Will PhD programs care about my MA GPA (Yenching Academy)?

[bmarsh]

Hello everyone! New user here. I find myself in a bit of an abnormal situation and would love to hear your thoughts.

I'm interested in pursuing a quant-heavy PhD in a China-facing subfield (Comparative, IR, possibly Methodology). I have a 169V 167Q 5.5AWA GRE score and finished with a 3.9 undergrad GPA (magna cum laude, w/ highest departmental honors, Master's level courses etc) from a top 10 PoliSci department in the US. My honors thesis was China-focused and used text mining. 

While I'm confident in my undergrad background, my uncertainty lies with how my MA experience will be perceived. I'm doing my MA at a program called "Yenching Academy" at Beijing University, studying Politics/IR and Chinese Studies. The program is prestigious (very low acceptance rate) among China watchers, but many on admissions committees would understandably not be familiar with it. Thus, I'm entirely unsure how it will be interpreted.

Do you think admissions committees will place much weight on my MA GPA, or instead focus on the undergrad one? Any ideas about how a MA in China, regardless of the circumstance, may be viewed?  If I focus less closely on GPA, I can spend more time here working on Chinese fluency and garnering research experience, both of which would prepare me better for academia than my courses are currently.  It's not clear to me which of these aspects will prove more important in a PhD application.  I'm possibly overly paranoid that an inconsistency with my previous GPA (and because I know most MA programs inflate their grades) would raise eyebrows, making me unsure how to best allocate my time.

What do you all think? Would also appreciate any evaluations regarding where the strength of my application may place me. Thanks for your time!  

[Mixedmethodsisa4letterword]

When are you going to apply? If next cycle, you are definitely gonna be better off by focusing on your language skills. As for Yenching, it is actually a bit controversial in regards to its rigor so there's that. 

Edited November 12, 2019 by Mixedmethodsisa4letterword

[bmarsh]

16 hours ago, Mixedmethodsisa4letterword said:

When are you going to apply? If next cycle, you are definitely gonna be better off by focusing on your language skills. As for Yenching, it is actually a bit controversial in regards to its rigor so there's that. 

I'm planning on applying in a few years, so certainly have some time. 

In that case, would you imagine that committees would essentially disregard MA GPA in favor of undergrad GPA assuming that MA GPA is not sufficiently low as to be alarming? 

[Mixedmethodsisa4letterword]

12 hours ago, bmarsh said:

I'm planning on applying in a few years, so certainly have some time. 

In that case, would you imagine that committees would essentially disregard MA GPA in favor of undergrad GPA assuming that MA GPA is not sufficiently low as to be alarming? 

Yes. I think cGPA definitely matters more for your case. 

I would suggest to focus on building your language skills asap. If you are interested in China you are most likely to compete with a lot of native Chinese speakers. Given that Chinese has a steep learning curve, I think you are definitely better off by primarily focusing on polishing your language skills. 

[horololo]

In my opinion, while cGPA is more important than graduate GPA, admission committees would take high graduate GPA kind of for granted. If you get high graduate GPA, it will not have much impact on your application, but if you have low graduate GPA, they will be suspicious. Especially since the institution is not an American one, I think.

I think that language and research experience are also important as well. I don't think it's impossible to work on your graduate GPA, language, and research experience is impossible...

On 11/14/2019 at 1:15 PM, Mixedmethodsisa4letterword said:

Yes. I think cGPA definitely matters more for your case. 

I would suggest to focus on building your language skills asap. If you are interested in China you are most likely to compete with a lot of native Chinese speakers. Given that Chinese has a steep learning curve, I think you are definitely better off by primarily focusing on polishing your language skills. 

I agree with Mixedmethodsisa4letterword that you are likely to be competing with other Chinese applicants or applicants who speak Chinese fluently.