natofone

To be fair, I didn't say troll. I do find his/her jokes to be generally amusing...

Here is what some of the school websites say: Stanford http://politicalscience.stanford.edu/grad_faq.html MIT http://web.mit.edu/polisci/grad/faq.html Columbia http://www.columbia.edu/cu/polisci/grad/main/admissions/index.html Duke http://www.poli.duke.edu/grad/admission.html Yale http://www.yale.edu/polisci/resources/docs/AdmissionsFAQ.pdf Berkeley http://polisci.berkeley.edu/grad/applying/faq/ Averages (from school websites): Duke 694V, 693Q UCSD 710/14V, 745/78Q, 4.5/1.29AW Michigan 667V, 729Q, 6.0AW Wisconsin 681V, 747Q, 5.5AW George Wash 670V, 720Q, 5.1AW Minnesota 661V, 687Q, 5.2AW Chicago 638V, 698Q, 4.85AW UWashington 634V, 703Q Virginia 685V, 727Q Georgetown 674.55V, 726Q, 5.39AW

I wouldn't worry about the GRE as much because you applied for theory and a 680V is still relatively high.

It will be evident. You just need to establish that you know what political science is, you understand what a social science question is, and you grasp some of the mechanisms through which political scientists conduct research.

Very convincing, I wouldn't worry about that element given that you can demonstrate a command of the literature that you intend to contribute to. (in your statement and choice of schools).

I can't speak to which schools you should be applying to, but I would try to ensconce yourself into one of the primary literatures within political science, and then apply to the places where people work on these topics. This way you will: A. know the literature better, B. be able to apply to the correct places, and C. craft your personal statement around this literature. A good place to start is with reading lists from syllabi of pertinent courses (off the top of my head, I know that Humphreys at Columbia and Simpser at Chicago teach on these topics). You're going to run into the problem that many of the scholars on these syllabi will be economists. Competitiveness is a tricky question. Your GRE is fine, but your undergrad GPA is relatively low (similar to mine) for the top schools. I don't know if law school GPA is considered equivalent to MA GPAs, but that seems low - no? The best way to make yourself more competitive at this point is to write a great personal statement.

We need an iphone app!

Obviously the OP should go wherever she/he wants, but it doesn't seem like the OP has that figured out yet at this point. Hence this thread... If the OP is only interested in an academic career, then he/she should be very concerned about rate and quality of placement. Here is some information on placement rates: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~chingos/rankings_paper.pdf Based on this, and looking briefly at school websites, Penn State and Boston College seem to place very well. Rutgers places at a relatively high rate, but I couldn't find the individual placements. Some schools (GW) have several academic placements per year, but they are not at great schools, so the OP needs to decide if he/she would be content at a community college or rural branch of a (less competitive) state school. The differences in pay, research support, teaching load, and location between these schools and R1s/SLACs/competitive state schools can make a huge difference in terms of quality of life. But again, this whole process (from graduate admissions to getting a tenure track position) is very random and hardly deterministic.

I received this email immediately after submitting the application on Dec 10th. Yes, political science.

This process is very random and largely dependent upon the personal proclivities of the rotating admissions committee at each school. It also obviously depends on the methodological orientation of specific schools, who ends up on the committee, which sub-field you're targeting, how much the school emphasizes the GRE, how many slots each school has for that year, how many candidates apply, etc. There is no formula. It is a very random process, so it helps to have everything in line to maximize your chances...especially at "top-tier" schools. The reason why I suggested 750+ is because I've heard (on PSJR for what it is worth) that some schools take a combined average of scores if you've taken the test multiple times.

What emphasis? We said the same thing.

When you get your acceptances, really push the schools to figure out their placement rates and see where their graduate students end up. If it isn't looking too promising then take a GRE course and get your math over 700 and apply again next year. If you can get your math above 700 (but 750+ would be best) and have a clear SOP/research agenda you'll be very competitive at the top schools.

Are you feeling inadequate, or overly adequate for the list of schools that you applied to? If you think that you want to go to a higher-ranked school, then you can defer your offers and then apply again with much less stress.

Here are some averages from school websites: UCSD 3.62 710V, 745Q, 4.5AW Duke 3.7 664V, 693Q Michigan 3.66 667V, 729Q, 6.0AW Wisconsin 3.7 681V, 747Q, 5.5AW George Wash 3.7 670V, 720Q, 5.1AW Minnesota ??? 661V, 687Q, 5.2AW Other schools, like Princeton and Stanford, say vague things about 700/3.8 and above.

Some of the notices start coming in on January 28th: http://thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php?q=(political|government|politics)&t=a&pp=250&o=&p=6 It looks like UC-Davis, Emory, UIUC, Duke, Texas A&M, and Rochester started it off. FYI, bookmark this as a way to filter down to just political science: http://thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php?q=(political|government|politics)

So we have about 6 weeks until we start hearing from schools. What do we do to keep from going crazy?

New stats have been posted: http://gradschool.duke.edu/about/statistics/admitpols.htm This (and the 3.4) are for PhD only and do not include any MA students. 694V, 693Q, 3.7 GPA

You still have to apply and get in. Quite literally the best students in my CIR cohort (with 4.0 GPAs and honors designations on their theses) were denied admission or only admitted with zero funding. Nobody from my cohort (45+ people) got in with money. That being said, these people did get into much better programs than Chicago.

I wouldn't put the person down if they are outside of your department. Is it, by any chance, steve wilkinson?

No, I'm not saying that students don't place well. They do. Everyone from my cohort that applied got into a top 25 program (except me - hence applying again). I'm saying that they don't get into Chicago's PhD in political science program. Almost everyone showed up to the first day of MAPSS/CIR thinking that it is a stepping stone into Chicago's PhD program. This wasn't the case.

MAPSS is not a stepping stone into Chicago's PhD. I don't believe that any of the MAPSS kids got into the PhD program. The CIR program has a much better relationship, but nobody from my cohort ended up going there for the PhD.

Congrats on the score. In related (self) congratulatory news, I just finished all of my applications! Whoo hoo!

The rankings suggest otherwise: http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-political-science-schools/rankings http://lawandcourts.wordpress.com/2007/08/21/ranking-political-science-doctoral-programs-by-placement-lets-get-ready-to-ruuumble/ http://graduate-school.phds.org/rankings/political-science/rank?w7=5 (old)

I believe that those numbers include their terminal MA applicants. It wouldn't really make any sense otherwise. I just looked at the year prior and they accepted 79 of 242, so those numbers must include the terminal MA as well. For that year the average accepted and average applied GREs are much closer. I bet the 6 accepted to the PhD program is correct. I remember people calling the department and all hearing that they were accepting a tiny cohort last year because of the state's budget problems.

FYI, UNC didn't take anywhere near 25% last year. From the results of last year's cycle: