antoniusblock

I had a few questions about the general strength of my application to a poli sci PhD program. I am a third-year law student who knows next to nothing about the process (so bear with me if any of these are stupid questions) but I was curious what opinions people who have gone this route may have. I also have not taken the GRE; I would just like some general idea about whether I will be able to put together a competitive application. I went to a relatively well-respected state school for undergrad with a 3.95 GPA (4.00 in poli sci). I am now attending a roughly #30 ranked law school and I am top 10% of my class. I will be doing a judicial clerkship for the next year and hope to do another one after that. Particularly if I am interested in studying law and courts, how much of a benefit will this experience be on my application? I have also published a student article in the law review - how much weight is this given in admissions (esp. compared to an undergrad thesis or a peer-reviewed article)? Finally, how much of a disadvantage will I be at by using primarily law professors for recommendations (I will have one poli sci professor, one relatively well-known law and economics scholar, and another law professor)? Thanks to everybody in advance.

Thanks a lot for the replies. I do have a good term paper from undergrad that I could try and brush off. I will hop over to the poli sci board and see what people say. Thanks!

Hi everybody. I am currently a law student and will be graduating in May. I will be doing a judicial clerkship for the next year and I hope to do another one for a year after that, after which I hope to get into a poli sci PhD program. I had a couple of questions about my competitiveness in applying: 1) is it okay to have law professors as opposed to poli sci professor write letters of recommendation? I am currently taking a seminar cross-listed w/ poli sci so I should have at least one good recommendation. However, all of the other professors I know very well are from law school. Will this hurt me? 2) To what extent would a job like a judicial clerkship be helpful in my application? I hope to get some insight into the operations of courts and would like to pursue this area in my research. 3) Finally, I had a student article published in the school's law review. It is a relatively well-known law review, but it is my understanding that in non-legal academic circles law reviews are generally not considered to be very prestigious. How does having this publication compare to having written an undergraduate thesis (which I did not do) or being published in a peer-reviewed journal? Thanks in advance for your help.