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The harshest comments will come from students who got a bad grade because they never showed up. There is a chance he/she does not even know who you are. A lot will also depend on the professor too. If they are strict they are bad and you are bad too. The department will know this.

Just make sure there are two-three people in each department that you want to work with (and who could advise you). As I said in another topic, I transferred after I could not find an advisor. Also this is the biggest reason for dropping out of my current program (well probably along with personal reasons). These are not low ranked places. Of course you may change your interests but it is not very good to start a program trying to find another topic or another angle of your topic while trying to get skills and knowledge of the field.

I agree with coopersatate. I am not sure how you chose the schools you want to apply to.

well, if you really do not like your advisor and your subfield does not work for you you should try to switch places. I would say that if this is the case though you would have to be even willing to switch to an equal or only slightly higher place ( hopefully better offers come by). 3.5 is not a very good GPA but of course a lot depends on the courses and the grades, I do not think that there are cutoffs , at least not below the very top 3-5(?) places. But be aware that you are in the same pool as everyone else who is applying when you are transferring and it is in the same way a crap shoot. I am not sure why you did not get in to higher ranked places the first time around but the admission committee will see the same numbers (if you did not apply that is a different story but still they will wonder). so I would definitely not quit before getting some other offers. I transferred by the way and in my second round of applications I even applied to some lower level of schools than the one I was in. I do not know how much movement is out there but I have not really met other people who transferred (although of course this is not a conversation starter). Good luck!

1. Be as fast as possible when you get off the airplane. Try to get to the immigration line as fast as possible. Your fellow plane members could add to up to an hour of lining up. 2. JetBlue is a fun little airline. No complaints. Again, domestic so you will not get free food. It is normal in the US to carry on board meals if you want to do so. You may have to pay for carry on although your transfer ticket may cover it.

!. As you can see even in this forum there is a lot of good applicants. There is no way to tell how yours stand among others, even hypothetically 2. Fit is really important. We do not know how you present yourself and what departments are looking for at the moment. 3.Just improve your GRE scores as much as you can. Hypothetically everyone is perfect. Real advice (for everyone asking these questions): Apply widely and ask your professors for what they consider good departments for you. Rank is not everything. Good luck.

always always change in Europe if it is possible. Domestic American flights are like public transportation. Very effective but very inconvenient. No free food no free drinks , limited entertainment, small spaces. staff is a toss up - stewards/stewardesses can be nice or rude. pilots are usually good. cleanliness can be bad. So choose the European/ international airline between Europe and your target city, it will be much more pleasant (drinks, food, cleanliness). JFK is one of the worst airports to transfer too in the US because it is very busy and you have to get out of the airport to get from international to domestic. If you are on a domestic flight you are basically left to fend for yourself, they will not wait for you (guaranteed international connections will wait for you or if for some reason you are really really late they will arrange the next flight It only happened to me after a 9 hour delay. But within a 2 hour delay the next plane waits for the passengers! I have waited too for late planes from Africa mostly, several times). So all you have to do is to get a ticket from your starting point to the endpoint through one airline, all your international transfers will be guaranteed and your luggage will travel automatically to the endpoint. On the other hand once I almost missed my flight with a 3 hours layover in JFK (and my bag was transferred almost automatically). I just stood in lines for over two hours.- border control,customs, pick up luggage, drop off luggage at transfer, check in domestic (not transfer you have to go out), security domestic. JFK is not an easy airport to navigate. I would not recommend JFK even if you have to change in the US, even though their border control is probably the most experienced..... This is said take off and landing is a huge waste of time, it is exhausting etc. Spending a couple of more hours in air is much better (just imagine sleeping instead of being buckled in /transferring /being buckled in . Usually long haul flights are better serviced/equipped too. But I would still take the long flight on an intercontinental flight (and small European ones) over a long haul domestic US flight. Also inside Europe flights are still international so you will get food and drinks even a short distance.

you got some really good advice here. take them. A lot of things can be explained away (like low verbal GRE, low grades etc) if you have time but you will have to make an impression in 5-10 minutes . remember the admission's commitee will have to choose from hundreds of well qualified applicants. They will not go through your reasoning. They will not have the time and they will have great people to choose from(3.5 is not a good GPA in this pool).

I just wanted to point out that MastersHoping may be somewhat lost in their interest and their choice of schools. I was too at this stage. MastersHoping you should read a lot of literature, clarify your interests (is it possible that it is not "NEA", but more a topic that NEA is a good example of? , is it possible that it is not even comparative ?) and research the schools based on your interests before applying.

sure. .....replace everything there with North East Asia. China is not comparable with anything in the region. You are left with Korea and Japan. Still not very comparable cases bc of the different political system in the last 50 years.(maybe on some level you could compare them- like political economy but then you still have to look for more cases even for a small n study). If you want to do IR, fine, a lot of interesting issues in NEA, but as for comparative not so much. Also the language barrier is pretty high and separate for all those countries. One of my cases is one of the above countries that is how I know. If you want to focus on one country and compare it with another region that could work. S.America is doable because the political system of the countries is actually similar, not because (or not only because) they are in the same region. Language is similar that helps.

Ok so you do not speak any Asian language , you do not even know whether you want to study Korean or Japanese and you want to do study East Asian Comparative politics? sounds like a bad approach. If you want to deal with more than one East Asian country -try IR. Comparative is not regionally focused. If you are interested in CP look for a topic that you are interested in. If one of the East Asian countries has a political/ social system like that, you can bring it to the comparison. Usually even then you compare the country with other countries in other regions. Even then, you need a firm grasp of language usually. Also your list of schools looks very arbitrary, more diplomacy MA focused. If you are interested in diplomacy definitely IR is the way to go.

come on guys.... try the polmeth mailing list. there are senior people on it who may be able to help.

If your program director says appeal then appeal. I am not sure how much you disclosed about your issues, depending on that you can ask him/her about the wording of the appeal. ASAP start with your psychological services. At least you have proof that you receive treatment now. I would not put a whole lot of emphasis on how your professors did not accommodate you (frankly what would have been the proper accomodation, even if you disclose your condition to them? ), but I would try to say I had an untreated issue that is treated now- proof : psychological services. Maybe you could even discuss something with your business class teacher- a retake (with a retroactive incomplete grade) or changing your grading status retroactively to pass no pass (given that you passed).

I would highly doubt that you could remedy your undergrad GPA with an online course as they are deeply discounted. This said the admission committees are often aware that in science/ engineering people get lower grades ( mind that I am not sure how low your GPA is). You would be often required to take the GRE for a masters admission and definitely for the PhD admission so it is not really a choice and it is a separate measure from your GPA. Of course if you have a low gpa you would want your gre to be as high as possible especially in math since you have an engineering degree.

you have an undergraduate degree. you do not need a field specific undergrad degree. As Cogsci suggested look into getting a masters in your preferred field.

I am not sure how school A would know about school B but I doubt they would care about a student as much as to badmouth them. There is no common information system which tells these schools where else did you get in and what did you do with the offers you got. Also I highly doubt that B would not rescind their offer. Yes it is not nice to say no to an offer that you already accepted, but I know some people who did it and had no problems with it. Besides, everyone knows that funded offer> than unfunded offer.

I would say it is better to have people who saw your work recently and maybe know where you want to be as a scholar (you wrote a political economy paper for their class etc). I am not too sure what you mean by replacing your undergrad professor would send the wrong message... even if you apply to the same schools a new committee will see your applications. even if it was the same committee they will not compare your application to the previous one. even if they did they saw more people vouching for you. and I would assume you apply to new places too... (this is not to say you cannot mention your undergrad class in your SOP if you want to ) just my 2c. In any case your circumstances may be unique with this prof for some reason (you wrote a paper with him/her etc..) so ultimately you have to decide.

Don't worry if they have submitted recommendations for you these professors have a rec of letter of you that they can update and submit. it is much easier than writing a new one (so actually you should be most worried about prof #3 (: ). I would be worried though about a recommender who last knew you 5 years ago. He cannot really say much about the person you are now. This is even more worrisome if you did an MA in the mean time... You did not take any poli sci classes in the past 5 years with professors that could address your skills? who would be excited about you ?That could be a problem...Maybe you can still take some if you are still doing your MA.

Evgeny55 " Also, don't write famous names as POI inasmuch there is very high competition for working with them, and Ivy League graduates with 4.0 GPA will always have an edge in competition for work with top professors. " Sorry but I really do not agree with this piece of advice. Political science is not a hard science with labs and all and professors do not have a student limit or a student quota. I think the departments want to know that it would make sense to take you- that you have a number of professors that you can work with etc.. Leaving out the most famous one because he/she is famous will send the reverse signal- you could not even identify the most famous, and most appropriate person in the department as a potential advisor.

I think the admission process is somewhat random. A lot of great people apply and the departments have to select somehow. People just concentrate on having the right numbers but in itself that will just get you past the initial selection process. In one cycle I got nothing (ok as you I got a department which is not ranked) in the second one I got several admissions from top tens and top 20 departments. Not a single thing changed in my numbers, I did not even change my SOP significantly except for explaining my year. What I changed: I asked a trusted professor to recommend me departments where I could be a good fit. Some of these departments were not even on my radar (and some of them were not that highly ranked but were strong in the field I wanted to pursue). I chose a different set of recommenders. They were closer to the field I wanted to pursue so they could address my capabilities there. I changed my writing sample to something really close to the things I said I wanted to pursue in grad school. (that paper was not ready when I applied first). I think my file looked much more focused at the end and the set of departments I was applying made sense for the people who read my file. My writing sample made sense. My recommenders made sense. Everyone kept asking me why did I skip their school in the previous application season. So my advice: first, you can transfer or drop out later so you might want to check out that program if they offer you funding. second, try to evaluate your application file as a whole. And do not underestimate the competition. I am surprised how many intelligent and interesting people I meet when I meet colleagues from other departments and I met on my admit weekends.

as an international student an American MA can be a good spring board if you think what may be keeping you out is your grades ( often in other countries there is less grade inflation) or recommendations. It can also help if you want to switch fields. (Do you want to switch though? I am not clear about that) Ask your professors maybe they have something in mind along these lines.

In Canada quantitative people are basically shunned. So if you chose your country/ department differently this is the other way around. OP does not want to do that. (see all the posts above)

LOL you are a very bad troll. Time of the Vietnam War and Martin Luther King Jr. Those were the times ... and that is just America. Btw have you thought about joining the army / the police / firefighters or some related field? It seems like a well respected job, great hierarchy , many respect for willing and able people, and also I am sure they needed in your town or city. I am also not seeing why you think your professors were lying when you are getting the same advice here. ... Maybe they were telling the truth but you fail to see/ accept it? (btw having meltdowns in offices is very counter productive, if you need to cry/yell do it in private and then engage in normal conversation- I was on both ends of this) also do not forget that you got the names of some universities here that may do what you want to specialize in. if you want to go down this path go read and contact the people who wrote your favorite articles (if none of them are alive you are in a bit of trouble). they will be more help for you than this forum.

1. Have you thought about applying to History departments? They do various things there which may be more interesting to you. 2. I highly doubt that your professors do not agree with your research proposal because of the methods you want to use. I am in a very quant heavy department but professors know that some undergraduates are not that quantitative and they supervise qualitative projects all the time. Maybe your idea (do not take this in the wrong way) is not that interesting? I mean you need to read a lot to get some idea where the profession is right now, maybe you have not found the edge yet. 3. If you think the issue is with the methods though, have you tried to study with a philosophy or a history professor (geography sociology depending on your interest)? Maybe that could help you assess whether your research fits to those disciplines better and even if not they may know the relevant political science literature better than your quantitatively inclined professors. Producing a writing sample in your chosen field may matter a lot during admissions.