callumabernathy

Hey, thanks for replying. I just figured since many applications requires applicants to indicate their interest in financial aid somewhere, it must have something to do with preference for self-funded applicants. Anyway, hypothetically again, if there is an option to indicate interest in financial aid on the application (for admission), what then are the reasons for a candidate to not indicate interest? Since if, as you said, it doesn't matter. Also if it doesn't matter anyway, why would the option exist on applications? I know from some of my friends that many applications do require you to declare upfront whether you require aid. love to hear your thoughts thanks so much!

Just hypothetically, if there are two students with the exact same profile. The only difference being one of them is capable of self-funding his MPP/MPA et al. It's quite clear for this case that the university will pick the student who's able to self-fund. My question is how far does this "advantage" extends in terms of admission? I know for undergraduate schools, being able to self-fund really doesn't mean anything (it might, I'm not entirely sure). For graduate schools, especially for "cash cow" programs (I don't know exactly which ones these are), does it matter if you can pay for the entire program yourself?

I just wanna get a feel for how many people are being admitted without work experience. Please only contribute if you have 0 work experience. I'm sure many people are going to be applying straight out of undergrad, so this thread might be very informative to them. Thanks everyone. Year of Application: Previous Degrees: Previous GPAs: GRE Scores: MATH/ECON Background: International or Local: School and Program Applied to: School and Program Accepted: Reason (You Think) the Schools Accepted You:

I might be completely wrong here but I read somewhere that Stanford IPS is very academically-intensive compared to other public policy masters; given that they actually have pre-requisites which are all either Math, Stats or Economics courses. I don't even think the IPS is a MPP program since they also have a MPP program which can be taken in conjunction to the IPS. I not entirely sure what the IPS is, to be honest.

I'm asking this on behalf of my friend. He comes from a rural area of a developing country where professional job experiences just aren't available. However, he went to school and lived in a developed country; where he had always been on student visas. He's currently in UC Davis. Technically, he couldn't really get any relevant work experience even if he wanted to. He's also spent all summers and quarters taking as many courses as he possibly can because it's extremely expensive for him. His aim is to gain citizenship at the developed country he grew up in and work in the public sector. His dream is to be a cabinet minister or a member of parliament in his new country. He has accumulated a huge amount of volunteer experience from marine life conservation to teaching at impoverished schools in his country of citizenship. He's an Economics major with Math and Statistics minors. He's looking for masters programs that do not lead to a PhD. At the moment, he's looking into Berkeley, Chicago, Stanford and UCLA for his MPP/IPS. He's tending more towards Stanford's IPS. He is expected to graduate with a GPA of 3.5 (possibly lower since his remaining courses are mostly math and stats); which to me is quite impressive given the grade deflation at UC Davis. He's also doing intensive research with a professor whose focus is on South East Asian and Asian economics. The professor graduated from Harvard and is widely regarded as one of the leading experts in his area. He's also taken the GRE once on a whim where he has gotten a 165V 170Q 5A (I don't think he's going to take it again). How is his chances for these programs? Is his situation a relevant excuse for having little to no work experience? He could apply for a green card and work for a couple years but he feels that it's going to take too long (applying for a green card ain't that simple).