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Thank you very much !

I am a French student and I am applying to several doctoral programs in political science. I just got my GRE scores : Verbal: 163 (93th percentile) Quantitative: 161 (86th percentile) AW : 4.0 (48th percentile) Obviously my writing is significantly worse than the other two. How much will this score hurt my chances to get accepted? Did anyone get accepted to a political science doctoral program with the same AW score? Thank you, Christian

Hello, I am planning on applying to a political science Ph.D. and I contacted several professors from different universities in order to know if my interests would fit with those of the faculties. I made sure I personalized each email by mentioning the professors' publications I found inspiring. However, the responses I have received so far are relatively concise. All of them indicate that my topic is "fine" or "interesting", without any further indication. Should I worry about my dissertation topic? Should I expect professors to openly criticize my topic if they think it is bad or does not fit with the faculty's interests? Should I stop asking professors who are specialized in the field I want to study what they think about my dissertation topic? Or am I simply reading too much into their responses? Thank you very much, Christian

Hello Everyone, I am wondering what my chances for acceptance are at the following schools for a PhD in Political Science: UPenn, Princeton, Georgetown, and University of Maryland. I am finishing my Master of Public Affairs this year at Sciences-Po Paris. I am interested in studying international relations at one of the above mentioned universities, particularly UPenn as I have personal ties to Philadelphia. My grades at Sciences-Po are a bit hard to compare to the US, but from different conversion tables I have found my Americanized GPA is around a 3.6-3.8+. I am certainly within the top 5-10% of my class here. Sciences-Po is recognized as one of the best schools in France but it is not well-ranked worldwide. My internships have included an administrative tribunal outside of Paris, and I am currently an intern at the Conseil d’Etat (US equivalent of the Supreme Court). I studied abroad for one year at UPenn. My GPA from this year was about a 3.7 (but the courses were simply indicated as pass/fail on my transcript). My letters of recommendation should be good – two are from professors at UPenn I did research for. I have yet to take the GRE’s so that is a still a ‘wildcard’ in my chances. Any advice or comments would be greatly appreciated. Thank you! Christian.