[East Asian Studies 2015]

I am finishing my MSc in East Asian Relations at Edinburgh and would love to hear from anyone applying for or accepted to Harvard RSEA! I'm very interested in continuing to hone my work in Korean Studies there before taking the leap to my PhD.

[Second Masters as an Issue? Harvard RSEA.]

This is rather specific, but I'm running into a problem and wondered if anyone here on gradcafe could be of assistance.

I have a BA (Hon) in Asian Studies and am finishing my MSc in East Asian Relations very shortly. I am interested in Harvard's MA program as a means to study the Korean language (my earlier research was in Japanese but in my masters I have taken a change in direction), to work with a particular professor within my interest area (I won't bore you with details but it's international relations related), and to polish my research/writing before going for my PhD -hopefully at Harvard.

After looking through the current students, examining the kind of person RSEA admits, I am beginning to wonder if my masters will actually hold me back in the admissions process. As I said, my language skills are weak (this program accepts that with the agreement that I bring it up considerably while studying), but I have research experience (two dissertations) and other work experience.

My question for you is whether or not you think my first masters is going to be a negative on my application or could it give me an edge to prove my case for admission?

Apologies for the strange format. Longwindedness doesn't quite work on a phone. Thank you!