chocolatecheesecake

I respectfully disagree with that assessment. I think Sanford is known for its domestic policy and national security focuses, but it definitely also gives you a thorough grounding in quant. Sanford has a core curriculum that is as rigorous as most highly-ranked MPP programs and requires all students to take two semesters of both statistics and microeconomics unless you test out of one of them. That's the same number of quantitative courses as required by Goldman, WWS, and HKS. There are many more quantitative classes you can take on top of that, of course. I'm a current second-year, and some of my friends are taking two cost-benefit analysis classes this semester, which speaks to how many we offer overall here. I was told by potential employers that they thought I was covering quite advanced material in stats. Not to mention the fact that my classes prepared me well for a quantitative internship where I ran t-tests with STATA all summer! If you're applying for next year, I highly suggest you take another look at Sanford, and considering your location, maybe come for a visit! (We don't bite.)

I suggest re-taking the GRE. It's one of those tests you can really learn how to take, and I think some more test prep could significantly improve your performance. Your own goals are good goals that will probably get you accepted with the rest of your work experience and profile, but even higher scores (low to mid 160s) can make you very competitive for better funding. Aim high, and don't undersell yourself! You sound pretty competitive, which is great. My advice is that as long as you're really interested in going to grad school and only secondarily interested in not going into too much debt, you should apply to all the schools you are strongly interested in. Most schools have one or two full-ride scholarships and some well-subsidized funds. USC and Duke are two schools that do typically shell out a lot of money. (Private schools have a leg up on this, no surprise.) Restricting yourself to typically fully-funded programs really narrows your field, and as long as you do want to go to grad school, you should open yourself up to more opportunities on the front end, and evaluate them critically on the basis of how much aid you get on the back end. Good luck!

For work experience that might lead to an MPP/MPA, you can look in many sectors and industries. Public, private, or non-profit, you see people with all different kinds of backgrounds in graduate school. I would personally choose an area in which you have a lot of interest, so that you'll be invested in it, and have a good story to tell. You're the best judge of this, to tell the truth!

o'brien_blue, you have a really strong profile! I think the JD to MPP degree is not as rare as you think, but definitely less traveled. I also know quite a few people in my cohort well into their 30s, so don't fret about being the oldest either. Your work experience, fields of interest, GRE scores, and SOP story should make you quite competitive for funding, IMHO. I would also suggest you consider Duke, which I'm certainly biased on. It has both domestic and international strengths. =) I think it's okay to have a relatively small list of schools, because you know what you really want. I would suggest you look even closer into the kinds of programs these schools run - for example, HKS and Goldman look very, very different in terms of cohort size, core requirements, student activities, etc., etc.

Hotchoc, your question is a bit too general. A few schools (e.g. Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton) offer fully-funded packages for all students they accept. The competition at such places can be quite fierce, and you will need to have some really great work experience under your belt and better GRE scores to be in the running for those. Most schools have a few fully-funded slots in their entire cohort, like a special scholarship, reserved for people they really really really want to come to their school. That is also very competitive, and in my opinion a little harder to get than to obtain admission to WWS, simply because there are so very few. So it's not impossible, but you should absolutely make plans to fund your studies without considerable aid. Generally, I suggest you get more work experience to make sure this is what you want to do and research why you want to attend a US school instead of a European school, which are comparatively cheaper (Hertie is quite a good school). US and European institutions offer different experiences and different products, so it's all the more important to know what you want to do and why you want to go to graduate school. Good luck!

Great question. IMHO, you should try to visit a few of your top schools before you commit, and I don't think it matters when it is (fall or spring, admitted student, etc.) You should still get a good idea of what it's like there. I visited some schools, and were able to take them off my list because I wasn't interested anymore. I also visited others, and kept them on my list, but had a better handle on what they offered. I'm very happy with where I ended up, but I wished that I had been able to visit. In the end, I was able to make a good decision even with partial information, because I'd visited one of the two schools I was accepted at. At least give yourself partial information if not full!

I vote re-take statistics. Especially since you've been out of school for a while, doing better this time could be a nice contrast. Your quant score isn't that low.

Hi, Jordan1st. Properly, your post really belongs in the Am I Competitive thread. Check that out to see other people's backgrounds and what kind of preparation they have made for applying to graduate school. I'll do my best to answer a few of your questions. 1. I suggest you volunteer for a group or activity that you are really strongly interested in. No matter what it is, your interest will make it a compelling part of your story. You can also choose to volunteer in order to challenge yourself and learn a new skill, like teaching or tutoring. There is no one best activity. 2. Depending on your area of interest (economic policy vs. health care vs. int'l development), good journals and newspapers will vary. Do research into your field of interest. 3. Calculus courses often are not a pre-requisite for even quantitatively rigorous Master's programs, but good grades show that you have a strong quantitative ability. If you have other rigorous quantitative classes with good grades on your transcript or have a high quant GRE score, you don't need to take calculus classes. It is certainly not necessary to take them from Harvard Extension School. Any accredited college or university that will grant you a credit-bearing transcript will do. 4. I don't work in Harvard admissions, nor am I from a developing country, but I am 150% sure that this is not true. Harvard, like any other school, will look at your whole application to consider your "fit" with the school, which means how well you and your experiences and aspirations fit with the program and what it offers. Good substantive recommendations that give insight into who you are can only help, but they need not come from anyone prestigious. Do more research into what the MPA/ID is looking for in its students, but I know quite a few int'l students in my MPP program who have not had government experience either. Final note: in order to get a more accurate view of the application process to MPA/ID, I strongly suggest you email the program at HKS and ask to be connected with a current student or alumnus/alumna from Jordan. This is a common request that can get you some better insight. Good luck!

If you have a strong application overall, I don't think you need to re-take the GRE just for a higher score, especially on the verbal. For quantitative, they want to make sure you can handle the math. For verbal, they need to know you can write and have good reading comprehension. Thus, you can make up for less than perfect GRE scores with As in coursework in those areas (microeconomics, statistics, academic writing) and work experience (if you spent significant time doing grant writing, memo-writing, etc.). Look at the rest of your resume and application and see how strong you look overall before you commit to taking it again.

Yes, I do mean principles of microeconomics if that's the first entry-level course you take in economics. In general, you don't need to finish extra courses before you apply. If they're in progress or you're registered, grad schools will take it into account too. That being said, getting a C+ is a concern. Did you get a better grade in any other econ undergrad courses? If the C+ is all they see, you should re-take a basic microeconomics course, and personally, I would feel better if I could take it this fall and get an A- or A before I apply. Really great quant GRE score wouldn't hurt either. AP credit won't count for anything here.

I think you are in a fairly special position with your particular amount of work experience/ age/ life experience thus far, and while people on GradCafé may provide some insight, you would get much more helpful advice from people who are in your field or a similar position. I suggest reaching out to multiple schools on your list and ask to be connected with alums with significant military/ security studies experience, and also working your own connections to find ex-military folks who have similar degrees. Keep doing your homework on what individual programs offer, and combined with informational interviews with those people who have similar work/school experiences, you should be able to define more clearly for yourself what you want out of a grad school experience. It really depends on what you want to get out of grad school! Don't worry as much about the quant stuff. If you got at least a B+ on microeconomics and statistics, you're good. If you got a B or under, consider re-taking for a higher grade. Even in my fairly quant-heavy MPP program, calculus is not really used, unless you are taking very advanced/specific quant classes.

Nick, you've started three threads on this forum with the same exact content. I get that you're looking for more feedback. The summer is kind of a quiet time on the forum since people have made their decisions on where to go, and applicants haven't started panicking about SOPs yet. I suggest you talk to some friends who are attending graduate school or mentor figures from work and school to get their take on you, especially since they know you. If you're eager for personalized feedback from alums of particular schools, ask to be put in touch with some by a school's admissions office or hunt around on LinkedIn. There's a lot of information out there other than what's available here.

I don't think you should worry about them automatically filtering out this sort of military experience. What matter is that you did do it for 3.5 years whether it was obligatory or not. You should definitely show through your statement of purpose that you got something really valuable out of it - have stories to tell about what you learned and how that influenced your path toward what you want to do. Having relevant work experience for graduate school doesn't mean you need to already have done policy work. And it's fine that you want to go to grad school to do something different than what you've been doing for work; that's what grad school is for!

Looks pretty strong. You have an interesting focus and probably a good strong and personal story to tell in your SOP. That being said, go get some full-time work experience. Come back after at least a year or two, preferably more. You're a strong applicant for entry-level positions, and your application can only benefit from some more focused experiences. It'll make grad school more meaningful for you, and you'll likely garner more funding because of it.

@brmcfarland, this is the Government Affairs forum. Check the overall GradCafe forum to look for the discipline you're interested in!

Yes, it is crazy.

My two cents: while it's good to know the lay of the land and inform your expectations, I wouldn't let a school's reputation for aid or lackthereof become a factor in deciding to apply or not. Apply to a few different schools, but all ones that you can genuinely see yourself at and want to attend, and don't let the aid influence you. The amount of aid you get depends mostly on your education, work experience, and general background, and whether a school really wants someone with your characteristics.

Most universities offer some services to alumni, including career services. You should try to get an appointment with career advisors who serve alumni at your undergraduate institution. The other way to figure this out is to just cast a wide net and look online at organizations that do the kind of work you're interested in. Start by Googling things like conflict resolution, think tank, US ngo, and things like that, and get to know the landscape of the field you're interested in.

UCLA Extension's courses are online, and there are no in-person test sites. So you can take the courses anywhere in the world you have an Internet connection. I suggest you look more closely at the UCLA site, and the economics courses offered starting in June.

@notsosure, I hope you have already gotten in touch with student services staff at your school. It's their job to help you out when you're having trouble with things like fulfilling pre-requisites! I suggest you email them with the problems that you have (i.e. why you couldn't find a course that fit - was it the timing or needing to have it proctored in person or not being able to do the final exam in the US?). I think they're your best option, because ultimately, they will need to approve whatever you end up doing.

Your academic and internship experiences seem very focused and on track. You obviously have a strong focus and know exactly what you want to study, which is great. To me, I think the question now is what you will get out of attending graduate school versus going into full-time work after undergrad. I think at this stage, there's not much you can get out of graduate school that you can't get before you graduate. In other words, since you have another year of school left, you can take some electives in policy, perhaps statistics, and defense/military studies and East Asian studies. You can get a taste of work experience from doing many internships, as you have, but it's not a substitute for full-time work. Even though you have a specific idea of what you want to study, I would still suggest you get a few years of work experience, figure out what exact sort of field you want to work in, and understand what it's like to do that work with a long time horizon, so you can know whether you want to commit to it for 10 or 15 years as a career. For example, you could end up going into advocacy or lobbying with your interests, or go the research and think tank route, or become an academic, or go into consulting, or go Foreign Service, etc. etc., but work experience can best tell you which route to go (or not go).

If you don't want to go into academia, I'd reconsider getting a PhD. There are many ways to get personal growth - you can try a new job, a mid-career executive program, part-time study for a certificate, etc. A PhD is a huge investment in terms of time, energy, and money; you want to make sure you know exactly what you want to do afterwards and how the PhD is going to get you there. Some PhDs head into think tanks and other organizations, but not many. I suggest speaking to current PhD students and program staff/ advisors at social work PhD programs to see if it's right for you. Start with US News and World rankings and branch out from there.

Super excited you guys will be joining us next year!! I'm drowning in the soup that is end-of-term papers, projects, and exams, not to mention planning and budgeting for next year's student organizations, but I know next year will be awesome. Have a great summer, take some time for yourself and relax a little bit... August will be here before you know it!

DEBT: I guess I'm confused about where the $80K figure comes from here. No matter what school you attend, that would be a hefty amount of debt you're courting, but is that from the cost for the school once you subtract the aid? Or is that the cost of your living expenses added in? Do you have savings that you can live off of in the meantime? I'd be thinking about that last part too and how living expenses can differ. Durham and Albany are probably somewhat cheaper than Pittsburgh, though not by much. I hope it will be helpful for some current students to share their situation and thinking. I'm almost done with my first year at Duke, and I came in with a very similar funding package to yours ($26K per year plus a $4K assistantship). My boyfriend and I have been living off our savings, and I was able to pay about $10K up front and only take out $5K in Perkins loans this year. Next year is going to be a different story, and I will either have to have a long discussion with my parents about borrowing their money or taking out another $10K in Stafford Loans and $5K in Perkins. In terms of living expenses, we are fortunate to have some miscellaneous income (I do photography and took on a fall internship, and he is a freelance programmer) to help us eke by on living expenses. We pay $850 a month for our two-bedroom apartment and spend about $100 on all utilities. We don't go out to happy hours, and I make food to bring to school pretty much every single day. We eat out at most once a week for less than $20, and have really cut back on buying beer/wine/liquor. I think I'll have $20-25K of debt when I leave, which runs pretty close to the average MPP student loan burden here (a number I have on good authority), and I'm confident that I'll be able to pay it off within 4-5 years of graduation, if it takes that long. Even if I only get a job that pays $30-40K a year, I think I could tuck away enough, because I did it once already! PRESTIGE: One way to think about a prestigious name is what kind of alumni network they offer. Both of my full-time jobs after college were the result of conversations with alumni from my undergrad alma mater. I tapped into the MPP alumni network extensively for this summer's internship search and ended up interviewing at nearly every single organization. I ended up with four offers, two of which are from international think tanks and UN agencies. When you attend a large school which has this sort of international reach, you can use that in incredible ways, but it also totally depends on your own hard work. I don't know what kind of a network SUNY Albany has or where it is strongest, but I would look at lists of employers or internship offers and where alumni have landed after graduation; assess schools for their actual record, not what you think "prestige" means. In talking about all the help I've gotten from the alumni network, I've almost forgotten to actually mention the people that I'm at school with. My own cohort is fantastic, and some of my best friends are going to be working in DC for prestigious agencies/consulting firms. Your peers are your current and future network, and they matter a lot! Think about who you want to be with and who you're going to meet, and where you are more likely to find them.

Just one thought: it never hurts to ask, even if you don't have any leverage. I would only ask at the school that you are most serious about attending, however, and do it in good faith. The worst thing they could do is say no, but it's a chance for you to show that you are really interested in the institution and might attend if given more of an incentive.