Windmills

I was actually in almost your exact position as well a few years ago as I applied to very similar programs: UT EER, UCSB Bren, U Minnesota STEP, CU Boulder MENV, and IU SPEA, where I ended up. Similar goals and thought process it sounds like too. We can message directly and I can answer any questions if you'd like. It would help to know what you are thinking about doing after graduation and what sector you'd like to work in.

Any suggestions for best housing options in DC for the summer? I received an internship offer that would be just south of the National Mall.

As usual, I can't say I'm surprised by the lack of love for SPEA and Maxwell.

I guess for one the White House Council on Environmental Quality has been doing interviews this and last week. Their application deadline was February 1st.

I figured the type of people on GradCafe who slaved over grad school applications are the same type of people who are similarly invested in internship applications. So I though it would make sense to have a similar application/results thread for internships in federal/state/local government, think tanks, consulting, etc. so we would know if others applied to the same position and have heard back about interviews or offers.

For future reference, in Bloomington, Indiana it looks like you don't need to/can't change your residency or car plates—assuming you're there as a student.

It would help if you specified the program. It doesn't always make clear whether the numbers for a given program are for the masters or doctoral level, but this at least shows the average GRE scores for applied/admitted/enrolled. Not sure about general application requirements.

University of California Santa Barbara's Bren School of Environmental Science and Management University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources & Environment Indiana University's School of Public and Environmental Affairs

I don't think you're going to find a 1 bedroom for $500. It seems at least $600 is more the norm. If you're looking for $500 I think your best bet is to find a 2+ bedroom house or apartment with someone to split the rent. Does anyone know anything about the town houses on Covenanter (undergrad vs grad students, neighborhood demographics, noise, maintenance/management staff, etc.)? They seem nice but more expensive and further away from campus than Fountain or Meadow Park. But the proximity to College Mall and other stores could be an advantage.

I've looked through SPEA's career placements and there are plenty of people who end up working for private companies, but overall does the private sector shy away from MPA/MPP compared to MS degrees? Are private companies more adverse to MPAs than government is to MS's? I feel like if I attend IU for their MPA-MSES I'd be open to public and, maybe to a lesser extent, private work. Whereas if I get an MS I'm more limited, but better suited, to the private sector.

Interesting. I imagine that was a one-off volunteer outing or some event and that her day-to-day work is more applied than working at a farmer's market—or at least I would hope so. I would think they weed out placements that don't provide relevant work experience or skill building and were reviewed poorly by the student in an exit interview. Similarly, I can only assume a placement with an organization like Habitat for Humanity is more on the management or coordination side than the physical labor side.

Is that actually a possible placement? I'm in the same boat where I'm coming from a different field so guaranteed work experience through the Service Corps in a relevant position will hopefully give me a shot at higher profile summer internships, as you said. I just really hope I don't end up choosing IU for their Service Corp and end up getting placed in a job that I'm not interested in and doesn't build relevant skills.

Has anyone else gotten an email from UT's Jackson School with the subject "JSG Profile Created" saying "A Jackson School of Geosciences profile has been created for you. Please login to the profile administration application using the URL below to add more information to your profile"? Funny thing is, I haven't even committed to the program yet.

I thought they represented various areas of study within the program well and the potential for success in those concentrations after graduating. I wasn't particularly blown away or anything, but I did get a good impression from the day about the program and the community and felt like I could be successful and fairly happy there. My only personal issue is that I don't like the small college town feel from what I saw of Bloomington, especially compared to the other, larger cities of other programs I was accepted to. I do think SPEA's program is probably the best program for me—but maybe not necessarily by a landslide, though I have no plans on staying there after graduation whereas I can see myself settling down in another city where I was offered admission.

I was thinking the same, but my impression from Experience Day was actually that the internships students did were actually more valuable for their future career than the Service Corp work experience.

Anyone attending the SPEA Experience Day this Friday?

This reminds me of another point... I actually would recommend applying to a safety or ideally some respected mid-tier program where you would be a top candidate in the hopes that you get a really good funding offer. Even if you don't want to go there, you might be able to use that funding offer as leverage to get (more) money from your other top picks.

7 In hindsight I would say I applied to too many safety-mid range schools (I also have gotten in everywhere so far. I only haven't heard back from 1 sort of random program. For what it's worth, I applied to several environment/energy based programs with concentrations in policy rather than strictly MPA/MPP ones. There aren't any rankings on energy programs that I know of so I don't actually know where they fall). I applied to one research program at an ok school last year and didn't get in. I would say my stats/experience are decent, but nothing spectacular. So going into this application cycle I had a feeling I'd have a better chance when not tied to research fit and availability, but I still didn't set my sights that high. I did get into some good programs that I'm happy with, but I wonder what could have happened if I reached even higher. I think this also happened partially because I just used Google to find programs instead of US News rankings to see which were top programs in various fields. If I were to do it again I would shoot higher and only apply to schools I would actually want to go to (mid and reach schools). I would also probably focus on schools in geographic pockets (mainly DC/east coast) and at least take a shot at a few top schools like Duke, Columbia, Princeton, and Georgetown. Unless you have no backup plan (i.e. work/intern) if you don't get into grad school, I would ditch applying to "safeties" altogether, or apply to 1 at most (I wasn't in this category, hence the bigger number of applications). Grad school is a big commitment and you want to do it right, so don't waste time, energy, and money on a safety school you're not that interested in. It looks like you're working at the moment so you probably don't have to worry about safeties at all.

It sounds like you have a lot to think about in terms of what you want out of the degree and what you want to do afterwards. Of course you don't have to have everything completely figured out now, but I think you should be very sure that you want to go on to do research/PhD if you're going to turn down the Duke, Michigan, and UCSB programs. At least for Bren's MESM, I thought it would have been more selective than it actually is. This year they had about 370 applications with an acceptance rate around 50%. A little less than half of those admitted will probably enroll. I imagine Yale and Duke's programs are more selective because of their overall name reputation and established programs, and probably the same, but perhaps to a lesser extent, for Michigan. I don't know if any program is actually or perceived as better than the others though and US News doesn't specifically report on environmental management program rankings. For what it's worth they have a global environment/ecology ranking which seems to include environmental management and they put it as Duke > UCSB > Yale > Michigan. Though that's a little surprising because I'm pretty sure Bren is the newest of the 4 and is modeled after Nicholas and Yale.

Ditto on what others have said on not worrying about the semantics of a "professional degree." From what I understand the main purpose of the "Big 4" MEM professional degrees is to get you into the workforce right after graduation, hence the "professional" part. I only applied to UCSB but from what I can tell the Bren school seems to offer tremendous career services and networking opportunities. They report that in the past 5 years 99% of graduates are employed within 4 months. You can look into their career placements to get an idea of what people do after graduating (I would do the same for your other programs). A few do go on to PhD programs, but those that do seem pretty confined to UCSB/the UC system. From what I understand, Duke also has incredible career services. I would love to attend Bren for the professional training, but it would cost way too much compared to my other options. If you really want to go on to a PhD, I imagine a traditional, research-based MS would be a better option. The good news is that if you were able to get into programs as good as Duke's, Michigan's, and UCSB's, then I imagine—so long as you have a sciency/research/analytical background—you should have no problem getting into other top MS research programs as well. You mentioned that you eventually want to go on to scientist, research, consultant, or environmental advocate positions. From what I can tell on Bren's career page, those are all job types attained by their graduates and I imagine the same is true of Duke and Michigan's grads, which makes me wonder your motives for doing a PhD first. If you're leaning more towards heavy research and being a PI then I think a PhD is your best bet. But if you're leaning more towards consulting or environmental advocacy, I imagine you'd be fine with a professional MS degree from any of the programs you got into.

I'm deciding between IUB and UT (for a program outside of the LBJ school). I'm particularly attracted to the fact that you get 2.5 years of work experience with the Service Corp Fellowship since my primary objective is to find a job after graduation. But besides that I didn't get a whole lot of aid so I'm going to try negotiating with them on Monday using another offer where I got full tuition coverage + GRA. I'm also still waiting to hear back about funding from UT.

I'm trying to gather peoples' opinions... Does anyone have any insight on job prospects with a degree in MPA/MPP with a concentration in environment/energy compared to a degree in Energy with a concentration in policy? I'd like to work in energy policy analysis in (ideally federal or state) government or perhaps energy/research analysis or consulting in the private sector. I'm debating between SPEA's MPA-MSES and UT Austin's Energy and Earth Resources (where I would do a concentration in Policy and Law and take courses from the LBJ school).

Why is that? Cost compared to what they offer? Does anyone know about the Service Corp at SPEA? I am really attracted to gaining relevant work experience while in grad school, but I would not find out what company I would work with until orientation/after placement interviews and worry that there is a chance I end up with a company or in a position that is not really related to what I want to do. Even if my work is only tangentially relevant, is it worth doing to increase my chances of landing a (policy) job after graduation? This is compared to Minnesota where I would work, but in a GRA position, and UT Austin where I would pretty much be on my own in terms of finding internships and jobs.

I agree their methodology is lackluster, but I think it is still interesting to look at. They have Public Policy Analysis and a few others as "Specialties" within MPA. I don't know the field but maybe IR is not big enough to be ranked? Also, it looks like NPSIA is a Canadian university. That would make sense since they only rank US universities' programs. Are there any rankings that take something like job placement success after graduation into consideration? Although SPEA definitely did not hesitate to send admitted students an email letting them know it is the #1 Public Affairs program in the nation now.

If anyone is interested, updated rankings for Public Affairs from US News are up.