flyingwalrus

You're assuming that the GRE accurately measure what they puport to. My understanding is that the quantitative score is generally a much better guage of an applicant's abilities than is the verabl score. You may be interested in this post on a blog maintained by several political scientists: http://www.themonkeycage.org/2008/01/post_28.html

Your GRE scores are fine. A 680 verbal is pretty damn good and a 680 quant is solid. I scored 700Q/580V/5.5AW on my GRE and I'm not worried. You shouldn't be either. A 3.7 GPA is nothing to fret about either. Put together a good statement of purpose and get good recommendations and you'll be a strong candidate.

I would think it'd be fine for you to visit at other times. The faculty will be there either way, the only thing you'd miss out on would be meeting potential members of your cohort. And free food.

When I start going out to accepted students weekends (political science programs by and large don't have interviews), I figure I'll just tell the truth. They told me when I took the job that they didn't really expect me to stay for all that long. I do think, however, that they believed I would be transferring to another position within the university. Oh, well.

I wasn't the one who responded to you earlier. My boss doesn't know and won't know until I accept and offer.

I started mine in August.

I applied there for political science and haven't experienced any problems. You could try contacting the grad secretary or the DGS in the department you're applying to. They may be able to help. Do you have to leave a message? Can you not just talk to someone in the office?

Sweet. Good to know another one of the schools I applied to has started.

Yeah, she sent a heads up to me too. Stanford starting reviewing last Saturday and Wisconsin-Madison starts around the same time as Texas. I haven't heard from any other departments, but I'm betting that pretty much everyone will have started by the last week of January.

My understanding is that a few programs will get back to some applicants in late January, but for the most part acceptances and rejections begin going out in waves starting in early/mid February. I know Stanford has started looking at apps, but the rest of the schools I applied to have either not given me a time table or have said that they will begin in late January.

Assuming there are faculty at those schools whose interests match your own and your statement of purpose and/or writing sample is strong, I imagine you'll be fairly competative. You've got great scores.

It's definitely an improvement over KotOR. It's much more action oriented, kind of an RPG shooter, though most of the outcomes in combat are based on your character's stats and abilities rather than your skills. In that sense, it's somewhat similar to Oblivion. Bioware's team has put out pretty good games for a long time, even before they were with this particular company. I haven't finished ME yet. It's pretty good so far. Hopefully the ending isn't god awful like KotOR 2 or Neverwinter Nights 2. Considering how much better it is than KotOR 1, I think it's safe to say that it's better than Jade Empire in every way.

Halo is good stuff. I highly recommend Mass Effect. It's well worth the $60 investment.

Unless you're prospective field is political theory, the quantitative score is by far the most important. Political science is highly quantitative. Lots of stats and mathematical modeling.

Video games.

Apply. The worst thing that could happen would be getting rejected. If you don't apply, you won't have any chance at all.

Here's a non-US News ranking. http://www.politicalstudies.org/pdf/psr/hix.pdf

Rankings are nebulous. They may give you a ballpark estimate or they may be valueless. All that really matters is whether or not a school has good faculty who match up with your interests and a solid placement record.

I can't speak for Miami, but Florida looks to be a pretty decent program. They certainly appear weak in behavior, but their placement record is on par with some of the more prestigious programs.

Texas is a safety for me. No sure bet, but my recommenders and I are fairly confident that I'll get in. There's no guarantee, of course, but it seems pretty likely. Texas has some pretty good faculty members, but I was somewhat underwhelmed by their placement record. It's not bad, just not as good as I thought before. Their grad coordinator will send it to you if you ask.

Indeed. Illinois and Texas are my safeties, although the latter may end up being a pretty good choice if a particular professor ends up there.

Glad to see I'm not the only one to apply to far too many programs.

What kind of social science? The field as a whole is pretty broad.

I've applied to: UC San Diego Berkeley Stanford Texas-Austin Texas A&M Wisconsin-Madison Illinois-Urbana Champaign WUSTL Duke UNC-Chapel Hill Fields: American politics and methods. Concentrations: Behavior, campaigns and elections, parties, and political communication (specifically negative campaigning).