Nozistin

Im at UCSD. Sounds like your would apply for political theory subfield? While we are looking to hire a new theorist, our theory department is really lacking. IR as good as ever, AP is on the come up, and CP appears to be on the come down. Important things to consider when choosing a school. You stats look decent. I got in here with a slightly higher GPA and verbal GRE but less research experience. Work experience in nonprofits did play a role according to me advisor who was on the committee. Didnt really apply anywhere else for PHDs except Columbia and got waitlisted. I applied for MPPs. You would probably get into any MPP school you apply to with your background. Worth considering if academia isnt your number 1 goal. WWS is amazing and almost beat out a great offer from UCSD.

Are you looking for an MPP/MPA or a PhD? If its the former, your internships DO matter a lot but you will also need to get about 2 years if work experience for most top schools. If its a PhD it matters less but it does help. It depends on the institutions but if you can play it up. Just make sure you do well on the GRE to make up for the lower GPA. Source: applied to both type of programs and did well in both

You sound salty. Like ok, you didnt get funding but stop crapping on other people and a school you clearly wanted to attend and move on.

So do you believe that if you're going to a top 10/ top 12, even in the bottom end, your job prospects are pretty good? And based on your experience, can folks from these institutions make the choice to sacrifice prestige for location when hitting the job market or are they stuck taking whatever offer they get?

Program Applied To: (MPA, MPP, IR, etc.) MPP, MPA, PhD (Poli Sci) Schools Applied To: Berkeley GSPP (MPP), HKS (MPP), Princeton WWS (MPA), UCSD (Poli Sci PhD), Columbia (Poli Sci PhD) Schools Admitted To: Berkeley GSPP (MPP) (No funding), HKS (MPP) (???), Princeton WWS (MPA) ($$$), UCSD (Poli Sci PhD) ($$$) Schools Rejected From: NA Waitlisted: Columbia (Poli Sci PhD) Undergraduate institution: Top Public Undergraduate GPA: 3.76 Last 60 hours of Undergraduate GPA (if applicable): 3.75 Undergraduate Major: Political Science, Minor in Public Policy GRE Quantitative Score: 157 GRE Verbal Score: 165 GRE AW Score: 4.5 Years Out of Undergrad (if applicable): ~2 Years of Work Experience: Full time ~2, part-time relevant ~3 Describe Relevant Work Experience: Lot of undergrad student government at my campus and at state level, a year as a part-time consultant for a small non-profit, a little over a year at a private foundation, a few months as a legal assistant, a summer policy fellowship, and more campus-based organizing while in undergrad Strength of SOP (be honest, describe the process, etc): I would say very solid. I worked on it for about a month at about 10 hours a week. Wrote it, scrapped it, wrote it again, scrapped it again, got something decent, passed it to my friend who is a technical writer, basically rewrote it after her suggestions, had sit down to carefully go over new draft with her, and finally got something pretty tailored. A piece of advice would be to be very upfront early on. My first sentence was along the lines of:" I want to get an MPP and XXX school to gain the policy analysis, public management, and leaderships skills to do XXX." I went through every sentence and asked 1) Does this need to be said? 2) Is this the best way to say it? 3) Is this the best place to say it? Happy to talk more about this in a PM. Strength of LOR's (be honest, describe the process, etc): Solid, nothing crazy. 2 from professors that knew me pretty well and 2 from the CEO of the orgs I worked the most time in. Both CEO's know me well and I still get lunch with one of them every now and then. Don't ask folks that can't speak to your specific talents with enthusiasm. Try to find someone with an MPP/MPA to write you a letter. Two of the folks who did for me had one. They can speak out of experience to your ability to succeed in the type of program. Other: *Take all of this with a grain of salt as we all come from different places. I didn't apply to many schools but I did apply to very different programs so it was a lot of work. My advice would be to not apply to more than 6 schools but do it well. You can choose to make some of those safeties, I didn't. My thoughts on grad school where maybe not in the mainstream, IDK. I was only willing to go to grad school at a top program. I have a pretty decent job and the debt and time spent calculations only made sense for a top program in my case. I was surprised at my success this cycle and am still stressing a bit on my decision though I'm starting to settle on one. Happy to talk with folks in a PM if you have any questions

I have to work the weekend and can't really miss it. If GSPP doesn't up my funding, I'll probably take a well-funded offer I got in your neck of the woods (UCSD) for a Poli Sci PhD. I don't want to work in DC so moving out east seems like it won't be worth it plus I think I eventually want my PhD anyways so might as well.

I feel that if you learn to generally code, you can learn a new language without too much difficulty. There are boutique boot camps that can teach new languages in 1-3 months in pretty good depth. In California, even community colleges teach C++. Maybe I'm also on the optimistic boat but I think that if you can gain the rigorous quantitative, methodological and theoretical background that a lot of top 15 programs offer along with the basic coding skills in R, STATA, SQL, and sometimes a bit of Python, you are 90% of the way to being a competitive data scientist in industry. But again, I might just be looking at it with the eyes of someone who wants to do a PhD and not feel like I'm risking so much.

Question for the group: is becoming a data scientist a reasonable plan B for those doing a quant heavy program (UCSD for example) and combine it with a coding bootcamp?

Hopefully. I got into Woo and am trying to leverage that for funding at GSPP but we'll see what happens. Trying to stay in California if possible because <3 Sun <3

For folks going to GPS, I will almost certainly be going to UCSD for a Poli Sci PhD and would be interested in getting housing with like mind folks. PM if you're interested to. I've traveled down to SD and checked out neighborhoods and feel like I have a good understanding of the area.

Funny that I probably met you yesterday at UCSD if you were there. Remember how much better the weather is in San Diego! Aha but besides that, I would visit both and see how you get along with your fellow grad students and professors. There isnt much difference in ranking and placement. There is a likely a big difference in culture and people. Subfield wise also there are some difference. UCSD is a beast in IR and Comp and quickly growing in American. MIT for methodology for sure. UCSD's theory department is week. But also remember the weather.

I'm likely to turn it down because i was accepted to PhD programs im heavily weighting and looking to use WWS to negotiate funding at GSPP so if either of those pan out, and im sure other fomks like me are ou there, there will be some spots?

I got it at 630AM today PST

Invitations for CPL interviews for finalist appear to have gone out. A friend of mine who is a 10th level super sayan 1st edition holographic typa badass got an invite through email. Just a heads up.

Also in! (MPA) Thanks ya'll. Now time for hard choices.