ultraultra

I definitely underestimated the time/skill it would take to distil my all-encompassing SOP into a separate PS and SOP for those schools that require two documents. Did anyone else have the same problem?

I'm applying to 11. I had had about 15 on my list initially and tried to cut it down even shorter but I settled on a set that includes good-fit schools (in locations I would want to live) in most ranking brackets, plus all the top schools where I have reasonable fit. I also cut all the Canadian schools I was considering. Currently feeling like my GRE scores might make this an unsuccessful cycle but I'm making peace with the idea that applying a second time might not be so bad (though expensive...). When I was paring down my list I tried to only keep schools that I would be happy going to if they were my only admit. But it's entirely possible that would not be true if it happened and I am just too distant from the decision to know. First deadlines on Tuesday (wooooo, spoopy)

Letters are important also, no matter where you apply... what makes you think your letters will be weak?

^ On that note, how much luck have people had in getting Professors to look over their SOP? I've asked a few, but they're all such busy people that it seems to get lost in their endless task pile, and then pestering them about it seems rude? The SOP-writing process is proving to be a pretty big struggle for me, so far.

Thanks for your answer above! I'll definitely take your advice. I have a couple more questions, if that's okay. 1) How much do ad comms care about working papers? If I'm co-authoring with a few of my professors, will that be a boost to my apps, or do ad comms only care once the article has been completed/published? 2) Given that my subfield (political behaviour) tends to be article-based (rather than long books), with lots of collaboration, should I be worried if I notice that a potential advisor at a school doesn't seem to co-author articles with his/her PhD students? 3a) I think you may have answered this before but I'm not sure: to what extent can heavily quantitative coursework & RA work compensate for a lower Q GRE score? 3b) You've spoken a lot about GRE cutoffs being a factor - would you happen to know what these usually are for top 5, 10, 25 programs? 3c) A lot of graduate FAQ pages indicate that most of their students score around or above a certain percentile on the GRE. Are those percentiles the general ones, or the political science-specific ones (via)? Thank you so much!

Hi BFB et al., I'm not sure if anyone's still checking this thread but if so I did have one question and I surely can't be the only applicant who's ever run into this dilemma. Basically: my writing sample is my undergraduate thesis, for which I conducted some (political psychology) experiments. The writing and tables and such all comfortably fit into the page limit for most schools. However, the appendices (specifically: my treatments, questionnaires, and coding rubric for open-ended questions) push it over the page limit. While I wouldn't really expect ad comm members to read these supplementary materials, I would feel a bit wary about excluding them. Do you think they would be counted towards the page count and/or how would you advise applicants approach this situation? Thank you so much for all the time you put into this forum - it's really been an amazing resource.

Glad things are getting rolling! Question: Does anyone know how common it is for schools to allow a multi-article dissertation in place of a book dissertation? Is this common practice within top 25 programs? Or do only some allow it? (Wouldn't alter my application list but might influence my final selections, when that day finally comes.)

Here's the long overdue thread where we applicants in the 2015-2016 cycle can congratulate and commiserate each other throughout the process! Here's a link to last year's thread: http://forum.thegradcafe.com/topic/56095-welcome-to-the-2014-15-cycle/ This is my first cycle. I feel good about most of my profile but am (re)taking the GRE soon and worried it could sink me if I don't beef up my quant score. Applying to political behaviour phd programs (mostly top 10, list not finalized). How's everyone else feeling? Good luck to us all!