Profile Eval--felt confident, but not anymore?

[billk]

Type of Undergrad Institution: #77 in US News, top 10 in IR (my undergrad major)

Major(s)/Minor(s): Major in IR, minor in Spanish

Undergrad GPA: 3.91

MA GPA: They don't give GPAs, but earned a Distinction at LSE and won the prize for "best overall performance" in my MA class

GRE: 166 V, 160 Q, 6.0 W (second time), 166 V, 154 Q, 6.0 W (first time)

Languages: Spanish, French (basic proficiency)

Teaching: TA for intro world politics course, tutor and supplemental instructor for college-level ESL program, volunteer tutor for high school Spanish

LOR: 2 glowing letters, 2 pretty good letters

Research Experience: 2 years RA experience after undergrad at 2 think tanks (Hoover Institution and Grantham Research Institute) on topics directly related to my proposed research, 2 (funded) undergrad research fellowships, undergrad thesis, MA thesis, 3 "real" conferences, 4 undergrad conferences, have published in GEP, Millennium, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, 1 book chapter, and in a few undergrad journals

Relevant Experience: Internships at State Department and World Affairs Journal, Editor-in-Chief of undergrad journal, EB member for grad student journal, Commissioning Editor for E-IR

Would greatly appreciate anyone who could offer a profile eval for 6 PhD applications (3 top 10, 1 top 40, 1 top 60, 1 international). I felt confident going into the application cycle, but with everyone getting accepted and me hearing nothing back so far, I'm quickly losing hope. Thanks in advance, and a huge congratulations to all those already admitted--you will do incredible things!

Edited January 30, 2020 by billk

[Dwar]

You seem to have a good profile, but the one thing that you can't really tell us is honestly the most important thing, and that's fit. It generally comes down to that, how you fit in with the faculty and their research interests. 

[billk]

25 minutes ago, Dwar said:

You seem to have a good profile, but the one thing that you can't really tell us is honestly the most important thing, and that's fit. It generally comes down to that, how you fit in with the faculty and their research interests. 

Thanks Dwar, my interest is in the relationship between democracy and climate change, using CP frameworks in the democratization literature and VOC/PRT literature. I only applied to places where there were at least 1-2 faculty with contributions to democracy studies and 1-2 with contributions to climate change politics. I'm worried the committee will see my ideas/proposed connections between these two interests as tenuous.

Edited January 30, 2020 by billk

[fauxgranite]

4 minutes ago, billk said:

Thanks Dwar, my interest is in the relationship between democracy and climate change, using CP frameworks in the democratization literature and VOC/PRT literature. I only applied to places where there were at least 1-2 faculty with contributions to democracy studies and 1-2 with contributions to climate change politics. I'm worried the committee will see my ideas/proposed connections between these two interests as tenuous.

My interests are similar in that they are two distinct research threads but I'm interested in their synthesis. I also applied to places that had at least 1 faculty member doing one, and at least 1 faculty member doing the other, and my statement of purpose tried to highlight how I would blend the two fields for my research. The best we can do is hope that they see the connection between the two and see how we fit with their program.

[Dwar]

that's cool and all, and sounds interesting, but what i'm saying is that no one on this forum or really anywhere will be able to say if you have good fit or not. The only people who will know are in the Adcomm. There are so many variables that we, as applicants, have no control over. For example, the faculty member that you cited may be leaving on sabbatical, switching schools, changing research areas, or may simply have too many students to work with. At the same time the Adcomm may already have accepted students studying your topic and may want a more balanced class or something like that.

As i said your profile looks pretty good, i don't see any blaring issues. Plus it's good that you applied to schools with more then one faculty member. But again, at this point the unknown factor has taken over.  

[billk]

Thanks for the input, both. Best of luck to you!

BTW, mind if I ask your a/w/r/p?

Edited January 30, 2020 by billk

[Dwar]

15 minutes ago, billk said:

Thanks for the input, both. Best of luck to you!

BTW, mind if I ask your a/w/r/p?

0a/0w/0r/6p