flyingwalrus

Northwestern doesn't require its theorists to take quantitative methods classes.

It's a characteristic of good departments.

Different states have different priority deadlines. Check the FAFSA website.

That's probably not true. UNC e-mails admits first.

Congrats. TAMU's got a pretty good program. College Station isn't much, but the department has killer facilities and financial resources.

No reason to worry. I was rejected and waitlisted by departments ranked below places that offered me fellowships.

I received rejections from all four of those schools on the following dates last year: OSU - Feb 4th (online system) WUSTL - Feb 19th (mail) Stanford - Feb 6th (e-mail) Duke - Feb 20th (e-mail)

No reason to give up yet. It's still very early; UIUC might not have notified everyone yet. In addition, there's always the possibility of being waitlisted.

Munger is the department chair. Unlike most of the stuff on that board, you can probably trust that message.

Take anything said on that board with a huge grain of salt.

Jim, Don't remove yourself from consideration for two reasons: (1) you might not get in to any other programs and (2) if you are accepted somewhere else, you may be able to use this offer from Emory to get yourself a slightly better funding package that you might not get otherwise. Don't go crazy with demands and keep in mind some places won't negotiate (UNC poli sci doesn't, for example, but Texas poli sci does). If you can get a fellowship, some summer funding, or an RA slot out of this than it's worth it.

TAMU, Texas, UIUC, OSU, Stanford, Berkeley, WashU, Wisconsin, and Duke.

UNC was the first school I heard back from last year. I wanna say I got my acceptance in the first week of February. TAMU's came two or three weeks later.

Not good. It should be last on your depth chart.

My understanding is that the DC schools aren't very good with funding, so you might want to drop them in favor of a couple of different departments. Your advisers should have a reasonable idea of where you should apply and where your chances of admission are best.

Yep. It's a great department, especially for Americanists who are interested in public opinion and mass behavior. Plus it doesn't really get cold here and the cost of living is relatively cheap.

I'm not at Illinois, but... http://www.pol.uiuc.edu/graduate/progra ... ools-47857 I applied there last year. Could have sworn they offered methods as a field, but maybe they've changed the structure of their program.

If you're interested in a diplomatic career, then a PhD in political science is not for you.

You really need to apply to some lower ranked schools and at least one true fallback school. What fields are you interested in? I may be able to offer suggestions. Also, my guess is that the people on admissions committees aren't going to care much about your extracurricular activities, so I'd recommend against spending too much time talking about them in your personal statement. Unless of course they are directly relevant to your research agenda.

I just took a look at your GRE scores again. I must have inverted them before; I thought you had scored a 720 quant, not verbal. So your verbal kicks ass, but your quant is weak. If you think you can improve it, I think you should take the GRE again. The quantitative score is pretty important for people interested in American politics.

Michigan is ranked third overall and fifth in IR, so they'd be tough for anyone to get into. You should definitely try, though; it's worth the application fee. I'd consider taking the GRE again if you think you can improve your quant score.

You might consider dropping Brown; they don't appear to be strong in public opinion. You should consider adding Texas, Ohio State, and Michigan, as well. Maybe Minnesota and Wisconsin, too. Are you interested in doing this primarily for the teaching or the research component? If it's the latter, Oklahoma should probably be last on your depth chart. They don't place people well at all and have only ever produced one Americanist of any note that I am aware of. As for your GRE score, don't worry about it too much. I applied to three of the schools you listed and got fellowships from two and wait listed by the last with a 1280.

As I recall I didn't submit one to them.

Given your profile and assuming your letters of rec and personal statement aren't crap, I'd think Pittsburgh and Syracuse would be fall backs for you. Michigan State, as well, though I'd say it's clearly above those two. If you want to do legislative politics, you should also apply to UC-San Diego. They've got Cox, McCubbins, Jacobson, and Poole. I don't do legislative politics, so you may want to take this with a grain of salt, but I don't think there's a better group (reputation-wise) of Congressional scholars at any other university.

If you have a good statement and good letters, you'll be fine. I'd consider adding one or more fall back options; you don't really have any as it stands.