carpecc

It doesn't matter where you get it, as long as you do the prerequ. You can do any comm college or University of Phoenix, SAIS told me this. If you don't get it done by the time you apply, address on your app that you plan to get it done before you enroll. I didn't (I just studied principles of econ on my own) and didn't get into SAIS because of it (most likely, but it doesn't matter). Anyways you'll need it. The econ classes in these pub policy schools don't, well SIPA at least, don't touch the principles, it gets pretty damn intense and easy to fall behind.

Myrnst is right, the GRE is only one part of your app, and the quant on it is the easiest to raise up. flyers is also right, you'll need quant for public policy work. Even if you don't end up running statistics software, you'll need to understand economic policy and research done with statistics at a sophisticated level, so when people do good statistics, you can use it to support your work. And when the stats are bad, you can poke holes in it. You'll need to manage people doing this stuff, understand their work, and be able to account and budget wisely. Don't underestimate the quant, you don't need to be a pro, but it's a powerful tool. There's plenty of people that can write really well. Those who can write well and hack the quant? Not as much.

A law degree teaches you about the law, just the law. It's great for research and law policy, but mostly teaches you how to work in court, law firm, or government bureaus that writes the law. An MPA and MPP is a much more flexible degree, it can be about many different things. The MPA specifically teaches you management (HR, accounting, etc) for government work. It's going to cover different areas then a law degree. If you want to write law or policy then law school is a good bet. If you want a job more administrative, management or multidisciplinary then an MPA or MPP is better. If you want to do law work, but have the admin skills, then do the dual degree.

Based on my research and own application process, I'd say your academic credentials look fine, but you need more work experience. Any work experience, but especially if it's public policy related helps. Are you looking for foreign or domestic focus? If foreign then some time abroad plus a little foreign language training. In general this field is less competitive and looks at different criteria then say law or medicine (since it doesn't lead to the best pay) so don't be intimidated. You're essays will be important.

I agree with fenderpete, go abroad and get some work experience and learn a foreign language. You'll enjoy the time off from school and have some time to reflect before getting an MA. Also you should know that it's tough to get a job with these degrees without any work experience. So I'd apply for the peace corps or go teach ESL in a foreign country.

Don't take it again unless you have the time to do some substantial studying to improve you're score and this is reflected in your practice tests, otherwise it will just be in the same range. This score is probably fine, just concentrate on the app.

I think you'll find a lot of the programs cover the subjects you listed in a two year program. Specifically Tufts, Georgetown and SIPA. If by dual degree do you mean a three year program? The extra schooling might sound great on paper but watch out: One, that's an extra year of tuition, two that's one more year that you could be gaining work experience and building your career. Sometimes putting what you learn in school to use in the real world is more insightful than sitting in a classroom. I'd really only do dual degree if the programs don't offer what you want & need in a single degree. An example would be a Public Policy and Law degree or an IR and Journalism degree.

Sacdude, I think this is a tough choice. I'm probably not the best person to answer this question (an older accomplished professional in your target field is who you should really ask), but I've got some thoughts. First of all you should go for choice 3 first: just apply for a job. You already have an MA, why not? You can always apply for another IR MA if you want. As for me, the content of the MBA and IR degrees are completely different. MBA is similar from school to school, studying management and admin for the private sector. The IR/MPA degree varies widely. It can be similar to an econ MA, a forestry degree, or a humanities research MA depending on what school you go to and which area of study you pick. In the end I decided against the MBA because: 1. The network is completely different. At the top MBA schools less than 10% go into non profit and government, for SIPA it's over 50%. I didn't want to be the odd man out, I want to be around colleagues in my field. 2. The coursework is completely different. I look at SIPA's coursework and there's so many classes I like, I can't make up my mind on which ones to pick. With an MBA, while I can see the benefit of some classes like HR management and Accounting, other such as "corporate communications" or "financial management for listed companies" sound like hell to me. 3. My background and career goals make me better suited to a good IR program then an MBA program. I'd have trouble getting into a top MBA school. 4. Many of the people I know and meet feel lukewarm about the classwork in their MBAs. A friend at stern was telling me "The best thing about an MBA is getting in, the second best thing is getting out." Others tell me that overall they didn't learn anything critical but it got them a job. This might just be cynisim though. I've also met some MBAs really struggling getting jobs now, the degree is so generic. However the economy is picking up, that might just be a recession thing. 5. I think there are some administrative strengths in an MBA curriculum, but if I need these I can do a one year MBA or take classes part time in the areas I need down the road. Number 3 is important to think about. The top 15 or so MBA programs are wicked selective, accepting 10% or less of applicants. I've known some what I thought were competitive applicants get rejected by all the top 10 schools. The top IR programs have acceptance rates of 30% or even hirer, which is comparable to journalism, public health or some other professional MAs. What this means is though, if you can get into a top MBA program, while it might not cover the public policy items you want, it could be a more competitive credential than an IR degree. Also some of the MBA programs are very flexible and have a lot of room for electives outside of the core MBA classes. Some programs even encourage you to take classes in different fields meaning you could get the policy training you want. Chicago, Hauss and Yale come to mind. Overall though I feel an IR or public policy degree will give you better tools for your target career. If you already have an MA and some solid work experience, then you're competitive for top programs. If you can get fully funded to SIPA or Woody Woo, then that could be a great time. Remember, ask some pros in your field, they're more qualified to give advice on this.

It's not worth it. There's a lot of people getting great jobs coming out of lesser schools then SIPA and SAIS. lbjane is right, there's less to a name in this field and it's more about your individual credentials. I think the only way to justify it is if you plan to move to a developing country after graduation then the load burden might be more manageable, but definitley not in NYC and DC. Reapply next year to the less competitive schools. If SIPA and SAIS are letting you in then you can for sure get some decent funding elsewhere. During that time you can do other stuff to make your app more competitive and get even more funding. In the end you'll have more job flexibility and more of your income will be going to your pocket and not the school. This isn't something to get too obsessed about in this field.

Thanks for the insight fellas. Looks like I'll be starting the internship search for next summer very early.

I was doing some research on the summer internship for those doing an IR MA and it looks like a lot of them are completely unpaid and have to rely on external funding. Is this true? I mean, I can totally understand how doing a project with an NGO might be unpaid, but are even the private sector internships COMPLETELY unpaid? Is this the norm for this type of degree? What about if the internship is in DC and doesn't require transnational flights? Are there at least housing stipends by the host org? Maybe I'm being naive here but it came as a surprise to me to hear that most internships are unpaid. Any advice from people doing these degrees or who are in the know would be helpful.

I don't know much about Harris, but have done some research on SIPA and visited a couple of times. For SIPA the study atmosphere seems reasonable. People take 4 to 6 classes. 4 classes a semester is pretty cushy, and six is very intense. It seems grades aren't the biggest concern here and it's easy to get a B, but hard to get an A. SIPA has a lot of practical classes, especially in the electives. Just glancing at the Harris courses, it looks very focused on policy. I didn't see much up there talking about business or development work. They also offer a lot less classes then Columbia.

I wouldn't worry too much about the SAIS name, it's great. I also noticed your from China, SAIS has a GREAT rep in China and a large, strong network, because of the Nanjing-Hopkins program and also SAIS's really strong offering of China related classes. However I would worry about the amount of classes offered in Bologna, I hear the selection is pretty small, but since the first year you are mostly fulfilling core requirements, this might not be a big deal. What might be more important is that SIPA offers the Finance concentration and SAIS doesn't. Cross registering with the B. School aside, SIPA has plenty of finance classes on its own, so you probably wouldn't be looking at the B. School anyways. SIPA is also (at least they say) pretty good about second year funding, so might not be a full price in the end if you need the money and get good grades year 1. If you can afford to go to SIPA then I'd go to SIPA and do the Finance track. If SAIS has the finance classes you need and SIPA will put you in a ton of debt, then go to SAIS. Either way you'll be great, so don't stress too much.

I'd pick SIPA MPA DP, that degree looks sweet and I wish I had applied to it in retrospect.

I'd say definitely GSPP, but I should disclose I didn't look at that program carefully. It looks quite academic, but quite good and very selective. The problem I have with Duke is 1) It's almost entirely on policy and 2) the amount of classes offered is pretty limited, just policy stuff, quite narrow. Also at a conference a couple of weeks beck I met a Sanford grad. SHe had a good job but wasn't too satisfied with the degree, didn't go into details. Her work was entirely unrelated to nutrition btw. I'd look closely at the classes offered. Just my two cents!

I'd do HKS if you can do it without too much debt, otherwise I'd take SIPA over SAIS and Fletcher, but that's just my preference. Look closely the curriculum, faculty and classes offered. SIPA is really throwing the cash at you, remember you can always put those fellowships on your CV, which will no doubt make you stand out.

I'd take a look at the faculty and classes offered. SIPA, as a big program, has a HUGE variety of classes offered, you can really get specialist here. I also agree that, based on my research, that the SIPA faculty are more practitioners while the SIS faculty are more academic. I think that gives SIPA a big leg up, so many times I feel academics are out of touch with the practicality of real work. Also, the SIPA staff are so accomplished, there's so many great people to brush shoulders with compared to SIS. Hands down SIPA.

I was looking at the World Resources Institute's website the other day and noticed that they had quite a few staff who studied energy policy at SAIS. Just pointing that out, but a couple of their managers were from SIPA as well.

I'd second Yale, especially with their great School of Forestry, especially if you want to focus on more conservation management related issues. SIPA is also a great choice since the Environment and Energy track there has, as one of the biggest programs, a TON of classes to choose from. You can definitely find what you're looking for there. SIPA also has a great connection with Columbia's Earth Institute which is also really good. So I'd say land conservation: Yale, Energy stuff: Yale or SIPA.

That work deal sounds pretty dope. If you think you'll learn a lot and only a yr or two out of undergrad, def do it. If the salary is low and it might not be challenging, go ahead and go to school. Would you rather be making 60k in two years or in three years?

Would you be able to apply for a dual MBA at SAIS in your first year? I think they have a deal with Wharton.

That's such a sweet deal from AU, you gotta take it. The MBA/MA combo will make you a lot more marketable. I think the MBA gives you skills that are easier to apply to actual work. SAIS is great but it's no golden bullet for an awesome career. No one will look down on you for an MA/MBA combo from AU, and you can always mention in job interviews that they gave you full funding, a great credential. You'll have more flexibility in looking for work since A) you have the MBA and you don't have any debt. Take it and feel awesome about it!

Sanford's paying for you to go and offering an assistantship? That's like an extra bonus class: they're paying you to work with their awesome profs. If Sanford has enough of the courses you want then definitely go. Just go! I'd pick that or SAIS if I was in your shoes because they're throwing the money at you. Goldman is way too academic in my opinion. Congrats on the funding!

foodlover28 All of the schools I looked at have employment statistics, and I think the difference in salary for immediate graduates was about the same (Govt 55k year, non profit 45-60k/yr and private at 80k/yr). I think if you want to do private stuff, there's a lot of compelling reasons to think about an MBA instead. But, the MBA isn't what it used to be and at the top tier it's more competitive than IR programs. Not to mention the MBA students and curriculum are much less interesting for people like us. I've met MBA recent grads from UVA and Michigan who've been hard on luck, desperately seeking cool jobs. They're overqualified for entry level positions that they need just to get by for the time being, and definitely not getting swapped up by enthusiastic job recruiters like they were a few years ago. Regardless, I think people go the IR MA route because they live to work and not work to live. These degrees give you the skills to do some really cool stuff, but are less lucrative which isn't as important for me. But this means that the debt hits harder. If you're choosing between a school that offers you a full ride, and one that will require to pay entirely on loans but has a better name, assuming you're getting 10% better pay from going to the debt school, you probably won't see that ROI for 10 years! That's a long time to stress about debt! But then again 10 years isn't the rest of your life, I wonder how the degrees from top programs translate to hire salaries 10 years out of school? I did a bunch of searches to see what people from these programs were doing (linkedin is a good source for this), particularly comparing SIPA, SAIS and Fletcher. They were all doing about the same things, but SAIS grads definitely have an alumni edge up in China, where it's a really hot degree. SAIS's regional studies for East Asia and China is way better than the others IMHO. So at SIPA I'm going to forgo any regional concentration and work on skill building type classes. As for the "DC is king" bit, I think this gets a little exaggerated, but I've never lived in DC. All the programs in DC promote the location so heavily, it's pretty easy to obsess about it. Some programs (American SIS, GW) really encourage working during the semester and can even accommodate people working full time while pursuing degrees. That's awesome, but if you're just planning on concentrating on studies, then you'll be so busy that the region doesn't matter that much. You lose on the networking side by being out of DC, but you'll also be building a fine network with colleagues and profs. So you can't intern while in school, then spend that time taking an extra class an getting the most out of the program, it's only 2 years. From any of the schools you're looking at you'll land something hot after graduation. I lived in Durham before. You won't find a whole lot of interesting IR internships there. But Duke's Sanford program looks really cool. I didn't examine it very closely (I'm not that interested in policy, which is it's strength) but I get the impression they attract a lot of awesome students and give away a lot of funding to attract applicants. Like I said, I didn't examine this program closely, just impressions. I'm most concerned about finding a job after SIPA, since the 09' grads I talked to were having a really tough time in the recession. NYC was a bad place to look for work in 09. I hope it's just a recession/NYC issue and not a SIPA issue. I also get the impression that, because SIPA is so big, their alumni network isn't as strong (less close-nit). I read stuff about Fletcher and SAIS alumni bending over backwards to help out other alumni, I don't get this impression from SIPA, but then again, the areas I live aren't in contact with these types of grads so I may be wrong. The SAIS alumni network is definitely stronger in China. If you like GSPP and Sanford, then go to school for free man! You'll have some great bragging rights after graduation and will feel a lot better. Plus you can always put your scholarship on your CV, which will be an impressive credential. If we pretend you're weighing jobs instead of schools, I would totally pick the slightly less exciting job that's offering me 30k more a year. *absolutely* Remember, we're not talking about Law school where name is everything, in the end it comes down to *you* more than it does the school name.

SIPA also gives a lot less funding to first year students, but it's not too hard to get funding for the second year if you need it and you make good grades. I imagine a lot of great applicants turn down SIPA because they get good funding offers from other schools, I wonder how this affects the quality of the student body at SIPA.