<p>I just received a letter from the department head at UCLA to apply to their Poli Sci Phd program. I wanted to know if that held any weight/value? It also included info about their diversity program and a contact person (I would be a minority applicant). I have a high major GPA but 2.9 overall GPA and need to retake the GRE, so I didn’t even think of applying there. Even weirder, I never even requested any information from their school or program. I didn’t even think top tier schools solicited apps to their programs…</p>
<p>Also, is there any work experience that would bolster apps to poli sci Phd programs?</p>
<p>Did they say anything about an application fee waiver? Perhaps contact the diversity coordinator and see if they’d do that. It would make the application cost no more than the GRE score and transcripts.</p>
<p>Lots of schools solicit apps to increase diversity. I wouldn’t read it as any more important than the brochures you got in the mail from colleges when you were in high school.</p>
<p>And work experience doesn’t matter, except if you’ve had experience doing research for a faculty member.</p>
This is not always correct for all fields. Definitely not as far as Econ goes and I can think of some corresponding work experience that might weigh on the scale. While PoliSci lacks the counterpart of Federal Reserve RA’s, the “golden” Econ job, it does have a fair number of think tank equivalents that would be regarded as having some merit.</p>
<p>As a Poli Sci faculty member who served on admissions once again this year, my experience is that the only kind of work experience that matters is research experience. You’re right to point out that think tank jobs do provide that sort of experience, but experience in politics (campaign strategist, legislative aide, etc.)will not help your application directly - it may, however, improve the quality of your research statement and thus affect your chances indirectly.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t think much of the solicitation, even if it’s from a top school.</p>
<p>Last year after I took the GRE, I started getting swamped by postcards and brochures from programs even though I think I opted to not receive any information from schools. I scored relatively well, but nothing really worth writing home about. </p>
<p>I ended up writing it off as the marginal cost of a school mailing out some pocket-change worth’s of papers is less than the probability-weighted added revenue of application fees generate.</p>