tennis12

Thanks - with this blemish on my record, do I still have a shot at the top quant departments? Or what would be some good target departments with this in mind?

Hi all, I'm an Applied Math major at an Ivy League university. I love math, hence the major, but want to do quantitative research in political science - I'm very interested in pursuing a political science PhD (American with quant methods), and I hope you can give me some advice. Because of my major's requirements, I've taken the "harder" sequence of statistics (probability, theoretical stat, stat analysis) and have gotten two B's and a B- in those courses. While I know I could/should have done better, I can't change anything now. I've gotten mostly high grades in my other quant classes and A's in the political science classes I've taken, but I'm very worried about those stat grades, since I've heard political science admission committees really look at your stat classes. Next semester, I'm planning on taking the grad-level methods class (political science dept). If I get an A/A- in that class, would that "offset" my low stat grades, or would it still not convince admission committees, especially since I'm hoping to focus on methods work in grad school? And how would ad coms see this differently across differently ranked schools? Am I doomed because of my low stat grades? Is there anything I can do to "fix" this? (And just as a sidenote, even though I'm a non-polisci major, I do have a "demonstrated interest" in political science through research and classes.) Thanks!