Please help me out.

[Christian129]

Hello House, 

 I am a recent graduate of Political Science in Nigeria and I'm thinking of getting an MSc in a choice school in the USA. However, I don't really know much about USA grad schools and how they function. Please, i'd like suggestions of schools that offer MSc program in Political science or international relations around New Jersey or Philadelphia that are cheap and affordable and have high acceptance rate expecially for international students.More so , I want a research based masters but I'm confused about the choice of research area. My undergraduate project was on a public policy related topic. Please, help me out as I plan to begin my application of Spring ASAP. By the way, I don't plan on writing GRE so I need schools that don't require GRE 

[puddle]

Let's break this down.

(1) You want a funded or cheap MA but you are an international student who is going to pay likely 10s of thousands of dollars to come to the US. Cheap is relative but you are not likely to find it as funded MAs (not MSc... in the States, political science is an arts degree, not a science degree) are rare in political science and virtually non-existent in the US.

(2) You want a research based MA but don't know what you want to study. If you are going to be doing research you need to work this out before your degree because programs in the states are often only a year long. They usually accept people who have this sorted out before they enter. No one is going to tell you what to study.

(3) You don't want to write the GRE. Most schools in the states require the GRE for graduate school. It is what it is. Americans love them some standardized tests.

 

My advice? Think really carefully about what you want to do & spend the time researching your options before asking open-ended questions to strangers on the internet. I'm sorry, this may seem harsh but you're clearly unprepared to start the process. Get your ducks in a row before you start marching, eh?