egmpp2010

You should contact your school, starting with the admissions staff for the MPA. It is going to depend on the institutional set-up of their degree programs. Sometimes it's possible to switch or do a dual-degree easily. Often, though, MPP and MPA programs belong to their own "schools" or "colleges" within the university (example: Wanger, Kennedy, Goldman, Harris, etc. are the policy schools at NYU, Harvard, Berkeley, Chicago). Those administrative divisions are important for admissions and degree-awarding. The "school" awarding the MPA likely has an entirely separate admissions process. In other cases, the MPA and the Political Science might be run by the same school or department, in which case it might be more possible to switch. While you're at it, you might want to make sure you know what people who complete the MA in Political Science from your school do with that degree. Make sure you're getting a skillset and a network that will help you pursue the career you want or you might be wasting time and money on grad school (not to say school's not fun...). It's not an awful thing to wait, get some work experience, and reapply to the MPA next year.

I think your admission chances are fine. You can certainly describe your work experience in a relevant way. Not everyone in these programs has worked for NGOs or government and private sector experience is sometimes valued as adding diversity, provided that the connection between the work experience and the degree is clear. At least at WWS and Berkeley (and probably the others), you'd be just slightly above average age for the programs, but not noticeably. Berkeley's average age is 27. I'm not sold on the usefulness of the degree for you based on what you wrote and I definitely think you'll need to answer that question convincingly in your statement of purpose. Most of the programs are fairly structured -- 1/2 your units are taken up in core courses that are aimed at providing skills similar to those you would have learned in your master's with perhaps some additional policy writing or politics classes. At most, then, you're talking 5 or 6 classes in development. That does not a development expert make from the standpoint of most employers. You might get in some good networking and I guess you'd signal your interest in public service, but it seems like an expensive way to get those things if the classes don't add anything and you already have an advanced degree. To be honest, I would make sure you've talked to people who have the jobs you're interested in holding before you sink two years and potentially thousands of dollars into another degree that may not add too much to your resume. You might be better off just interning at the UN or an economic consultancy and seeing if you can turn that into full-time work. The MPA/2 at HKS actually sounds like the best option to me on paper if you're intent on going back, since you design the curriculum. I think the earlier poster was confusing the MPA/2 with the mid-career program, which would be hard to get into and probably not a good fit. I would ask the admissions office, though. Just my thoughts. Good luck!

I'm a current GSPP student who happened to stop by the board again, since it was helpful last year. I turned down the money from both USC and Chicago last year to come to GSPP as an in-state student and I haven't regretted it. I'm GSI'ing this semester to help defray costs and I'll probably do it again for one or two semesters next year. It's quite a bit of work to GSI, but it's also been a new challenge and I've actually enjoyed having that. The end result is I'll have perhaps $20,000-25,000 in debt that I wouldn't have had if I went to Chicago, but that just doesn't seem like that much in the long run for being at a place that was the right fit for me. What helped me to feel better about the financial trade-off was to think about it as a cut-off a grad school had to meet more than a factor in comparing them. As long as the grad school would not leave me with debt that would prevent me from taking any job I wanted after graduation, it was in the running. (Any job for me could include a nonprofit type job that might pay $50-60K). I think, for an MPP, graduating with less than $45,000 debt from undergrad and grad school meets that criteria. Obviously less debt is better, but if it's not debt that will be burden, then it's probably ok. Just my two cents as someone who was there. Trust your gut and you (probably) won't regret it.

It really depends on your long-term plans. If you're not going into the working world after your MPP/MPA, then you should think hard about how the degree will impact your PhD choice. What do you want to do your PhD in? Would doing your MPP/MPA give you an easier in to the PhD program at either of those schools (Chicago or Cornell) and would you want to do a PhD there? It's often -- but not always -- the case that being a Master's student allows you to make connections that can make getting into the school's PhD program. I would ask the admissions departments at both schools to connect you to PhD students who did the Master's and then see.

What was the application process like for you? (i.e. how long did it take you? what kind of road-bumps did you run into?) As someone working full-time, I thought it integrated into my life pretty fluidly. I studied for and took the GREs in August/September, drafted an SOP and looked for letters of recommendation in October, and then refined my SOP/drafted other essays in November and December. It really doesn't have to be too stressful if you do it a little bit at a time. I had a good variety of people read my SOP -- friends in grad school, people with knowledge of MPPs, and family/friends who were kind enough to proofread. Don't stress if a recommender or two is a couple days late; it won't be held against you. I would say give them at least a weekend or so to get it in before you follow-up to ask what happened. And, generally, I think a reminder a week or two before the deadline is appreciated. Was there anything that surprised you about the process? Not really. It did take me a while to shift my SOP from a focus mostly on my past history of accomplishments to something that better articulated my future goals. I think it's critical to achieve that balance. It was so much easier to be concrete about what I'd done rather than what I wanted, which isn't entirely clear for me. But I do think programs are looking for what you'll contribute and what you'll get out of their program, not just why you deserve to be admitted, and you need to make sure you cover that information. Push yourself to create a clear narrative from what you've done, through what you'd learn in their program and on to what you hope to do afterwards. Anything would have done differently? I don't think so. Maybe applied for more the fellowship from Kennedy, even if they were long shots. What advice can you give regarding SOPs, GREs, gaining work experience, etc? You don't have to rewrite your whole SOP for every school. I recommend starting with the longest length you'll have to/get to write and then cutting it down for the other schools. Have a paragraph where you talk about the specifics of the program and modify that for each school. I had a pretty simple formula for that paragraph: mention one aspect of the curriculum I liked (a project or a requirement or a way of tailoring it that with the goals I'd stated for my education, then two specific professors or research centers that fit with my strengths/interests and add anything else (if there was anything) that I felt about that program. A little research goes a long way, I think, towards showing how you fit in there. Work experience -- I think it's fairly straightforward. Go get yourself a job or a fellowship or an Americorps/Peace Corps position or an internship in public service. And even in this economy, I encourage current undergrads to go take the leap and go try to find work. If you do, you're almost definitely going to have better options for grad school -- better programs, better financial assistance. You'll probably have a better sense of what you're looking for out of grad school.

Bios of the current students are here: http://wws.princeton...tudentbios/mpp/ My impression of the program, having just visited the WWS for the MPA, is that the MPPs have more work experience than you have and the bios generally reflect this (almost everyone is 10+ years removed from their undergraduate degree). Of course you can apply, but it sounds to me like you're a better fit for the MPA program than the MPP at this point in time... As for government versus civil society versus international institutions, I don't think they make a distinction as to what is "better". All of those are forms of public service. It's going to be more important that you go and make a significant contribution in whichever of those organizations/fields you choose to work in.

If you have a job offer, you should almost definitely work for a few years (and, even if you don't have an offer, I'd still strongly consider working). You'll learn so much working, you probably will have more options of graduate programs with a longer resume (Kennedy certainly would seem within your reach), and you'll be a more interesting graduate student. Every post-MPP/MPA person I talked to when I was at that juncture several years ago told me to go work. I haven't regretted it. My friends who went straight through to law school and such ended up feeling burnt out on school because of going straight through. I'm so excited to go back now that I've been working. Plus if you end up not liking a job or a field you thought you'd love, grad school can be used to transition into a different field and to help you direct your interests towards a new passion. I really don't see any advantage to going straight through except that picking up and moving your life in a couple years might be harder (new relationships, the pain of not having an income once you've had one, etc.), but cross that bridge when you get there. After 16 years of schooling, trying something different for a while is undoubtedly going to be educational.

Updated.

I'm with the last couple commenters-- going to grad school for me isn't even mostly about the salary bump. In looking at job descriptions for research and evaluation positions in government as well as in non-profits, I feel like a MPP is a great credential and demonstrates a certain expertise/authority in doing analysis. Those are the kind of jobs I want and I think the Master's is going to allow me to both get that kind of job and to move up in my career, transitioning jobs as I need to. I would hope to make $60K on the other side, maybe more depending on the sector. I earn just under $40K now at a job at a non-profit in an urban area; before I took this job, I was offered a pretty low-level government one at $44K in a similarly expensive area. Both were jobs I was interested in for the experience far more than the money. I definitely don't see much reason to take out $100K+ in loans for a degree to work in public service -- it would really limit my choices on the other side. But I think reasonable debt (which can be ball-parked at about your annual starting salary on the other side) is fine; I'm not eliminating options from list just because they would require debt. I'm never going to get rich doing what I'm doing; I just want to maintain a decent living, do what I love, and use my time -- which has a far greater opportunity cost to me -- well. I am, however, fairly young (24), and I am not in the position of having a family or wanting to start a family as soon as I graduate. That makes my debt calculations different from some of the other commenters. But, no, I don't $50,000 depressing as a salary. I know it doesn't compare well to similarly-educated friends in the private sector, but the median household income in the United States is basically $50,000. Given that I have no kids and I am personally/statistically likely to marry someone who has a similar educational background, the combined household income I am probably going to have during my adult life is closer to twice the median in the United States for families ($60,000) than it is to the median. In fact, even if get married to someone else with a public service career, I'm likely to vault into the top 20% of households (those with incomes over $100,000). If I don't I get married, I'm still going to be fairly well-off even by the standards of a very well-off country. I feel very fortunate to have the opportunities I have and ultimately I am far less worried about how much I'm going to be earning than I am about finding interesting, satisfying and meaningful employment.

Program Applied To: MPP (except WWS where its an MPA -- Master's in Public Affairs) Schools Applied To: HKS at Harvard, WWS at Princeton, GSPP at Berkeley, Harris at Chicago, GPPI at Georgetown, SPPD at USC Schools Admitted To: HKS ($?), WWS ($$$), GSPP ($0), Harris ($$$), GPPI ($), SPPD ($$) Schools Rejected From: None Undergraduate institution: Top 10 research Undergraduate GPA: 3.96 Undergraduate Major: Public Policy with Honors GRE Quantitative Score: 770 GRE Verbal Score: 690 GRE AW Score: 6.0 Years Out of Undergrad (if applicable): 3 in June Years of Work Experience: 3 + summer internships in college, part-time school year jobs Describe Relevant Work Experience: 1.5 years at an economic development nonprofit doing program tracking, reporting, and evaluation; 1 year at a family foundation doing research on public/private partnerships and on civic engagement; internships at a foundation and two nonprofits during summers in college; worked part-time for a nonprofit during my sophomore year of college and as a research assistant for a Poli. Sci. professor as a senior Strength of SOP (be honest, describe the process, etc): Started in October and got comments from friends, family. Kept honing it. Spent a lot of time trying to flesh out the sections about how I plan to use the degree and what my career goals are (even though those goals were a bit vague). Personally, I found it easier to write about my past than my future and my friends who are current grad students helped push me to add detail around my future. Didn't add a ton of specifics about each school; just a paragraph where I tried to discuss 3-4 strengths from my perspective -- a professor or research center with interests aligned with mine, how a curriculum requirement like a group project or master's thesis would benefit me. I wanted to add that, for the policy memo for WWS and HKS, I picked a fairly narrow issue having to do with tax deductions. It was timely but not-all-over-the-news and something I knew a good deal about. I think it probably worked well because I could do the issue justice in a few pages and come off as an expert in something probably no one else (or almost no one else) wrote about. Strength of LOR's (be honest, describe the process, etc): Probably very good. One Poli Sci professor who was my undergrad thesis advisor, one Poli Sci professor who I worked for as a research assistant, and my boss from the family foundation who is more a mentor than a supervisor. Deciding Between: GSPP and WWS primarily; waiting to hear if I got any aid from HKS and still mulling over Harris' generosity.

I don't know about regretting having fewer obligations, but it is a fair point that you do pick up obligations as an adult. I know my decision about where to go this fall for an MPP is way more complicated personally than it would have been on graduation day from college. On graduation day, everyone is moving around. Now I have a life in the city I've been living in and it's tough to think about moving far from it. Then again, if you are wanting to be a FSO, maybe moving isn't as an unappealing for you as it for a home-body like me.

Not to say you wouldn't be successful at these programs now, but if you have a job lined up that is in line with your goals, I think working for a few years is only going to make your grad school experience better. I think getting away from academia and into the working world (which just isn't the same being a summer intern) is going to clarify for you what you want out of graduate school and -- perhaps more importantly -- what you need out of graduate school. Everyone has gaps in their skills and their knowledge. Which gaps are most important for you to fill on your way to your dream job can be hard to see from the classroom but it becomes clearer when you are out there, working every day to build your career. Maybe its turns out that knowing budgeting will be really important for your dream job or maybe your need more statistics than you thought. Heck, even just being on the side where you are hiring interns or other entry-level staff helps you understand what great resumes look like in the field you want to work in. I've been working for a few years and it's been great for understanding what skills I need to get the jobs I want to do. I don't think a part-time Masters will hurt; I think it can only help. Policy degrees are about a specific toolkit of skills so I don't think ad coms see it as repeating anything to get a policy degree when you have a content master's (although I don't know much about the IR field, so maybe I'm wrong). In general, I think working for a few years and having more things on your resume just makes you a more competitive candidate. And clearly, you are already competitive. Finally, more so than your friends, talk to people who went to these programs or who are in jobs that you want to hold someday. At least for me, pretty much everyone I talked to said "work for a few years; the people in my classes who had worked for a few years seemed to contribute more and to get more out of the program." I would also add that my friends who went straight to grad schools in general (be it law or medicine or Phd or master's program) were more likely to feel burned out at the end of their first year whereas those who worked for a couple years seem to be relishing the chance to go back. And to counter the post-er above who said don't become another statistic, that just doesn't seem true to me to be an accurate statistic in this case. Most people in any of these programs have a couple of years of work experience. Just like very few people get MBAs straight out of college, it's a minority who get MPPs or MPAs straight out of undergrad. Most work first. And I have the feeling that some people who don't go back just discover that they didn't need the degree for what they wanted to do anyways, which beats spending thousands to only to find that out later.

I wish we could trade. I'd love stay in the Bay Area but Berkeley gave me zero; meanwhile, Chicago's offering me lots of money...

There is no change to my status in the application system. Looks like you'll have to wait for an email.

Yeah -- my acceptance and fellowship information came at 6:00 pm California time. Definitely after the close of business. Best of luck to everyone!