fenderpete Posted December 18, 2008 Posted December 18, 2008 Hi all, I've applied to Princeton, Harvard, UPenn, Stanford, Columbia and Chicago for a PhD in Political Science for Fall 2009 entry. I've also applied for a couple of scholarships which will probably give me a decision by the beginning of February after an interview for it in mid-Jan. I'll need to know what schools have accepted me by then to know whether to accept the scholarship or not if I get offered it (particularly the Thouron Award which is specific to UPenn). On the GRE I ended up with Q610, V690 - I didn't do quite as well on the Quantitative as I had on one of my practices but I'm happy enough with my performance given the fact I only had 3 weeks to prepare and had a 4000 word essay due in as well. I'd done better on Quants in practice (I got a 680 on the first powerprep practice) but that's my highest Verbal. As it turns out the Princeton review practice test was pretty spot on, which predicted me Q610, V650... Do you think those will be good enough to get my application considered by the big unis for a PhD in Political Science? LOR wise I've got two from extremely well respected professors - the main one of which I did research work for over the summer, and he's appeared on numerous news channels as a commentator on conflict resolution etc. The other professor is well known in the field of terrorism and counterterrorism. My third reference came from my (now ex) head of department and was basically able to shore up all the extracurriculars I did within my department. The only potential problem is that they won't be as well known in the USA. Grades wise I won a prize for the top marks in my year last year, and have kept that average up this year. I'm currently on a 73 - which at an English university is the equivalent of summa cum laude, and should hopefully keep me near the top of my year. I should, all being well, graduate with a first class honours degree. Not sure if the fact it's not a GPA format will count against me, but I've included an explanatory note with my transcripts... Extracurriculars wise... Last year I was president of the university Politics Society, took the society from a position of considerable debt and won four awards at the university wide society awards (including individual contribution award and most improved society). I was also Assistant Editor of the student run newspaper and this year I'm the Student Union council representative for my department. I've also played football for the society team and helped arrange a trip to DC and NYC for the Easter break. I spent the summer teaching in a high school and then worked in a refugee camp in Palestine for two weeks over the summer and I've since started learning Arabic. I'd be interested in hearing what you guys think, as the downtime between applying and hearing gives me a lot of spare time (that I should probably be devoting to my dissertation lol)! Thanks!
rising_star Posted December 19, 2008 Posted December 19, 2008 Please don't post in more than one section of the board. Thanks!
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