I’m currently a Junior and starting to look around for programs that would be the right fit for me. I’d like to work in academia, my end goal being a PhD in the political science field.
My stats are as follows:
Major: Political Science
Minor: Environmental Science
GPA: 3.87
Major GPA: 3.93
Honors Program, president of two very active and prominent clubs on campus, soon to be published in the Encyclopedia of Latino in the American Political System, contributing writer for a small digital publication, internship with a CA senator for 1 year, internship at NPS, studied abroad (and received a 4.0) at the University of Oxford.
I have taken a few GRE practice tests and hover around 158V, 156Q. I haven’t really started studying yet so once I do I expect those scores to go up a few points.
I’m not sure if my resume and test scores qualify me to go straight into a PhD program, as well as the name-recognition (or lack of) of my current degree program. Ideally, I would be applying to UCSB, UCLA, USC… basically schools in Southern California with a few others along the West Coast. My question is - would it make more sense to first get an MA in political science or try to shoot for a PhD program? My original plan was to apply to a few PhD programs and have a couple of MA programs as backups. Is it even possible I get into any PhD programs? I don’t have too much research experience other than from my research-based courses (resulting in a few very strong papers to possibly use as writing samples).
@Mandalorian Thanks! That’s what I want to do but I’m not sure if I’m a good candidate to apply to PhDs right out of undergrad. I feel like you need to be brilliant to do that (and actually get accepted)
Have you done any research with a professor? Maybe working with them on a research project as a research assistant, or an independent study project, a thesis, etc.?
PhD programs are about research, and usually the most important factor in determining whether or not to admit you is seeing if you have research experience. That helps programs know that you know what you’re getting yourself into, and that you have the chops to help assist the professors in the department with their work (which is one of your primary jobs as a doctoral student in the social sciences). If the only research experience you have are in classes, you aren’t a very strong candidate for a PhD program.
Other kinds of extracurriculars don’t really help as much. For example, your internship at with the CA senator would be great for a political job but not really for a PhD in political science unless you were doing research for that senator. Similarly, that internship at NPS will only really be appealing for a doctoral program if it was research-oriented. Being the president of those clubs and writing for the digital publication…doctoral programs in political science won’t really care about those things.
You’ll definitely want to practice and study for the GRE and try to get your scores up.
My suggestion is that you focus on MA programs this time around so you can get more research experience. You could also try to get a job or postbaccalaurate program that would train you in some research for a couple years after college, to help prep you for a PhD program. Maybe you could apply to a few PhD programs that are your absolute best matches - maybe around 2-3, that you would be thrilled to get into should you - but as I said, you’d be competing with students who have 2-3+ years of out-of-class research experience, so you wouldn’t be super competitive.
Also, you should select PhD programs because of your fit with the research being done in the department and selecting some professors who could potentially mentor you because they have similar research interests, not because of their location alone. The best PhD program for you might be on the East Coast because (just making this up) maybe you’re interested in the intersection of politics and environment and the best programs for that are Emory, NYU and Duke. Or something, I dunno. You’d have to do some research of your own to figure that out.
@juillet Thanks so much for all this info! I decided to apply to do summer research at my university today, getting in my app just a few hours before the deadline. If it wasn’t for this reply I wouldn’t have even tried to write a proposal in such a short time span.
My extracurriculars were mostly meant for grad school and more political experience, as I originally thought I would pursue an MPP degree, but now that I know I want to pursue a PhD I can focus more on research opportunities. Next semester I am also doing capstone and will try to get into the special honors capstone, which creates more opportunities for research and possible publication.
And yes, the schools I am looking at fit with my interests, which happened to be schools in the West Coast. (I’m planning on doing something surrounding environmental justice and policy, which East Coast schools have not really done yet, save for a few that I just don’t have the stats for).
Apparently it is quite a bit easier to get assistantships & other financial aid if u are a PhD student than an MA student. Just make sure the PhD program offers an MA (some don’t), so if you don’t want to go all the way to the PhD, you can get the MA and leave the school.