Political Science Ph.D. advice

polisci44
Wed, 16 Nov 2011 20:14:36 +0000

Hello all. I’ve recently decided that I would like to pursue a Ph.D. in political science, and am just trying to figure out how competitive I am and what schools fit my academic record and areas of interest. Im a junior at a state university in the honors college with a 3.7 GPA. Im double majoring in English and Political Science, and my major GPA’s are 3.8 and 3.7 respectively. I havent taken the GRE yet, nor have I begun to prepare for it. I took a practice exam and scored 690V and 680Q. I don’t have any formal research experience at this point, but I’ve had an internship for the past 6 months at a law firm (I was initially set on law school, but this internship has made me realize law is not for me, and I am much better suited for an academic setting). Im just beginning the process of writing two honors theses (one for each major). As of right now, I could obtain one outstanding and one very good letters of recommendation from faculty. I am primarily concerned with American politics. Areas of study I would be interested to study in grad school are political theory, voter behavior and comparative politics (though I am not set in any of these yet).

I’m just beginning to research attending grad school, so forgive me if I’m a little naive. Do you need a masters to get in to a solid Ph.D. program? Are there any PhD programs that sort of fuse Political Science and English? Based on my academic credentials so far and areas of interest, what sort of schools would be a good fit for me? What can I do to make my application more competitive? I would like to pursue a career in academia, but am not fundamentally opposed to working in industry.

I realize that I will need to do extensive research to find the right fit for me, but I figure this was a good place to start. Any advice/comments would be greatly appreciated!