AuldReekie

Cooperstreet is right, I sent scores last year, but didn't apply and I emailed them all recently. Very mixed results, plenty of schools had them, but a fair number did not. I'd say the split was 70/30 ok/resend.

I can offer no advice on whether it is a 'rising' program, but if you're not sure whether the program fits your interest it shouldn't matter yet. Does the faculty and program allow you to pursue your research interests, or topics you could imagine yourself working on in the future? That's the question you need to answer first

Little I can say personally, but here's a wee overview of some things by Drezner: http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/03/18/so_you_want_to_get_into_a_political_science_phd_program_part_one

You might make that magic connection, but the majority of faculty are not on the adcom, so I wouldn't worry too much if you've not contacted anyone.

In Britain you generally do contact, but that's because the whole process is shorter and you sign up with your advisor from day 1.

I'm applying to ~10, this is after discussions with some of my Professors and the odd piece of online advice such as this from Nuno Monteiro. We're all different, but I would certainly apply to more than two... given the wide range of factors that can influence their decisions I wouldn't risk it! http://www.nunomonte...grad-admissions

Eugh.. I'll do my best not to apply to any here .

What area are you looking at? It's highly respected for its 'War Studies' department in particular.

How are we all doing? Must admit I've not taken the GRE yet, but have found it a struggle getting used to the quant side. Offhand I recognize a few of those schools for those areas. If you've combed through faculty pages & course offerings you'll know better than most of us

I don't think anyone can give a definitive answer, but I have found looking through these helpful.

Unfortunately not really.. For UK/EU students there are research council scholarships which fund tuition and living costs. My old university would merely hire PhD students on an ad-hoc basis to take tutorials and discussion sessions. You're going to need to keep an eye out for largely university based scholarships such as Oxford's Clarendon Fund. Keep a look out on www.jobs.ac.uk which will sometimes include university funded scholarships open to all. Even for UK students the outlook is pretty grim, a big reason behing personally looking to the US

Isn't that perhaps not the best way of looking at the GRE? It's not an intelligence test and with enough preparation should be a largely teachable skill. If you have enough time to study for it then I don't think you should limit yourself bad upon what you'd get in a practice test without any prep.

Quiet isn't it? Looking at the GRE scores I guess there is no harm in taking them again, though it is probably unlikely to have a great effect? Just spent the last three days at the BISA-ISA conference in Edinburgh and it was great . I wasn't presenting, but there were so many intelligent and helpful people at every turn Most entertaining session had to be the panel involving Vasquez, Jackson and Sterling-Folker (to name a few), bit of a ding-dong over pluralism in IR Theory. It was more interesting than it sounds! Suffice to say I did enjoy the 'unemployed wannabe grad student' discount you can wangle from publishers..

Phew. Got a scholarship for a summer course in regression analysis and maths taught by US professors in Essex . Could help my relatively poor background in Math?

Perhaps try this forum? http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=100 May have more lucky there.

Scottish degrees at the Ancient universities are four years and you graduate with an MA(Hons.). They're of no higher quality than BAs from English universities. In my own limited experience I would say I've had a better chance at expanding my subject specific knowledge here. I studied abroad at a liberal arts college for a semester and I much prefer being able to dedicate myself to my topic as I can here.

To be frank for a taught Masters degree there is little or no funding. Your friends university may offer specific scholarships, but that is probably the only source of funding available..

Funding? If not I'd it would probably be best to look at your applications, figure out what can be improved and have another shot this fall.

I certainly became too close to 'real' politics last year, most my class mates barely understood there was a Scottish election on.. So I'm nice to them now and don't mention local politics

I'm going the other way precisely because the funding is so awful. A few things.. You will need a well developed and implementable research proposal. More so than for a US program. The above post is correct, ESRC and AHRC scholarships are UK/EU only. There are scholarships at other universities though. Look at jobs.ac.uk, here's an example http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AEC140/phd-studentship-in-political-science/ More funding is available if you are willing to write proposals to projects being undertaken by the university. Though the website is pretty sparse at the moment http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AEC140/phd-studentship-in-political-science/ [*]You will probably less employable if you intend to teach and research in the US. Personally I'm going to apply to 10+ US programs and only a couple in the UK. I wish you all the best of luck!