IR PhD Evaluation

[ThrowAwayPhD]

Undergrad: Top-15 IR school, 3.6 GPA

Grad: Top-5 MPA program, focus on International Security - 3.8 GPA (graduated in May)

GRE: 157Q 168V 6W

Research Experience:

- ~6 months in undergrad - won a small prize for research but nothing published due to my professor getting ill

- ~2 years graduate research at grad school program. Currently employed as a research team lead for the same project after graduation, heading a team whose size has varied between 4 and 10 people. Deals with a large-n dataset. Co-authoring a paper with the PI and solo-authoring another paper related to the project. Ideally should be under review by time of application. 

- 6 months policy research at a major think tank for security policy. Paper never published partially due to covid mucking everything up. Still stuck in working paper status. Similarly dealt with complex dataset construction. 

LOR:

- PI From current project. Very famous individual in our field; has assured me he will write a stellar letter. I have worked/studied with him for over 2 years now.

- Prof from Grad school. Also very famous individual in the field. Took two classes with him. Should be a good letter, though I never did any formal research with him.

- Prof from Grad school. Less famous than the above two, but still very well known and often cited. Only had one class with him, but had an A and he seemed very amiable.

Writing Sample: Solo authored paper I'm currently shopping around prior to attempted publication. Was a final paper for third letter writer's class. Should be good, though it is not quant heavy as it is principally a literature review.

SOP: Still working on it, but I applied last year (didn't get in anywhere) and I'm confident I can make it pretty strong. All of my research experience by now points to a fairly solid direction. I will focus primarily on the work I'm currently doing, the upcoming publications and how they tie in to future work I want to do with professors at the applied-to programs. Should be fairly to-the-point. 

Concerns: My GRE quant sucks. I know. I'm so busy with work, writing, and reading right now, however, that I simply haven't had time to dedicate to just going through quant problems. I took the GRE in October again and got the above score, which actually ended up being 7 points higher (across Q and V) than the one I used to apply to my masters. All of my current research is heavily quant focused, so I'm hoping I can lean on that in my SoP to offset the bad quant score. Additionally, I applied to 12 of the top schools last year and didn't get in anywhere. I was told that basically it was a terrible year to apply and that I should try again, but I'm not entirely sure if I should drop everything and focus on the GRE. I'm really scared that I'm going to tank my chanced by trying to get this publication out rather than getting my quant up. I talked to a professor at my current school who had been an adcom and he basically implied that low quant scores get the whole profile thrown out without even looking.  Also, I'm applying to both IR programs and Policy programs focusing on security. I am really interested in the intersection between the two, but the majority of my research experience is in policy, not IR. Incidentally, my writing sample (the paper I'm shopping right now) is very heavily academic focused, so I'm not sure if I'll be sending mixed signals. 

Schools: I applied to 12 last year, so this year I'm thinking of bumping it up to ~15 and adding some lower ranked schools based on my worry that I won't get in anywhere. My masters (and current employer) is on the list. It'll be some combination of the following:

Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, Chicago, Berkeley, Cornell, Georgetown, UCSD, MIT, GW, NYU, Duke, American, UCLA, Penn, Northwestern, Dartmouth  

Edited November 9, 2021 by ThrowAwayPhD

[LatinAmericanFootball]

Your quant GRE is definitely a weakness, but plenty of people in this forum have been admitted at top schools with Q scores of ~155. Assuming you get past this "first round" your profile looks strong enough to have a good chance at any department. I would suggest you ask one of the letter writers (probably the one that knows you the best) to highlight your quant skills in their letter. 

Also, NYU seems to be particularly picky with quant scores, so unless your fit there is great there might be better places to apply to.