MrsPhD

You can ask current students. When I was in grad school, the DGS had sent us an email asking how much we spent on rent (and whether they shared, where they lived), to create some cost estimates for accepted students. (I was not in DC. What I'm saying it's better to just ask SEVERAL students there and it's a common question.)

Try waybackmachine https://archive.org/web/

Having two supervisors can potentially give you 2 good letters of recommendation here, while having one will give you just one letter. However, the personality and interest of the professors also plays a part there, so it depends on who they are and you can try to schedule a short conversation with them or write them an email or talk to their former/current students about their experience. Talk to current students and try to figure out where the graduates of each program ended up. Also, even though you have scholarships, really check how much it costs to live in both cities and what's included. Both are really expensive.

Look at professors that will teach the classes you are teaching at both programs and also those you could work with on a thesis. Those are the ones who will write letters of recommendation for you. That's what matters. Do they publish? Do they have any connections to US Institutions? Also, do they offer any methods classes? You have no quant knowledge at all (from bachelor) so at least you need an intro class to quantitative methods.

You could look into getting experience on survey research. Many of those positions are remote. For psych, you'll be doing surveys, working with surveys, and doing survey experiments, so hands-on experience on survey research would be good. By this I mean, YouGov, NORC, or any company/agency running surveys. You can also look for one year research positions for people wanting to do PhDs. I know MIT had one. There are several around if you sign up for the polmeth list serv, they usually get posted there. Those would start August 2022, so you would not have a problem with your lease; you'll need something for the time in between.

You mean to accept a department? You should look at potential mentors/advisors and look at the placement of their students (students who directly worked with those people). You should also look at the placement of the department but focus on the placement for those in your field. Some departments place better in one field and then place nobody in another field. You should also take into consideration the % that got a job. Many department post the 2 people that got TT jobs but that's different if their cohort is 4 people versus 20 people. Then there are other stuff to consider, like mentoring style of potential advisors; do faculty coauthor with students?; will funding be enough?; do they make you be TA a lot or do they have time in which you don't have to TA/RA and only study?

There are different ways in which admissions work. In some cases, there is a committee that makes all of the decisions. Sometimes they ask for feedback, on the final list, but that's it. That seems to be the case here, or she said that to be polite.

I don't think the GPA is a problem. Grades in the US are inflated. Grades in other countries work differently and I've seen many places that, if grading is from 1 to 10, nobody gets a 10 or even a 9 at times. If you think this is the case, your professors for the Masters should be writing that you were in the 1% of the class or the 5% or 10% of all the students they've had... things like that. They can also explain things for their own class like, so and so got X in my class and although it could seem low by US standards, it was in the top X% of the class. Your GPA from undergrad shows that as well. You got some awards and your GPA is not good *by US standard*. But again, US grades are way overinflated. Don't put your GPA on your resume. I think you have good chances with the information provided. I'd check programs that are more quant focused. Your skills are a plus.

Several people here, including me, have said a lot of times that GRE score is not a good predictor of success in graduate school and there is not a strong causal link and yet, you keep saying that there is a correlation. You also say that WE should provide citations. You can make a simple google scholar search. Why don't YOU provide a literature review on your case, though? Your counter-argument is that we should provide the evidence rather than you? You are the type of person that just wants to be right for the sake of being right. I can already tell you that this is a bad attitude, particularly for graduate school. The discipline is moving to co-authorship and if you are like this, you are going to alienate all of the other graduate students, who are your pool of coauthors. Have you even been in committee for deciding grad applications? Because I have.

Some of the math questions have examples about baseball or stuff like that. That is just a small example of how it's problematic. This is wrong. There's a a lot of empirical research on how GRE does not correlate with success or ability.

I'd start by looking into scholarships for European universities. Doing a masters first would serve you well and Europe has a much longer tradition for these interests, particularly in the UK and France. It's usually called History of Ideas or political ideas. Your interests seem to be in Europe. I don't think that applying to a political science PhD right now would be a good idea. You wouldn't be able to take classes that give you the background you need. After doing a Masters you'll have a clearer idea of what you want to focus on and you'd have the background. If you don't want to do the Masters route and just want to do the US PhD one, then I'd recommend looking into history and if there's one that has a tradition of political history for the specific period you are interested in and if it has professors studying labor.

What do you want to do as a subfield? If you can connect your experience and skills to what you want to do, then maybe you can build a good portfolio. What I'm seeing is that your undergrad was 10 years ago, your graduate program is not relevant for the PhD, and you don't have research experience. The positives are that your writing is should be great, and that's something you can emphasize.

If you are not from the US (you say India), you need to apply to more private universities. UC Irvine typically does not fund foreign students because they are much more expensive than US students. Public universities charge more for tuition to foreigners, which means that if a program gives you a scholarship, you are much more expensive than an American. I don't imagine University of Cincinnati, Kansas University, have good funding. It's difficult to say anything about admissions because what matters is fit and research interests. You also have no research experience which makes your profile kind of weak. I'd recommend looking for scholarships to pursue masters and then apply to PhD. You can look into any scholarship that gives you the opportunity of doing a Masters in Europe or the US or Canada.

Are you interested in a region in particular? I think you are missing some strong programs in CP that you could apply that are higher than UT Austin/Northwestern but a bit lower than Harvard. Don't get me wrong, apply to Harvard/Yale/Stanford, but there is a LOT between those and UT Austin. Stonybrook is great in Behavior, but do they have someone in comparative?

You cannot transfer. You have to apply to other programs and start as a first year student again. It's perfectly doable and several people do it. 1. You might be able to get a good recommendation letter from someone there. I'd try to have at least one from this program. 2. Work on explaining what you want to do in terms of research and improve your materials. You'll need a very good cover letter and research statement. Avoid the sad stories and anecdotes about your life if you put any. I don't know why people put those. If you are reapplying and move to a better fit/better program, then you need to show that you got some skills/did something/did well. 3. On your advisor, it's also a pandemic, so someone not being not available right now it's hard to gauge. I'd recommend getting in touch with other students this advisor has currently. Talk to them. If there is someone who graduated recently, talk to them as well.