polisci1

By the way: UCLA tends to give a low initial offer and then negotiate a lot with the funding - if you have other offers to leverage you can get a pretty big increase on your offer from them!

I would highly recommend looking into Chicago’s one-year MA programs (CIR for IR and comparative, MAPSS for American). They often offer scholarships, and have excellent PhD placement. A lot of people who did MAPSS or CIR and then re-applied for PhDs are now at top 10 or top 20 programs. They’re probably two of the only masters programs in the US that are tailored to people on the PhD-track, and are close to PhD level coursework and research.
RAing for professors is also definitely a good idea, and could help you get better letters. 

I would highly recommend looking into Chicago’s one-year MA programs (CIR for IR and comparative, MAPSS for American). They often offer scholarships, and have excellent PhD placement. A lot of people who did MAPSS or CIR and then re-applied for PhDs are now at top 10 or top 20 programs. They’re probably two of the only masters programs in the US that are tailored to people on the PhD-track, and are close to PhD level coursework and research.
RAing for professors is also definitely a good idea, and could help you get better letters. 

If you do get into CIR or MAPSS and the funding isn’t enough to justify it for you, I would recommend asking them for money! They do take those requests and can give more funding. And in my experience they are fairly generous, offering many people 1/2, 2/3, or (in some, rarer cases) full funding. The PhD placement is great and it’s very good training.

If you do get into CIR or MAPSS and the funding isn’t enough to justify it for you, I would recommend asking them for money! They do take those requests and can give more funding. And in my experience they are fairly generous, offering many people 1/2, 2/3, or (in some, rarer cases) full funding. The PhD placement is great and it’s very good training.

Last cycle was unsuccessful for me. I ended up taking a gap year and am currently working on a research paper independently and submitted it to present at conference. Also, I studied and retook the GRE, since I knew it could stand to improve that, and doing some intensive sorting of schools to apply to the next round. Trying to get work failed for me as well, even with a Master's in hand, but luckily my spouse was able to support me focusing on improving me applications. Things worked out this year to be accepted to multiple programs, so I guess something in there worked. My suggestion is to soul search on what you need to do and get creative on ways to do research.