pubpol101

Exactly. However, to refer to OP's question in the context of rankings, go with university rankings as a small consideration. No one aside from students and deans--the people USNWR polls for the rankings--cares about what the program rankings say. Law and business school rankings are very good for reflecting employers' perceptions of the programs, but public policy rankings are not and are in fact borderline absurd. It makes no sense to rank Indiana above Columbia SIPA and Princeton WWS when SIPA and WWS are the ones getting their grads into the State Department, top domestic management positions, and major consulting companies. Beyond this, though, scholarships, the course availability (e.g. CMU might be good if you want data-focused policy), location, and actual job placement of students should have far more weight on your decisions. The name of your school plays a significant role in where you might end up, but if you can't afford your school or if your school doesn't have the courses necessary for you to gain skills you can't get anywhere else, you're not going to get as far as you can. And not to nitpick your post @ExponentialDecay, but I'd hardly call "American" or "GW" "shitty." They may not be elite, but they're at least decent.

I would recommend Carnegie Mellon's MSPPM (MSc Public Policy and Management) program over all of those schools. When looking at schools that consider themselves to be "quant heavy," there isn't much of a comparison. CMU's MSPPM program is housed in the same school as the information sciences college, and many public policy students take many quant courses that are difficult to find outside of a computer science/computational finance department. While typically schools might offer a few courses in econometrics, R, STATA, and other run-of-the-mill "quant" courses, there's much more at CMU. Many schools will even preface the syllabi of their quant courses with the words, "this is not a coding course," (as seen at HKS) when coding is taught at CMU and is exactly what you need for data science. https://www.heinz.cmu.edu/academic-resources/course-results/index.aspx . Just a few interesting ones are listed below: Programming R for Analytics Machine Learning for Problem Solving Text Analytics Big Data and Large-Scale Computing Data Focused Python Econometric Theory Management Science Decision Science and Multi-Criteria Decision Making Raster Geographic Information Systems Your actual schedule works out so that you can take as many as six quarter-length courses in elective quantitative sciences in a single semester. You may be able to take even more depending on your exemptions and how heavy you want your load to be. So the availability of exotic and valuable quant courses is so broad that in a single semester, you can gain more of a quantitative background than a WWS or UCBerkeley (yes, I've checked their course lists) student might take three semesters or an entire two-year program to develop. Data scientists are in demand, but the jobs are still competitive like any other. Given what I've seen on the course lists for HKS and WWS, I doubt their grads would be competitive for data science jobs when for-profits want incoming employees to know Python, R, SAS, ArcGIS, and/or whatever other tools are useful for the organization. The primary deadline has passed, but you should still receive consideration if you apply very soon.

You can always ask to write the letter of reference yourself and have the director approve of it. That way, the strength of the letter is totally in your hands.

I'd also recommend contacting every school you're thinking about and asking them about their financial aid--i.e. what percentage of admitted students get aid and what is the typical range of aid in terms of percentage of tuition covered. Very few (if any) policy schools are transparent enough on this so you have to seek the information out yourself, beyond whatever the website might say.

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Lol The irony Right, of course. But obviously most people wouldn't even dream of going to either of those professional schools. Point being that OP still has to keep in mind of the actual odds. UC Berkeley's undergraduate program is "significantly less competitive" than Harvard. Yet it's still competitive, and putting actual numbers to the average class profile gives OP a sense on what exactly "less competitive" (or "highly competitive") means. OP, see here: http://jackson.yale.edu/ma-class-profile SAIS's acceptance rate is around 40%. That should be no problem. SIPA's acceptance rate is around 30%, so with a Fulbright, SIPA should be no problem. Keep in mind that schools *really* like Fulbrighters. That's an internationally competitive scholarship. Columbia SIPA and Yale Jackson are two completely different schools. They should be fine with having two ivies. And despite went_away's annoyingly snobby tone, I have to agree with him/her: you need to at least have an idea of what you want to do after you graduate. What did you say in your Fulbright essays? There had to have been something you were passionate about to have been nominated. As stated above, the best names aren't going to be the best fit. S/he gave some examples for the strengths of schools beyond their names, and here's some more: U Chicago for political economy. SAIS also has strong placement under the "strategic studies" concentration (whatever that is) with multilaterals. HKS, really only because of the brand and the network. As went_away named above, you should seriously consider Georgetown SFS since finances aren't an issue. Georgetown, American, and GWU are all good for many students due to their DC location, but Georgetown is probably perceived *very* differently from American/GWU outside of the US government sector. Since you're on Fulbright, international connections matter much more than American's/GWU's US connections. If you want to broaden the list of schools you're considering, look at Carnegie Mellon Heinz. It's not at all known for international affairs (very strong domestic policy), but when I was applying, it was the only school that took computer science in public policy seriously. No other school allows you take SAS data mining, R analytics, arcGIS, econometrics with STATA, and more all in just one semester, with many more skills-based courses over the two-year program including machine learning. You can learn whatever "international affairs" means on the job, but actual programming is very difficult for anyone to master without formal education in it. And these skills can be applied anywhere--defense policy tracking attacks, development finance, hedge funds, tracking and developing social/urban policy, etc etc. Even SAIS's "international economics" program (and certainly every other program like Fletcher MiB/MALD, etc.) looks terribly soft compared to CMU Heinz. Theory-based economics is easy. Actually knowing what to do with the numbers, in a dataset of a million observations, is much more difficult. Such material is taught at CMU.

It's pretty competitive. Acceptance rate is around 15-20%, comparable to WWS. Doors at schools with "lots of money and resources" aren't going to be freely open.

Actually, in 1997, Tufts was #25. Since its first ranking in the national U category, it's been ranked in the mid to high 20s. It's a great university, but it would be inaccurate to say that it has had a "dramatic rise." It previously did not appear in USNWR not because of its academic rise, but because of its size--it was previously considered a liberal arts college. LACs do very poorly in international rankings regardless of their "eliteness" because of their small size and teaching (as opposed to research) focus.

You should probably get at least one rec from an employer. It doesn't necessarily have to be outside of the school--if you did research for a professor, that professor could count as your employer. What's important is that you have at least one rec from someone you worked for since many schools (e.g. I think SIPA is one of them) request that you have at least one employer reference. If you don't have full confidence in your employers' abilities to write a rec, you can ask if you can write it yourself and have them approve/edit it.

If you're interested in the quantitative aspects of your field, you may want to consider CMU Heinz. I'm enrolled here, and while it doesn't have a social/behavioral policy focus per se, its curriculum will teach you a great deal on how you can parlay your undergraduate psychology/econ work in a concrete fashion. There's a lot of technical courses here, along with a fair balance of softer courses to choose from. Here, you'll be able to learn about R analytics, SAS data mining, ArcGIS, multi-criteria decision making, machine learning, STATA in econometrics, and other fields that will allow you to quantify and directly apply the concepts you've learned about. Visit here for more courses: http://www.heinz.cmu.edu/academic-resources/course-results/index.aspx Based on what I've seen from last year's application cycle, CMU Heinz's MSPPM program is probably one of the only programs (if not the only one), aside from Chicago's newly developed MSCAPP degree, that takes computer science/quantification in public policy very seriously. It's far easier to make technical curriculum a centerpiece of your education here than it is at other softer policy schools.

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That's absolutely not advisable. It's not realistic to expect a State or DOD job related to law after law school. They have extremely high expectations since the job market is so flooded--they usually hire those in the top half at Yale, top third at Harvard or Stanford, and top 10% of all other T-14 schools. Expecting to be in the top 10% of a T-14 or top third at Harvard, given the competitive nature of law school curriculum, is just plain stupid. Of course, State/DOD sometimes do hire outside of those class ranks. Moot court competitions, law review publications, etc. can boost your application, though that boost will be relative to those with higher class ranks at better schools with potentially stronger publications/court competition results. However, that's not the typical scenario and hooks like somehow meeting the person who reviewed your application and making a substantially positive impression (enough to beat out a Yale law grad) are very hard to come by. DO NOT go to law school expecting a State/DOD job or a federal clerkship, even if you're admitted to Yale.

TakeruK covered this pretty well. Also, however, MA programs in IR are very professionally oriented. Though the letter would count as one from a work supervisor, be careful with the content of the letter. Your work at the lab may not seem to be particularly relevant to your MA studies. Make sure your reference can speak for your motivations and capabilities with regards to IR, not STEM that is only tangentially tied to what you want to study. If you have any other supervisor that is more closely tied to the IR field, you may want to use him/her instead.

That experience seems to be fine. I'm enrolling at CMU Heinz's MSPPM program this Fall on a large scholarship with no work experience (I've done internships, research, and a lot of publications) and I believe your work experience won't be by any means lacking for the admissions process. What's going to be really important is for you to demonstrate that 1) you got something out of the work that you did/you have something to bring to the program and 2) you know what you want to get out of the program. Some stats: at CMU, around 70% have relevant work experience and 25-30% enroll straight out of undergrad. Average age is 25-26. That's definitely a good thing to do. While your V is good, the Q score, as you probably know right now, is below the 25th percentile at CMU. There's no reason to dampen your admissions chances because of a single test.

Immigration law is a field that one can realistically expect to break into, but international law isn't. If you're talking about working for the Hague, UN, State, etc., those jobs are ridiculously competitive, and are typically only reserved for the top 10% at a T14 (+ moot court awards, review publications, etc.) or top third at Harvard/Yale/Stanford. Yes, they do. If you're coming in straight out of undergrad, I wouldn't expect to necessarily be making $60k starting salary--a master's with no experience yields GS-9 in the government, which is $50k. But after a couple of years, you'll be hitting the $60-$80k range pretty quickly. Lawyers progress through the pay scales much faster than analysts/traditional civil servants--they may take 5 years to hit $110k+ range, vs. civil servants taking 10-20 years--but their jobs are A LOT harder to get in the first place. Federal government lawyering is more competitive than big law. Fields are very different, and so there isn't necessarily an "advantage" in one or the other. I know that MPP programs are more about implementing/analyzing policy with regard to their goals/objectives. I'd imagine that lawyering is focused on complying with regulations, or if you're in the hypercompetitive like nat-sec constitutional law or clerkships, it's more about argumentation, regardless of whether the position you're fighting for is necessarily right. Depends on the school and the field. You need to look at the school's employment reports for this and what types of employers students are placed at. Different MPP schools will have different focuses (e.g. CMU Heinz is very focused on domestic, quantitatively analytical work; Michigan Ford is fairly strong in both domestic and foreign policy). I've considered both fields, and I feel like MPP jobs are not as competitive, partly because of the attitude of job seekers and the nature of the field. Because the jobs are so different, you really need to consider what you want and what you're probably going to be able to get out of your education. Merit scholarships are something you need to consider. For law school, conventional wisdom says you really need to go to the top school you can get into (e.g. Harvard over some place among the CCN), especially if you're going for clerkships/big gov. Because scholarship prospects greatly decline at the top schools and because law school tuition is so expensive, that means your education is probably going to be more expensive per year (note law is 3 years, vs. MPP 2 years) than an MPP program. MPP programs don't appear to have such a strict hierarchy, and so students can select applications and school enrollments in a much more financially strategic fashion. Among the big nine on these forums (CMU, Harvard, Princeton, Michigan, Georgetown, Berkeley, Columbia, Chicago, and Duke), there are some informal tiers (Princeton >>> Harvard > Berkeley/Columbia/Chicago > Duke/Georgetown/Michigan/CMU), but students regularly choose less selective schools over seemingly more prestigious schools because of how they might fit their goals better. Employers don't seem to make such rigid distinctions either as opposed to law (Y > H/S >>> CCN >>> remaining T-14 >>>>> everyone else). So, like many students here, you may be able to choose a school because of the funding they offer you. That may mean a much smaller financial burden than that held by law school graduates.