How does the admissions/selection process work in political science?

[PostModern]

I wonder how the selection process for PhD applicants is organized in Political Science. Are there any common patterns or does each department have a distinct way of handling this? For example:

- Is there an auto-reject mechanism? (e.g. throw out low GPAs or low test scores or people without certain core coursework before even looking at the recommendations and the statement of purpose)

- Will the statement of purpose always be read?

- At what point will the application be forwarded to the professors you want to work with? Only when you are shortlisted or earlier?

- What can we realistically expect to happen with the writing sample? Will they read the abstract? Or introduction and conclusion? Will they read the whole thing once you have been shortlisted?

- What is more important for admissions: Statement of Purpose (i.e. your future research interests) or Writing Sample (i.e. the quality and thematic choice of your current work)?

- Who will be the first to have a look at your application: graduate director/chair of the admissions committee or a randomly selected faculty member? Or a person in an administrative function?

[ekonomiks]

I'm interested in knowing this, too.

[strategery]

I don't know the answers to all of these, but here's a shot at a few.

- Is there an auto-reject mechanism? (e.g. throw out low GPAs or low test scores or people without certain core coursework before even looking at the recommendations and the statement of purpose)

I was told by senior faculty at a top 5 school that this was indeed the case.

- What is more important for admissions: Statement of Purpose (i.e. your future research interests) or Writing Sample (i.e. the quality and thematic choice of your current work)?

I would say that the SOP is more important. Other factors in your apps (recs, gpa, gre) should already give them a good idea for your research/analytical/writing abilities. You need the SOP to convey what specifically you are interested in researching, why you are prepared for such research, and why school X is the best fit.


- Who will be the first to have a look at your application: graduate director/chair of the admissions committee or a randomly selected faculty member? Or a person in an administrative function?

I'm sure this depends on school, though the programs I know of either had "a person in an administrative function" or not so randomly selected faculty members (based on what you put down in your app as being your subfield.