Chances of Admission

[hitch1987]

I'm considering applying for Political Science Ph.D. programs in the Fall of 2014 for enrollment in the Fall of 2015. I was hoping you might shed some light on my chances.

 

I'm a rising 3L at Georgetown Law, with a GPA of 3.55 (roughly top third of my class), a federal judicial internship after my 1L summer, and a summer associateship with a big law firm in New York after my 2L summer. I'm now weighing a full time offer from that firm. I received a BA in Government from Georgetown in 2009, graduating with a 3.82 (roughly top 15% of my class). Between college and law school, I spent a year in a Political Science Ph.D. program at the CUNY Graduate Center, but I didn't earn a degree. I earned 24 credits at CUNY with a 4.0 GPA. I'm attempting to work out an arrangement whereby I finish my masters at CUNY while finishing up law school. As an undergrad, I interned for a semester with the Cato Institute. 

 

A couple caveats. I withdrew from the Government Honors Program in undergrad, as reflected by the "W" on my college transcript. I scored an 800 on the Quantitative portion of the GRE, a 770 on the Verbal portion, and a 5.0 on the Analytical Writing portion. However, I took the GRE in November 2009, and, while the scores will still be reportable up to November 17, 2014, I'm worried that programs will consider the scores invalid by the time they consider my application, which probably won't be until December 2014 or January 2015, at which point the scores will be just over five years old. 

 

Any guidance you could offer would be much appreciated. Thanks very much. 

[RWBG]

I would check the admissions websites of programs you're interested in to see whether they will still accept the scores; I would not be surprised if some will require you to take the test, particularly given that the test changed about two years ago, so using the scores to compare you to current applicants may not be as easy. This may vary from program to program.

Beyond that, your numbers are good, so focus on writing a compelling statement. Advice on writing such statement, as well as samples of previous statements, can be found here;

 

More than this, it is difficult to assess your probability of success, given that much of this is dependent on soft factors. My only piece of advice particular to you is to be wary of leaning too heavily on your law degree and legal experience, unless you are planning on doing political science research on law & courts type stuff.

[ThisGuyRiteHere]

If you dont want to go into law, why are you holding an offer that you do not want?

[peternewman89]

What's your goal with a PhD? What subfield would you be applying for? And what happened with CUNY that you went for a year and then stopped to go to law school? What's going to matter for PhD admissions is not your legal experience but research experience and research potential, which law school won't really speak to.  Do you have a strong writing sample? How well do you know professors from undergrad, and how well would they remember you? The GRE you'll likely have to take again unfortunately, but that is just a matter of getting over a certain minimum bar rather than something that would push you over the top; get over 75th percentile in both and you're fine, though a higher Quant is better.  One thing you'll certainly have to explain though is why you went through law school and now want another degree.