visibility in the field. If a highly visible figure will write you a strong recommendation letter, that really helps. Truly exceptional students from other universities can still make it, but it's a harder road. Since you are at one of the top universities, you don't need to worry. If anything, it'll work in your favor.

Undergrad rank doesn't matter too much once you get outside the top 10, but for the top 10 it matters. You're solid on that front if it's in the top 15. Honestly, I don't think you need the gap year in order to have a strong and competitive profile. Your GPA is around where it needs to be, and you having independent research done in addition to your thesis means you're ahead of the game. Your language skills are a huge plus as well. With your profile, you should feel quite comfortable shooting for the top 15, which likely have scholars in conflict. However, I would be remiss if I didn't encourage you to check out my program (Penn State), which has a strong team of people working on intrastate conflict. If you would like to talk further about it, PM me.

Well the good news is that when it comes to those topics you have a lot of places to choose from. For American elections, you can basically go anywhere. For racial politics, you should check out Harvard (Claudine Gay, Jennifer Hochschild, Theda Skocpol), Stanford (Lauren D. Davenport, Gary Segura, Paul Sniderman), Princeton (LaFleur Stephens-Dougan, Dara Strolovich, Ali Valenzuela, Omar Wasow), Michigan (Vincent Hutchings, Donald Kinder, Robert Mickey, Mara Cecilia Ostfeld, Nicholas Valentino), Yale (Vesla Weaver), UC Berkeley (Rodney Hero, Taeku Lee), Columbia (Rodolfo de la Garza, Frederick Cornelius Harris, Jeffrey Henig, Kenneth Prewitt), MIT (Melissa Nobles, Ariel White), UC San Diego (Marisa A. Abrajano, Steven P. Erie, Zoltan L. Hajnal), Duke (Kerry L. Haynie, Ashley E. Jardina, Paula D. McClain), UCLA (Matt A. Barreto, Laurie Frasure-Yokley, Raymond Rocco, Melvin Rogers, Mark Q. Sawyer), Chicago (Cathy Cohen, Michael Dawson, Eric Oliver), UNC-Chapel Hill (Andrea Benjamin, Christopher Clark), WUSTL (Clarissa Wyle Hayward, Sunita Parikh), NYU (Jonathan Nagler), UW-Madison (Katherine Cramer, Keisha Lindsay, Benjamin Marquez, Byron Shafer), Cornell (David Bateman, Sergio Garcia-Rios, Joseph Marguiles, Jamila Michener), Northwestern (Traci Burch, Anthony S. Chen, Jaime Dominguez, Julie Lee Merseth, Thomas Ogorzalek, Reuel Rogers, Larry Steupnegel, Chloe Thurston, Alvin Bernard Tillery Jr.), UT-Austin (Victoria M. DeFrancesco Soto, David Leal, Eric McDaniel, Tasha Philpot, Michael Rivera), UC Davis (Bradford Jones), UIUC (Cara J. Wong), Emory (Merle Black, Michael Giles, Andra Gillespie, Michael Owens, Beth Reingold), Indiana-Bloomington (Edward G. Carmines, Christopher DeSante, Bernard L. Fraga, Matthew Hayes), Texas A&M (Diego Alejando von Vacano Camara, Francisco Pedraza), Penn State (Susan Welch), Maryland (Antoine Banks, Irwin Morris, Stella Rouse), UPenn (Daniel Gillion, Marie Gottschalk, Amy Guttman, Dan Hopkins, Anne Norton, Adolph Reed), Washington (Megan Ming Francis, Sophia Jordan Wallace), Michigan State (Paul Abramson, Richard C. Hula, Sarah Reckhow), SUNY Stony Brook (Stanley Feldman, Yanna Krupnikov, Charles Taber), Iowa (Rene Rocha), George Washington (Corrine McConnaughy, Ismail White, Ingrid Creppell), Notre Dame (Darren Davis, Luis Ricardo Fraca, Dianne Pinderhughes, Ricardo Ramirez), Virginia (Lawrie Balfour, Lynn Sanders, Nicholas Winter), Vanderbilt (Allison Anoll, Cindy Kam, Efren Perez, Carol Swain), Johns Hopkins (Lester Spence), and UC Irvine (Louis DiSipio, Sara Goodman, Claire Kim, Davin Phoenix, Michael Tesler) For constitutional law, you should check out Harvard (Daniel Carpenter), Stanford (Jack Rakove), Princeton (Paul Frymer, Stephen Macedo, Keith Whittington), Michigan (Jenna Bednar, Pamela Brandwein), Yale (Bruce Ackerman, Helene Landemore, Stephen Skowronek), MIT (Chris Warshaw), Chicago (Gerald Rosenberg, James Lindsay Wilson), UNC-Chapel Hill (Kevin McGuire), WUSTL (Randall Calvert, Lee Epstein), NYU (Christine Harrington, Melissa Schwartzberg), Ohio State (Rachel Bowen), UW-Madison (Howard Schweber), Cornell (Anne Marie Smith), UT-Austin (Gary Jacobson, H.W. Perry Jr., Jeffrey Tulis), Emory (Thomas G. Walker), Indiana-Bloomington (Eileen Braman, Judy Failer, Russell L. Hanson), Texas A&M (Judith A. Baer, Diego Alejando von Vacano Camara), Penn State (Michael Nelson), UPenn (Rogers Smith), Washington (George Lovell, Jack Turner), Michigan State (Richard C. Hula), Iowa (Paul Gowder), Notre Dame (Sotiros A. Barber, Anthony Bellia Jr., Patrick DeNeen, Richard Garnett, Matthew E. K. Hall, Vincent Phillip Muñoz, Michael Zuckert), Virginia (Sydney Milkis, David M. O'Brien), Vanderbilt (Edward Rubin, Carol Swain), Florida State (Carol S. Weissert), Georgetown (Douglas S. Reed), Johns Hopkins (Steven Teles, Emily Zackin), and UC Irvine (Charles Smith). Princeton, Columbia, UCLA, Cornell, Northwestern, UT-Austin, Emory, Indiana-Bloomington, UPenn, SUNY Stony Brook (if you're into political psychology at all), Notre Dame, Virginia, Vanderbilt, and UC Irvine are your best bets in terms of schools to look into.

You could put it in the non-peer reviewed publicaions section on your CV and it would likely help you. It shows that policy outlets were interested enough in what you had to say to let you have posts on their blogs and it sends a good signal to graduate admissions committees, especially if your subfield is American or public policy.

It sends a pretty strong signal if the research design is good. Check with a grad student or faculty member at your university to make sure it's a quality sample. You can put your experience with what you did on the side on your CV, it also sends a good signal. Also talk about it on your SOP if a part of it informed your research interests.

That sort of score is the median actually for admits to CU-Boulder. I suggest you work hard on improving your GRE, since theory has the worst market of the subfields and you need to get into the highest ranked place that you can.

Graduate school is an endeavor that is inevitably taxing, so if you are feeling that it means you're working hard as you should. If you find you don't like political science, then you should bow out, but this doesn't appear to be the case. Your undergrad is irrelevant since you have a master's with a really good GPA. The fact that you have presentations and teaching under your belt sends unambiguous positive signals which will give you a leg up on virtually all of the competition. Having papers under review (suggest writing the names of the journals they were sent to in your CV) is a strong signal of research potential. A master's degree may be enough to teach at community colleges, but a PhD will be preferred at most jobs unless you have some connections at a specific institution. Besides, you may find your career goals change. A PhD from a reasonably good school widens your options and makes you more competitive for your goal jobs as well. With your record, you should apply to any top or mid tier school that has people in your field. Without knowing your research interests, I can't suggest any particular schools or people to look at, but if you give some information about that I can help you with the application process if you choose to go through with it.

In that case, you probably have enough math experience to enter a political science PhD program. I only had that econometrics course and still got into 7 programs. I would concentrate on studying for the GRE.

There are a few things that you may want to think about when making this decision. Obviously, you could study behavior with both the US and Europe. I am a Europeanist though I do quite enjoy American politics as well and wish to incorporate the US as one of my cases somewhere. The issue that comes in with doing both is that in many cases it is difficult to straddle the line between the two subfields. Professional networks are incredibly different in the two subfields, and you would have to successfully navigate both. If you can successfully do that, it may open tons of doors for you in that you can apply for jobs in both subfields (teaching in both of these subfields can be quite desired at liberal arts schools and regional state schools). However, many departments (especially research universities) want someone who is purely comparative or American. If you're willing to take on that risk, by all means go for it. I would never discourage you, especially considering I hope to navigate these two subfields as well. I do think it is important, though, to make that choice with as much information as possible There are two strategies that you can use in your SOP to increase your admissions chances and not make your research agenda seem too broad. The first is to advertise yourself as a comparativist who views the US as one of many great cases. The other is to advertise yourself as an Americanist (this is the easiest route by far since there aren't nearly as many applicants in American) and revisit straddling the line once you get admitted. Also, just to add to @alphazeta's words about the job market, I concur that the market for Europeanists is pretty bad. However, EU studies people do protect their own, and you may be able to have access to some interdisciplinary area studies jobs. In addition, Europe is a far more studied region in universities outside the US. Getting placed at a foreign university is not a bad bet these days, especially considering the grant money they have for social scientists far exceeds that of American universities.

It really depends on what type of methods training you want. If you want to do mainstream quantitative political science, then take statistics courses. I took an econometrics course the fall semester of my senior year (during application season) and it has helped immensely. However, if you wish to do something more along the lines of social network analysis and game theory (or wish to have methodology as your subfield) then taking calculus and doing well is important to your admissions chances. Thinking in terms of the bigger picture, the sooner you can get a good grasp on the basics of the statistics and math involved, the better it is for your career prospects since you can start research earlier and get a publishing record earlier. If you do not wish to take classes, I recommend David Siegel's book "A Mathematics Course for Political & Social Research." I have been teaching myself using it this summer (starting my first year in the fall) and it's been a big help. He also has a corresponding series of youtube lectures to guide you through it. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrA2SLUKnV6yjdgIfDwFeGg Hopefully this helps!

Well if it's a superior fit then I say go for it. You can cancel the name recognition disparity if you really take advantage of your time there.

The best thing to do is weigh what is most important to you. If you are looking to pipeline into a US program after the MPhil, then Oxford is a better bet. If you want to do a UK or Canadian program, either would do. Also think about where the best fit is. Reconcile those with the increased cost, and be honest with yourself as to whether you can afford Oxford. If you can, the increased expense might be a good investment. If not, then pick Cambridge and work a little harder.