<p>I’ve through two years of college now and I’ve decided that I really want to pursue a PhD in political science. At the moment, my GPA is 3.85 (4.00 Major) and I’m majoring in International Politics at a major research university. I haven’t take the GREs yet, but I feel confident that I can do pretty well on them (if the SATs are any guide). So that’s the good stuff. Here are the drawbacks.</p>
<p>I haven’t really “cultivated” that many relationships with professors, and I’ll be spending all of next year abroad (at the University of Oxford), so I won’t really have the chance to cultivate any new relationships before application time rolls around. I’m also (at the moment) planning to forgo honors and instead pursue what amounts to an extra minor.</p>
<p>So, my questions for you. Do I have a chance at a top PhD program (by which I mean Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Chicago, etc.) Would doing honors increase my chances (vs. the extra minor) and what else can I do to increase my chances?</p>
<p>it’s hard to know exactly what your chances are at the ivy league schools without having some more numbers on you. a 3.85 is a great GPA, but it’s not an uncommon one. odds are how well you fit with a department will be the determining factor on whether or not you get in.</p>
<p>also, upper level courses can be quite different from lower level ones, so hopefully you can keep your GPA up. that may change by the time you apply.</p>
<p>doing a year of exchange isn’t going to kill your chances, but as you mentioned it will hinder your ability to build relationships with professors at your home school. try to form relationships with your professors at oxford and definitely consider the honours program. you’ll write a thesis (i assume, since all honours programs seem to be different) and that will give you a perfect opportunity to both create your writing sample for your applications and to build a relationship with your advising professor. i’d say going with honours, if only for the thesis and the relationship, is preferable to going with a minor.</p>
<p>schools don’t really care if you technically have a minor or not, but they will like it if you have certain classes on your transcript. for example, if you’ve got several years of mandarin classes on your transcript, that’s great whether you officially have the minor or not.</p>