<p>Hello everyone! I am very new to this but I am hoping to get some advice. I am a senior political science major and am looking at various grad programs to apply to. I am worried that I wont get into any of the programs I want. I have a passion for my field and love to study my ultimate goal is a Phd. I will give you an idea of where I stand. All comments are welcomed</p>
<p>Cumulative GPA 3.5 major:3.8 (4.0 scale)
GRE:420 V 480 Q 4 W ( I am a terrible test taker)
took macro and micro econ: A in both
president of the history and government organization for 2 years on campus
participated in Model United Nations and African Union for 2years as head delegate
I have lived in Guatemala for 4 years
fluent in Spanish
Have worked 1 year as an intern for the government (DHS)
I have strong recomendation
member of PHI ALPHA THETA (history honors society)
member of Pi Sigma Alpha (political science honors society)</p>
<p>Programs:
Georgetown
SAIS (Johns Hopkins)
George Washington
George Mason
University of Maryland
American University</p>
<p>what are my chances. I really love my field and would like to expand on research in regards to Human Development and International Relations. I dont want my GRE scores to make me look inadequate. My dream program is SAIS because it incorporates economics as a central part of study which is vital in Human Development. what can I do?</p>
<p>I'm sorry, I don't know how to put this in the most politically correct terms, but you mentioned that you were in the African Union for 2 yrs? Are you black?</p>
<p>If that is the case, then I think you have your pick in grad school. My best friend in grad school is a Hispanic, and he's the only one in the program, and possibly the only one in the entire freakin' department. I almost feel bad for him because he gets asked to go to every recruitment/outreach/admissions events as the token "minority" representative. My take is that colleges are trying really hard to encourage more ethnic minorities to apply to their undergraduate programs, and they are even more desperate for their graduate school programs. We laugh about it, but the reality is that graduate school body desperately needs more diversity. It's sad, but true.</p>
<p>I am actually hispanic. what I mean with being in the African Union is that I participated in a model African Union in Washington DC for 2 years as leader of my delegation. However, I do agree that more should go for grad school especially for Phd's.</p>
<p>I hate to say this, but a 3.5 is borderline for most Ph.D. programs in the applied social sciences and your GRE scores total less than 1000 (the typical cutoff for most grad schools to even send your application to the department for further review -- with a 900, you probably wouldn't make it past the graduate school secretary's front desk at even the lowliest of state schools for an MA program, much less a Ph.D. at a top program because, simply put, you're below the cutoff for most grad schools to even consider you for anything). My guess would be that the rest of your app won't even be read at any of those schools as most of them are pretty strong programs and will have 100s of applicants with less red flags in their application.
Furthermore, your additional experience and qualities look nice, but frankly, I saw no research experience and I would doubt anyone is applying without a few internships and so forth. In my experience, people who are passionate about this area all have experiences like you've had -- I think they're great, but they're not going to get you past GRE scores in the bottom 10% of all applicants and a borderline Ph.D.-respectable GPA. I think you're WAY underestimating how competitive Ph.D. programs are and it's going to cost you a lot of money come application day. Sorry, but you're going to have to work on your GRE and then get some research experience. That's what a Ph.D. is all about. You have all practical experience and, seemingly, nothing that actually applies to the degree itself. I think you're still caught in an undergrad admissions mindset, but grad school (esp. Ph.D.) admissions are quite different.</p>
<p>As of now a Phd program is not my main priority but is my ultimate goal.An MA program would be best since it would allow to obtain the necessary research experiance. The experiance I have so far in is research through my undergrad classes.I have taken classes in research methods both in political science and sociology beyond university requirements.There are also things I did not list because I was not sure how relevant they may be but I am planing to present a paper at the Phi alpha theta regional conference on Stalin. Although it is a history paper it requires extensive research. i am also currently working on a thesis paper for my undergrad degree in polisci.</p>
<p>That will help, but as I said, without a GRE above 1000 (cutoffs vary from 900-1100), you'll never even get looked at. It won't matter if you served as an ambassador for 3 years (hypothetically speaking, of course) if your app never gets past the grad school secretary! Her job is simply to screen out applicants so no one else has to waste their time evaluating the file. If your app gets stopped there due to a super low GRE or GPA, you're not going to ever get a full evaluation. Cutoffs are set low as is, but not that low. Good luck!</p>
<p>I would consider taking a year off. For two reasons: To get that senior thesis done so you can really prove that you've got some research experience and to try bring up at least one of the GRE scores. You're not THAT far away from hitting over 550 on one of the sections. You can take the opportunity to spend a year working for a NGO in your field of interest so you can get a better grip of reality and whether it's worth going for PhD as I don't really see anything that you've done that shows your awareness of human development. What did you do in Guatemala?</p>
<p>I'm not trying to be a racist here but what if I apply to a department and mention that I am an African American even though I am as white as sour cream. If African Americans are underrepresented in that department I could have a huge advantage...and after my acceptance I doubt they would schedule an interview with me to verify my blackness. So with that said, where is the flaw in my logic?</p>
<p>fatpig: that's dishonest and could get your admission revoked. Also, if you're in a similar position to the OP it wouldn't help anyway.</p>
<p>OP: if TMP is correct in understanding that you want into human development, you need to do WAY more in that area. When I read your profile, I assumed that was some secondary, tangential interest you had and that you were really pursuing other things because there was so little to indicate an actual interest there. If that is a primary interest of yours, you need to give evidence of that interest. (The other things would still apply.) A good rule of thumb for admissions to Ph.D. programs when it comes to the GRE is that a 1250 is where you actually become competitive. If either of your scores are below 500, it's a huge read flag. Telling an admissions committee that you're just "a poor test taker" is not going to make them sympathetic. It only makes you look like you needed an excuse and didn't have a better one and, perhaps, were too lazy to raise your score. I agree with TMP that you ought to take a few years off, build up a CV of research in your primary research area and get both subscores above a 550 at the very least (quant should be in the 600s to be remotely competitive).</p>
<p>Yes it is certainly dishonest but it can not get your admission revoked. They are not going to verify if you're African American, and there are some white Africans in any event. Due to the politically correct world we live in, the issue would never come up. And even if it did, you could always claim that you simply selected the wrong bubble on the online form; nothing too unusual about that. And as a result, you could get a very significant boost in your likelihood of being accepted. Of course i'm not saying I'd do this, but it seems like a loophole..</p>
<p>Human development is an interest I have within the IR field. I am primarily looking at MA programs so that I can gain further experiance in research. I dont think taking a year or two off is the anwer to prepare more for the GRE is the answer because I did take a princeton review course before taking it. However, I do understand the value that is placed on test scores at some schools. I lived in Guatemala for four years and went to school there as a child. During my undergrad career I became interested in the Democratic Repubic of the Congo and wrote a paper on their elections in 2006. Currently I am working with a professor on a project that aims to build a school for children in the DRC. I thought that extensive research experiance came when you were in grad school though.I am still preaparing for my Phd but my goal now is to get into a grad school.</p>
<p>fatpig: any falsification of information on an application form can get your admission revoked at any time (theoretically even after you've received your degree). No, it's not likely but if it were discovered and your program were one where ethics and honesty are primary concerns, you could be dismissed without warning.</p>
<p>OP: That's cool you did work in the Congo. Congrats on finding such an interesting area of interest. I would encourage you to continue pursuing that research experience and find ways to take initiative with it. If you can, write and publish an article on how the project went, what you did, how others could implement (or improve upon) your idea elsewhere, etc. This will strengthen your app quite a bit.
I would still work more on the GRE score, however. The PR course <em>can</em> help but I think practicing the problems and getting some tutoring in your weak areas is likely to be much more cost-effective (and will take you far further than did a PR course if you only half-heartedly did the homework). The GRE + grades have a moderate correlation (r=+0.50) with students completing grad school successfully, which is part of why it is so valuable in graduate admissions (that and it's "the great equalizer" of schools and GPAs). Of all the programs I looked at, no graduate school truly lacks a cutoff score (but making the score at all of those schools simply means that the dept actually gets to see the application and evaluate it themselves).
For instance, your top choice, SAIS at Johns Hopkins, has its bottom quarter of acceptable applicants score at 580v/650q (top quartile starts at 680v/750q, so a statistically valid approximation (based on available data and assuming a standard distribution) of an accepted student scoring at or below your GRE is 1 in over 500 accepted students or less than 0.2% on the verbal and 1 in 1000 or 0.1% on the quant). Those applicants who make it in at the bottom quarter obviously made it in because they had absolutely superior qualifications elsewhere (probably in almost every category). It is likely that they, like you, struggle with test-taking but shone across the board everywhere else -- a glorious GPA from a top-10 undergrad, multiple publications and presentations in several journals and at national and international conferences, several years of directly applicable experience, and affirmative action or a documented cultural bias against them by the GRE itself. In other words, their mediocre 1200ish scores were supplemented by a host of other credentials that let the dept know they could succeed. I use this example because you seem to be under the impression that adding a lot of other stuff to your application is going to build you an acceptable package, but even the most beautiful and ornate house will collapse if it is built on an unstable foundation! You need to be sure that the foundation of your application package -- that is, your GPA and GRE scores -- is strong before a school will even take a look at the rest of the package. That, btw, is the requirement for their M.A. program, not the Ph.D. Sorry, I wish you the best of luck, but I think you really need to rethink things about that test as much as I am sure you don't want to have to take it all over again.</p>