David_King

Hi. Sorry to interrupt, but I completely agree with "beefmaster" about the benefits of having some work experience. I see it from the teaching side, though. There's so much more we can do in a classroom when students bring real-world experience to the table. Discussions are deeper and more textured. I've taught courses with a mix of "experienced" grad students and Harvard undergraduates. No doubt that the undergraduates are bright - but they're rarely in the same league with slightly older students who went to good colleges and *then* went on to TFA, the Hill, or a non-profit. Remember - policy schools are putting together an "ecosystem" of students - and we want to populate our classes with a vigorous blend of different types of backgrounds and strengths - and most schools *really* want applicants to have real-world experience.

Hi there, HKS hopeful. I haven't been on this site in many many months, and I'm glad that I checked in now to see your post. I don't know anything about where the MPP or MPA/ID committees are - but I want you to know that the MPA committees (for MPA2 and MCMPA) are on track. Every file has been read independently by two committee members. Written comments have been entered for each applicant, and we've had several full committee meetings to make sure that we're all looking out for the same sorts of things. We are now in the "in review" process - during which every file with substantially differing scores are discussed by the two initial readers. Some of those cases will soon come to the full committee for discussion. We meet as a group on Tuesdays and Thursdays - and we're making good progress. As in years past, I'm sorry to say, the overwhelming majority of applicants will not be offered admission. And as in years past, I want to underscore that we're not mesmerized by GREs and GPAs. HKS will almost certainly end up saying "no" to applicants with perfect board scores and "yes" to applicants who struggled at times. We look for an applicant's clear fit to our mission. Bottom line.. keep your hopes alive... and chill (if you're the kind of person who can) until mid-March. Everyone will find out, one way or the other, on the same day. You - and I - are both looking forward to that day.

Hi Invincible49, the "wisdom of crowds" is terrific over at the "am I competitive" thread. You'll want to post over there, and folks will have much better advice than any one person can offer.

Hi Mike, it's really good to hear that you're interested in working at the "city level," and there are some terrific opportunities there. Before thinking about school, you should check in with a city or county manager nearby. The entry to that world is best seen through the ICMA site: http://icma.org/en/icma/career_network/homethough if you're in southern New Hampshire you couldn't do much better than emailing Tom Aspell, the City Manager of Concord, NH: http://www.concordnh.gov/CITYMANAGER He's terrific, and you can bounce ideas off him. If you're interested in working around New England, the policy and administration programs at UMass (both Amherst and Boston) as well as Suffolk (especially in you want to work on Beacon Hill) are where you should focus your energies. A Q151(44th percentile) is probably a non-starter at most programs, and you really need to be landing a solid 160+ given that you have training in Applied Econ, and I'm guessing that a Q160 is very much in reach for you. I hope this all goes well for you, Mike, because local government is a terrific place to be working these days!

Hah. I put ** around no, not quotes, because I don't have any idea about the other yields. Sorry.

Hi all. Well, I can only speak about the MC/MPA program - including the Mason list - and I don't think we're going to go to the waitlists soon. We had separate yield estimates for the Mason and the non-Mason pools, and we were off on both. Our yields are higher than we budgeted. So for those two programs - we won't be going to the waitlist soon, if at all. I don't know where we are on the MPA2 yields - and I have absolutely *no* information on the MPP or MPA/ID yield rates. If you're on the MC/MPA waitlist, feel free to email me, and I'll be happy to talk through things with you. I'm *very* sorry that we don't have better news for the MC/MPA folks who've been holding on this long.

Hi everyone. As you-all know, HKS has been aiming to release the financial aid information tomorrow (April 1) by noon. It looks - right now - that we're going to be done ahead of schedule. Look for information to be posted around noon, Eastern Standard Time, *today* - March 31.

One quick thing as I sit in my office today and hear the prep-work for the new building outside my window... the Kennedy School is going to be a construction site for the next two years. It's kind of exciting (and energizing), but it'll also mean some disruptions. There's talk about adding five minutes between classes so students can get from place to place with the courtyard closed next year. Here's an overview of the plans: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/news-events/publications/hks-magazine/archives/winter-2015/where-does-inspiration-emerge And here's an updated infographic: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/ocpa/pdf/HKS_Facts_Current.pdf

The fellowships can be confusing here, because HKS is so decentralized. Some of the “centers” have their own fellowship programs, which they administer on their own – and most of their decisions are made by the end of March. Those decisions are then reported to the Financial Aid and Scholarship committee (which covers the whole HKS), and they’re factored in when the rest of the aid is handed out. Here’s how I think about the various research centers (though I’m mostly familiar with the Carr Center on Human Rights). Centers have been raising money for specific fellowships. Some of those fellowships are limited to select countries, some to types of backgrounds, and so on. The Carr Center can help pay for *one* person who has a significant Human Rights background. As you-all have mentioned in the thread above, the Center for Public Leadership (David Gergen’s baby) has some especially great fellowship programs. http://www.centerforpublicleadership.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=361&Itemid=185 Dubin, Gleitsman, Zuckerman, and so on. Each of these fellowships has a separate selection committee. Some of the fellowship programs interview applicants – but some don’t. I don’t personally know which ones do or don’t, and things seem to be a bit different every year. There are other fellowships available through the centers. The Ash Center, for example, has some programs – but they tend to focus on post-docs. http://www.ash.harvard.edu/Home/About/Fellows-Scholars Likewise for the Belfer Center – a great place for post-docs. http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/fellowships/ And there’s some actual fellowship money avaialable for one student through the Shorenstein Center (media), and a few others. But CPL’s the big player – and David Gergen has been doing a tremendous job bringing in sponsors. Please keep in mind that most fellowship programs approach their task as if they’re putting together a portfolio of fellows. They want an interesting blend of backgrounds, expertise, and personality types. There’s really no way that an applicant can guess what “role” they’re being considered for in the portfolio. Anyway, after the Centers have made their choices, the rest of the Financial Aid & Scholarship thing happens. Here’s a more-or-less full list: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/degrees/sfs/prospective-students/fellowships-scholarships/domestic/hks And there are some Scholarships that are country-specific or region-specific, and so on. Here’s a list of those: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/degrees/sfs/prospective-students/fellowships-scholarships/intl/hks-affiliated You won’t actually apply for many of these scholarships. Take the “Stokey” Fellowship, for example. Edith Stokey was a beloved faculty member here, and she had a special relationship with and care for Sri Lanka. If we have a terrific student from Sri Lanka, the Stokey money will go there. It’s all a very complicated process – and it gets “centralized” only during the third and fourth weeks in March, when the Centers forward their choices to Financial Aid – and the rest of the scholarships are distributed piece by piece. It's important that you get information through your MYFAID account - because the Financial Aid office is really swamped these days. For someone like me, it’s heartbreaking to hear from students who can’t come because we don’t have enough aid. We didn’t land our top three “human rights” Mason Fellows last year because we couldn’t give them enough money… and that’s really terrible for everyone. We become psychologically invested in *you* when we read your applications, and you become psychologically invested in HKS when you get in. To have all that fall apart because of money is just terrible. I’m sorry that it’s so stressful for you-all.

For the MPP program, you should wait a couple of months (it's crazy here) and then email Matt - if you're thinking of applying again.

I'm a big fan of both schools, and if I were an applicant, I'd be looking at specific strengths/areas in each. SIPA has a better IR-theory faculty and strong professional connections to the UN. Fletcher is stronger in developing countries and has (only my impression) a more eclectic and interesting student population. Both schools have good alumni networks for job hunts - although the Fletcher alumni tend to be a bit more enthusiastic and helpful. Both schools have excellent course selections outside of the departments, too. I think a graduate of either program would be able to do very well on the market, for sure.

Hi Christian, HKS operates like most other institutions in that financial aid tends to be given out before anyone comes off of the waitlist. Indeed - like most other institutions - we go to the waitlist after students decide that they aren't going to come here *because* the aid packages aren't enough. And that doesn't (usually) shake out until May. It's unlikely that we (or similar schools) will go to the waitlists before deposits are due. That doesn't mean it's not possible... but it's unlikely. Feel free to email me and I can walk you through your file. (For others here, though: I have nothing to do with MPP and MPA/ID admissions, so I can't provide insights into your files. But if you applied to the MPA2 or the MCMPA programs, just email me.

Hi All, You might find Matt's blog post on this helpful: http://hksadmissionblog.tumblr.com/post/112726954733/2015-reading-and-decision-process-post-7 I'll only repeat what I said in another stream yesterday: a waitlist is an insurance policy against poor estimates for the "yield" and "melt" rates. Everyone on the waitlist is clearly "above the bar" and admissible, but spaces only open up when the yield is lower than projected or melt is higher than anticipated. And we won't know that until people find out about financial aid - or until they decide not to send in a deposit. I'll also underscore that there's really nothing that an applicant can do to get off the waitlist or to boost their chances - everything depends on whether more applicants (than anticipated) decline to come. I have no idea - yet - whether we'll go to the waitlists. Our yields vary year by year and program by program. I THINK that the MPA/ID and MPP programs went to the waitlists last year, perhaps because our financial aid packages aren't nearly what we want them to be. I don't think we went to the Mason or MCMPA waitlists last year - but I'm not sure. As Matt wrote in his blog post last year, if you have an offer somewhere else, it's *risky* to see whether you'll come off of an HKS waitlist. Some universities have rank-ordered waitlists, and they'll even tell applicants where they are on the list. That's absolutely NOT how we treat our waitlists. Everyone on a waitlist is equally terrific and could easily do the work here. As positions open up in the class (meaning admitted students have said "no thanks,") we will pay attention to what role the applicant had in our anticipated class. Let's imagine that a terrific human rights lawyer from a developing country turns us down for a Mason Fellow slot during the next month. We'd probably look at the waitlist to see whether someone is similar and could bring a similar perspective into the classroom discussions. There's just no way for you, on the waitlist, to anticipate who'll turn HKS down - and there's really nothing we can do on our end to anticipate that, either.

Hi everyone. Today’s the 11th, and our internal target has been to get decisions (all of them) out tomorrow, the 12th. We’re aiming for today, though, because we want to get these to everyone as soon as possible. That’s especially important for international students, because they have to begin getting the paperwork in order to move here for a year or two. Please know that staff (and faculty) have been working extra-long hours to get things done right. Responding to the thread above: as for admission rates, yield rates, and so on, I don’t think anyone from any school is going to give you specific numbers. And as I said the other day, speculations about our admission rates are way off. It’s difficult to get into Harvard, period, but we don’t want some applicants thinking, “Oh, I’ll never have a shot there,” just because their test scores and GPA weren’t stellar. Especially in the MC/MPA program, we’re looking for someone who has been doing good work – work in the publc interest – and who’ll work to make the world a better place. You-all should take a look at Matt’s blog at HKS admissions. We want our process to be transparent so that we get the “right” people applying – and so that folks whom we admit *will* come once we’ve said “yes.” On admission rates and yields – again without specific numbers – you need to see things from the school’s perspective. Every school – including HKS – has a budget projection based on enrollment. Putting our PhD program aside, we have a budgeted number of students in our four programs. Look here: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/about/history/hks-facts In rough numbers (though not the real, unpublished numbers) the programs are expected to bring to campus this fall, about 210 first year MPP students, about 210 MCMPA students (about 85 of these might be Mason Fellows), about 75 first year MPA students, and about 70 first year MPA/ID students. The number of applicants to each program differs, and the admissions rates in each category are different. Is it “harder” to get into one program over another? No, not from our point of view. From our perspective, each program is looking for a different kind of student. Each program has a separate culture, too. Admitted students can petition to defer their acceptance for a year. As Matt will tell you, deferrals are not guaranteed, and they may not be extended beyond one year. In considering our yield rates, then, we have to make several calculations. There’s the yield of admittted students from this year, and there’s a yield rate for the deferrals from last year. Each program has separate calculations for yield rates in both categories. Then there’s the “melt” rate. There will be some students who tell us they’re coming and who send in a deposit, but then don’t come. There aregood reasons for backing out, including finances, family circumstances, work and visa concerns, etc. Each program has an estimated melt rate, and each one is different. Take the MCMPA Mason program as an example. The numbers I’m going to show you are MADE UP (because we don’t release the real numbers), but it’ll give you a sense of things. Assume that our target number for admissions is 85. Assume that there were 30 deferrals from last year’s group of admitted students. Assume that we expect a melt rate equal to 5 admitted students. How do we get to 85? Figuring in the melt, we’d aim for 90. If our models suggest a 50% yield on deferrals, then 15 (of the 30) students would come from there. And if our models suggest a 75% yield on the fresh admits, we need to admit just enough students to get up to the remaining 75 (90-15). We’d be looking to admit 100 fresh applicants, because 75% of 100 is 75. And if we happened to have had 400 fresh Mason applications, then we’d be admiting 25%. Remember, THESE NUMBERS ARE MADE UP, and our admission, yield, and melt percentages vary year by year and program by program. In this example, though, given a budgeted target of 85 students, we’d expect 15 to come from the 30 deferrals (a yield of 50%), we’d expect 75 to come from fresh applicants (a yield of 75 percent of 100 new admits), and we’d expect a melt of 5. So, 15+75-5=85. Some of you will find out, presumably today, that you’re on a waitlist. As with every other school doing admissions right now, a waitlist is an insurance policy against poor “yield” and “melt” estimates. If Matt’s team has read the tea leaves correctly, we won’t go to the waitlists at all. Each program, of course, has separate waitlists, and it could be that we end up drawing on one waitlist (MPA/ID, for example) but not another (MCMPA). As a faculty member, I can appreciate the pressure that Matt’s team is under, because I want his yield and melt projections to be exactly right. The school doesn’t want to be “under” on students, but faculty absolutely don’t want to admit too many. All things equal, our faculty would rather have smaller, not larger, classes. All things equal, we’d rather spend more quality time mentoring fewer students than spreading our time across too many superficial partnerships. So Matt’s team is caught between the budgeted needs of the school (“Hit your targets, Matt.”) and pressure from faculty like me (“Hey, Matt, get me the very best students, but not too many of them.”) I’ll admit right now that, as the chair of the MPA and MCMPA admissions committee, I’m sometimes put too much pressure on Matt and his team to get me the very best applicants – but not too many of them. I suppose Matt has a constituency with you-all, too, the prospective students. He has to encourage the “right” students to apply while being realistic with everyone else. It’s a tough job. Which brings us to today. You’ll get an email. For the overwhelming majority of applicants, the email will not be good news. And to you-all, I’m really sorry. You tried, and we tried, and we took your applications very seriously, and if you’re in one of my programs, please know that you can email me on my harvard account and I’ll walk you though how the committee read your file. For some of you, you’ll learn today that you’re on a waiting list, and you might be tempted to lobby to get your name “moved up” on the list, but as Matt has explained in the blog, that’s not how things work. And for some of you, you’ll get great news… and we do hope you’ll come. Indeed, we’re *expecting* you to come. (Ok, we’re expecting N*YIELD%-MELT to come.) Thank you-all for your patience throughout all this. HKS gets a tremendous number of applications. I don’t think any policy school in the world comes close to the volume of applications that we handle. And unlike most other policy schools, Harvard faculty are exceptionally involved in reading these files, weighing backgrounds, puzzling over letters and essays, and Googling applicants, checking for plaigarism, and so on. I’ve been on the admissions committee for 20+ years, and I think our facultyserve on the committee because we really love the process. The volume is overwhelming. It’s exhausting. And on days like today… the outcome is also kinda thrilling. Good luck to you-all.

Um, hi Boston_Hopeful, I hope we can talk about this in person when you're here. HLS and HKS have great track records - both of them - in public service. And as for presidents, etc, here's a partial list (cribbed from Wikipedia). Doug Bereuter (MPA '73) - former U.S. Congressman, Nebraska Brendan F. Boyle (MPP '05) - member, U.S. House of Representatives, 13th District of Pennsylvania Felipe Calderón (MPA '00) - former President of Mexico Gerry Connolly (MPA '79) - member, U.S. House of Representatives, 11th District of Virginia David Cunliffe (MPA '95) - Leader of the Opposition, Parliament of New Zealand Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj (MPA '02) - President of Mongolia José María Figueres (MPA '91) - former President of Costa Rica Alan Grayson (MPP '83) - member, U.S. House of Representatives, 8th District of Florida Katherine Harris (MPA '97) – member, U.S. House of Representatives, 13th District of Florida; Brian Higgins (MPA '96) - member, U.S. House of Representatives, 27th District of New York Stephen Horn (MPA '55) - former U.S. Congressman, California Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (MPA '71) - President of Liberia, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ban Ki-moon (MPA '84) – United Nations Secretary General Jim Langevin (MPA '94) - member, U.S. House of Representatives, 2nd District of Rhode Island Lee Hsien Loong (MPA '80) - Prime Minister of Singapore Stephen F. Lynch (MPA '99) – member, U.S. House of Representatives, 9th District of Massachusetts Miguel de la Madrid (MPA '65) - former President of Mexico Dan Maffei (MPP '95) – former member, U.S. House of Representatives, 25th District of New York Jamil Mahuad (MPA '89) - former President of Ecuador Jim Moody (MPA '67) - former U.S. Congressman, Wisconsin Larry Pressler (MPA '66) - former U.S. Senator from South Dakota William Proxmire (MPA '48) - former U.S. Senator from Wisconsin Jack Reed (MPP '73) - U.S. Senator from Rhode Island Eduardo Rodríguez (MPA '88) - former President of Bolivia Carlos Salinas de Gortari (MPA '73, PhD '76) - former President of Mexico Joe Sestak (MPA '84) - member, U.S. House of Representatives, 7th District of Pennsylvania Rob Simmons (MPA '79) - former U.S. Congressman, Connecticut Peter G. Torkildsen (MPA '90) - former U.S. Congressman, Massachusetts; Robert Torricelli (MPA '80) - former U.S. Senator from New Jersey Pierre Elliott Trudeau (MA '45, GSPA) - former Prime Minister of Canada Sir Donald Tsang (MPA '82) - Hong Kong Chief Executive Chris Van Hollen (MPP '85) - member, U.S. House of Representatives, 8th District of Maryland

This is an exceptionally interesting and useful set of posts - following on ResearchFrontier's comments from March 4. I'd only underscore that you need to think about subfields, too. If there's a terrific person who's taking PhD students at the 7th "best" school, that's better than a terrific person who's *not* taking on new PhD students at the 2nd best school. All the top schools are in the business of producing the next generation of scholars - not necessarily the next generation of "teachers" - and be very clear about what your own preferences are in both dimensions. Also pay attention to whether recent graduates have a track record of publishing with professors, because you want as much of that on your resume as possible. Good luck everyone!

Hi all. Looking at the full link (which also includes PhD and Undergraduate programs), I think the list makes a lot of sense. The "practitioner" training quoted above probably underplays Tufts (which has a terrific program). If you go to the link, it's interesting to look at the differences between the more academic and practical rankings. Georgetown, GW, and Hopkins do well in the practitioner ratings partly because of the integration of those programs with the foreign policy establishment in DC. The Kennedy School is an interesting blend of both "practical" and "academic."

Hi Paradox28 - seems to me that you got the right kind of advice. The only joint MPP program at Harvard is with HBS, and both HKS and HBS do their admissions separately. If you're already in a program at one of our partner schools, the MPA2 program *is* for you - and you'll have plenty of flexibility in terms of the courses you take. Our target enrollment for the incoming class is in the mid-70s, while the target enrollment for the MPP program is about 200, so, yes, the MPP program is a lot bigger - but also easier to get "lost" in the crowd. We expect our MPA2 students to bring in a lot of experience and insight from their "other" master's programs (including Med School, Design schools, and so on) - while the MPP program is more focused on basic policy and economic skills. Anyway, you'll hear from Matt's team in Admissions this week, probably on Thursday (the 12th), but maybe even earlier. If the decision isn't what you wanted to hear... email me on my Harvard account, and we can talk about how your file was viewed. For more general stuff, be sure to look through Matt's "admissions blog" at the Kennedy School.

Hi all. The wait is almost over, and Matt's team over in Admissions has been putting in long hours to get the decisions ready to post. It's true that we were able to make announcements on March 13 last year, but we didn't like the idea of doing anything so momentous on Friday the 13th *this* year - and our internal target date has been the 12th. Matt's team is testing out the computer code to generate emails. We really don't want to have some computer error notify applicants with the "wrong" outcomes. (There has been a lot of that at other universities lately, so we're making *sure* that our systems are working correctly.) That said... we are on pace for decisions on the 12th. And there's a chance (a small one) that we'll get everything ok'ed even before that. A few other comments, responding to the thread. Yes, admission rates for the MCMPA are higher than for the MPPs, but they're nowhere near what people have speculated. We don't publicize our admission rates, largely because we don't think they're very meaningful. For this year's class of Mason Fellows (MCMPAs) for example, we will offer admission to less than a third of the applicants. We would love to admit a far higher percentage, but we just don't have the capacity, and our applicant pool is so strong. It takes a tremendous amount of focus and attention for us to read mid-career files, because test scores don't tell us very much about applicants who are in their 30s or above. And as many of you know, a lot of what we end up doing when folks look at HKS is to *discourage* people from applying if they're not a fit for the school. I think it's crazy that other schools work to encourage applications from folks who won't get in - just to boost their selectivity ratings. We're not playing that game, and we'd love to have a higher admission rate from a terrific pool than a lower admission rate from a less terrific pool. Please also notice, as Matt has discussed so well on the admissions blog, that we have different criteria and expectations for the different programs. Of course, test scores matter for the MPP and MPA/ID programs. The average test scores for MPA2 applicants are virtually the same as for MPP applicants, but the MPA2 committee is looking for substantially more graduate-level experience that's consistent with our MPP and MPA/ID "core requirements." That's why we tend to think of the MPP and MPA/ID programs as places to "tool up" for a life in public policy, and we tend to think of the MPA2 program as a place to "integrate across professions." That said, test scores are *not* the be-all-and-end-all. We routinely turn down applicants with perfect test scores, and we routinely take applicants with far from perfect test scores. Not everybody tests well. We understand that, and we view files more holistically than you may expect. Letters and essays really *do* matter. As for the MCMPA programs, we just want to see that you have "enough" quant and verbal skills to do well here. It's entirely possible for someone at the 50th percentile GREQ or GREV to get into the Mid-Career program - because if someone has been out of school for a long time, those standardized tests can mask or hide a lot of wonderful capabilities. That's one reason why we put in a new "quant" question on the application this year, and we'll probably make adjustments going forward, too. As with the other programs, we in the MCMPA program routinely say "no" to applicants with high test scores if their life stories (or career trajectories) don't fit what we're looking for. The Mid-Career program is, generally, designed for folks who've been making a difference in the world already, and they need some time here to really work on their leadership and management skills. Applicants to the Mason Fellows program don't have to take the GREs, and they do just as well as the other Mid-Careers in our classes. I hope that's a reflection of how much time we spend reviewing each application - looking for passions and competencies. By the way, it is rare for an Admissions committee to recommend that an applicant switch programs, and we do it only when we think someone really would be a *much* better fit in another program. If you've been asked to switch, my *guess* is that you wouldn't have made it through in the first committee, and your odds in the second committee are around one in three - or less. But that's better than zero in three, so say "yes" when Matt asks if you'd like to switch programs. Finally, a quick word about English... we're really serious about what we say regarding English test scores. If you're taking the computer-based TOEFL, for example, you will *not* get in if you have a sub-100 TOEFL. We use a lot of "case teaching" here, so English skills are crucial. Please, please, please, if you don't have an English score above the minimums that are highlighted on the Admissions site, please don't apply. (We don't need to inflate our selectivity ratings.... and your time will be better spent getting the English skills up to snuff.) Best of luck to everyone. If you DO get in - know that the competition is CRAZY good, and we're counting on you coming. And if you don't get in - know that it won't be held against you for a future application. If you're applying to one of my programs (the MPA2 and the MCMPA), feel free to write me on my Harvard email (I rarely check GradCafe), and I'll be happy to give you some feedback. Meanwhile.... brace yourselves for a Thursday (the 12th) email. And the email *might* even come a bit earlier.

Hi there. You'll want to look at the November 3, 2014 entry on the HKS Admission Blog for hints about the optional essay. http://hksadmissionblog.tumblr.com/ And you can also call or write us at HKS.

Hi. I think I can help answer some of these questions -- though my answers won't make it any easier for prospective students who aren't getting financial aid. The Kennedy School is very expensive; Cambridge housing costs are crazy; and reasonably-priced daycare is especially hard to find. I wish we could make things less expensive. It's distressing to recruit students to HKS only to have us fall short on financial aid. I chair the MPA admissions committees, and I'm sure that the MPP admissions committee operates this way, too: we have a need-blind admissions policy. Applicants whom we think have money have *no* advantage over applicants whom we suspect will need a lot of aid. (And if anyone -- ever -- raised the question of letting someone in because they have the ability to pay... that person would be shunned in the admissions committee and then drummed out.) Our ethic in favor of need-blind admissions sometimes puts us in the uncomfortable position of turning down applicants who *would* have been funded by an employer/agency/non-profit. For example, imagine that an agency guarantees the tuition for any state employee who is admitted to one of our MPA programs. That guarantee would not come up in our discussions about an applicant's "fit to the program." The bar for admission cannot be moved by a pre-existing grant or scholarship. We leave scholarship money on the table, unspent. It happened with several scholarships this year alone. Because those pots of money were given to HKS to fund students from specific countries/states/agencies (and so on), we cannot spend the money elsewhere. Harvard's endowment is huge, yes. But it's useful to remember that each school has only a slice of the endowment. HKS has had to raise its own endowment. We (and the Divinity School, and the Ed School) would *love* to have even a slice of the Law School or Business School endowments. Since we are a young school, and since we don't spin out millionare alumni, our endowment can't support the kinds of scholarships we'd like to see. You shouldn't be surprised that many of us at HKS (and especially on the Admissions Committee) look at the Wilson School with envy. Of course... we'd rather teach here... but we wish we could fund our students as they do. The Wilson School received a remarkable gift that set up their tuition endowment. Tufts, too, has some good financial aid packages. We're envious. David Ellwood made financial aid his top priority when he became dean, and we have more of it than we used to have. Much of it, though, has been given for candidates from specific places or backgrounds. There is more "general aid" available than there used to be, too -- but not enough to make anyone especially happy. I *am* sorry. You-all can leave, for another time, discussions about whether the money "should" be spent on an MPA. We can leave conversations about Placement and Career Services to another time, too. Today, though, with many of you deciding whether to go to HKS or elsewhere, I only wish that we (and they) had more resources to help folks out.

Hi Decaf, Kadisha, and all. I'm brand new on this forum (just learned about it). I chair the HKS admissions committees for MPA and MCMPA (including the various Fellows programs, such as Masons and Wexners). We take longer to read files than most places, and I think it's because we read each one very carefully, very thoroughly. We don't use test scores as the be-all-and-end-all for admissions. Many grad programs have a bar for test scores - below which files simply won't be read. We read every -- every -- file. Test scores matter, though not as much as one might expect. Essays and "fit to program" are exceptionally important. I know that some of you are waiting for financial aid decisions. We're almost... almost done.

Hi everyone. Sorry to have found this site just now -- after we've finished up the admissions season. (Though, as many of you know, the financial aid folks are still working on packages.) I'm happy to answer questions if you have any. There were several interesting threads here that I've been sorting through. And a few reactions: - I can't speak to the MPP, MPA/ID, or PhD committees -- but on the one's I chair (MPA, MC/MPA (including Mason Fellows, Wexner Fellows, and so forth) -- we *do* take a lot of time reading files. We're "slower" than HLS or HBS because we do not rely very heavily on GRE/LSAT/MCAT scores. This is especially the case for our applicants who have been out of school for more than five years. At that point, test scores are simply part of a larger portfolio. Essays, "fit to the program," transcripts, and letters -- these all matter a lot. Every file is screened multiple times. Each applicant can be assured that every word is read by at least two readers. - As for the "quality" of students at Harvard's professional schools, each school looks for wildly different attributes. We have no hesitation rejecting folks who'll ultimately get into HBS, even those with sky-high test scores. Our successful applicants need to make a case that their work will be in the public interest, whether in the private/non-profit/or public sectors. Almost all of our successful applicants have impressive histories of working and volunteering in places that serve communities. And having spent 20 years at HKS, including 15 years on the admissions committee, I'm certain that we the overwhelming majority of Business School students couldn't get into HKS. And probably vice versa. Both schools have different missions. - Working on MPA admission is a plum assignment for faculty and staff. Unlike our sister institutions, faculty are very actively involved in admissions, and we have very low turnover on the committee. Why? Because it is an honor to read the files from our applicants. Most of our applicants are profoundly inspiring, - There is, though, one thing that will absolutely bar an applicant's file from getting considered. We are serious about TOEFL scores for applicants who need to take the test. We simply will not review an applicant's file with a sub-100 TOEFL score. More than half of our MPA applicants do not have English as their first language. Those TOEFL scores are really important. Enough for now. If you happen to be in the crop of our new admits, we'd love to see you on campus for New Admit Day next Friday (April 5). If you're on the waitlist, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you. And if you didn't get in -- please know that any future applications will be read "fresh," without any prejudice based on past attempts.