Profile Evaluation/Guidance Needed

[dk90]

Hi everyone,

I am a long-time lurker/first-time poster here, and was wondering if some of you guys who are more experienced could give me some help in terms of evaluating my profile/directing me towards specific programs that may fit my interests.  Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

PROFILE:

Type of Undergraduate Institution: Small public flagship

Major: Political Science

Undergraduate GPA: Cumulative - 3.74, Upper-Division - 3.88, Major - 3.92

Type of Grad: N/A

Grad GPA: N/A

GRE: Plan to take in October (have taken several practice tests so far)

Any special courses: Comparative Genocide (A), Politics of Russia and the Former Soviet Union (A), Politics of the Middle East (A), Comparative Political Cultures (A), Presidential Leadership (A), Politics of East Asia (A), History of the Soviet Union (A)

Letters of Recommendation: I think that my letters of rec will be pretty good overall (but I really don't have that good of a sense of what constitutes a particularly strong letter of rec to be entirely honest).  One is from a professor I did research for, one is from a professor that nominated me for a paper award at my UG, one is my old academic advisor who I took for a couple of IR classes, and one is from a professor that I took for several comparative government classes.

Research Experience: Very limited, but worked in a university office on a substance abuse prevention program for the state where I attended school; also helped present survey findings on unrelated studies conducted by the agency (the professor who supervised me is one of my sources for a letter of recommendation)

Teaching Experience: N/A

Subfield/Research Interests: My focus has primarily been in the subfields of international relations/comparative government, with a particular interest in non-western political cultures and global development (also have interest in some select topics pertaining to American government).

Other: Not entirely sure how relevant this is, but I won a scholarship award in my final year at my UG for the best paper written in political science by an undergraduate (the professor who nominated me for the award is another one of my letter of rec sources).  The reason I question the relevance of the award for what I want to study in particular is because the paper was on a topic pertaining to LGBT rights within the context of an issue in American government, not an IR or comparative government topic (don't get me wrong, I was very honored and proud that I won the award and I really enjoyed researching the topic I did, I just don't know how important it will be to adcoms given my future research plans).  Also not really sure of the relevance of this aspect of my profile either, but I have a DRASTIC upward trend in my grades from the time I started my undergraduate career to the time I graduated.  I did some volunteer work for the law school at my UG and other departments as well. 

 

I guess for me, as I look through my undergrad career there is one GLARING weakness that I feel will be very harmful throughout my application process.  To put it simply: MATH.  My math grades have been way less than stellar (including a C+ in the most recent statistics course I took - should have been a B, but I choked on the final ).  Is there anyway I can offset/negate my poor history in math with a strong quantitative performance on the GRE?  I score around 159-160 on the practice quant sections that I've taken so far, and I think I could realistically get it up another point or two (my verbal scores usually are around the 163-165 range).  Also, given the rough sketch I've outlined above, what are the chances that I could get in to a top political science Ph.D. program that specializes in International Relations and/or Comparative Government?  More importantly, what schools would be a good fit for me based on what I mentioned above about my interest in non-western political cultures?  Any help/guidance would be REALLY appreciated.  Thank you!