<p>I am currently looking at Graduate Schools for PHD Political Science Programs. I am currently attending a relatively unknown liberal arts college and I have a 3.8 GPA and I expect to have attained a 650 Verbal, 730 Quantitative GRE scores. I will have good recomedendation letters and resume but not a great writing sample. What are some good schools to apply to for American Politics or Political Theory?</p>
<p>Define “good” letters. Who are they coming from and what did you do to earn them?</p>
<p>I don’t know how you think you can so precisely estimate your GRE scores.</p>
<p>We can’t give you advice where to apply based on a bunch of numbers anyway. Far more important is your fit with the research interests of specific professors. You need to check out faculty Web sites and read journals to find out who is studying in your areas of interest.</p>
<p>The good letters are coming from one professor who is my advisor and assisted me with my thesis, another professor I assisted him in preparing for several academic conferecnes ad the third Professor I am conducting research with in China. I am planning on studying American Politics and Political Theory in graduate school-the GRE scores I estimated on taking many practice tests and I will know my grades in two weeks. I am looking for schools that are not too difficult to get into and would reasonably give good financial funding.</p>
<p>You need to describe your interests more specifically for us to suggest schools - what aspects of American Politics interest you, and what kind of theory do you want to do? There are BIG differences among schools with strengths in these areas…</p>
<p>Within American Politics I am looking for faculty with interests of the legislative process, political behavior and government institutions rather than racial, politics of religion, urban poltics or subfields of that nature. I am also looking for a Political Science program that would be more comfortable for a libertarian or conservative so a more well rounded faculty would be helpful.</p>
<p>Neither of these are my areas of specialty, but I would think that Texas would be a good fit for you, and that you would be competitive for admission. You’ll need to refine your interests even more when you submit applications - for example, in American politics behavior and institutions are two separate communities of scholars, so you will find it hard to study both. And libertarian political theory and conservative theory are quite distinct, with different departments specializing in each.</p>