BrunoPuntzJones

Obviously, it's not great, but I think the negativity is a little overstated...As a group, schools ranked in the 40-50 range routinely place students in good jobs (note, the "as a group" qualifier). If you're choosing between a couple of those schools, you need to be sure you're interests match-up with the subfield strengths of the department (i.e. judicial politics at a school like South Carolina). I also think there's a pretty substantial difference between some of those schools that the rankings methodology can't really get at. I'd be sure to ask current faculty or graduate student advisors specific questions about program strengths/weaknesses. The more opinions you can get, the better. - Bruno

Strong/decent American politics schools in the Midwest: Michigan (UMich) Wisconsin Ohio State (OSU) Michigan State (MSU) Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL) Penn State, Minnesota and Indiana have been successful in the past as well. I'd be sure to bounce application-ideas off of the professor you're doing research with. You're also probably going to want to narrow your research interests within the American subfield for the purposes of applying to graduate school.

I'm fairly certain I heard that Tulane was ending their PhD program a few years back. I'm less certain (but believe) I heard a similar -- more recent -- rumor regarding Miami (OH). I don't think you'd be out of line in either case to e-mail a faculty member of those schools inquiring about the status of their programs.

The programs coach mentioned are the top 4 that jump to my mind as well. Columbia, NYU and Ohio State might also be nice options if you're stressing the game theory. I'd hope that your advisers are providing you with some schools that you might want to apply to as well. Since you have them handy, you're going to want to talk to anyone at your home institution that may have experience in your field to get more ideas.

I believe Tulane's graduate program shutdown was recent (post-hurricane).

Carrubba's record the past 3 years is probably as good as it's going to get as well. It's a really sharp department in general.

Walker and Giles have great reputations. Because of them, Emory is very reliable in placing their students in judicial politics. What subfield are you looking at cal?

There's an actually fairly useful thread on PSJR on this...AP Starting Salaries or something like that. I went on the market a couple years ago and had four offers -- all in the South (two top 50 R1s/PhD programs -- another had a masters program). Two of the offers were in the mid-50's, one in the upper 50's and one in the mid-60's. Given the costs of living in those areas, I was pretty pleased with all of them. I probably could have negotiated more on the salary for the offer I did take (or for a summer ninth), but instead used most of my leverage on an additional course break.