tennisfan

Wow...90th and 95th percentiles, nice work! Yeah, I'm not sure how to bring it up in my personal statement either without being too blunt or sounding like I'm making excuses. I'll likely leave it out. One of my recommendations is from my Master's thesis advisor. A good chunk of my Master's thesis was quantitative, so I think asking her to address it somehow is a good idea. Thanks again and good luck with your applications!

Thanks for the feedback and I appreciate the honesty. I'm hoping that I at least have a decent chance of getting into CUNY. It's funded and there are a few professors there that I'd really like to work with. I know the others are reaches, but I'm hoping maybe someone in the admissions committee will see something in my application aside from low GRE scores. I do plan to apply widely, I'm just somewhat restricted as the program has to fully funded (tuition waiver plus stipend). I will certainly check out Arizona, thanks for the suggestion! What do you think about addressing the low score issue in my personal statement? Thanks again!

Hello Everyone, Happy application season! I'm hoping to get some advice. I'm applying for Political Science PhD programs beginning in the Fall of 2016. All of the programs that I'm applying to are fully funded, strong programs. My top choices right now are NYU, Columbia, Yale, and CUNY (the City University of New York). I think that overall, my application is strong. I have very good work experience relating to my specific research interests (foreign policy as it relates to the Middle East and counterterrorism); my recommendations are excellent; my academic history is good including a Master's degree related to Middle East policy; and my personal statement and writing samples are also excellent. The weakest part of my application is my GRE score - mainly, my GRE score on the quantitative section. I'm in the 32nd percentile on the quantitative section and the 85th percentile on the verbal and writing sections. I would take the test for a third time, however there are no available appointments within a three hour radius of me before my application deadlines...so, I'm stuck with this bad score. Even if I did retake it, I'm not sure I'd do better, as I studied quite a bit for both attempts. I've just never been good at algebra, geometry, etc; statistics and that type of math, however, is no problem for me (I would imagine this is the primary type of math I would do in a PhD program). My questions are: *How much will this bad GRE math score realistically hurt my chances of admission? *Should I (sneakily) address my poor math performance in my personal statements? Please feel free to include any other questions, comments, suggestions. I'm so incredibly driven to pursue this PhD and am worried that this could really hurt my chances of admission. Really appreciate any feedback I can get. Thanks everyone! -M