Want to see how strong of a candidate I would be for Carnegie Mellon's MSPPM program. Specifically, I am interested in taking the environmental policy concentration.
Program: MPP
Education: Undergrad at Allegheny College, 3.6 GPA. Major in English with double minor in Philosophy and Psychology. I spent a semester abroad in Australia where I took and Environmental Science course with a lab component.
GRE: 161 V, 4.0 W and 150 Q. The quantitative score is the big black mark here, and I am currently studying to retake and hopefully improve my score by at least 3-4, which would put me at least among average accepted students to Heinz College. I should be able to improve my writing score to a 4.5 as well, but it doesn't look like CMU cares about the score from what I can tell.
Work Experience: This is an area of concern for me. I have a 3.5 month internship doing trail work for Americorps in the Catskills for New York Department of Environmental Conservation, worked for a semester at a local conservancy near my college, and have for the last two years been working full time for an environmental advocacy organization (watch dog group for the Delaware river watershed, essentially) doing social media/It and fundraising. While I haven't done any real policy work directly, I now have a general understanding of the mechanisms through which local and state level environmental legislation gets passed, as well some firsthand experiences with current major environmental issues affecting the region, many of which are relevant in Pittsburgh. I've definitely learned a good amount, but I don't want to be deceitful about my work experience when it comes to relevancy here. Lastly, while this isn't work experience, I am an Eagle Scout which may slightly improve my application in terms of experience doing service work. I am enrolling to take statistics in the spring at a local college, which is something CMU likes to see.
Language: No foreign languages, I am a native English speaker.
Additional Questions:
In addition to CMU (by far my top choice) I am looking at Syracuse, Suny ESF and Pitt's MPA program. Syracuse seems like an excellent school as well, but I think my lack of a quantitative background might make me more or less ineligible. CMU offers a course to get students without this background up to snuff before starting the program. Do you guys think I have a good shot at getting accepted to CMU? Also, are there any other similar programs in the area that you would recommend looking at?