Political Science/IR PHd or Masters admissions question....

[hmartins]

I have found little to no info out there about average numbers and admissions top poli sci programs I thought I may get some responses here;

I have a 3.1 undergrad gpa, with a 3.49 poli sci gpa at a reasonably good national university (top 40?) in a top 10 poli sci program (not sure this matters a whit). My freshman year GPA was horrible (typical first yr away from home silliness) but after that solid if not spectacular. I have a 3.0 gpa from a top tier law school and have practiced for a few years (typical corporate crap). GRE - math 740, verbal 700, analytical 4.5.
Very little experience in real world IR outside of a legal internship.

Do I even have a shot at a top ten masters or phd program? Is Princeton, Columbia or Yale simply a burned out attorney's pipe dream?

[asquare]

Do you mean a 4.5 on the analytical? They don't give scores of x.4 on the analytical writing secton:

Analytical Writing score reported on a 0-6 score scale, in half-point increments

Also, are you looking at masters in political science, or masters in public policy/public affairs? I don't think any of the schools you mentioned have terminal masters programs in political science. Princeton (Woodrow Wilson School) and Columbia (SIPA) have very strong MPA/MPP programs. Those programs tend to "count" work experience more than PhD programs, and you might be a competitive applicant for them.

[hmartins]

Yes - sorry I switched the digits for the analytical. And Columbia does have a free standing MA for political science; Political Science

So my relatively low undergrad and law school GPAs wouldnt be as much of a barrier as I thought?

[asquare]

I don't know how those things will be evaluated by a master's or PhD in political science, but I doubt they are insurmountable obstacles for policy programs, if you can make a solid case for wanting to do policy work.