coasts

I had similar stats (college GPA, work experience) and decided to take an online stats course the fall while I applied to school (fun!). Obviously I don't know what the counterfactual would have been, but I ended up being fairly happy with my outcomes (especially considering that GPA...) and feel like the class must have helped ad comms feel more comfortable about my academic abilities. So I feel like it was a worthwhile thing to do. Plus, it doesn't hurt to brush up before returning to school.

Not related to Heinz vs SIPA, but you should know upfront that it's not necessarily easy for international students to go into public sector consulting. Your options would be commercial consulting (which would be harder with a public policy degree rather than analytics or MBA, for example) or the state/local consulting for one of the large firms. The problem is that federal practices only take US citizens due to the security clearances usually required.

I was in a pretty similar situation as you in terms of GPA, but I ended up being fine in the admissions process. By the time I applied, I had a lot of years of work experience so that ended up mattering a lot more than my college grades. That said, I did very well on the GRE and took a statistics class while working. I didn't get into WWS, waitlisted at Ford, but got in everywhere else I applied. No money from Harris, but very generous scholarships from several less prestigious programs.

congrats on your decision! honestly, almost no classes at Heinz are calc-based...your time would be better used really getting comfortable with stats, if you decide to put in time on brushing up. stats is core to A LOT of courses and it's really not possible to be prepared enough in that department, even if you'll be taking stats as soon as you get here.

It's true that there are not a ton of ed policy classes at Heinz (http://heinz.cmu.edu/academic-resources/course-results/index.aspx?discipline_id=17), but I would say that as far as getting employed, I'm almost certain that employers will be much more interested in the skills that you develop through Heinz's curriculum over what content classes you've taken, particularly if you already have some experience in the ed sphere. If you haven't, you can find other ways to demonstrate your interest in ed (maybe part-time internship during the school year, involvement in clubs, volunteering, etc).

This is super helpful to know, I'm going to investigate. I'm not sure how the calculation will come out -- whether it's better to take out money now from my IRA and not have to take out a loan and pay interest on it, or lose out on the compound interest of $10-15,000 (about what I think I'll need to bridge the gap till graduation) over decades. Hmmm.

Oh, I don't know that admissions committees would think less of a community college than one offered by a university online. I took a statistics class online through UC Berkeley Extension (think price range was also $800ish) but it was very un-rigorous, so the name means nothing. Might be worth calling to ask what programs think. I think UT Austin has much cheaper online classes.

Schools actually have really helpful blogs, especially around what they're looking for in your materials (personal statement, resume). I looked at the blogs of schools I didn't even apply to. HKS, SIPA, WWS all have admissions blogs. You can look at their archives too.

Don't make it too hard to read by making the font size etc super small. The resumes can go over more than a page. I think it is actually more CV-like. I put work experience, extra-curriculars, awards, publications, etc on mine

It's certainly possible to get into programs without work experience, but it's worth considering getting some work experience anyway. I don't know your background so I don't want to make any judgments, but I'll say that as a current student, it's very obvious to me who is coming straight out of undergrad and who isn't, and those who have work experience have a lot to offer. Also, an MPP/MPA is a pretty specific professional degree so working might clarify whether this really is the path you want to pursue.

I don't think you need to worry, but it would probably benefit your application to boost your quant score and do online classes in stats and econ (even one, if you don't have enough time for both). (Also you should do an online class for a grade to demonstrate your abilities, rather than something through, say, Coursera.) I don't know if this is a bad thing to say, but from my experience with applying last fall, my interactions with my new classmates, and reading this board, MPP/MPA programs aren't wildly competitive if you're looking at schools aside from HKS/WWS. (Of course, getting good funding is another matter.) I don't think that you need to work in a policy-oriented job in order to be a competitive candidate, though it may be good for you personally to determine whether you really do like being in the policy world and what specific part of it you want to pursue after grad school. Otherwise, if you can spin your job to explain why it made you interested in policy, then that should be plenty sufficient.

I had a sub-3.0 GPA, which made me so nervous that I avoided applying to school for years. In the end, I got in most places I applied and am attending a well-ranked program with a large scholarship. Working for a number of years really helps -- the admissions committee will focus more on that than your grades from 5+ years ago. High GRE scores can reassure them that you can perform well academically. You might want to consider taking an econ, math, or stats class at a local college to demonstrate your academic abilities. And you can submit a supplemental statement explaining why your grades were low during college. There might be a couple schools that you're out of the running for in part because of your GPA, but you can certainly get into a good program still! Don't be discouraged

I wasn't close to any of my professors in college so I faced a similar dilemma. Most schools I talked to said they didn't mind if all of my reccs were professional, even if their website said they preferred at least one academic. However, I'd been out of school for quite a number of years (six). A couple schools wouldn't budge and so in those cases, I used a TA from a class I did well in. One school (Chicago) required a professor so I just went out on a limb and contacted a prof whose class I had done well in, even though he didn't know me at all, and he agreed to do it. So I'd say rather than guessing, just email schools' admissions offices and ask!

sent you a PM!

This thread more or less already exists and people have already been posting to it, so maybe better to consolidate over there:

My guess is that GU will let you skip core classes too. Most other schools I know of seem to allow this. If this is really a significant factor, it seems worth reaching out to the school to ask.

I know a fairly large number of people who are counting on PSLF. I feel like the positives are obvious, so there's no need to detail them. However: -Income-based repayment can still be a tough pill to swallow, especially over a decade. When you're making $50,000 a year and paying $450 that might not feel so terrible, but my coworkers have told me how frustrating it is where every raise they get ends up getting largely eaten up by the increase in their loan payment. -You will probably feel it weigh on many aspects on your life, including even marriage. If you marry a partner who makes a substantial income, and you begin to file taxes together jointly, you may find that your combined income causes the IBR payment amount to be so large that there actually you would no longer quality for PSLF. You could file separately to get around the issue, I think, but then you'd lose marriage tax benefits, so you're getting hit financially either way. And anyway, bringing a large amount of debt into a marriage is just a difficult thing. -Having to work in public service as the program defines it can be restrictive. It automatically narrows the field of jobs. For example, while I work at a nonprofit, many of my organization's competitors are actually for-profit even though we're doing the same work.

@kb6 thanks for raising the point that many jobs that we may think are public are actually commonly given to private contractors. a good thing to keep in mind when thinking about PSLF

I think there are certain schools known for being generous with aid, but of course, there's no guarantee for getting an award/scholarship or the size of it (besides WWS, but for WWS, you have to get in!). Some schools that seem like they offer substantial funding include UT-Austin LBJ, Duke Sanford, Carnegie Mellon Heinz, UW-Madison La Follette, USC Price. You can also search through past "results" threads to get a sense for what kind of funding admits have received.

thanks for the links @RCtheSS! I think it largely confirms my decision to choose among the schools that have given me generous financial offers even if they were not my "dream". PSLF does make it a bit more tempting to go for the dream school, but even so the debt would still hang over me for a decade and influence my decisions. Talking for my older coworkers, many of whom have substantial grad school debt from MPA/MPP programs, has also reinforced my feeling that it's better to choose a low-debt option, and I'm grateful that I have those (I shudder to think about a scenario in which I only had expensive choices.)

any threads you found especially helpful? (I can also go digging myself :))

I just got an email from the associate dean as well, with a similar offer to talk.

CMU's curriculum seems very skills-based and almost MBA-like, while Harris seems stronger in policy content. Both would provide a solid quant education. Seems like you could probably get more money from CMU by leveraging other offers. You could also try to negotiate with Chicago, they might give you something. Maybe visiting both would help clarify? I also suggest posting this on the Government Affairs board for more feedback!

admitted to MSCAPP w no funding

Financial aid email just came in, saying that they are unable to offer me any merit-based aid at this point.