<p>i posted here before and got a lot of good suggestions regarding my application to PhD programs in political science. what i'm trying to do now is figure out if there are any more safety schools i should apply to, and which ones? i'm interested in international security, US foreign policy, and terrorism. at this point, i feel like i'm a really good fit at the schools i'm applying to: princeton, columbia, mit, chicago, georgetown, gwu, and american u (SIS). my only concern is that, as of right now, gwu and au are my only real safety schools, and they're not exactly easy to get into. i'm having trouble finding other places that are good fits for me, while still reputable enough (or having reputable profs) so that i could get a good teaching placement afterwards. i think i'll be competitive for all the top programs, but you know, when you have hundreds of applicants for 10-20 spots, you never know what can happen. any suggestions? or should i leave things as they are? my basic background:
- GRE: 670V (95%), 790Q (91%), 5.5A (87%)
- GPA: 3.35 undergrad (physiology - top 30 school), 3.8 grad (health policy - top 5 school)
- Work: 4 years of domestic policy at dc think tanks - over 10 coauthored policy briefs and research papers
- Foreign policy background: know IR research pretty well, did a lot of work on Iraq sanctions and Israeli-Palestinian conflict in college, well-versed on US foreign policy history
- my LoR's will be excellent, my SoP is pretty solid (had a lot of people look it over, including social science PhDs and IR students)</p>
<p>Personally, I'd leave things how they are right now. If you don't get into the schools of your choice, you can always try during the next application cycle. I wouldn't compromise your research goals by choosing a place you really don't want to study.</p>
<p>Grad schools aren't like undergrad schools in that most people don't do the reach/match/safety thing. It's far more important to find schools you match research interests with and go from there.</p>
<p>I don't do international relations/polysci so I don't know much about its competitiveness, except that it's very intense.</p>
<p>I think of an admissions process as a black box--a fair analogy, because every school and every reviewer has a different set of criteria, and there's little chance of you knowing it. So you could very well receive admission from a very good school and get rejected from what you considered safety. In this case, one way to increase your overall chance of receiving admission is to apply as many schools as possible.</p>
<p>Let me explain myself. If you assign an arbitrary value of 10% to your chance of getting admitted to a any given grad program, then by applying to two programs, you are increasing your chance by 9%: (1) there is 90% chance of getting rejected from one school; (2) if you apply to two, then there is 90% * 90% = 81% chance of you getting rejected from both schools; (3) so your chance of getting admitted to at least one school when you apply to two is 19%. Likewise, if you apply to 3 programs, your chance of getting admitted to at least one school is 27%, and 4, 35%. Right now you are applying to 7 schools, so using our arbitrary index value 10%, your overall chance of getting admitted to at least one school is 52%. By submitting only three more applications, your chance will increase to 65%!</p>
<p>Of course, this model is over-simplified. For example, by applying to more schools, you are reducing the quality of each application you are submitting. Whether you fit is another question. So I think the best way to apply to as many suitable programs as possible while you are not sacrificing the quality of your applications.</p>
<p>Except that's not really how it works. Ask Josephine.</p>
<p>Grad programs will admit (or not) you depending on the fit of your research interests with the available faculty. So applying to a greater number doesn't really matter, and applying to programs that don't represent your interests is a waste of time and money. Plus, I think it's been noted on here before that it seems the same people within a program get admitted to all the top programs. Also, grad schools care zilch about yield and enrollment numbers - if they don't fill their program completely, they really don't care (although with the number of people that apply to the top programs, they ALWAYS fill.</p>
<p>If you're looking for a different kind of safety, I'd recommend looking into Chicago's masters in IR program. They often defer PhDs interested in IR to the master's program if they aren't admitted but still have good stats. The downside is you have to pay for it, but the upside is the program has an excellent placement rate into PhD programs.</p>
<p>DespSeekPhd,</p>
<p>Something tells me that the OP would rather not have to get another MA...</p>
<p>fp06,</p>
<p>I'm with everyone else. Don't dilute yourself. I think you've got a good list and good chances.</p>
<p>Didn't know the OP already has an MA. That changes things slightly. Of course, I think maybe having an MA bumps a person into the "more favorable" category, since they've already proven themselves at the grad level. But I'm in history, not polisci/IR, so that's just my guess.</p>
<p>yeah, definitely not up for another masters at this point. i was thinking about adding brandeis (mainly for prof. art) and umd, but not sure just yet. neither school places all that well, and that's a major thing for me. don't know if there is any marginal benefit to add any more schools - in theory, i should have little trouble getting into gwu and american with my background and scores, as well as a good shot at any of the others, but with so many applicants for so few spots, this is not nearly as predictable as applying for a masters degree</p>