AmericanQuant

I'll leave that as an exercise to the reader...

Quant score probably disqualifies you from doing american politics at WashU, not sure about the others. Did you take any math or math-y science classes in college? Quant score is less of a problem if you have coursework to demonstrate that you can handle the quantitative requirements for a PhD. American politics is the most quantitative of the 4 main subfields, so your quant score will probably cause you more trouble than if you, wanted to do theory, for instance.

More thread hijacking... Calculus was uses extensively in our first year program, in both our (required) stat methods and (not required) formal theory courses. Differentiation was used to find maxima of MLE's, derive the information matrix, derive an optimal move in a game etc. Integration to do expectations of random variables, derive conditional distributions etc. There was also some very basic linear algebra: adding and multiplying matrices, inverting matrices, checking whether matrix was full rank, etc. Calculus and linear algebra (and other topics) were taught in a math camp, so everyone was more or less brought up to speed, but that treatment definitely wasn't as good as having taken a full course in high school or college.

Everyone ended up emailing within a day or two. The calls were just first.

So this is a bit of thread hijacking... But I will say that with the exception of the theorists, who saw methods courses as a nuisance, people that hadn't taken differential and integral calculus before grad school came to regret it.

Yes, lots of people in my (also top 5) program were as you described. However, I'd think that someone failing a somewhat basic math class would be evaluated much more negatively than someone who just hadn't taken any math at all. But perhaps I'm mistaken?

Yes, this would probably ameliorate those concerns, so long as those stats courses are at a sufficiently high level. Low-level stats courses that are overly concerned with applications (i.e. statistics for business) or that rely on unsophisticated skills (i.e. doesn't use calculus and/or does excel) won't be of much help. If you take this approach, you're probably gonna need to take differential and integral calculus. Programming skills will also be a big help. If you can learn R before you apply, that'd be a big help to your application. Stata or a scientific programming language (python, Java, C, C+, MATLAB, Octave, etc.) will also be useful. Your goal should be to make your poor math grades look like an unfortunate chance event and not part of a pattern. Failing trig and then getting good grades in not-very-challenging stats classes won't prove much. Undergrad stats classes are thought to be really easy, so passing the easy ones won't prove much.

Honestly, I bet all of the top political science departments would prefer a 3.62 with a major in math and a minor in physics to a 3.92 in the social sciences, but that's okay. Still an excellent GPA.

One sort of general note with these threads is that GPA needs some context. What kind of institution did you go to? How many math and hard science classes were in the mix? 3.92 with a physics minor at MIT is quite different from a 3.92 from a directional state university with a minor in music.

The admissions committee will not care if your materials were 5 minutes late. All that matters is that they're included in your file. Politely email the grad administrator (not the DGS), apologize, and verify that your application is complete.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2011.00566.x/abstract Anything that involves a periodic component (i.e. a lot of time series work) will usually use some trig. But trolling aside, suggestions that involve taking advanced math courses are fundamentally unhelpful. Real analysis is usually the weed-out course for math majors, that's just not gonna happen for OP at this point. As a junior who hasn't taken calc, he literally doesn't have time, but more to the point, that doesn't seem like an appropriate class. A calculus course that covers differentiation and integration will be helpful in handling graduate coursework in political science, but don't go overboard on math: F's look bad and you don't want any more of them. Even if you don't do quantitative work yourself, numeracy will be an enormously helpful quality in interacting with an increasingly quantitative field. It might be worthwhile to examine why you're not doing well in your quantitative courses. Look at the grad curricula of places you want to apply. If it's too quantitative for you, then maybe a PhD in Political Science isn't right for you.

If one of your letters is not in and the deadline has passed, (very politely) email the grad administrator and ask if there's anything you can do (other than prodding the letter writer) and when the absolute deadline for the letter is. If the letter was already turned in late, (very politely) apologize to the grad administrator about the late letter and confirm that it was included with the rest of your application.

Since when is trigonometry a college course?

In my cohort, the modal grad student was not a polisci major, so switching is fine. But since you're switching from a less technical field, having a good quant score on your gre will be important, as will demonstrating some knowledge about what you're going to study. As brandon implied, polisci is higher status than international affairs, and a PhD program will pay you a stipend to study, while most MA programs are cash cows for universities. Thus, it's advantageous to apply for a PhD program in Polisci, even if being an academic is only a possibility. If you want to hedge your bets, you can also apply to master's programs.

You should email the graduate administrator and explain what happened. It'll probably be fine. If they say they won't review it, you should make sure you get your application fee back.

As others have said, unless you have something in your file that makes you an exceptional candidate like an amazing (and relevant) job or a high-level publication, none of those programs are going to give your application more than a cursory look for a PhD. Even if you do have one of those things, your grades and GRE scores would probably still be disqualifying. Is there a reason to think you'd do better in grad school than in undergrad? People that go on to PhD programs are almost exclusively excellent students. Do you think you can do as well as them at being a student? While grad school is very different from undergrad, it's probably more like undergrad than a job. Given your undergrad grades, your comparative advantage may not lie in going to graduate school. Grad school also doesn't pay well. You're basically wasting years where you could be making more money elsewhere while you're in school. That may be a worthwhile investment if you want to pursue an academic career, but if you don't end up pursuing such a career (and especially if you don't earn the PhD) the years are wasted, financially-speaking. That all being said, if you really want to go get a PhD from a decent program, you're going to need to do something else first. I'd suggest applying to MA programs at schools with good political science departments. Get good grades, write a good thesis (or do good independent research), and get political scientists to write you letters of recommendation. Since PhD admissions happen in the winter, you'll have to do a 2 year program to get good letters of recommendation and show improved grades.

Assume midnight eastern if they don't say, but my recollection from a few years ago was that the top programs usually gave a particular time.

Submitting your work to a conference is a sign of seriousness about your work and that you understand that going to grad school is all about research, so it's definitely a positive. That said, a lot of junk gets presented at MPSA, so even getting accepted isn't prestigious (almost everything gets accepted). Definitely provide adcoms with the means of looking at your rsch though. If you're short-listed, people might look.

Do you have a reason to think you'd score higher on a retake? If so, it's worth thinking about. Most of the top programs require all of their students to take methods (statistics) classes, so a higher quant score is helpful. I'd also guess that your verbal score is low compared to the median admitted theorist.

On this very subject: http://www.poliscirumors.com/topic/apsa-posters-worthwhile

You can get some advice from faculty at your program on this question, but the conventional wisdom is that there's no reason to pay to go to a conference you're not presenting at.

GW is the only program on that list who has scholars whose stuff I read. UVA has a reputation for being kind of antiquated (though they recently brought on the bayes-i-est, methods-i-est person from UNC I could imagine). Couldn't comment on the others.

New Haven is great. Not that expensive, best pizza in the country, decent bars, can take a train to NYC. I don't get all of the hating on New Haven, it's not the 80's anymore, New Haven is a great place to be a grad student.

Alan Dafoe is pretty tech'd up too, but I agree, not the best place for methods, esp. if you don't do experiments. Also, Peter Aronow's work is really good and a great fit with the department. Peter would be a great hire anywhere, Yale is lucky he decided to stick around.

Varies. More together depts shared schedules beforehand.