MPPgal
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Posts posted by MPPgal
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Hey guys, Id appreciate to have your opinion. (All European Schools)
International student from Hong Kong
Programs: MPP : Oxford and Hertie, Development Studies : Cambridge, SciencesPo, IHEID. Latin American Studies : Oxford and Cambridge
Undergraduate institution: An internationally ranked uni in Hong Kong
Graduate Institution : One of most prestigious Unis in Latin America
Undergraduate Degree: Bachelor in English Studies
Graduate Degree : Master in South American Studies
Undergraduate GPA: Second Class Honors Upper Division
Graduate GPA : 9.27 out of 10 = Distinction.
Study Abroad experience: 0.5 year in Madrid and a few months in Canada and Australia
GRE: No
Years Out of Undergrad: 3
Years of Work Experience: No but extensive internship and volunteering in the field
Describe Relevant Work Experience:
- 9 months volunteering in slums in Peru
- 1 year volunteering in a regional NGO, executing projects in the field
- Numerous internships in Consulate, local and regional NGOs and Think Tank
Languages:
English: IELTS 8
Spanish: Advanced
Cantonese: Native
Mandarin : Advanced
Japanese: Advanced
Portuguese : Advanced
German: Intermediate
Quantitative: None
SOP: explain clearly my career goals and how the courses can help me accomplish them
LOR: from 3 very closed professors. All emphazied on my devotion to international development, academic excellence and language skills
Thank you very much for your help
Europe tends to look at grades and only at grades, when they state first class honours they mean it, but Latin American studies is an easier degree to get into at least in Oxbridge, for the rest you must be set. However, I do have to say that the US has much better Lat Am studies programs than Europe, I do recommend Berkeley, UT Austin, UCLA, USC and even Arizona State even over Oxbridge as Europe is just not focused enough.
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As an international who applied last year, my impression of speaking to international students at SAIS and Georgetown was that plenty had internships with the world bank etc, few had job offers though. So that is the thing for career building Dc is the place to be, if what you want is to stay beyond, NY, Chicago or even California, Texas, Florida etc are better, consider that no matter where you go you can always intern during the summer in DC, other places might have less jobs but they also have a lot less people applying for said jobs. I managed to get a well paid internship in Austin, 20 hrs, my area of interest, free health insurance etc and all supposedly working for the university, something key if you are international as you are not allowed to have paid positions during the academic year outside of your university, thus bigger schools have a huge advantage as they have a lot more jobs availiable while SAIS for example, has Johns Hopkins more than an hour away. In general it is not to hard to secure this type of deal in my school, I know Georgetown has some TAs, SAIS less.
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Programs: MPP
Schools: GWU Trachtenberg, American U, UW Evans, Duke Sanford, Georgetown McCourt
Undergraduate institution: large state universtiy, top 40 public
Undergraduate Major: Political Science
Undergraduate GPA: 3.41 cumulative, 3.52 in major
GRE: 160 V 156 Q. 4 AW
Years Out of grad school (if applicable): 3+ years
Years of Work Experience: 2+ years of strategy consulting
Describe Relevant Work Experience:
Legislative Aide for a State Representative for just under a year
I've been in my current office (state energy office) for almost 3 years in various roles, with over a year as a policy analyst with a lot of responsabilty and programs with my name on them
SOP: Nothing yet, but it will be solid
LOR:
- My office's Executive Director will write a glowing and very personal letter
- I hope I'll be able to get an undergrad professor to write me one. I took 3 of his classes and did decent in them, he's an accomplished political science prof.
-I could get another very good letter from work
you are fine but to get better aid do try and take you gres again and up your quant you should get into gwu and american no problem but for gppi and duke a higher quant will help
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Get a job and build a resume for 2 plus yrs that will make up for bad grades!
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LBj gives good money SPEA not so much, not sure about Evans. Your GPA and experience sounds good to get funding remember that public schools in general have less funds availiable to out of staters while private schools even if expensive have a lot more money to give in financial aid so I would add GWU and cornell to your list. I think you have a good shot at getting at least an out of state waiver at LBJ.
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I had a 3.4 and got a full scholarship and a few other good scholarship offers, do you have good and relevant work experience (at least 2 full years), good LOR? just make sure you do well on your GREs, I studied a lot and got a 164Q, 160V(non native speaker) and 4.5 that made the difference. Most schools even when they say they don´t tend to supplement GPA with GREs so do really well in one and you are set. Obviously be realistic, Harvard and Princeton are hard and just take very few, but all other schools (Harris, LBJ, GPPI, SAIS, Wagner, etc) you should be set
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Program Applied To (MPA, MPP, IR, etc.): MA in International Relations/MBA - Dual Degree
Schools Applying To: SAIS/INSEAD, Fletcher/IE Madrid, Oxford MBA/MPP, LSE
Undergraduate institution: Kenyon College
Undergraduate GPA: 3.16 (3.33 in major)
Undergraduate Majors: Political Science
GMAT Quantitative Score: 47 (70th percentile)
GRE Verbal Score: 40 (90th percentile)
GMAT total: 700 (89th percentile)
Years Out of Undergrad (if applicable): 5 years
Years of Work Experience: 4.5
Describe Relevant Work Experience: High-level Advance Staffer on Both Obama Campaigns, Producer for a 1+ year at Al Jazeera English, project manager at mid-sized USAID contractor. Worked as counselor at Seeds of Peace International Peace Camps as well. Personal Projects: Raised $340k for Palestinian students to come to my school. Worked on creating an "Arab Spring" music label.
Languages: English, Spanish
Quant: Micro, macro economics and statistics
Strength of SOP: Fairly strong, based on my experiences growing up as an Arab-American and how that translated into a career of high-level campaign politics and international news and development work. transitions nicely into IDEV work, and the dual degree. I talk about wanting to get into Impact Investing.
Strength of LOR (be honest, describe the process, etc): Should be top notch. One of my recommenders is a professor who is well-respected at SAIS, and the other is my boss from both Obama Campaigns.
The SAIS/INSEAD combo is my top choice, followed by LSE. My GPA is low but I thought my GMAT score would mitigate that. How are my chances? Thanks for your input
Sadly LSE and Oxford ONLY look at your GPA, but I would say you have a good shot at SAIS or any other American school for sure.
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Also MGPS is not really an IR program, if that is what you are looking for then this might not be the program for you as it is a little more practical than the theoretical IR.
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As a current LBJ student, you should be more than ok, even if not for scholarships but it sounds like you would pay instate tuition anyways. Feel free to ask any questions.
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Have you looked at the international development course within GPPI, this might be your best bet, it is development focused public policy with a bit more math than MSFS
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Of course not! I know people in my program who had bad grades and came from bad law programs so dont worry about it.
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Sadly they dont really see where you did your schooling, apply to both, I thought I didnt have a chance and I got into most places. Remember, one extra pplication has a small marginal cost in time and can giv eyou one more place to decide.
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You have a chance, yes, are you ideal, no. Honestly for 99% of the population Harvard´s MPA 2 is a chance, lets put it like this the people I know who got in this year included the speaker of the President of my country, so my question is, you are only willing to stop what you are doing for harvard or do you want an MPP, if the first then go ahead, but 5 years is a bare minimum of experience you are competing against people with 10 or more years so chances are pretty dim, if you want an MPP then diversify, I would say you are an ideal candidate for Columbia, Chicago, GT, etc
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never mind just saw your verbal, that is more than enough. Just increase the quant
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Schools applying to:
Tufts Fletcher
Georgetown MSFS
Washington U - Evans
GPA:
Studied Law in King's College London. Graduated with a 2:1 honours. Not sure how that would translate into the GPA system.
GRE Score:
156 Quant, 164 Verbal, 4.5 AW
Work experience:
slightly less than 2 years in a law firm in Singapore. Also spent a year in India after graduating and worked for a think-tank for about 3 months. Apart from that, have interned for an NGO working towards the abolition of child labour in rural India.
I would say nothing substantive apart from a few months' internships in the non-profit sector in India.
Language skills
Native speaker of Hindi
Intermediate knowledge of French. Am working on this right now, to get it upto par with grad school requirements.
Quantitative requirements:
Really none, apart from High School Maths and high school macro/microecons. That was almost 7 years back though !
Overseas experience (work, study and teaching):
I have interned at a think-tank in New Delhi as well as rural areas in central India. In total I have spent about 5 months doing so. I am an Indian citizen who has lived and worked in Singapore, London and India. I do not think my international experiece would be an issue.
Statement of Purpose:
Should be alright, as I am quite good at writing !
Recommendations:
One is a Human Rights Law professor, one is a Rhodes Scholar, and one was a lecturer in my college.
I know I've posted before, but I did not get any response on my profile. Would appreciate some honest feedback. Thks.
Your aw is more than enough, especially for a non native English Speaker, however your quant is the problem, you, sadly are compiting against a lot of people from your country (India I assume), many with engineering degrees that have at least a 165, you do not need that much as you might not be a math person but you need to increase it to at least the median for that school, aka a 160 ish should be ok a 162+ ideal, this will also compensate for your lack of quant background. Also, if your argument is Im good at English just bad a t math then your verbal should be higher, I would say at least a 160 (i am bad at verbal good at math and that's how much I got), especially for tufts and GT. Also, you are applying for a professional degree, you have work experience and yet you only have academic LOR, you need at least 1 from your boss or direct supervisor or your intern coordinator etc.
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On eof my reasons for not going to GPPI last year was the fact that I got the impression while visiting that the fact that it was not a school was significantly limiting the department, its resources etc. so yeah why not!
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Yes that is true, if you like something that flexible then go for it and it is true it is easy enough to do that, one thing though, it is easier to get financial aid if you apply to double degrees from the start. As someone interested in energy I think Georgetown is not a very strong option but SAIS and indiana are, just my two cents on that.
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Just an advice as a current UT Austin student interested in energy stuff, the EER program is really flexible, way too much so (there are no core classes), most people recommend doing it in conjunction with public policy, global public policy (you can focus on development for example) or business to give you more direction.
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I am international and have never had issues getting clearance, but that is for think tanks not for foreign service where they obviously will not hire international students.
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Facts: there are no real differences in job placement between those degrees as an international student, the reality is that we have a hard job getting a job especially in the think tank or non profit world because as an international you are only allowed to stay for a year (vs science degrees where you are allowed to stay for 3), thus it becomes extremely difficult to do this as any firm has to spend a lot money in training you to lose you in a year and then if they want to keep you they have to spend a lot on visa sponsorship, many think tanks do not have that money or are not willing to do it when there are plenty of good domestic students availiable so you need to show you are amazing, to do this apply to a place close to where you would like to work DC schools,or others with good security studies think tanks, Austin has stratfor for example, Boston has a couple too, NYC, Chicago, etc so you can intern with them legally while in school and show them how amazing you are and already be trained and thus be able to at least stay a year. It is a hard path no matter what and you will have an easier time to get a job as an economic analyst or in the for profit world.
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LBJ at UT and Korbell at Colorado offer pretty egnerous packages for internationals
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MPA and MPP are the exact same thing, or not depending on the program. In general reputation I would say the best one is Princeton's MPA followed by Harvard's MPP and then things get a bit murky depending on your specialization etc etc. Sadly you need to do your research because it depends on what you like (some MPPs and MPAs are more quant, some are more management based, some are freer some are less, I recommend researching, Chicago's Harris, Georgetown's GPPI, Berkeley's Goldman, Michigan's Ford, Indiana SPEA, Duke, UT's LBJ, George Washington University, Syracuse's, Columbia's SIPA, NYU. Also worth checking out are Cornell's, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin, American University, University of Maryland.
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Check the EER-MPAff degree at UT Austin
How much money should I prepare for my first semester of PhD studies?
in IHOG: International House of Grads
Posted
I second that. Keep in mind that because when you sign your contract you will not have a social security number yet (you can only apply for one 3 days after classes start) they have no way to check your credit record and thus many leasers require you to put up 2-3 months rent deposit instead. Rent depends on living accomodations (shared flat or single one, one bedroom vs studio and location). In general, depending on the city they will range from 600 dollars to 1200+ utilities will be about 30 for internet and 50-80 or so for a smartphone (if you have an unblocked one already you can lower this) if you can live with an old style phone it is a lot cheaper. School health insurance many times comes as part of your tuirion package, if not it is about 1-2.5k per year. A used car, depends it can be as low as 2000 dollars up to 10k depending model etc. The insurance is about 500 a year if you are either female or over 25, a bit more if you are a male under 25. I would say 6000 should be enough except to but the car, unless you go for a very cheap one, an option i did in undergrad was to buy a car between a couple of international students, this works well if you are only planning to use it to do grocery shopping and you all live close by. Also, in places like Ann Arbor, Austin, DC, NYC, Madison you might not need a bike and be ok with just a bike, I am Mexican so I just drove but plenty of other internationals have none and are fine, they just get a car to go or zip car if they really need one or borrow one to go to IKEA.