Hi all,
I am a non-native English speaker and GREs are my major concern when it comes to applying to reasonably reputable programs in the US. Although I have read somewhere on university websites and on this forum that professors tend to frown less upon Verbal scores from non-natives than they generally do from natives, it is not clear if they really are lenient and how far that can go for a non-native PHD applicant. To be more precise, I have the following profile.
Undergrad: An internationally obscure but locally reputable university in my country (South East Asia).
Major: Bachelors of arts and law
Undergrad GPA: 3.4/4.0
Grad School: same as undergrad
Grad Program: LLM
Grad GPA: 4.0/4.0
Grad school: Top 5 university in UK
Grad program: MSc. IR
Grad GPA: 3.4/4.0
Quant Prep: Stat & Probability (A+); Linear Algebra (A); Calculus up to multi-variable (A); Economics, micro-macro (B)
GREs: 1st attempt: 155V, 161Q, 4.0W; 2nd attempt: 158V, 158Q, 4.0W
Letters of Recommendation: Mixed from law and IR faculty.
SOP: Hoping it to be good one
Writing Sample: MS. Thesis
Publication: Couple of op-eds in an online magazine-although no journal article published yet.
Presentations: one presentation in UK while another in USA
Teaching: 1 year as lecturer at a public sector university in my country.
Fellowships/Scholarship: British Government scholarship to study MSc. IR at a UK university; Couple of grants to participate in short course/conferences in 2-3 countries.
Programs I'm Looking At: Tentative list (Stanford, Yale, Princeton, USC, SUNY-Albany, CU-Boulder, GMU, Georgetown, Emory, UMD, Minnesota)
Field: IR theory and nuclear proliferation
Questions: In response to my email, a few POI at top programs said, "they are not on admission committee but look forward to working with me after I get into their program". Should I regard their comments as a positive sign and send applications to these top-tier programs even if I know my profile is not as competitive as their admitted cohort normally have? What programs o you suggest I should strike down or add in the list that could be more compatible with my profile and worth the investment of time and resources? Anything I missed?
I w'd appreciate your comments and suggestions