Well I actually had a nightmare too XD I dreamt on Tuesday night that NPSIA emailed back and apologized about the "typo" in the previous email; that I was not actually accepted. Naturally I freaked out, logged on to Carleton Central and realized that my application's online status went down back to "review in progress by department". I called Tabbatha Wednesday morning (PST): she said that Carleton Central often glitches, that they'd just forwarded my application to the Faculty of Grad & Postdoctoral Affairs, and to keep my eyes peeled for funding when the email arrives (!!!!). A couple hours later I received an email from the FGPA confirming my acceptance, with $12,000 in grad entrance scholarships and department scholarships.
My GPA is alright; 84% overall and 91% for just third & fourth year.
I was very clear with my research question (which is regarding links between FDI/general economic development and human rights/standard of living increases in North Korea), and I have had a bit of international experience to relate to it, mainly during my exchange trip to South Korea. At that time, I completed three internships, one travel writing (10,000 words of well-researched articles a week!!) for a Korean company, one at a NK human rights NGO (got credit for it through my home university's Global Studies internship program) and one in the international office of my school in Korea. I was also one of only 33 international students chosen to participate in the "Friends of Invest Korea" program put on by KOTRA (Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency). I also wrote for the Asian Journalist Association as a Junior Reporter. My writing there largely involved trade promotion pieces between Canada and Asia, and I know NPSIA's faculty is pretty conservative, so maybe they liked that lol.
In Canada, I have quite a bit of volunteer experience, mainly with WUSC's Student Refugee Program on campus, but also with a few other community groups. I also did an internship at VIU's International Education Office and am currently working as a Program Evaluator for VIU's Department of Child & Youth Care, which is very research-oriented.
I also included a few odds and ends in my CV, ex: I was also in a young women's career mentorship program put on through Google and the G(irls)20 Summit, studied abroad in Korea twice in uni, studied abroad in France in high school, have volunteered on several political campaigns and am fairly well-involved with one national political party, volunteered with North Korean refugees in Seoul, know how to use Adobe CS5, am in French Club, etc.
I had one reference from Chung-Ang University's Graduate School of International Affairs, where I took a few classes on my exchange. He was such an awesome prof and had an insane CV: worked at the World Bank, Samsung, LG, Government of Honduras, Government of Hungary, etc. Our class was very small and in Korea there is a more social bond (although still hierarchical) between the professor and students; for example, he took our Project MGMT class all out for rice wine and tapas one night and paid the whole bill. So I had a pretty close and positive relationship with him.
My other reference was my Global Studies internship supervisor/current capstone course professor at VIU. She is an amazing woman who I am also fairly close with, since she supervised my internship final report on marketing for (North Korean) human rights nonprofits. I can assume she wrote a great letter.
Sorry to ramble on!! I assumed more info would be better. One girl from my major (Global Studies) at VIU is currently at NPSIA and has been very successful from the sounds of it, so I picked her brain a lot before applying. She definitely helped me out a LOT.
