<p>I know there are a lot of posts like this but I've been driving myself nuts over this stuff lately so I'd like to get a few unbiased (about me anyway) opinions.
Stats
Graduated from a Top 15 school in 2007 with a 3.7 GPA
Major- Writing , Minor- Classics
GRE V- 620 Q-630 Writing-4 (but recently took again so it will hopefully go up)
Extracurriculars- Tutoring elementary Students, Sketch Comedy Group, Sorority (Recording Secretary), Study Abroad in Italy (one semester)
Work Experience- Internship at a newspaper, reporter at a newspaper (but quit because it wasn't the right field for me)
I've only within the past year decided that I want to study IR and I know that may sound capricious to some people, but I'm very serious about it. I've been taking classes in Economics (which I didn't take in undergrad) and Italian (to brush up my skills) since the fall and will continue in the spring at a local and fairly well regarded college. I will also intern in its Study Abroad Department there this spring.
Here are the schools I'm applying to:
JHU- SAIS
Tufts- Fletcher
American- SIS
George Washington- Elliott
BU
Syracuse- Maxwell/Newhouse joint IR/PR degree
Can anyone comment on my chances (please be realistic, but nice)? I already know SAIS and Fletcher are a stretch, so I guess I'm more interested in the others and Syracuse is my first choice (if you like SU great if you think it sucks, well it's my life not yours) I got into American and BU for undergrad (though I didn't go), would that help my chances there?
Also I'm having a really hard time with my personal statement since I don't feel like I have anything "extraordinary" in my past (ex immigrated from a foreign country, over came a terrible illness, did the Peace Corps or something like that). The biggest obstacle I've overcome is dealing with clinical depression for a long time, but I'm not sure if I should write about that because of the potential stigma attached to it. Any suggestions I could get would be greatly appreciated. Sorry this was so long! Thanks in advance and good luck to everyone applying!</p>
<p>Just wanted to update as I received my final GRE scores today. My writing score improved to a 5.5 which is a huge relief to me. I know some schools may not weigh the writing portion very heavily as it is newer, but as a writing major my first score was quite disappointing. Hopefully this is somewhat of an indication of good things to come...</p>
<p>Thanks, that does help. I know my quantitative score isn't great, but there really isn't time to take the GRE's again (I already took them twice), and I don't really want to wait a year just because of that. I am planning to explain my change in interest in my personal statement (with some of it relating to my newspaper work) and I do have some concrete ideas of what I would want to do in IR. I just hope some of those schools will give me a chance...</p>