I’m currently an undergraduate (living in Australia) with two years left and am planning to apply for a PhD in Political Science at Vanderbilt University immediately after graduating. Is Vanderbilt considered a top-tier university or a middle-of-the-road one? Would they expect a few journal publications to distinguish yourself from the pack? What sort of GRE score would I need? On their website it says “average at least 625 on the verbal and mathematics components”, but that seems low. If I’m not good at math, should I apply for a PhD in Philosophy instead? Because it seems that statistics is an integral component of politics now.
And if anyone knows what kind of GRE score I’d need for Duke University that’d also be helpful.
I emailed Walter Block and he suggested I do philosophy rather than political science or economics because my strengths lie in qualitative rather than quantitative analysis.
But one of my main interests is International Relations. So I’m undecided which would be better: philosophy or IR? I suppose philosophy would be more valuable from a libertarian point of view, as it would allow me to directly address the Austro-Libertarian ideology. Another option is History, which is of course, merely “philosophy by example”.
I’m interested in pursing a PHD in economics at GMU. I currently have a 3.90 gpa, and haven’t taken the GRE’s. How important is the GRE? How high should I score with my GPA? When I ask my professors they direct me towards more ‘mainstream liberal’ programs, never really answering my question.
GRE for top schools like Duke typically lie above 780 on the quant section.
Even if you look at North Carolina State University, which is only a few miles from Duke but much lower down the academic ladder (though actually still prob a respectable top 50 school), you’re looking at needing a high quant GPA. Average for funded students there is something like a 770.
Not to advertise for other forums, but if you check out Test Magic, you will find plenty of future econ grad students fretting over what it takes to get into which schools (including myself :P).
