kaykaykay

you can ask the school. some want the best scores some want the latest scores on the application (but they have the entire list)

"Although Poli Sci is not law, I do feel as if there's some overlap." I honestly try but I can't follow you. If you want to go to law school go to law school. There is no need wasting your time in grad school doing poli sci. you will be happy later that you are still young. alternatively take a year off and get one of those fly around the world airplane tickets.

I just wanted to suggest Toronto. They have some serious people who study consociationalism (well it is Canada after all) and they do not ask for GRE scores.

^^ While the advice is good - usual cautions apply... Some of the Canadian MA programs are one year long and you do not get to work closely with the faculty..Also some of the programs are very qualitatively oriented so they may not help to prove that you can do the math side of political science if you are interested in that. As with any other MA programs- research thoroughly where the students ended up and if you would like to go there yourself.

Well mass emailing unknown people is always a bad idea. Imagine if you were a prof and your mailbox would be flooded by unknown students' emails who are trying to arrange carpools. Also if you have asked probably the head of center B could have helped you. Look in my experience -you are what you are: an incoming grad student. You are not the primary interest of these people right now. People probably were not happy with your letter and thought that you were impolite . You should apologize to the director write him that you understand and that you are sorry that you caused inconvenience for all the other people. Apologize some more when you next see him if you (only if you) think he still remembers but I think most of the people will forget this episode quite fast.

oh gosh I almost forgot about my absolute favorite: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Programs will encourage all eligible students to apply because they want to have a big pool to select from. That's said the application process is very competetive and the school never knows who will be your competition, so there is no way they can tell you whether they will be able to admit you or not.A person with your profile may have gotten in last year, but not this year. You don't even know whether you were close to admission or not this year. However as you got a pile of rejections probably you have some weakness in your application (maybe not your grades!) that you should think about if you want to reapply.

The readers will be confused if you get a bad recommendation, which may not be your case. Ask your professor directly whether he could give you a strong letter despite the B. Some professors do and explain as you did that the curve was harsh and you did quite well. But some professors give good recommendation letters only to students who got an A.

pride and prejudice BBC version. I am not sure if you take it as a movie. BBC adoptions are all great.

Scores muct be valid till after the application deadline. If you are in doubt you should ask the schools directly though.

yes tuition+TAship but I did not have summers. It did not come up during the application process . I got better funding when I transfered but it was because I had some good acceptances at hand.

"boring people won't realize that you are tattooed and just like them and that the tattoo has no bearing on your ability to perform a certain job.. " oh gosh I guess I could mix it up and go in my swimsuit to teach. All the boring people would realize that a having no shirt on has no beaing on my ability to perform a certain job. You should not judge people if they expect you to go by the dress code.Also this is the first place where I hear that there is a discrimination against beards. I have a lot of professional bearded acquaintances.

I transferred after my first year (I applied just after a few months). I did not ask for recommendation from my program and I did not tell anyone there. I was just a very bad fit for the program so it was fairly easy to explain my situation in my appliction and for my recommenders. I guess this was a special case though.

If it is really what you want to contact the rejected school ASAP. If they ok it (which happens) you can ask for a release from the other school. I met people who did it (closer to the deadline but still) and lived to tell the tale. It is not an ideal situation of course but it happens.

Pretty much. But of course there are exceptions and there is a Canadian academic job market too.

" What my professor was trying to convey is the fact that foreign students are blessed in the fact that their countries/families/businesses back them 100% financially. This, in turn, allows schools to admit students into their classes and not have to spend a dime. " All the foreign students that the university takes with money will not ruin your chances at all because they are not competing for your spot!, if they do not cost for the university they are extra to the class size. On the other hand if foreign students do not come with their own money cost more for public universities than American students= it is HARDER for them to get in. I am a foreign student and I am not "blessed" with any of the stuff you list, and it was harder for me to get in and I was competing for one of the actual fully funded spots. You can be angry or whatever with me or someone like me but not with the funded foreign students. BUT Jesus, where do you live? 98% of the scholarships are for American nationals only and American students can take out loans/ work part time while in school (not us!). YOU should look around for a scholarship and apply to universities with your own money!!!! It is much easier for you than for foreign students. Be proactive!

I was afraid of this until one of my professors told me that if he agreed to write a recommendation letter for a student he would adjust/resend it as many times they needed it without any thought. I realized it might be actually less bothersome for everyone to ask 1 prof for 15 letters than 15 profs for one letter each.Writing recommendation letters is not the primary job of a professor , but once they put all the time and energy into writing your letter they can probably tailor it to your various applications quite easily. I would only worry that the place where you apply next would want to have some fresher recommendation. Just try to get some fresh ones too if you can...

I just got Barrons key for TOEFL IBT book, an went through it. If you think you need more there are bigger books out there. Also for vocabulary there are a number of books with TOEFL, SAT, GRE words. I liked the approach of (haha again) Barron's 1100 words you need to know. Good luck!

Have you thought about European or Canadaian universities?I have the feeling that they are much closer in their approach to politics and IR to you than most American departments.

This may theoretically be the case but you never know. I transferred and informally I was told that it would be a counterproductive to transfer credits, as I would lose the chance to have a personal connection to profs if i do not take their classes. of course this depends on the field. But the thing is that your advisor in the worst case scenario can only delay your graduation so you will have your credits whenever it goes through. Don't get obsessed with the problem to the point that you harm yourself in your new place as well. This community is pretty small, again try to play it as nice as possible. Transfers happen quite often your chair will know it, your professor knows it. And they can't keep you there.

1. I would talk to the chair of graduate studies ASAP. tell them that your interests have changed so you want to leave and ask for help. I would not say anything about the quality of the program. try to play it as nice as possible, you are heading out and you won already. If there are you can mention personal reasons etc... 2. probably your new university will not care a bit whether you graduated or not from this place. so worst comes to worst move on and defend later.

Sorry I might have been too bold with the quantitative skills. But in general your appplication should be targeted towards politcal scientists.

you need to prove that you can do quantitative research apart from your demonstrated qualitative research skills and you need to have recommendations which can speak to your political science research abilities. Just be aware that getting admitted to a poli sci phd maybe even more difficult than getting admitted to a history PhD but as far as I know the job prospects are somewhat better.

Well if you really cannot improve your GRE score (although you may want to try one of the GRE courses because they give back your money if you do not do better so you can't lose anything) you may want to try Canada. Uof T has some excellent scholars who are working on constitutional design so it may be the place for you. eg. David Cameron http://politics.utor...tlight/cameron/,

you have to work on both your verbal and quant GRE scores. It is doable and this is coming from a non native speaker of English. You just have to spend a lot of hours next to the parctice books . Also here your writing style seems to be very heavy full of unnecessary passive voice, but I guess you write very differently in your SOP, right? good luck!