BrokenAsian

@Ella16 I am definitely going to try to boost my quant score up but I haven't ruled out trying to get a little more experience either. @ExponentialDecay I have looked at other programs and they aren't quite for me... SAIS has too much quant, Fletcher actually didn't have anything close to what I want to pursue at all or at least I couldn't find it in their specializations, Georgetown would be quite a reach. Thank you both for your input, I really appreciate it!

Hi everyone, Long time lurker, first time poster here. Long time lurking because I am quite concerned about my chances at getting into any decent top 10 due to my GPA and GRE scores...If someone could give me a realistic opinion that would be really helpful. Program: MIA for Fall 2018 Schools Applying To: Columbia SIPA (Reach), NYU Wagner, GW Elliot, American SIS, MIIS (safety) Interests: International Development Management, Project Management/Monitoring and Evaluation/ Organizational change Undergrad Institution: A top 10 public university (according to US News) Undergraduate GPA: 3.16 Undergraduate Major: French and Middle Eastern Studies GRE: 159V, <145Q (Atrocious I know, retaking in Oct.) Quantitative Courses: Currently enrolled in an online Macro econ course (I'm currently abroad) because I thought it would boost my application since I am clearly terrible at math and haven't taken a math class since junior year of high school. I should have probably taken microecon or stats. Years of Work Experience: 3 by next year Age: 25 Languages: English (Native), French (Fluent), Cantonese (Native speaking only), obscure very difficult Eastern European language thanks to Peace Corps (limited working proficiency) If you dropped me in the middle of the country I would survive: Italian (2 years, elementary), Spanish (4 years high school, elementary), Mandarin (picked up minimally due to similarities with Cantonese) Studied but pretty much useless in: German, (2 years university), Arabic (2 years university) Work Experience: 3 month internship with UNA in DC, TAPIF (Teaching English in France), Peace Corps Volunteer, currently working closely with UNDP especially on monitoring stuff LORs: One from a professor who I have yet to reach out to and probably doesn't remember who I am, 2 from local UNDP coordinator and Peace Corps Staff SOPs: Will outline how I found a more specialized interest in Monitoring and Management/leading projects, maybe address poor math? (see concerns) Concerns: Obviously my GPA and GRE are huge points of concern. I went into undergrad as undecided for my major and pursued French and Global studies and a minor in Italian just because. Studied abroad at a political science school in France and found myself really interested in the Middle East and politics. Went back to home uni and switched my second major from GS to ME. I clearly didn't take my studies seriously until I went abroad where a lot changed for me. I have an slight upward trend in my GPA after studying abroad. I guess it's worth mentioning that I took almost twice the amount of courses per year all 4 years of undergrad than the average student. I ended up taking 296 units (5 units per language class, 4 per normal class) which is roughly 100-120 more than the average undergrad at my school and my school was on a quarter system. Intellectual curiosity? May be the death of my masters. My quant background is incredibly weak, I went to 4 different high schools because I moved a lot as a child and subsequently my math sequence got all messed up. I took Alg. 1 at school 1, Geometry at school 2, and was put into Pre-Calc at my third school in which I got a C and got scared off of math permanently with 0 quant in undergrad. I don't know if this is something I should address in any supplementary essay or not and if it will even be seen as valid. I am doing pretty decently in the macro econ class I'm taking and I hope that will show that I am capable of handling math that is relative to the real world because who actually needs to find the volume of a cone ever? Considering taking micro and or stats before submitting applications and I'm retaking the GRE in October. I truly am quite bad at math though and I don't know that I will even break a 150 with tons of studying. Columbia is the reach and I hope they take a holistic approach as well as my resume into consideration as I am doing a couple significant projects at the moment through Peace Corps but I would be happy with Wagner or GW. Thanks!