foosh

All admitted students are guaranteed 5 years of funding through fellowships and teaching/research assistantships. This includes fee remission (i.e. tuition is paid for you) and a stipend (~1800/mo for the average student). This differs from other programs, where a few students will receive funded slots, and the remaining will need to pay for themselves unless a funded slot opens up.

UC Davis is not hiring two more faculty. They hired one senior faculty, Matthew Shugart, from UCSD. The keyword here is quantitative. UCD has a very rigorous methods sequence that everyone (including theorists) must take during the first year. It is tough, and students have dropped out in the past because they couldn't handle it. You are encouraged to cut across the traditional subfields in your research. American politics is very strong (nationally ranked in the top 20) and comparative politics will be comparable in the next few years (if it isn't already). Generally the subfield pairings are american/methods, comparative/methods, or comparative/IR, although you are welcome to choose your own combination.

When is a free trip not worth it?

They want somebody with good GRE scores AND good ideas.

If you're aiming for a top-25 you want to break 700 because IR programs are shifting quantitative.

Rochester is good at training formal theorists, but not much else.

Since you're looking at schools in the UW range, take a look at UC Davis as well. In social networks and political communication, they have Bob Huckfeldt, Zeev Maoz, and Amber Boydstun. Lance Bennett is solid if you get into UW.

UC Davis is top 20 for American Politics and top 25 overall...given that the OP specified a top 20 school, it seems perfectly reasonable to include it on the list.

I can't emphasize how wrong this post is. I had well below a 2.7 and got into two top-25 schools both with fellowships and guaranteed funding for 5 years. Your personal statements and GRE scores go a long way in compensating for a bad GPA.

They have selected all students for admission and for the wait-list AFAIK. The acceptance rate was 5%.

Law school is not academia. Being a law professor is academia. Law school is a vocational school where lawyers train to become professionals.

I had well under a 2.7 and got into two top-25 schools straight out of undergrad. Never underestimate your statement of purpose, writing samples, and choosing good recommenders.

Agreed. I also haven't taken any political science courses but was admitted to 2 top-25 programs. The general consensus from professors I've talked to is that a ) graduate school curriculum is vastly different from undergrad and b ) if you're committed you'll have no trouble adapting.

Apparently you lack the ability to scroll up and read. This explains a lot. Yes, a professor teaching public law is teaching a subset of political theory. However, that does not mean they can comprehensively teach political theory; there is a big difference.

Yes, you are mistaken. You are thinking of law student curriculum, not political science curriculum. I believe this highlights why we must ask for your merits, because you seem to have a terrible misunderstanding of both law and political science. I already addressed this above. There are three reasons, and none of them include "just because they have a JD."