What will make my resume more appealing to PhD programs?

[poliscistudent]

I'm a political science major (as my uncreative username indicates) and about halfway finished with my undergraduate degree. I also am minoring in one of the humanities. I was wondering what I should do right now to make my application look more appealing to PhD programs (also in political science, probably American). Here's what I have so far that I feel is actually relevant (leaving out basic memberships of random student organizations):

-4.0 GPA (overall and within major)

-Research experience, but not published...just one project

-President of a minor student org on campus

-Model UN

No WE or internships, though I think I will try for an internship my senior year. I also only have about 20 hours of volunteer work, if that, so how important is it to have done a lot of volunteer work during undergrad?

I know I can get great LORs from prominent faculty, and I assume I'll do well on the GRE and write a decent SOP. I may or may not take a year (or two) off after I get my BA in order to get some money saved.

What else should I be doing to enhance my resume? How lacking is the one I currently have? I'm aiming for good to great schools, even though my undergrad institution isn't.

[Stories]

Keep your GPA, get to know your professors very well, continue to get even more involved in research, internships which give you more skills towards research and idea development are good. Don't get an internship just for the sake of having an internship. Those are useful for finding jobs, anyway.

Other ECs are pretty much fluff. Keep doing them if you enjoy them, but don't force yourself if you don't. None of those ECs will really boost your PhD application, anyway. They might boost an application to a professional degree, however. So if something like a MBA or MPP is on the radar, they will help depending on what kind of experience it is.

[natofone]

Your resume itself won't really matter that much. It is a small part of the package (and many schools don't accept it). I don't think that anyone will really care one way or another about your volunteer work or internships.

Worry about keeping your grades up, nail the GRE, write a good SOP (and really find out what a good one consists of - my mistake last cycle), take a ton of math/stats (if you are doing American), and try to do more research.

[poliscistudent]

Thanks. I do have fairly close relationships with a few faculty members right now - interestingly enough, I think getting good LORs will be the easiest part of my application.

How much research should I be doing? Should all of it consist of data analysis? My senior year I'm strongly considering taking a graduate-level political science statistics course that deals with SPSS so that I can prepare better for a PhD. I've already taken a required course in political data analysis at the undergraduate level, but it seems to me that my life will be easier if I have the material drilled into my head before I enter a PhD program.

Last question - I'm not 100% sure how graduate school admissions work. If I wanted to attend a school of high caliber such as UNC, would the bulk of my application consist of my SOP and LORs? I'm concerned that I have little on my resume to make me stand out to PhD programs.

[Stories]

Generally, you'll send a CV to PhD programs rather than a resume. This way, it can encompass all of your past research experience and work history that is relevant and make a distinction between the two. Your SoP, LoRs, GPA/GRE, and CV are all parts of the application. The greatest factor is probably your SoP (and you'll probably talk about your research experience here to demonstrate you have an understanding of the field and what you're going for).

As for research, you should get involved with whatever interests you. Being involved in research that interests you lets admissions committees know that you're interested in that field and are serious about pursuing that field in the future. This in conjunction with a cogent personal statement are crucial for getting into PhD programs. There's no point in pursuing research that you don't want to do in the future.

Take as many graduate level classes as you can so you effectively demonstrate your ability to do graduate-level work. If you want to do work using SPSS, SAS, STATA or other statistical packages, go for it. Again, it comes down whether you want to pursuing that kind of study. If you don't, don't bother. You won't use it in your graduate level work unless you enter that particular field.

Going to a top school does have some influence in the decision-making, particularly if the school is strong in the field you're applying to, but it's not a significant factor. But if you're comparing a 4th tier school to UNC, yeah, there's a difference there.

[poliscistudent]

Take as many graduate level classes as you can so you effectively demonstrate your ability to do graduate-level work. If you want to do work using SPSS, SAS, STATA or other statistical packages, go for it. Again, it comes down whether you want to pursuing that kind of study. If you don't, don't bother. You won't use it in your graduate level work unless you enter that particular field.

My school doesn't really offer many decent graduate-level courses. Most of the graduate courses are really undergraduate-level courses that have an extra term paper. The only ones that aren't like this are the research courses.

Going to a top school does have some influence in the decision-making, particularly if the school is strong in the field you're applying to, but it's not a significant factor. But if you're comparing a 4th tier school to UNC, yeah, there's a difference there.

I do go to a 4th-tier school...are my prospects that bad? How significant is the fact that I attend a 4th-tier school?