slacktivist

I'd recommend looking at UC Irvine. They specify political psychology as one of their major subfields and the department as a whole does a lot of interdisciplinary work. You are probably looking at the top 15, but this would be a good program to put in your consideration set.

Who wants to claim the three Riverside admits with fellowships?

Yes, I am one of them.

I only made the decision within the last year to pursue a Ph.D, so I had to act quickly to come up with a substantive research paper. However, I am coming from a state school that does not offer any sort of senior or honors seminar, let alone a senior thesis. My solution was to take graduate seminars last semester in the hope of producing a quality seminar paper. I was able to do so and also had the paper accepted at a couple of conferences. Unfortunately, the time I spent on the seminar paper kept me from applying to schools due in December, but I would be very happy to accept my current best offer.

I'm probably underselling the subjective aspects of my application. Perhaps with increased competition, there are more people who have competitive numbers, thus making it more difficult for adcoms to use that as a basis for differentiating candidates. Instead, there may be an increased emphasis on research fit and expression of interests.

Speaking of which, I just posted a Rice acceptance. I'm in utter shock: comparatively weak grades from a state school and coming directly from undergrad. I guess the GRE does mean that much!

I'm afraid you have your math backwards, as .15^9 would be the odds of being accepted by all nine universities, not rejected. You have to take the rejection rate (.85 in the above example) as the basis for calculating the probability. Given a rejection rate of .85, applying to nine schools leaves a 23 percent chance of an applicant being shut out, ceteris paribus. Applying to 14 schools reduces the likelihood of a shutout to 10 percent,19 schools to lower it to less than five percent and 29 schools to make it less than one percent.

What are the expectations that graduate schools have for the quality of undergraduate research? I'm applying this year, and I feel like I can't come up with an interesting research question that isn't simply derivative of the current literature to the point of uselessness. My sense is that superior undergraduate research simply involves competently situating your research question in the literature, collecting your own dataset, and doing a sound quantitative analysis. I just have no concept of just how creative or interesting the original question is expected to be and this is tripping me up. I have been planning to use the research paper from one of my classes for a writing sample, but this has come up as a roadblock in the process. To be brutally honest, the difficulty I'm having is making me think that I'm better off applying to an MA, even though I have a clear sense of a larger research agenda and can put together a competitive application. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

I'd like to extend this to a broader inquiry about networking. Is it advisable for undergraduate professors to use any contacts they may have at your prospective graduate schools to raise your profile or set up a meeting?

Thanks to everyone for your responses (even if there is some dissensus)! I'm planning on applying to a wide range of programs, and my absolute fallback option is to continue with the MA program at my school. I have at least one lower ranked PhD program that is a good fit, and I'm trying to find an MA program or two that would fit, as well (unfortunately, a program like MAPSS is not something I can afford). I'd love to hear people's suggestions for MA programs. Mearsheimer is correct -- my goal isn't simply to get in anywhere. Once the semester is up, I'll study for the GRE for a couple of months, continue a literature review for my research interests and start work on my graduate seminar paper. Basically, anything that I can control now, I will do the work to do it well. After that, all I can do is hope that it can overcome these weaknesses and get me into somewhere I'd be happy to attend.

I'm in the CSU system, so that's not going to be any help.

Additional debt is not an option, so I'd have to find a terminal MA institution that gives tuition remission and/or assistantships to their top applicants, and has some faculty doing reasonably interesting work in American politics. And, yes, I've already looked at places like Marquette, Villanova and Virginia Tech.

And I promise my typos ("appliaction") aren't indicative of aptitude, just a long day at work!

Fair points, all. I am not harboring any illusions about competitiveness; I'm applying to three top-15 programs as reaches based on an expected GRE score of around 700 V/750 Q. (Realistically, though I'm targeting places like Maryland, UC Davis and Illinois.) I am taking a graduate seminar next semester, so I'm hoping the extra work that I am doing (relative to the opportunities available in my program) will be another point in my favor.

I'm preparing my applications for 2011, and I have two major weaknesses: 1) GPA: I had a semester several years ago where I failed three of my four courses. I had health issues after the drop deadline and could not get sufficient documentation to remediate my grades to a withdrawal (worse still, all four of those classes were in political science). This means I will have a 3.3 GPA instead of 3.6 when I graduate this fall. The strongest point in my favor is that my GPA is over 3.8 in more than 60 semester units of coursework since then. Also, my final semester will be capped by a graduate seminar and the second semester of a research assistantship for academic credit. 2) Lack of economics or calculus classes: I can't remedy this before I graduate. I think my GRE Quantitative score (should be around 750), experience in research methods (inferential statistics) and statement of purpose should demonstrate sufficient aptitude. I'd rather not limit myself prematurely in the programs I apply to on account of this. I know I can cut it at a top-25, and would hate to think I would be disqualified outright from applying. The rest of my application is strong (GRE, statement of purpose, letters of recommendation), but how can I remedy these weaknesses?

Now that April 15 has come, I guess tomorrow kicks off the 2011 application season. Without further ado: I've done considerable research on schools to apply to, and it looks like Maryland is a strong fit for me. I'm interested in American Politics (voting behavior and racial/ethnic/identity politics) with an inclination toward quantitative methods, and I can name three professors who would be well-suited for my research areas of interest. Anyway, it looks like there are several Maryland admits on this board. Would you folks mind sharing your application profiles (GPA, GRE, etc.)? I'd like to get an idea on whether or not my stats are competitive. Thanks!

First, I realized I probably shouldn't have posted a topic title that freaks out the 2011 cohort of applicants! My brain just short-circuited when trying to think of a catchy one. Michigan State does well on the Schmidt/Chingos ranking; especially so, relative to their US News ranking. However, their recent placement record looks lacking. On the other hand, there are some terminal MA programs (Villanova, Virginia Tech and North Texas) that offer tuition remission and stipends to their best incoming students. I wonder if that would be a better means of getting into a top-25 program.

I am a college senior who posted over at Poli Sci Job Rumors yesterday about my graduate prospects: I'm finishing with my undergraduate in December and am looking at PhD programs with quantitative and American emphases. Specifically, I am interested in studying urban voting behavior and how it is explained by various contextual factors (which can be diversified on my statement to demostrate research interests in urban politics, voting behavior and quantitative methods). My academic profile is as follows: Grades: 3.35 from a CSU, 3.80 in the major (CC transfer student and will finish with a 3.95 overall at the CSU) GRE: Have only taken a couple of practice tests and not yet studied in earnest, but am around 730 V, 650 Q. I'm aware I need to boost the Q score to be especially competitive. (For the purpose of my questions , let's say I can reach 700-720 on Quantitative. Also, I have always been a strong writer and expect to score 5.5-6 on the writing portion.) Extras: Working as a research assistant (for academic credit) with a professor on an article he's revising and resubmitting to JOP. Planning to create special study to write a senior thesis, which is not offered by my program. Also planning to take a graduate seminar and have that paper, which can also serve as a writing sample. LORs: Will have letters from department chair, professor I'm assisting, and another from an urban politics professor who is also president of a CC. Obviously, these aren't the likes of Gary King, but it's the best I can do. Weaknesses: Weak reputation of undergraduate school and low overall GPA, current quant score, no classes in calculus, economics and econometrics. (Not flying totally blind: I did ace a research methods course, and wrote a term paper for another course based on my own work collecting data and conducting a multivariate regression analysis to test a hypothesis.) Context: The first school I transferred to from CC, I was feckless, working 50 hours a week, partying and flunked out in one semester. I can (and will) write strongly about how I learned from that experience, but it sticks out on my record (and knocks my GPA down by 0.25). The light didn't turn on until transferring to my current school, where, concurrently, I have been working full-time in a salaried position at a non-profit (not related to politics). Application Objectives: I am looking to prepare myself for a top 25 program, and have an interest in being placed at a teaching institution after a doctorate. There are certain programs outside of the top 25 that I am looking at (UC Davis, Illinois, USC POIR, UC Irvine). Are there any programs outside of the top 25 that are particularly strong in my research interests? My downside bet is to apply to MA programs (currently thinking of continuing at my current CSU, Cal Poly MPP program, Virginia Tech, Villanova). Which MA programs have both a strong quantitative focus and a good record of placing their MAs into top 25 PhD programs?

Belkin is at San Francisco State University.