kaykaykay

I always finished my SOPs with: Thank you for your time and consideration. I think actually my adviser suggested that, but I found it to be neat and respectful. Also I have seen essays which got people into very respectful places that were twice as long as allowed. Not that I am suggesting you should do anything like that but I think you can easily add a few words.

I hope someone will answer the substantive questions. But as I see it you narrowed down your choices to 3 or 4 , why not apply to all and see how it goes? While getting into a master's program is easier than a PhD partly because it is expensive, you may want to apply more than one place. You could evaluate your options when you get your offers.

I think it may be useful to ask about : placement records, completition rates and time to graduate, training (methods- qualitative, quantitative take your pick ) , requirements, substansive classes, incoming class size and funding, summer funding, dissertation completion funding, whether the people who you want to work with are available and will be available for 5 more years(with possible options to fall back on if a person drops out for some unforseeable reason), interdepartmental connections -if you need training in econ, sociology, geography etc... Just my 2 cents.
sorry I realize that you may all think about asking these questions.. well.. just in case.

I think it may be useful to ask about : placement records, completition rates and time to graduate, training (methods- qualitative, quantitative take your pick ) , requirements, substansive classes, incoming class size and funding, summer funding, dissertation completion funding, whether the people who you want to work with are available and will be available for 5 more years(with possible options to fall back on if a person drops out for some unforseeable reason), interdepartmental connections -if you need training in econ, sociology, geography etc... Just my 2 cents.
sorry I realize that you may all think about asking these questions.. well.. just in case.

hypotheser stop embarrassing yourself. You are a horrible troll. No people do not get "brownie points" for being in a minority in grad applications. Your suggested idea of "brownie points" is really showing your disrespect though for all the people who struggle with real disadvantages in their lives.
And yes you should write about your hairy armpit in your essay or you can write about your intelligence or sense of empathy because one of these two is seriously lacking from you which is a rarity at Stanford.

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.

1. start to prepare for your GRE-s and take them. They matter even more for foreigners than for American students. Without that it is really hard to see whether you have a good profile or not. Just by the grades you really cannot evaluate your profile.
2. make sure you have good LOR-s related to your proposed field of study.
3. make sure that you have a good writing sample related to your proposed field of study.
4. make sure you have a good fit to the universities that you apply to, do not just choose top 10 bc they are top 10 (also try to add safeties)
Do not worry about how grades look like. You cannot do anything about that. Universities have seen a lot, just follow what they tell you to do with them, they will use the conversion rate they want. Especially German grades should not be an issue, I am pretty sure they have GErman applicants every year.  You have to include all your grades. In your application discuss what you did and not what you did not do.
 
 

I chose my advisor, worked with other professors. I am really not sure why you discuss these issues without any knowledge about them, each and every one of your guesses are wrong. I just said that the MA is better than in the US, I do not think the PhD is better but then again, I think it is comparable to many countries

!. 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.

That doesn't answer your question, but honestly, why would you enter a PhD program knowing that you will drop out? And even more so to transfer to UH Manoa or Idaho? I think any public university in Belgium offers a way better level of instruction and research.

Yale is over. I liked that they apparently sent all responses at once. Nice.
Now I am just waiting for the last confirmations for rejections from Columbia, Harvard and Georgetown. It is only a matter of time, really.
I'll be here next cycle, ladies and gentlemen. I expect and will work towards a happier ending for me. Never give up!
I am very happy for everyone who got admitted and extend my sympathies to those that have got an outcome like mine.
I think I will not post in this thread anymore, nor read it. If any of you need me for some reason, feel free to PM me.
Thanks a lot, everybody.

Congrats on getting into those schools! That's a huge achievement. I think you should visit all three, talk with the faculty, and get a feel for each place. If you end up not being able to decide from that, take a look at placement record for people in your subfield. If you still can't decide, then use a random number generator, assign a number to eachs school, and see what it picks. Either you'll find that you're okay with the option that it chose, or you'll find that you wish it chose a different school. In the latter case, choose that different school.

Obviously a personal decision that you'll need to make, but it may be worthwhile to reach out to your past advisers, letter writers, and professors and see what they think. I've always received great advice this way.

I take issue with the tone of the original poster, not the importance of past placement.

With such a GPA, it is hard to get into a reputable master program. So even though you ace all your master classes, it would still be hard for you to gain a lot of credentials simply because your undergrad GPA is too low and the master program is not as reputable as, say CIR (Chicago) or Jackson (Yale).
A good strategy is to get your Ph.D. from a relatively low-ranked DC school so that the department won't care too much about your undergrad GPA and you can have the network to get a great job from government/NGO instead of academia with your degree once you graduate.

As a foreigner I have to say that is probably not the reason. If you have any doubt look through the current grad student list there will be plenty of international students. And i would recommend if you are still at that school talk to people right now till they do not forget your application. I did not make it in one application cycle either and I managed to talk to some people so I knew how to adjust my application for the next year (by the way the problem was fit as BFB suggested). Also be careful when your POI is an assistant professor., ask around whether they are taking students. Good luck! And this cycle is not over so who knows...

If you got rejected by your undergraduate institution maybe you can get some insider info as to the "why " part from the commitee members directly or via your recommenders. Maybe they will have an idea how to strengthen your file.

At first, congratulation on your admission. In my view, I think that it's worth explaining. First, it is your top choice; second, even if they do not accept any changes, you have tried every thing you can do. Just one email and you can have a clear direction of what to do next. Good luck!

LaCour scandal would have 0.0001% effect on a prospie, FWIW.

You make GRE sound so formidable... 3 hours/day for 1 month should be sufficient for one to hit that 325/330 threshold (assuming one reads intensely and critically throughout her four years in college), without any prep courses. Hitting 330 is not that hard; it really isn't... What I get from this thread is that people are "devilizing" or under-emphasizing GRE a little bit, which can be misleading and problematic to prospective students when they read this thread next year. 
However, I do respect your opinions. Congrats on your NU offer and good luck with your other applications! 

In the past I studied significantly more than that and had a lot of trouble reaching 320, let alone 330. I mean, 330 is approximately 165/165, that means you are hitting the top 90 percentile in both categories (which means that for every 100 takers, you did as well or better than 90 of them in both math and verbal)...to say 'it's not that hard' is completely false. 
Honestly, on this board I see more of the other phenomena...people way overstate the importance of the GRE for Ph.D. applications. The simple fact is this:
YES, committees use GRE as an important cut-off measure. YES, you could potentially get axed against similar candidates because of a relatively poor GRE score. HOWEVER, the GRE has extremely diminishing returns for your acceptance...once you reach the later stages of the review process, the more important factors that give the reviewers more information such as writing samples, LOR, SOP, and research experience matter significantly more for if you get in or not.
You do not need stellar GRE scores to get into top programs (even top 5 programs). Don't believe me? Go through the results section...people get into places like Yale and Princeton with scores throughout the 150-160 range in math. And this isn't some random thing either, there are dozens people who get in with these scores (even as low as 148-153) every cycle.
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Bottom line is get as good of a score as possible. Preferably 160/160+, but it you don't that doesn't mean you are doomed, especially if you have an otherwise very strong application. 

It's not really that surprising, Brown does not have a very good Ph.D. political science program. It's a pretty small faculty and their placement rate is quite poor.

applying to only two schools is a huge risk. The positive answer seems to be quite encouraging though.

International students are not considered ethnic minorities no matter what ethnicity they are in the US. ( African students from Africa do not add to the diversity in my department). I think the consideration is about historically disadvantaged groups to which international students do not belong.

I wouldn't mention specific works by any of them. You could say something like, "There are multiple faculty with whom I could work, including A, B, C, and D, given our overlapping interests in X, Y, and Z." If you keep it to one or two sentences where you're listing names, it should be fine.