MrsPhD

Training
- To work at an international organization, I would go for the Chicago MA. Harris has great reputation. Plus, I know a lot of people working at international organizations and they are looking more of the data science, policy evaluation, etc. types. 
- An Econ MA can be a lot of theory and nothing practical. If you have not taken Micro and Macro before, it will be an uphill battle, and it is not something you can really use in practice. 
The reason why Econ MA can do policy jobs is because of their stats training. But the Harris School MA will give you a better preparation for that than any Econ MA. None of my friends working at World Bank, OECD, IMF, etc. did Econ actually.
Application
- Also, have you seen this at Chicago? https://dssg.uchicago.edu/ I know people who participated and now work at google, survey companies, etc. It would be a great connection for you.
- Nobody cares about a thesis. You should work on research with professors or help them out as an RA. You can also work on your own project for classes without having to call it "thesis".
 

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? 

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.)

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.)

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.)

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 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? 

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? 

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? 

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? 

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? 

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? 

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 doubt you have a friend that got rejected from a ton of schools, but it's definitely not because of a single B. Schools don't care ***that*** much about grades (I'm at a CHYMPS and have had multiple Bs in undergrad), and I know of people with ~3.5s who have gotten into top schools as well. His other parts of his application probably just weren't as strong as he though they were...ultimately grades are not even close to the most important thing when people make admissions decisions. 

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. 

Since you say you are responding to what I said, please allow me to respond. All I ever said was the following:
1. The GRE is a predictor of success in graduate school
2. If people disagree with this claim they have to present evidence against it
3. The supposed evidence presented in the one post I responded to did not constitute evidence
And then the conversation turned nasty. 
Now, one thing I did not say a word about is how adcoms actually admit students - because it is an entirely separate question. I clearly have no idea what goes on in the minds of people who admit and deny students, and I never claimed that I did. All I said was that higher GRE scores correlate with better performance in graduate school and this still seems very hard to deny.
Consider the admission statistics for UCSD (and virtually every outstanding program will show something similar):
https://polisci.ucsd.edu/grad/prospective-students/admissions-statistics.html
It's clearly a top-program that admits students with very high GRE scores. How can this be?
Either
1. All applicants have high GRE scores such that students are surely not admitted because of their GRE scores. Or
2. The admission committee selects students on the basis of high GRE scores. Or
3. The admission committee selects whoever is deemed most capable or better suited for the department.
It's clear that 1 is false; there is a ton of variability in GRE scores and clearly not everyone can be in the 90th percentile of the verbal portion of the test for example. I think 2 is probably true for some programs. It is at least true that there are some places that use the GRE to distinguish between otherwise similar candidates. 3 is - in my view - most likely to be true. Adcoms select the overall best students (most likely to succeed) and they happen to have higher GRE scores on average. And this is my point: GRE scores correlate with performance. At the very least one cannot deny that higher GRE scores correlate with a higher probability of admission to top program. That is what these admission stats show.
Now, @PolPsychGal11 you say both of the following
In effect, it sounds like you are saying that when it is hard to evaluate a candidate's credentials, adcoms do in fact look at and take the GRE seriously. But if the GRE does not predict success (per your first statement above) why would anyone consider the GREs at all? i.e. how would it help to discriminate among certain international applicants? It sounds to me as if you think that the GRE does in fact correlate with success in grad school (or at least that adcoms do consider GRE scores) but when students can demonstrate their potential in other ways, adcoms tend to look at those other things. Or am I getting something wrong? Either way, this is exactly my point: GRE scores do correlate with grad school success, which is why you and I agree that @sbidyanta should keep his/her hopes up!
Just to be clear: do not mean any of what I say above in a combative manner. I am simply very interested in this stuff.

I lurk here occasionally, and am weighing in on this because I think this is a perfect example of how prospective and current grad students often have no clue what actually happens in faculty meetings and with ad comms. I've served on admissions committees at two different R1s. In each case, we didn't give one shit about the GRE. The GRE is not predictive of your success in graduate school (much as the SAT is a poor evaluator of college success). What we care about is your past research experience, letters, and whether you fit with our program/whoever is taking students that year. Just as the SAT is a better predictor of socioeconomic class than it is of college success, the only people that care about the GRE are administrators at the Graduate College. In cases where we want to admit someone with a low GRE, we have to fill out paperwork (the extent of paperwork varies) justifying why we are taking a person with a low score. The GRE is one of those administrative hoops that we all have to deal with, but that people who are actually involved with teaching graduate students think is burdensome and useless. The GRE is not predictive of grad school success, and is a better indicator of socioeconomic status and undergraduate institution (which are also correlated) than anything else. Don't get yourselves worked up over GRE scores or if/how they matter. From the inside: we honestly don't care.
 

Virtually all of this research has a selection problem and is (mathematically) biased and causally useless. Additionally, while polisci encompasses both ends of the verbal-math spectrum with theorists on one side and methodologists on the other, the modal student studies CP and needs to be well-balanced in both being able to comprehend words and understand math. These are non-negotiable skills. This is in contrast to fields where a lot of this "empirical research" on the GRE has been conducted on -- mainly science -- where practical lab work, coding, grant writing, actual science knowledge are obviously more important than reading and math. 

All respect but this is a small example indeed....How is this evidence of cultural bias? Baseball is played in many parts of the world, with huge followings in Latin America and Asia......In any case you don't really need to know what a "run" is or how one is scored, or what happens when the catcher drops the third strike, or really anything about baseball at all to figure out how many runs are scored per game on average, or whatever the question asks you to do statistically. They could ask a question about cricket, would it really matter? Would that really disadvantage American students who have never seen a cricket match in their lives or might they intuit the nature of the statistical problem in spite of this?
 
I do feel somewhat responsible for broaching the GRE question, but mine was really an "is it important" not "should it be important" question....Bottom line is this question will never have a true and final answer....I'm sure there are studies which "prove" and "disprove" the importance and predictive power of the test. Until they can hook up applicants to some sort of brain scan which perfectly analyzes their academic future we'll likely have to rely on such imperfect measures as the GRE.
 
 
 
 

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. 

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. 

I don't have a lot to offer on the substantive discussion on the GRE as I am not informed on the literature nor the larger discussion but in my experience, the GRE at home is more stringent than the test center. When I was taking it at home, the proctor made the environment very uneasy for me. At one point he randomly took control of my screen without informing me, saying he couldn't see my video while precious test time was running out (I lowkey still blame my less than desirable score on that cuz it kind of threw me off tempo afterwards too). He also kept talking to me saying I should do this and that while I was working on the test and that, in my experience, doesn't happen too often in test centers. One of my friends had his test cancelled after the fact with the proctor citing that my friend went away from his screen mid test. My friend claims he got permission to go to the bathroom that but that didn't matter at the end. 

Also, in a more general observation, I think cheating on the GRE is kind of counterintuitive as you simply don't have the time to do so. There might be strategic ways to reduce the time spent googling stuff or checking notes but chances are there won't be enough time at the end. 

I'm willing to accept this.
It certainly is unfair that students with more financial leverage can take the exam several times and those without cannot. But this is not really a fault of the test but that people do not have the same access to it (which is still a problem).
It does not constitute evidence that you can cite a professor or two who says this. There is absolutely no doubt that higher scores on the GRE correlate with ability. Again, it may not be a perfect measure, but the GRE together with other elements of the application gives a pretty good picture of the student.
Explain to me how the test is culturally biased. Is it that questions are asked in a way that is easier to understand for certain groups of people? You must be implying that the test does not really measure the potential of students such that those who the test is biased against actually do better than the biased test predicts when then go to graduate school. But there is no evidence of this; the GRE predicts extremely well how students do in their grad programs so it's hard to see how it could be culturally biased. Students with low score do worse than students with high scores. I am still not saying that the GRE is the only thing that matters. I'm only saying that it predicts performance and it does.

Shouldn't you ask that to them?