<p>So I recently graduated from Centre College and have been trying to decide between pursuing a graduate degree in political science or heading to law school. When I really break down what I would like to do in terms of lifestyle, research, flexibility, etc. I would much rather join academia than be a lawyer and my professors have generally pushed me in this direction. However, I am having trouble really getting any clear info. on what types of programs I should be looking at and how to even go about reseaching them. I have no idea with my credentials if I should be looking at top 20 programs or top 100. The info on law school is so much more readily available and certain that I find myself gravitating back to that just because I am more comfortable with the expectations and application process. Any direction on what sort of schools I should be researching and maybe even some specific schools that you recommend would be very helpful.</p>
<p>Here is a summary of my credentials:</p>
<p>Cum Laude Centre College (3.6 GPA)...(if you've never heard of Centre it's a relatively prestigious liberal arts school in the midwest region)</p>
<p>1300 GRE (610 V, 690 Q, have yet to get writing sample back)</p>
<p>Strong recs from Gov. Department Chair and 2 other gov. professors</p>
<p>A couple summers worth of work experience in grassroots KY politics (yikes, i know)</p>
<p>If you can give us some sense of your research interests within political science, we can help suggest some schools. Outside the top 10 schools (for which your record as presented above won’t be too competitive) many departments have specialties and individual strengths. So we can’t help you think about schools until you provide more information.</p>
<p>the subjects I am most interested in pursuing are political sociology, anything related to LGBT politics and some political theory. hope that helps</p>
<p>That helps a bit, but for your application you are really going to need to narrow down your interests - right now you’re referring to whole subfields, which doesn’t really describe your interests precisely. Political sociology isn’t a subject commonly studied in political science departments (it is a subfield of sociology, after all), so you are going to want to use different language here. You might look at the department at Northwestern, though it might be a bit of a reach for you, because there is a close relationship between poli sci and sociology, and because they have a strong theory group. But the most efficient way to find programs, as many have suggested, is to look at the books or articles that inspired your interest, figure out where those folks are teaching or where they studied (if they are younger scholars) and research those departments.</p>