scooby0407

1) I challenge you to find any people, whether on this forum or otherwise, admitted to a top-tier school (Georgetown, SAIS, Elliott, SIPA) with BOTH a sub 3.0 GPA and no IR work experience. I'd bet an internet nickel you don't find a single one. And the admission statistics these schools publish back me up.

2) It is irresponsible and unhelpful to misrepresent OP's admission chances at the mentioned schools.
Falsely act as though those are realistic targets --> OP wastes time and money applying, and most likely goes o-fer.
Be a "Debbie Downer" (I would say realist) --> OP can either apply to less selective schools* where they would have a much better shot, or improve their profile (get more work experience, take some classes, etc.) and work their way into a top-tier admit a few years down the road.

I think the second one is a lot more productive and helpful than blowing sunshine at people.

*OP, look at Institute of World Politics and Maryland - both are in the DC area and are decent IR programs you would be much more competitive at.

Colorado State: "Apparently you don't even have to apply in order to be rejected from certain schools. What a cluster F it must be over there that they're emailing people who have simply requested information that they're 'rejected'."

This thread is giving me so much life.

Hey Fante,
 
I'm the academic program director for that program (feel free to verify, you can reach me here). Nice to hear you got accepted!
 
You're right, few people know that the UN has its own university, even though we were established in 1972 through UN GA Resolution (A/RES/2951 (XXVII). The reason is this: UNU was initially meant to be a think-tank, not a teaching university. We only started moving in this direction in 2010, after a December 2009 amendment to our charter by the UN General Assembly (A/RES/64/225).
 
The program you are going for is actually older than this: it's roots go to 2000, when the ILO was looking for a partner to train people in Social Protection particularly. This lead to the foundation of the Maastricht Graduate School of Governance in 2004 and the launch of this program in Feb. 2006. We merged with our local UNU branch in 2010 and are now offering courses equally between Maastricht University and several UNU institutes including CRIS (Brugges, Belgium), MERIT (Maastricht, Netherlands) and EHS (Bonn, Germany). We have guest instructors from all over the world, including the Maxwell School at Syracuse, the Oxford Migration Institute, the ILO, …, covering IOs, national and sub-national public bodies, NGOs, consultancies, etc. We are members of APPAM and NASPAA, are fully accredited in the Netherlands and are about to pursue NASPAA accreditation as well. At the moment, our program is ranked #1 in the area of political science and public administration in the Netherlands based on student and alumni survey and expert assessment.
 
In comparison to US schools, we are young and — thanks to our pending FAFSA listing — not well known in the US. But we regularly have US American students, and students from many other places: here's a map I map I made of our incoming applications last summer.
 
I don't know where you are geographically, but in case you are coming to Europe in the spring, drop by and be a student for a day. We'll get you into some classes so you can meet our current students and see how things work (not just the glossy brochure view of things).
 
Meanwhile, feel free to ask me things here!
 
Cheers,
Lutz
 
PS: I am presently traveling, so I might be a little slow in replying.

Sorry for the slow reply, Fante! Travel and workshops don't make for the best connectivity…
 
You are completely right to consider the name recognition and reputation of the school you are going for! When looking at academic rankings for (economic) development, we're known, but not ranked as highly as some of the institutes you are considering (RePEc has us as 75th world-wide, between Cambridge and Toronto). Our speciality in terms of economic development is innovation economics, where we just recently lost the number 1 slot to NBER. (Admittedly, they have five times as many authors, so we aren't ashamed of being listed 2nd world-wide, ahead of Harvard, Yale, the IMF and MIT. Still, we were very proud of being ranked first for a couple of years. In this field, we also have three scholars in the world-wide top 20. We are understandably happy abut this, given that our UNU branch in Maastricht just turned 25 and is in the same league as much more established and better funded universities.
 
I also think that your home institute's network and direct links between practitioners and students are important ways of generating leads for future employment. I feel we deliver on this count: last year, we had 109 instructors for 94 students, including people from the World Bank and OECD that would be directly relevant to you. We work in small groups, so you come into close contact with experts particularly during the specialization semester. Our students also regularly go on a field trip to Geneva, where they visit the WTO and other UN branches. Finally, our students are invited to write their master thesis with a future employer — which several people in the field of development did last year. (On average, more than half our students have an outside supervisor, but their spread across multiple fields.) We always pair an in-house second reader with a supervisor at the target organisation such as UNDP. The external supervisor is paid by us and receives information and guidance from us on the thesis process, to ensure that the supervision is of use for the student and of sufficient academic quality, while stimulating you to work on a relevant topic with a potential future employer.
 
Depending on what kind of questions you might have in the broader area of development, I believe we can be a good institute for you — but there are also some parts of development were I would advise you to pursue your studies at an institute that is better suited for that topic.
 
How about this: I'm on the east coast in mid-May (likely New York, DC and Syracuse). If you can be at any of these locations, we can meet in person and discuss this over a coffee or a slice of pizza. If your elsewhere, we could always Skype. We can figure out where you'd like to go, and I can tell you what activities are in our program that will get you closer to your goal.
 
Have a nice day!

People underestimate the degree to which they can avoid debt if they are willing to put in the work to improve their admission profile.

I would argue that many critical admission/fin-aid metrics, including GPA, GRE, obtaining internships/jobs (not necessarily your performance in them), and foreign language boil down to who cares more. Not inherent intelligence, not your financial resources, not where you were born. Effort, pure and simple. Put in the work, and you get paid for it (literally).

If you spend 4 hours a night studying in college, you're going to have a great GPA. If you spend 500+ hours studying for the GRE, you're going to have a sick score. If you are willing to troll online for hours to find relevant internships/jobs and send out 20+ applications, you're going to get one. If you take time every single day to study a foreign language, you will become proficient in it. Polishing your SOP, researching your schools to detail exactly how you are a fit for them - so much of apps (and life?) comes down to desire. There are trade-offs involved: time you spend doing those things means time not spent with friends, lovers, a good book, a sunny meadow on a spring day. It might not make you happier, or well-rounded. But if you put in the work, I guarantee someone will give you admission + serious funding.

I'll be attending one of my top schools on a full ride. It didn't just happen - I did all the things mentioned above, and more. Sometimes it sucked, GRE prep particularly so, as I ended up at about 750 hours prep time. But the thought that kept me going was that not being able to attend grad school, which I wouldn't be able to sans major funding, would suck infinitely more. So I put in the work, and now I get to go to school for free. Not because I'm smarter (guarantee that's not the case), not because I'm richer (my bank account laughs at this): because I cared more, and did the work other people weren't willing to do.

You can write this off as self-aggrandizement. Or get upset because you didn't get the financial aid you wanted and think I'm insinuating you're lazy. But fundamentally, grad school admissions and fin-aid are not mysteries. Everyone knows the things they look at to make decisions. It's your choice whether you invest the time and out-work competitors.