ExponentialDecay

Not sure why you would consider going to Hertie at all. I'd honestly take the money. Especially since you already have connections in New York and NYU isn't exactly HKS. The opportunity they are giving you to focus on your studies (i.e. research, girl) is a big deal as well.

What do you hope to achieve with this degree? The LSE name is nice, but the name isn't going to make your career. They graduate a lot of students from a lot of masters every year, and whilst some of these masters are well-known and place well, others are kinda riding on their coattails and don't seem to offer their graduates consistent value-added in terms of career progression. Firstly, for things that are true across all LSE programs, it's an expensive program in an expensive city that lasts 9 months, which doesn't give you much time to build relationships with professors, network, intern, and so on. Secondly, as regards the program, it's a new program with a kooky name that doesn't seem to build any skills beyond the general paper-writing and critical thinking. I know a lot of people who got quantitative masters at LSE, whether out of undergrad or after work experience, who placed into top PhD programs or got nice jobs at top-tier places. I also know a lot of people (no, really, they graduate a lot of people every year) who got their LSE masters in a frou frou discipline, which run the gamut from, like, migration studies to the aforementioned IR, and their careers have not been straightforward. They've mostly had to go back to their country of citizenship, especially if, on top of the frou frou degree, they don't have an existing network of contacts in the UK, and they had to do a lot of extra legwork or extra help to get their career rolling, to the point where I'm not sure that getting the prestigious degree was any benefit over getting any old degree. I'm not sure that, if you want a career in the US, it is not detrimental to get your degree outside of the States. It's a great option if you want to experience London and have money to burn, but if it's going to cause you significant financial strain, you're probably better off going for a different option.

Niiiiiice, look at them getting that underserved market niche. Uchicago is truly world leader in cashcow MAs. Good to know OP

Just for my own edification: in what sense is this a STEM program? I looked at the curriculum, and it seems like a typical MPP with some big data electives. Do you mean that it would be considered STEM in H1B terms?

A 2 year master's in economics to prepare for an MPA is definitely too much. You'll be more qualified than any MPA at the end of that.

It's nice when you have the option of coming back to your home country and not being jailed for your religious or political beliefs or sexual preferences, I guess.

You're not gonna get into HKS or similar with your subpar GPA/subpar GRE combo. Pull the GRE way up.

Didn't come here to say this, but now I will: this article is so myopic as to essentially be blind. I certainly expect better of Salon and of anyone who claims to be a PhD student. First of all, to the OP, the article is taking about the 1 year midcareer masters at HKS - not the 2 year MPA/MPP most people here are applying for. But that's just a factual correction. My beef is more with the spirit of the thing. The article's thesis is that HKS is an opportunity for established professionals to pick up a brand-name degree, and " no different from a political schmoozefest", and that this somehow makes it illegitimate as a degree program. And I'm like, dude, do you even know what professional masters are? The writer seems to have a problem with the notion that MPA students don't sit in a lecture hall for 6 hours every day, but instead go to conferences, organize events, and talk to each other. That's the whole point of the program. That's why applicants are asked to have professional experience before applying - so that each student has something to contribute to these discussions that, if not innovative, is at least realistic. Learning in the policy world doesn't happen by sitting in the library and reading books published 20 years ago - of course papers and publications are an important form of communicating knowledge, but the knowledge itself isn't very useful in a spherical-horse-in-a-vacuum state. Conducting policy isn't like blue-sky research. Every context is different, every instrument mix is different, every organization works differently, via different channels, tapping different people and funding sources. Your course of action can change at a moment's notice due to political changes, organizational changes, and so on. When implementing a given policy, it is just as important to know the local context, including the people to go to to help push things through, pay for things, and find things out, as it is to know how a policy works from a theoretical standpoint. Being a person who knows people is a job family in the policy world. And I'm sorry, but being the other type of expert, who knows the theoretical side, usually requires that you get a PhD. On a broader note, it's good to know why you're pursuing this degree when you go into it. I'd posit that attending HKS isn't only an opportunity for foreign bureaucrats to say they went to Harvard, but for most domestic ones as well - everybody knows that the admissions process at HKS is a lot less selective than Harvard College, a Harvard PhD program, HBS, HLS, and so on, everybody knows that an MPA, even in the ID program, isn't, so to say, equivalent to a degree in economics, and everybody knows that, if you didn't care about the brand name, you wouldn't be paying 150k. It's also not a secret that lots of people attend MPA programs to help them in switching fields or to cover up a lackluster undergrad record. Everybody knows that MPA students want a job at the end of it. So, how much of anyone's motivation is pure learning is questionable. You certainly learn something in an MPA program. That stuff can probably be learned for cheaper. If you're looking to learn a specific skill, like a language or serious data analysis, you're probably better off in a program dedicated to that. If you're looking to become a technical expert, get a PhD. If none of those apply to you, then you're probably a typical political functionary that wants to keep growing their career, and for that your network is important, and your network's opinion of your degree granting institution is important, and therefore you're in the right place. Mostly I'm just appalled that a grown-ass man is surprised that people would pay hundreds of thousands of bucks to schmooze with Paul Volcker. Does he not realize the premium one is able to charge just for having a name like that in their address book?

Real men eat PB straight up with a spoon.

Ahahahaha there's OP's problem right there.

OP srsly, grad school should be ILLEGAL because you got your feefees hurt? I hate crunchy peanut butter. CRUNCHY PEANUT BUTTER SHOULD BE ILLEGAL Y'ALL NO JOKE.

Who are these people in academia who have the luxury of picking and choosing what city they live in because they don't know anyone there or they don't like it or whatever? I don't know any such people.

Maybe they would have thought that 50 years ago, but today even community colleges are full of Harvard and Yale PhDs. I assure you, the small liberal arts colleges know full-well what a buyer's market the humanities job market is. They get 200 applications per position from people at T10 programs. They go to the MLA. They know words like "adjunctification" and "overproduction of PhDs". Who do you think is writing all those articles about how shitty academia has be come? Grad students? No, it's the professors, and most of them are at the unknown 4/4 LACs or the regional comprehensives. On the supply side, many if not most of the defending ABDs at top programs would be ecstatic to get a job at a shitty 4/4 LAC in rural Ohio that's trying to make ends meet between their nothing endowment and their 80% discounted tuition for a dwindling student base, because they realize that that's the only chance they have at staying in academia. Programs don't need to dig into the grads of Louisiana State Polytechnic for competent tenure lines, because for every applicant from Yale that makes them feel uneasy, they have 2 that are telling them that they've dreamed of working at an LAC all their lives, that they really believe in the school's mission, that they want to give back, that their wife is from rural Ohio and Bum Creek has the best tadpole fishing in the country, and they happen to be an NCAA All-American tadpole fisher.... That's all to say, people should do what they want, and few chances in life are mathematically 0, but goddamn I would feel irresponsible suggesting that a student go to a low-ranked PhD because they like the school, much less turn down a top PhD program for that reason.

Every institution I ever went to, there were people who thought it was wonderful and people who thought it was crap. In my estimation, both opinions were based on little if any objective evidence. They were mostly formed on subjective ideas of fit, a vague sense of how their life was going at the time, and general pessimism/optimism. Very little to do with their practical circumstances. That said, I've never liked people who think that they are smarter than every other person in the room and who dismiss every idea they disagree with as idiotic. Rarely if ever are these people anything other than a vibrant manifestation of the Dunning-Krueger effect.

So like what's your GPA tho? idk, there's a lot of factors here, because there are a lot of factors to a graduate application. Outside of the substantive, SOP and WS, once your GPA is middling-to-poor, the other markers of your app will influence its outcome: major GPA, upward trend, undergrad prestige, letters, CV items, and so on. Some professors don't care about out-major classes, some professors think you need to be comatose to graduate undergrad with anything under a 3.5. Some professors will care about your math GRE. It's idiosyncratic. That one applicant got dinged by one program for having a 3.0 tells you more about the applicant and the program than about the process of admissions itself. Your advisor/other mentors should be able to help you here, because they know your application and ideally where you stand with respect to your competition. They can put in a good word for you somewhere if they really want to.

I would prefer less etiquette and more content. What do you want to do? If you want to get a PhD for the hell of it and continue working at a bookshop for the rest of your life, it doesn't matter where you go as long as you're funded (do not take out loans for a PhD). If you want a career in academia, anything but the top programs is indeed a waste of time. Given you posted this in the lit and rhet board and other hints here and there, I'm assuming you are considering a PhD in the humanities. If so, why on earth would it be a problem that your undergraduate degree is in the humanities? The predominant majority of humanities PhD students have undergraduate degrees in the humanities. As for the GREs, unless you have extreme test anxiety and a poor grasp of basic English comprehension, you shouldn't need a lot of time to prepare. If you have experience with standardized testing, the format shouldn't be too difficult either. I know lots of people who took it cold and got in the 90%le+ for all sections. The strong second language can be an obstacle at some programs, but as long as you're not applying to comp lit and your research will all be Anglophone, it's not a serious detriment. That said, you probably won't get into a top program - few people do - but for entirely different reasons. I don't think I've ever seen a job posting for an "uber-generalist like Joseph Campbell or Ezra Pound". It's also probably telling that both were independently wealthy white men that lived in the past century. What I'm trying to say is, Ezra Pound is not a profession. What do you plan to do with the PhD? Academia is about hyper-specialization these days, and if you want to be a generalist of any kind, writing a dissertation probably won't be enjoyable for you. I don't know about Creative Writing, but Lit PhDs tend to have the goal of producing original research in some very specialized area. I'm also not clear on whether the "writing craft" you want to improve is academic writing or something else, because in Lit PhDs you will be doing academic writing exclusively. Are you looking to go into college teaching?

Dude OP you sound like you need a dating forum, not a grad school one. Lots of people in academia have vibrant sex lives and fulfilling romantic relationships, families, marriages, and so on. The people that I know who don't wouldn't have had it if they worked as a supermodel, because they are insecure weirdos with poor social skills. If you're tired of being alone and want to be in a relationship or have casual sex or whatever is bothering you, go out and get it. I hate to be a broken record, but most of the time it's not a question of time but a question of priorities. Based on my own personal experience in an academic environment and a "real world" one, it was so, so much easier for me to date in academia, because I was surrounded by highly intelligent, successful people with similar interests and values. In the real world, a lot of people go to the symphony to show off, it turns out.

If by international organizations you mean international government, you'll need a network in that field, primarily. It's very non-trivial to get in if you don't know anyone (being a minority helps, but the competition is still significant). If you want to work with agriculture (which is not a bad specialization for someone looking for the career you want), that seems like an alright master's degree, particularly since it's free. If you don't want to work in agriculture, applied economics is certainly a good skillset and agricultural data and applications are a good field to practice on. Prestige helps, as with anything, but it's not the kind of field where you should take out 150k for the prestige. An MPP degree from American is good if you want to work in DC, but abroad ~nobody has heard of American; I have never met an MPP grad from UCSD in DC or abroad and have never heard anyone say that it is a good program. Finally, if you want to work in research in a large organization, I'm sorry, but you will not achieve that without a PhD. You can be a research analyst at some small-change NGO, but that's a completely different conversation.

Are you sure? You are in Professional Programs > Government Affairs. Indiana has the top MPA program? Bullshit. Anyway, this insight is actually pretty universal across professional and academic programs both: in grad school, program ranking matters more than the university's layman prestige. In a field like policy, the location advantage is furthermore a huge deal. It's why policy programs at otherwise shitty universities, like American or GW, actually have pretty decent job placement.

Second semester junior year is prime time to start preparing your thesis proposal, fyi, so I'd be going beyond the strong intimation stage with that prof if I were you. I would also talk to your professors about grad school. Ask your questions here, browse this site (on this board, I recommend "Graduate School Ponzi Scheme" and like 10 threads riffing off of that, but on all the humanities boards as well as the frou frou social science ones, there is at least topic about how miserable the TT market is and how people getting PhDs are idiots, so read those), go on the internet, read the Thomas Benton articles and the rest of that fodder, read the MLA job reports, The Professor Is In, familiarize yourself not only with the grad school application process and its Law counterpart, but with the process that happens during grad school (comps, ABD, dissertation committee, publications, conferences, teaching) and what you can expect afterwards on the job market, and then go to your professors with all this information in mind. The idea is to both to be able to ask more pertinent questions than "lol what is an SOP", and to be able to focus your attention less on the technical aspects and more on gauging what these professors think about your potential specifically. Few people even today will outright tell you not to go even if they think that you can't crack it - instead they'll tell you about the job market and how hard it is and so on and so forth, which will do nothing to deter you. Likewise, few people, if they are responsible, will tell you outright to go, even if they think you're the best student they ever had (which should be taken with a grain of salt proportional to how many undergrads this professor has successfully sent to grad school). In the end, academia is pretty solitary and can be a shark tank, so you need to rely on your own judgment, and inform your judgment to the best of your ability.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-immigration-exclusive-idUSKBN1582XQ " Another [executive] order will block visas being issued to anyone from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, said the aides and experts, who asked not to be identified. "

Na, that's a misconception. Top programs receive a ton of applications from ESL applicants with perfect GRE scores, perfect English, and an undergrad at Oxford or something. ESL is a bit of a misnomer in 2017 because the vast majority of us who matriculate at top schools have been in English-language education from a young age and are effectively native speakers. Another complication is that OP is applying for a PhD in English. For a PhD in EAS or some other non-Anglophone field, her knowledge of foreign languages may have propped up her application versus others. But for a PhD in English, not only is the department mostly interested in your command of the English language, but you'll also be expected to do your scholarship in English, on English sources - so knowing the language to a relevant standard is kind of essential imo.

But ultimately they're hired because they're vets, not because they went to MIIS.

You want to get a PhD in "anything in economics, international relations, systems engineering, data science, or IT"? What for? So you can select "Dr." as your title when you book airplane tickets? I'm confused what "peer group" has PhDs in 6 different disciplines. A PhD in economics would imply an entirely different career than a PhD in systems engineering or IR. I concur, however, that 3 masters is overkill literally anywhere. I'd caution you that the 3 master's in apparently completely different disciplines makes you look unfocused rather than well-rounded, which will count against you in the admissions process. In Europe (speaking broadly), it's common to get your PhD part-time because it's just the dissertation. Europe is also much more attentive to credentials and it is much more frequently expected of professionals to have a PhD in order to advance in their careers. The US doesn't work like that. Here the PhD is intended to prepare you for an academic career, not least because relatively few career paths outside academia actually require one, and getting one is therefore a much more immersive experience. Few reputable PhDs are part-time because working as a TA or RA (and getting paid for it) is necessary preparation for a career in academia. Even if you tell them you don't want the stipend as long as they don't make you work, I suspect few departments would take you on, because having you pump out a 150-page paper isn't the purpose of the program.

@Nasty Woman orly? tbh I never heard of it. I didn't even know Midd had an IR program. California isn't exactly the hub for high-profile policy jobs either, though.