hunter58

I have actually been advised against going to a public policy phd program from my economics professors and recommendation writers. The reason was because they viewed it as vague and harder to employ in terms of finding placements in academia. It seems that public policy schools tend to hire candidates who have graduate degrees in specific disciplines (economics, sociology, political science, etc.) than public policy. I was also told by a couple of people at the IMF, IFPRI, etc. that they prefer specific disciplines when hiring, but that if you do a great dissertation that it will be less of an obstacle. It seems that public policy phds are viewed with some skepticism (although I'm sure this depends on the public policy program a candidate was in).

Hi all, I'm a first time poster, and I was hoping to get some feedback and opinions on the pros and cons to some of the schools that I was accepted into. Any information would be very much appreciated! The PhD programs that I am particularly curious to get feedback and opinions on are: 1. Pardee RAND Graduate School Policy PhD Program 2. Evans School Public Policy PhD Program I understand that the Evans school's phd program is fairly new and have not had any graduates yet, but if anyone could provide some information on the rigor and potential marketability of that degree I would greatly appreciate it. RAND's program seems very non-traditional, so I was hoping to gather some feedback on outside opinions on their program. Thank you in advance!