PoliticalOrder

Generally you want to shoot for 158+ on both sections, ideally 160+.

Nope, especially not for master's programs.

But like I said before, for example, if you had something like this: Published papers: X and Y Working Papers: Z Then that it fine, whatever. But that's a far cry from listing three 'working papers' without anything actually published or even in the process of review.

That doesn't make sense. If you have "three manuscripts in the advanced stage" then why are you not submitting any of them? It's ridiculous to expect people to care about papers that you have developed, but either aren't submitting or are working on other manuscripts and not submitting other ones. This is different than actually submitting papers and listing them as "under review." If you are working on manuscripts that you have promise for them, put them in your SOP, but don't list a bunch of papers that are in preparation like it counts for something; that's just tacky. Lots of people/applicants/students have "manuscripts in preparation" and at the end of the day they don't mean squat.

If you actually have papers published, then yes you can have a section like this. If you have nothing published then no one really cares 'what you are working on' with regards to looking at your CV. In fact, it just looks like you are trying to pad your CV and make it seem better than it actually is.

I don't think an MPP is really going to help you whether you even did it or not for Ph.D. programs (outside of taking some methods/math classes). An MPP is a professional degree, Ph.D.s are strictly academic. So along that type of reasoning, it doesn't matter either way.

Well, the university I attended paid ~1500 USD a month as a stipend, plus free health insurance for a TA/RA job. So was it livable? Yeah I guess so. The stipend wasn't important to me though. Listen, I am not saying you are going to get lots of MA/MSc programs out there that offer you entrance fellowships that will guarantee you funding during the whole program. But that doesn't mean you can't get funding when you get there. Funding is a hustle at the BA/BSc and MA/MSc levels, you have to apply for a bunch of things; scholarships, departmental funding, university funding, apply for jobs, everything and see what sticks. You also have to bust your ass and show interest/prove yourself to professors so that they want to hire you for research positions. And if you can't find something, it's not the end of the world to do a more administrative thing for a semester if you can't find anything else. There is also no reason you cannot work for a year, save up money, and be able to have a significant chunk of money for living expenses saved up. And yes, I do agree that Canada offer more programs to fund your masters but that doesn't mean you can't find some in the US.

You can fully fund MA/MSc programs, you just have to be proactive and get a little lucky. There are entrance fellowships available, but they are competitive; other than that, there is RA or TA positions, as well as possibly some more administrative assistant type jobs available in departments. One of the issues being an international student is you are limited to max 20 hours a week on campus. That means you can't potentially hold two 'full time' jobs at the university in order to bring in more money as a domestic student could. Although, working on campus more than 20 hours a week is going to negate time from studying and coursework. The myth that MA/MSc programs aren't usually funded is in my opinion not true in reality. There are lots of at least partially funded MA/MSc programs out there. And sometimes you have to hustle to find RA positions independently. I know this for a fact because I applied to 5 masters programs in the past and received some kind of funding or full funding from all of them. The one I did end up choosing didn't offer me funding but I found a TA position from the first semester + RA positions later and never paid a cent of tuition.

^ That's why you wouldn't say something like that, you would say "I am applying to study X and Y, these profs fit this W and Z."

You will not find many professors at American universities who study Canadian politics, in fact, I would say you would be hard-pressed to find even a handful that do the majority of their work on Canadian politics in the whole university system. More for British politics (or some connection with regards to Western Europe), but even then, there aren't that many of those either from what I have seen. The vast majority of scholars who study Canadian politics are Canadian, and hence usually go through the Canadian system/stay in Canada, or end up getting a job in Canada because of greater resources and demand for their skills. But it's not really a big deal. You should be looking at what your specific interests are within comparative politics and matching those with professors, which it seems like you are doing. An Americanist that studies comparative political parties and elections for example is much better than someone who studies judicial politics in Canada. And if you really need to go get more substantive training, you can always do a summer or year of research/studying at U of T or McGill or something during your Ph.D. It's kind of late for this, but really the only way you are going to dramatically improve your profile (if you intend on applying this upcoming cycle) is by scoring an RA ship with a professor at your school and working on your SOPs and writing sample as much as possible. Focus on the things you can control. Ask all the professors you have some kind of relationship if you can get involved some way in their research, whether that is basic literature review or whatever. Besides that, your SOP and your writing sample is going to be what actually gets you into schools, not your GRE; write the best honours thesis possible and make sure to edit your SOP many times and get feedback from profs and/or people who have been through the process. You also might want to try and get into an independent study course if that type of thing is offered at your school...it will help improve an existing LOR and/or increase your research experience at least a little bit.

I don't like the whole Dr. thing, but I always call them Prof. X until told otherwise.

Read up on policy diffusion and see what methods they are using to measure their variables.

Well the nice thing about UChicago is that it's in the South of Chicago where there are plenty of opportunities to find very cheap housing right next to campus.

They wouldn't have accepted you to a Ph.D. program if they thought you would fail.

A popular myth many people have is that academia is almost always completely original. 99% of literature is some kind of modification or different angle of some other research. No one is expecting a junior scholar or a Ph.D. student to shake the world with their research. The best thing you can do is just take some theories from your discipline and either slightly modify them or test them in some different sub-field. And when people say ''read the literature'' that is exactly what they are getting at. By reading current debates and old theories in your discipline you will begin to see gaps where no research exists, those gaps are where your research comes in. You should be actively looking for these gaps, or certain theoretical positions that are in major works that haven't necessarily been testing in depth. It's perfectly normal to piggyback off of famous scholar's ideas that they never actually extensively pursued. About the flaws dilemma, this is a major problem with grad students. They spend so much time critiquing everything that they find it hard to create something themselves. Research is always flawed, yes you need to be able to see potential flaws to try to mitigate them by using certain approaches but you also need to be able to just create something and continue to improve it, not always doubt yourself.

Are you sure you want to pursue a Ph.D. in a X studies program? The job market is tough enough as it is, it's even tougher for those who don't do a Ph.D. in a traditional discipline.

Neither of these programs are good for entering a Ph.D. program, they are typically professional heavy while a Ph.D. is academic.

99% chance it will not change at all.

No they won't, but they will look at both scores.

The last 60 credits.

Just so you know, that quant score is fantastic. I have no idea how much they weigh verbal scores for biology.

Honestly dude, how many questions do you need to ask. If you can't research these things independently on the internet how are you ever going to succeed in a graduate program?

Don't mention it.

There are no 'hard' cutoffs, in the sense that if someone has a 159 and they generally look for 160+ then they will not be denied because of this. There are dozens of applicants this year that got into great programs with quant scores 150-160. Look at Yale on the results section for example, I think around half of the acceptances this past cycle got in with Q scores below 160. There are also multiple people who got into programs like Michigan, Cornell, Columbia, ect, with scores such as 153. Generally speaking if you have 158+ you should be fine as you are highly unlikely to ever get denied for that score. Obviously the higher the better, but seriously people on this board claim the GRE is way more important than it really is. And the argument that "well most of the acceptances from top programs have way higher scores" is irrelevant, obviously they do because they are often the best students in the country but that doesn't mean you need to match those scores to get accepted.

No it doesn't.