Bombaygunner
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Posts posted by Bombaygunner
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Mona, don't worry so much. If it happens, it happens. Your profile looks very strong, especially considering your background. Have you applied to any other programs? with GRE scores like that, I'm sure you would have a great shot at plenty of schools.
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The Dean of the Business program made a compelling case for me to join the MIB program, since I am a business journalist and my interests lie in the intersection of Business, Policy and Development.
Do you find that the MIB student profile is any different to the MALD students? Are they older?
Do many people actually end up cross-registering with Harvard classes? Is there a discernable difference in the quality of classes? Or is it simply that Harvard has classes that aren't offered at Fletcher?
Cheers
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Thanks a ton. I wrote my SOP - with a fairly ambitious career goal is trying to find the intersection between Business, Policy and Development (eg. bringing Chinese rail technology to India or helping European water mgmt agencies clean India's rivers). I gave it to the most senior Indian Yale IR alumnus I know and he said it's a bit too "catch-all", which has spooked me big time. I hope they accommodate me trying to bridge 3 fields (because I've seen it done) rather than just the traditional 2.
The aforementioned Yale Alum is going to be writing me a recco letter so maybe it will balance out. Anyways, thanks for your help.
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Question for you wise folk:
I'm a little confused about the Personal Statement word limit. On the WWS application page it says "approximately two to four pages."
But on the Princeton web application, it says Personal Statements should be 1,000 words. So which is it? My current SOP, (12, Times New Roman, double spaced) is about 1,500 words and fills in 4 pages.
Cheers
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FYI, Princeton's admission blog is great: http://wws.princeton.edu/admissions/wws-blog/item/policy-memo-writing-tips
Found this useful to structure mine:
A typical memo may include the following sections:
- -Description and significance of the issue or problem you are examining.
- -Evidence of the scope of the issue.
- -Factors contributing to the issue or problem.
- -Recommendations or conclusions about the issue.
- -Counter-arguments against your position.
- -Rebuttal to counter-arguments.
- -Implementation issues for any recommendations (i.e. political, economic, environmental, technical, etc.).
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Thanks Kaneisha. The only way I can go to SIPA is if they give me a generous scholarship and I get an local scholarship here in India so I'm not holding my breath. From what I've seen trawling these boards, the best most people can expect is $15,000 a year.
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Are your peers able to secure the same kinds of internships as students from DC/NYC schools? Is the program as international as you'd have liked? Or more USA/old world centric?
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I'm in a similar situation. Applying out of India, with 2 years experience (3 by the time I join) in the media, albeit at an int'l business magazine. I think you should certainly leverage the India angle. The movie industry in India is probably more influential on poor people than anywhere else in the world. I'm sure you, like anyone who has grown up in India, has seen a lot that can be improved. And I'm sure working in movie marketing has given you a lot of the tools you need to capture an important narrative and spread the message. Maybe you can put 2 and 2 together.
For my part, I'm trying to show them how the stories I've written have had a focus on development, international relations, etc... I found being in the media meant I scored really well in the Analytical writing section of my GRE. I hope the unis care about AR as much as Quant and Verbal! Good luck for your GRE.
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Thanks! I'm applying to Jackson as well as all the other big name schools. People I've spoken to say each school has its own charatcer that employers associate it with. SAIS has the econ rigour while WWS has that public service focus. Fletcher has the business focus while Elliott has the DC connection. What would you say the defining aspect of Jackson is? From what I've read, it is into all the major areas that the others schools are. I can't seem to put my finger on what one quality or focus area sets it apart. Any help would be appreciated!
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Any idea if they give out scholarship money on preference to early action applicants?
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Thanks folks!
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I'm an international candidate applying to the well known American International Relations / Public Policy programs for Fall 2015 admission. Does anyone know how creative applicants can be on SOPs? I'm a journalist and I'd love to provide the reader hyperlinks to my published work in my SOP. Is this advisable? Or do essays get printed out and read in hard-copy? I've seen successful SOPs to LSE for example, where the writer used photographs and text boxes and generally went above and beyond the usual 5-6 paragraphs of black and white text.
Would love to hear your thoughts.
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Totally understand if people don't feel comfortable sharing, but to those who got $$$, could you give me a ball-park figure? How did it compare with other schools you got into? I can only go for a masters if I get over 50% scholarship. Otherwise I'm going to take an extra year, bite the bullet, take a loan and do an MBA - just for ROI.
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Honestly, I don't know much about specialties and such. I know a lot of my international friends used sites like https://www.uniworldbp.com/search.php to find multinational companies based in the U.S., as these are often more amenable to international students. (For example, many of my Korean friends found their first job in the States at a Korean-based company.) Your best bet would be to look at job descriptions for the kinds of positions that you want, and try to develop as many skills as are listed in the description.
This is my $.02 as an outsider to the process, but the folks who were most successful tended to be those who spoke really fluent English and were also acculturated to the U.S. I think this is particularly difficult if you're from a non-Western country, as the business norms (and the interview norms!) can be quite different. You may want to focus as much time as possible in gaining those "soft" communicative skills, regardless of your specialization.
I'll have 3 years work experience in journalism for a very well known American magazine by the time I apply for my Masters. I'm also slightly conflicted on what kind of job I can get after doing an MIA/MPA. What heartens me are stats like these from SIPA: 44% of the MIA 2013 class went into the Private Sector and got a median salary of $72,500. Since the half the class is international, I imagine that good foreign students from good programs have no trouble getting private sector jobs.
Whether or not you want to work a soulless job for a bank is another debate...
The rationale I hear from some people is: if you're going to join the private sector anyway, why are you wasting your time with public policy / IR? Why not do econ or an MBA?
I wonder if there's a sweet-spot where you can go meaningful work for an international organisation AND get paid well - well enough to cover a massively expensive degree.
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Sorry I can't be of much help; I actually have a question. How did you get finding from NYU? From what I've gathered it's an expensive school that doesn't generally give out much money!
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I love the original poster's enthusiasm! That's how I feel every year waiting for the essay prompts to be released.
There is a lot you can be doing right now to work on your candidacy / application before the official applications are out. Here's a list of a few actions you can take while you wait:
- overhaul your resume. Make sure the formatting is top-notch and that every accomplishment is clearly explained, quantified, and free of jargon. Create several versions of your resume such as a one-page resume and a 2+ page resume for schools (like HKS) that allow for longer resumes / CVs
- work on weaknesses in your candidacy. If you have a low GPA (under 3.6), you're going to want a stellar GRE score and you may want to consider taking supplementary coursework such as calculus, statistics, and microeconomics.
- make sure you're set on community service. Even if you work in a public service field, you want to make sure that you have plenty of volunteerism and community service work to put on your CV and discuss in your essays.
You could even start drafting essays based on last year's prompts, but that's risky since they could change. Your efforts wouldn't necessarily be wasted, though, since you could rework the drafts into the prompts once they come out.
Best of luck!
Thanks for your insight, Kaneisha. I write for Forbes and I've studied/covered International Affairs a bit. I've also got good GRE/GPA but the service element was lacking in my CV and I'm going to begin volunteering on weekends.
A question: Is there any advantage to applying to schools early? I've got enough time to finish my application so that I can submit it the day applications open. Is this advisable?
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A good place to look for potential peers would be coaching centres. I went to KIC (who have centres in Bandra and a few other places) and met a lot of like-minded people in similar positions.
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While I'm certainly no expert, a couple of thinkers I'd recommend are Jeffrey Sachs (read his book The End of Poverty) and Joseph Stiglitz (check out Globalisation and its Discontents). While you could argue they are 'niche' in that the books cover developmental economics, I found the simplicity of the language, the power of the narratives and universality of the themes to be accessible to pretty much everyone.
Hope this helps!
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70 or above an A? That sounds really low.
Try getting above 70% (known as a 1st) in subjects that require essays/coursework
It's not easy. People who average above 70 across their undergrad are seriously bright and hardworking. In quant subjects, getting above 70 isn't hard since if you know your stuff, no one can take the marks away from you. But in essay exam courses, it's tough. I heard an urban legend that if you score above 80% they publish your essay in the university journal. -
@Patrick Bateman I think your scores are just fine and you shouldn't bother retaking. I aimed at some pretty high end schools (I'm in the humanities) and I only scored 148 on quant (but 167 on verbal) and got accepted or wait listed at several top-10 programs. It all depends on the field you're going into - and I think that for IA your scores are quite solid. They would never screen you out for breaking 160, that I promise you
Danke!
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I did my undergrad in the UK. I was wondering if there's a standard grade converter to get my US GPA equivalent?
Going by various sources from a web search, I estimate my score of 66% (considered a 'high' 2:1, because those who got 68% and above were given 1st class) comes to roughly 3.6 in the US GPA system. Does this sound about right?
Do American universities also average out your scores for specific subject areas? For instance, I studied Business and International Relations. Would a prospective Economics Program admissions team take my Econ course scores and change them to a GPA?
Thoughts appreciated!
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Hi everyone! I'm from India and I've lived in a few places across Asia/Europe but never America. I'm looking to do a masters in International Relations somewhere near NY/DC. I've traveled to the states a few times but I can't imagine living there.
As far as I see it:
Pros
- big wide roads, great to drive on.
- steak
Cons
- Guns. Guns everywhere.
- commercials during televised sport
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I went through a range of them. Here's what I found:
Manhattan - head and shoulders above the others in terms of range of topics covered, range of drill set difficult and depth of analysis. Challenging Practice Tests.
Princeton 1014 - Great problem sets. Just power through this entire book. Practice Tests are easy.
Kaplan - too easy, move on.
ETS - Decent books, very realistic practice tests.
Barron's - Only tackle these if you really need grounding in basic concepts. Otherwise go straight to Manhattan/Princeton.
Word Power Made Easy (Vocab) - truly excellent book. Finish this before you start your other vocab learning. Your English will improve manifold in the long term because of this book.
I think if you're already there or thereabouts as far as Verbal and Maths go, do the Word Power, Manhattan and Princetoon books and then the Princeton, Manhattan and ETS Practice tests. Take a month off and get off social media. You'll be fine.
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I'm looking to apply to some Ivy league schools for International Affairs. I got 162 Verbal (89th percentile) 163 Quant (87th percentile) with 5.5 in AW (97th percentile). For some reason I feel like I could do better, considering I got a few points higher in my ETS/Manhattan practice tests. Would you guys advise me to retake? Looking at the median scores for most policy schools I'm aiming for, I'm at or above the median GRE score.
I suppose it's a difference between getting a high enough score that they can't screen you 'out', and getting a high enough score that they simply have to screen you 'in'?
Thoughts appreciated!
My official transcripts won't arrive by the deadline
in Government Affairs Forum
Posted
Someone at SAIS told me they will wait a few days after the deadline for additional materials to come in from international students.