<p>BA Biology from NC state school (not well known)
3.99 GPA</p>
<p>GRE - took them 3x</p>
<p>Verbal, 560, 590, 740
Quant 680, 720, 690
anal 5.5, 5.5, 6.0
* most schools ask for most recent, but will see all on the report</p>
<p>2 years of post-bach research experience in cognitive science</p>
<p>applying to poli sci PhD programs to study ethnic conflict
undergrad papers and research in bio and psychology addressing political topics</p>
<p>employed at the U. of Rochester brain/cog sci, sat in on 2 classes in poli sci there, currently enrolled in an upper level undergrad and graduate class. </p>
<p>will have 2 letters from Rochester poli sci faculty and one from my undergrad bio advisor</p>
<p>SOP should be decent</p>
<p>writing sample will be less than stellar. I will probably use the paper I am working on now for my graduate class, which is a research proposal type paper where I deisgn and then critique my own design (no data).</p>
<p>I am applying to:
UCSD - my top choice
Stanford - realize I have no chance, but decided to give them $100
Ohio
Rice
UC Santa Barbara
U of Nebraska
(the last two are for the opprotunity to work across departments, I know they aren't highly ranked)</p>
<p>Please be brutally honest about my chances. Also, please suggest any other places I should be looking (I got a month...)</p>
<p>Based on your stats and our private discussion, I'd say you have a fair shot at any program. You will have a bit of an uphill struggle with your SoP, convincing people of your reasons for "switching tracks." However, you're not terribly out of range for any poli sci programs (a bit low on the GRE quant), and it sounds like you have good post-undergrad experience.</p>
<p>Have you considered UCLA and Cal? Their programs in ethnic conflict aren't bad.</p>
<p>Along the lines of UCLA and CAL, Michigan has a great poli sci dept that's ranked very highly at the graduate level. I also have had some personal contact with their premier ethnic conflict professor. PM me if you would like more details.</p>
<p>deffiantly consider UCSD, UCLA, Berkeley, stanford. all are top ten programs in poli sci. they are all difficult to gain admission too, but you have an excellent gpa and decent gre's. with good letters i would imagine you have a shot at deffiantly getting into at least one of them if not more. best of luck!</p>
<p>Yeah, I would heavily bring in your cog sci experience into your sop (unless you are doing this already). I am sure there are ways to apply what you learned as a cog sci student into your future plans of poli sci. Reconciliation sounds like a better option than complete renunciation.</p>
<p>I appreciate all of your input. I am glad to see that you all have more confidence in my appilication (numerically, at least) than I do. I will look into Cal, Michigan, Berkley and UCLA (although my impression of UCLA was that their studies of ethnicity are extremely constructivist, to the point of ignoring possible universal psychological biases which is one area in which I'm interested).
Thanks again, and I look forward to more responses.
A</p>