79ajjohnson

My two cents. MPP/MPA can be really heavy in quant, especially stats and economics (Harris told me this on my visit). I don't think they'll fault you too much if you can come up with a solid explanation as to why your GPA was low and why it shouldn't affect your admission decision (that's what I did). I took two stats courses, one calc, one finite, and at least five other quant heavy courses in undergrad, but what a lot of these programs are is stats and econ. Learn how to run regressions (it really isn't too bad, plus you scored well on the quant section of the GRE), how to data mine, and how to interpret results and draw conclusions. If you have written any papers for stats or any quantitative course, use that for writing samples. I personally used two stock write-up's from my investing courses and a 20-page paper I had for my stats: decision making course. You seem to have a lot of experience in the field too which can also really help make up for your low GPA and you have strong GRE scores. Spend a lot of time on your essay, as I think that was what pushed me over the edge.

@sarahlivia One of the current students I talked to said that their trip to Sweden was fully paid for by the program; I'm just going off of their word, but they could be wrong. I think it'd be odd if they required you to pay extra to do a mandatory part of the program. I've also been incredibly impressed by how cordial and helpful everyone at Watson has been so far. Nearly all the faculty I reached out to during the application process responded quickly and jumped at the idea of helping me out. Needless to say it made me feel very welcome! Are you going to accept the offer?

Was accepted early action in late January; very happy considering it was far and away my number one choice. Also got a low financial aid package but I am fortunate enough where that is not an issue. Shocked considering I'm straight from undergrad with a 2.87 GPA through three years of undergrad, but had a 3.5 in my major/minor which was very highly ranked and is quant heavy so maybe that helped. Also had 157/153/5.0 GRE scores on one attempt. I believe I had really strong essays and LORs that probably more than made up for my GPA, so I am incredibly grateful for this opportunity. If it helps at all, pickledcarrots, I've spoken to a lot of students currently in the program and they say they love the flexibility of it and they have a program where you can take an elective at Harvard GSAS. I really like the fully-funded abroad program they have and have heard great things about it. I was also told that they have tons of networking and professional databases available to them and they described it as "overwhelming" how many resources they have available for students. Also, every single club/organization is open to graduate students that is available to undergrads, which I really like. I held off on applying to CIPA, SIPA, and UChicago to wait to hear from Brown so I wouldn't have to spend a lot on apps and GRE score send-outs; I'd say there's a ~95% chance I attend this summer due to it being my dream school. Hope to see you at the accepted students day!