[The 'Am I competitive' thread - READ ME BEFORE POSTING]

I should have made more clear that yes, I think that's a weakness of mine. UNC's website says 83% of students have less than 2 years of work experience. I guess I should not have been so comforted by that number!

[The 'Am I competitive' thread - READ ME BEFORE POSTING]

Hi everyone! I'm a senior in undergrad getting ready to apply for graduate school. Looking for public administration programs, just took the GRE today so I have my unofficial scores.

Applying to: Indiana U, UNC Chapel Hill, University of Georgia, UT Austin - any recommendations for "back-up" choices?

Program: All public administration/public affairs. Specifically AVOIDING policy because I have a very weak math/econ background.

Undegrad institution: Top 5 public university; top 20 overall.

Undergrad GPA: Around 3.2, majors in political science and Latin American history

GRE: unofficially, as of today, 168V and 150Q

Age: 21

Work Experience: not many jobs that are actually relevant or impressive. However I did spend 6 months working full-time, while in 12 credit hours that I managed a 4.0 in, for a state legislator who has an MPA from UNC and is writing a strong recommendation for me!

Letters: I'm expecting all of these to be glowing. 

Currently working on statement of purpose.

Concerns: 

-low GRE quant score. I am already scheduled to re-take in about a month. I am hoping to get to 155, but is even that too low for these programs? It looks like at Indiana a typical score is more like 153/154. What happens if my verbal decreases? Will that hurt me?

-low/mediocre undergrad GPA. No story here, I just took a while to adapt to college and have essentially been a B/B+ student the whole time. As here and there in my major. Best semester was this past one during my internship at another university.

-No Econ or statistics coursework in undergrad. 

 

I chose an MPA over a master's in public policy or political science partially because I know I'm not good at math. I also have no idea how to evaluate programs. I just picked ones that are well-regarded but also not too far from family. Should I be applying to safer schools and if so what would those look like??

 

Thanks so much!