greendiplomat

Quick question about explaining academic performance in applications: My GPA's fluctuated quite a bit throughout my undergraduate career. Whereas my GPA has consistently been around 3.8 in each of the 4 Fall semesters that I've been a college student, my GPA in the spring semester always falls around a 3.0. While I didn't think anything of it until earlier this academic year, I was recently diagnosed with seasonal depression (which would explain the drop in academic performance, given that most of the "Spring" semester actually takes place in the winter). Do you think it would be worth touching upon this somewhere in my application? The way I see it, I have 3 options: a) include a brief sentence or two in my personal statement, where I explain how my undergraduate coursework has prepared me for the particular program (in particular, I got a C+ in Intermediate Micro during the spring of my sophomore year, but retook it Pass/Fail my senior year to prepare myself for upper-level micro-heavy econ classes, which allowed me to get an A in my senior seminar in microeconomic theory); b ) include it in the section for additional information (a number of my applications have space for explaining special circumstances*); or c) don't address it at all. I realize that it's generally frowned upon to try to cover up a so-so GPA, but I feel like this is a legitimate reason. Thoughts? Thanks in advance! -- *HKS, for example, has an optional essay that might be appropriate ("If you have any concerns about your prior academic background or if you believe the Admissions Committee may have concerns, please give a brief explanation of your performance in college and its relation to your past and future career accomplishments").

If you have a Masters Degree from an Ivy, chances are, you can write. As long as your SOPs don't suggest otherwise, you'll be fine. (Also worth considering is that you'll probably get more lenience given that you're an international student.)

I think it's a stretch to say that his scores are "inexcusable". At the end of the day, performance at grad school has NOTHING to do with whether you know what "sartorial" means (pulling a random word that I got on test day), and I think the admissions committee recognizes that (basic math, on the other hand, is reflective of your ability to handle more advanced-level math required in econ/quant classes). If I were on the adcomm, I'd probably think the opposite of what you suggested. A stellar GPA from a 4-year undergraduate career at a "lower ivy" (though I don't like that term, since I had my school called that by a girl from a "higher ivy" that happened to be a certain 5-letter word), means that you can write, at least to the point of being successful in academia; a less-than-stellar GRE score from a 30-minute test, on the other hand, could be from a bad outing and doesn't disprove what's established by a 3.9 from an ivy.

As a writing-intensive social sciences major, the only thing that you needed to prove was your quantitative skills; they'll probably assume that your verbal skills are decent, and writing style can be shown through the SOP. So, given that you have an 800 in quantitative, I'd say don't worry about the GRE. Congratulations. Even if it were worth retaking the GRE, it's definitely more worth your time to separate yourself from the rest of the applicant pool by refining your SOPs, etc.... either way, it would probably be too late at this point, given that most deadlines are in the next few weeks. Hope that helps.

Right. In short, SFS is a very profession-oriented program that produces people for the foreign service (i.e. diplomats), whereas GPPI is geared more towards public policy analysis. Note that, because Georgetown has SFS, their MPP is definitely not as international as MPPs at other schools (though this isn't to say that there isn't the ability to take internationally-oriented coursework, or to cross-register for a few classes at SFS).

Did you specify that you were an international student with a Bachelor's degree? Given that Duke has a good number of international students, I sincerely doubt that they have no students with UK/Australian/etc. degrees... Maybe they thought you were a U.S. student with an 2-year Associate's degree? EDIT: Found a page on the Duke website that explicitly says that they accept 3-year international degrees: http://www.sanford.duke.edu/graduate/mpp/admissions/apply.php under "transcripts"

Bear in mind, though, that the vast majority of 2nd-year students get scholarships at SIPA (i.e. everyone with above a 3.2 or something).

I generally agree with Batignolles about looking into Business Schools that allow for coursework tailored to your academic interests. Off the top of my head, Yale's School of Management might be a school you'd want to look into. With the motto "Educating leaders for business and society", it might be a good fit given your desire to take IR-related coursework, and it has a super flexible curriculum in that, apart from the Core Curriculum, there's no upper limit on how many classes you take in other schools at Yale (including their international affairs program). While I'd also suggest you look into the MBA/MA-IR 3-year program at Yale, I don't think the MA-IR program there would be a very attractive option as a standalone degree if you want to get into finance/consulting, since it's more academically-oriented than most IR degrees. If, however, you're set on a Master's in IR, I'd say that SIPA has the strongest presence in the private sector, with their employment statistics indicating that about 45% of graduates go on to take jobs in the private sector. The general strength of the school in this regard was reflected at a holiday party I was at earlier this week (at my company's CEO's place in NYC), where a good number of people that I talked to graduated from SIPA, went on to work in finance for a few years, and then started their own companies. They also have a concentration in International Finance and Economic Policy, which might be something that would be finance-oriented without being completely non-academic (if that's what you like).

The question is why you want to study at the Harris School, which would naturally lend itself to a discussion on why you're dedicated to public policy, and not, say, law. If the entire second half of your SoP is school-specific, I think you'll be fine.

I think quoting Marx shows that you know that there's more to him than the Communist Manifesto, and that you're well-read in Political Philosophy (that is, unless you're applying to a super right-wing school... which seems relatively uncommon in the field of international diplomacy / public policy). Slightly different story if you were trying to quote Lenin.

You might be putting all of your eggs in one (well... 2) basket(s), but the other 2 baskets you were considering were poor-quality to begin with. OK, bad metaphor. But you get what I mean. You weren't going to go to those anyways, so you made the right decision!

Considering that you wouldn't go to either program even if they were your only option, I would say go for it. First of all, I think that it's in your interest to concentrate your efforts on the programs that you'd actually go to, not to mention save the money on app fees. Concerning your reservations, the absolute worst thing that could happen is them questioning your choices; it's more likely that they'll affirm that UCSD/Columbia are programs that you'd actually attend (not to mention that they'd be relieved have less writing to do).

I actually disagree with this one. I think the first two sentences give your SoP a nice narrative framework that makes it a lot more personal and a lot less laundry-list-of-experiences. Just my 2 cents.

While I don't think people on this board are malicious enough, someone with not-so-admirable motives could easily come across this thread with a google search for "IR SoP" or something (after all, you don't need to be a registered user to see posts). Dunno. ... and I'm not an expert, thombo (people who've already been admitted might be a better source of advice), it seems like a good SoP!

Agreed. Especially considering your solid performance in the Fletcher classes (which demonstrates that your capable of the work).

This thread in conjunction with the earlier one makes me smile.

While they might contact a rec if they smell something fishy, I think it would be your safest be to assume that they won't have time to, especially considering the sheer quantity of applications they get.

yay for bumping! international environmental policy, focusing on the use of environmental markets.

There really is far too wide of a variety of programs to give you one number, but I remember repeatedly coming across programs that recommend "at least 2-3 years". Maybe use that as a benchmark. In my opinion, the motivation for this preference for work experience is twofold: 1) since grad school is all about specialization, experience beyond undergraduate training should make candidates more aware of the direction they wish to take both academically and professionally; and 2) work experience makes candidates more employable after graduation, thereby increasing the average starting salary for graduates (which reflects well on the program itself, whether or not it's due to the training that it offers). In general, though, I definitely agree with the above posters: the more the better.

While I'd agree with this post in general, I think whether you put SAIS or HKS on top depends on what you consider "quantitative". In terms of quantitative requirements, SAIS requires 6 econ classes: intermediate micro and macro, international trade and monetary theory, and another 2 econ electives. While HKS only requires 4 "quantitative" classes, 2 of these are stats classes (Quantitative Analysis and Empirical Methods; Empirical Methods II); the other 2 are econ classes (Markets and Market Failure; Economic Analysis of Public Policy). The quantitative requirements for Fletcher are only dictated through its breadth requirement, which requires students to complete one class of your choice in international economic/business and another in quantitative reasoning. On a side-note, if you get into 2 schools and one seems to be the obvious choice if it weren't for the quantitative requirements, I would go for that one. After all, there's a reason why these schools require this sort of training, and all schools that I've heard of have some sort of support system to make sure people get through those requirements. Anyhow, good luck! P.S.: Here are the requirements for each of the degrees, for your reference: HKS: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/degrees/registrar/procedures/requirements/mpp Fletcher: http://fletcher.tufts.edu/academic/breadthrequirements.shtml SAIS: http://www.sais-jhu.edu/academics/economics/ma-requirements/index.htm

I know for a fact that NYU (Wagner) has a part-time MPA program. Since the curriculum is VERY non-profit management focused, I think it would be great for you. The only other one that I can think of (off the top of my head) is Georgetown (GPPI), which has an evening program. This one's an MPP program and is more policy-oriented, so I'd recommend the former if you're looking into non-profit management. Best of luck in your search!

I think it's a mistake to choose a degree based on what 3 letters you're going to put on your resume. While MPPs tend to be geared towards policy analysis, there are definitely many quant-heavy MPAs as well (e.g. Columbia). This said, if your career goal is to create and/or manage your own nonprofit, I think you should be on the look-out for degrees with strong non-profit management components. Do you mind being more specific about the field you want to enter? You say that "international issues", but that's not saying much. Thanks, and good luck on your search!

If you have a 3.85 from a top-20 university, I don't think that you necessarily *need* to retake the GREs (especially since your scores aren't bad; they're just not great). If, however, you have a bit of time/money on your hands, you may as well, since it seems like you could improve your scores by quite a bit. I would more strongly advise retaking it, though, if you don't have much quantitative coursework (in order to 'prove' your abilities in that area).

I'm not going to address SAIS and SIPA since I think they've been aptly covered in previous threads: e.g. As for Yale, I think there are 2 main reasons why it isn't as heavily discussed: (a) the small class size of ~23 means that there a much smaller alumni base; and (b ) it's more academic in focus than other professional programs (e.g. distribution requirements consisting of poli sci, econ, and history classes, the paper requirement...). If you don't mind me asking, where you work?

imperfect (NB that i didn't use "inaccurate") knowledge is better than no knowledge at all, and certainly means that we shouldn't try. again, what's the point of an online forum, if we're going to reject any appraisal merely because we're not admissions officers?