[Yale's Phd in law vs just going to Yale for your JD?]

Judging from TLS and other forums, the best way to become a professor in the United States:

1. Go to a T18 school, and get your JD and graduate in the top 10% of the class, if not the top 5%

2. Clerk for a federal judge, shoot your shot at Supreme Court clerkship, perhaps draft a law review article

3. Lateral at biglaw practicing your area of expertise, continue writing law review article

4. Take a couple years off to do a fellowship, again, shoot for Supreme Court fellowship; write and publish during this time

5. Apply for a law school professorship

I think you're starting to see how challenging this route can be. Nevertheless, if you're talented then you can definitely achieve it!

[Which schools are more likely to accept MPPs out of college?]

On 12/24/2017 at 1:49 AM, ExponentialDecay said:

Doing a job for 3 months is not the same as doing a job for 3 years. 

I know nothing about foreign service, but in my corner, people are advised to work for 2-3 years to see if they don't burn out from the field. A lot of people coming into this work are idealistic, talk about "making a difference", and are unprepared for how frustrating, bureaucratic, limited, and uncertain that making a difference is. It's also an uncertain career that requires a lot of personal sacrifice, in particular of the work-life balance and moving away from home type, which is not for everyone's personality and circumstances. Time in the field also helps with figuring out what problem you're trying to solve. Again, not sure how this maps onto FS, which is probably more like the CIA/FBI, and 22 year olds are indeed easier to teach regurgitation of the party line, but you can see the difference in policy essays between kids out of undergrad and people who have been in the workforce. The latter's are much more detailed and relevant to the actual concerns of the field.

That said, can someone out of undergrad be a brilliant applicant and know what needs to be done and how they will do it just based on 2 internships? Hell yes. There are some extremely smart and proactive people in the world. But by that same virtue, it's no more true that an undergrad with two state internships is ceteris paribus a better applicant than someone with foreign teaching experience than the reverse. There are a lot of important unknowns in either case, so it's an individual question. Is it a good idea to advise both people to wait before gradschool? Yes. Simply because it's a hella expensive degree with 0 application outside the policy world that any person without strong footing inside that world has a very high chance of never using. 

I'd like to clarify my position on this and add to what @ExponentialDecay has said: Interning at State is definitely different from being an FSO because the latter requires knowledge of what it's like to be a long-term expatriate.

After being an expatriate for 1.5 years, I'm crawling up the wall at the prospect of not being there for my aging parents (I'm an only child), missing out on talking to my friends because I'm 12+ hours ahead of them, and generally missing the network of friends that I've built up over the years. It's really draining and I'm very glad to be applying this cycle to head home to the States. Can someone who hasn't taken the expatriate route intrinsically understand that they would have the same emotional reaction? Of course.

But I suspect for most undergrads who are interested in IR policy (like I was, once upon a time) that reality does not sink in because the attractiveness of living and traveling around the world tends to outshine the reality of high divorce rates, third culture children, and not being able to influence policy as they had originally hoped they would.

And that is why I agree with everyone who has said that going to a master's degree straight out of undergrad is a pretty bad choice, all things considered.

[Which schools are more likely to accept MPPs out of college?]

On 12/18/2017 at 11:27 AM, jj1776 said:

I think it really depends on the person's background. For example, someone coming straight out of undergrad who's done 2-3 summer internships at State and says they want to be an FSO (but want to get a grad degree first) is way more credible background-wise in my book than someone who's been teaching English abroad for a year or two and then up and decides they want go to grad school to be an FSO.

As someone who has taken the latter route in order to get experience in the country that I hope to specialize in, I have to say that my experience supplements my coursework and research in a practical way. There are people who do take the latter route because they don't know what to do with their lives, and I do agree that's the majority of the people who do expat teaching abroad work, but I would also argue that someone who's never been out of the country doesn't necessarily make the best FSO either.

[Online Economics Courses]

I did online community college coures through a couple of local community colleges: De Anza College and Foothill College. Foothill College in the springtime is particularly nice because they have certain six-week compacted courses in microeconomics and macroeconomics. 

[M.A. Government and M.A. Global Security Studies at JHU]

Of course a recruiter's going to tell you that. I recommend asking the recruiter for an alumni job placement briefing sheet or what have you, as well as trawl LinkedIn to see where alumni are currently working.

[Think long and hard about taking on so much debt]

On 12/12/2017 at 6:45 AM, elmo_says said:

Where on earth did you get that 150% rule? Navient? I remember hearing a "100% of starting salary" rule when I was applying a few years ago, and I don't think that IR career trajectories have increased dramatically over the past few years.

Mapping Your Future (a non-profit educational counseling group) recommends no more than 8% of your gross earnings. Based on a 60k starting salary, that means taking out no more than 35k in loans assuming a 6.8% interest rate. (Also, in much of the public and non-profit sectors, 60k is not guaranteed starting out, especially if you don't have much work experience). 

Now I will grant that that is a pretty conservative estimate. But another guide is what the federal government considers affordable for income-based repayment plans. To get your IBR payment, you take your salary and subtract 150% of the federal poverty line. So let's do some math:

$60,000 salary minus $16,335 = $43,655.

To get your IBR payment, multiply that by 15% to get about $6,550, or about $546/month. That translates to less than 50k/year in loans, assuming a 10-year-repayment plan and a 6.8% interest rate. (I used this calculator).

 

I got the rule from other forums, it's really largely hearsay. At the end of the day, we can think of debt load like a sliding scale: you take on as much risk as you want and as you are able, and some decisions are more sound than others. I put my risk load at 150% of starting salary, some other people put it at 100% of starting salary.

However, the information you gave about Mapping Your Future is really great! I'm looking through this information now. As a pending law school grad doing a joint degree, there is always the option to do high-paying work for a few years to burn through those student loans. So I think my trajectory is moving in a different direction from most of the people in this thread.

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

On 12/15/2017 at 12:08 AM, chocolatte_ said:

HKS has an online program? Not that I can pay out of pocket for Harvard anyway...

I'm not really qualified for a lot of executive level MPAs. I've reached out to a few of those programs and they've agreed that I'm borderline for the level of experience required, and I have this lack of stats/econ background (SIPA for example wants it). I also haven't found one year that sounds like a good fit, but I'm willing to keep looking.

You can always take community college courses or courses at your university (maybe through extension?) for academic credit to show you can handle the quantitative rigor. Look for options in your local community!

[Policy schools in NYC]

On 11/27/2017 at 12:45 AM, aaprabhakar said:

Thanks for your inputs. Is admission to Yale Jackson as competitive as WWS? 

TBH I didn't know that SIPA had such a high admissions rate before I started frequenting these forums. At this point of time I am more confident of getting in but what I meant in my original post is that I feel with any Ivy it's a gamble. Stellar credentials don't always guarantee admission. 

I hear the admissions rate to Yale Jackson is around 20% whereas WWS has an acceptance rate of around 12%.

With any school, nothing is guaranteed but stellar credentials do make it easier.

[Think long and hard about taking on so much debt]

@alb319 Let's do the mathematics to calculate the necessary starting salary for someone with $83k of debt. You can expect to pay compounded APR on any debt that you incur, and that will range from 10-20% of the total amount. Let's go with 20% as a conservative estimate. That means that upon graduation, your total debt will be $99,600. With the 150% rule, that means your starting salary must be approximately 2/3 (or 67%) of your total debt load. That means your starting salary needs to be $66,400 or more. That is the most advice I am comfortable with dispensing without having some concrete numbers such as interest rates or repayment expectancy, but I will say that you do have a lucky break in the form of your parents' willingness to pay off the remaining amount in six years. There are too many variables to sufficiently calculate what amount of the debt load will be remaining. However, the people you should be talking to about your potential arrangement are your parents, not us.

@ExponentialDecay I see you all over this forum, and you usually have wise words for everyone! Your comment made me really happy.

@Revolutionary There is a difference between striving towards something and worshiping it. Someone who strives for knowledge is humbled by the sheer magnitude of everything that exists in the world and is never ashamed to intrinsically know that there are some experiences that will forever be beyond the purview of the individual. There are entire lives that we do not lead due to circumstance, and there are things that we will never know because we live in different times and places. There are emotions that flay to the bone and feelings that allow the self to soar above tragedy. To strive for knowledge is to seek all of these out in our lives through whatever sensory inputs we have available. We can hope to make sense of it, but our esteem is not broken when we inevitably fail, for even imperfection is better than a total dearth.

To worship knowledge is to place one's entire self-worth on that altar, and to believe that people's worth can and should be measured by that function alone. I find this intensely problematic: What about people who are intelligent but lazy, or people of average intelligence who perform superbly through effort? What about people who may not be book-smart but have a wealth of other characteristics that are essential to functioning in society? How do we quantify intelligence - purely through IQ, or are there some forms of intelligence like emotional intelligence that IQ cannot quantify? What about animals, who have sensory inputs and forms of knowledge that are alien to us Homo sapiens as a species? To worship knowledge is uncomfortably like the pre-Darwinian view that people sit atop an illusory pyramid in the world. Hell, even after Darwin started gaining traction, craniology was invented to show that white men had superb intelligence through genetics. The knowledge that Darwin tried to bring to the world to help humanity learn that it was but a single strand of the global ecosystem's eons-old song was then used to divide and measure people by their race. Intelligence and knowledge are neutral things, in my opinion. How you use intelligence matters far more than the presence or lack of it.

When doing counterterrorism research, I found that terrorists were often more rational than most people, i.e. they had an "x leads to y, therefore we must eliminate x to achieve our goals" mindset more than the average human. These findings are buttressed by Antonio Damasio's fantastic popular science book: Descartes' Error. It is emotional linkage to the fabric of humanity that allow us to make "human-conscious" decisions like opting to create a political party to advocate for one's political goals instead of bombing a skyscraper. If we were being totally rational human beings who valued knowledge and the scientific method above all else, we'd probably be extinct by now. Instead, we moderate our knowledge with our experiences, and that is what allows us to achieve what we have so far.

[Think long and hard about taking on so much debt]

18 hours ago, ExponentialDecay said:

Part of it is having the institutional platform to do the kind of work you want/are able to do, part of it is being surrounded by people who get you, part of it is culture and lifestyle. Part of it is falling into it. Part of it is then choosing to keep showing up. I'm passionate about many other things and I could be making the same money I'm making doing many other things. But I'm here.

Like, there is limiting refined carbs in your diet, and there is paleo. There is being pro-market and there is libertarianism. There is being frugal and then there is writing blog posts about how to get enough calories and save on your grocery bill by putting olive oil on everything. These things seem less about living life and more about obtaining an illusion of control or filling up the emptiness inside of you with busywork. And, who knows, maybe that's what I'm doing. Economics is the cult of cults. I do think that, whilst taking a shit ton of debt for these programs is stupid, it's no less stupid to waste years of your life denying yourself the chance to try something you want to do.

In the end, there's no point in being a slave to your mind/body/ambition/checkbook. Just try to do the best you can with what you've got.

 

This post is poetry about careerism and life. In other words, I love it. I was particularly reminded by one of my favorite speeches: David Foster Wallace's commencement speech to Kenyon College Class of 2005 aka "This is Water." He says:

In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship ... is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things - if they are where you tap real meaning in life - then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. ... Worship power - you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart - you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.

[Think long and hard about taking on so much debt]

From what I read of your original post, it seemed that you wanted to live abroad and have a graduate degree more than you want to become a change-maker. I've met people that have tried to vigorously defend their life decisions when no one is questioning their right to make said choices:

• "You know, I got accepted to Cornell! But I decided to go to SUNY Binghampton because it was cheaper for me." I hadn't even asked her about why she decided to go there, only where Binghampton was because I was from the West Coast.
• "I could have gone to an elite American university, but I decided to go to a Turkish university for the experience." We were all counselors in a summer camp, and this guy was one of two counselors who had not gone to a brand name American university. No one had made him feel inferior about his university choice or his intelligence.

You seem to draw an arbitrary line between yourself and "white collar types" in terms of making a difference. Of course, anyone can make a difference. As Rayzaa pointed out, Malala Yousafzai is now a Nobel Peace Prize winner due to her immense motivation to bring gender equality to Pakistan. Of course, she was only fourteen years old and sans grad degree when she made waves around the world. No one here is trying to belittle you for the choices you are making. And yet, you deny yourself a seat at this table in order to denigrate people, albeit subtly.

• "Do you people realize that most of these jobs pay shit?  You can do better as an honest hardworking plumber."
• "So in order to save the world (and to be able to afford it) you must be willing to spend two hours commuting per day?  That's ten hours per day and 500 hours per year. A significant amount of time that one could be using to actually make a difference..."
• "I won't be working 50 hours a week at some cubicle job an hour away as I tell everyone how great I am for saving the world."

Let me respond to some of your comments, which I found quite thoughtless.

• "I was recently in Myanmar and was saddened to see that the locals drank straight from the filthy river that they bathed in and god knows what kind of runoff was contained in there.  What I'm suggesting is that there's another way to create a fulfilling life for yourself, in which you can devote your career to helping these people and solving these issues." Well, the reality is that someone else is making positive change for people in Myanmar, not you. They may not even have a grad degree or student debt. The first sentence of this comment is equivalent to "praying for help" posts on Facebook that I dislike. Being saddened about this is not the equivalent to taking action on this issue.
• "Why not get more real world work experience and reapply when ad-coms feel that you'll have so much to offer that they are willing to educate you for free?" If you look at Harvard Kennedy School's fellowship application, most of them require you to have demonstrated leadership skills and dedication to public service. I'm not sure that being a plumber for 20+ years is the best way to go about that.
• "A significant amount of time that one could be using to actually make a difference..." The amount of commute time spent on the DC metro during my two internships was indeed great, but I used it to read several books on current news and hot-button topics in society. It was productive time. Furthermore, you can reframe this as a sacrifice or price paid in order to have the dream career that Rayzaa and others want. There are higher pursuits than that of money.
• "I won't be working 50 hours a week at some cubicle job an hour away as I tell everyone how great I am for saving the world." I found this truly insulting because my parents worked overtime and extra hours at their jobs in order to afford me debt-free university. It wasn't a necessity for them but rather a choice born out of love. There are reasons other than student debt that a person might opt to work extra hours. That extra ten hours of work per week could be helping people around the world. Furthermore, if you end up working for a non-profit, you might very well be that same person working fifty hours a week because the project is due in a week and people's lives depend on it being done. Also, given that you previously said that you wanted to work in a Southeast Asian nation, perhaps you'd still want your children to be educated in the States rather than, let's say, Thailand if you don't want to send them to an American-style school for children of diplomats until they absorb the language of the host country. That's an expensive proposition there.
• "(and sucking up to phony DC types at happy hours)" There are definitely phony types everywhere you go. They're not limited to DC, and you might even find some in Southeast Asia. Dealing with phonies is something that happens in life, much to Holden Caulfield's disdain. But I am amused that you think that this is an intrinsic facet of people who work in DC. Stereotype much?
• "Bragging about how great your school is ... That joy quickly wears off" I don't doubt that some people apply to and hope to be accepted to these schools for the name brand and prestige, but others will attend them because that school and its connections are what will allow them to quickly scale into a job and career that they desire. The people who go into these top programs are not children showing off flashy toys. You belittle everyone who is in the latter category by saying this.

For potential students who are very concerned about student debt, if you are a high-achieving student, look into Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School program for a school that funds all its students. As in: every MPA graduate exits that school with zero student debt. Yale Jackson Institute has a generous endowment from what I hear (and at least for this 2017-18 application cycle, they waived the application fee if you applied before December 1). If you're an exceptional student then Harvard Kennedy School has a number of merit scholarships you have to apply for. There are also excellent external funding sources that you can retrieve from Harvard Kennedy School's Student Financial Service database, and it is publicly accessible. You might have to hustle for money, but the worthwhile things in life are the ones we have to work for.

Overall, I find this post to be attempting to justify a certain life path and payoff matrix to people who have already chosen a different path and have different payoff matrices. Your note on student debt is sound, and I will add to that by saying that student debt should not exceed 150% of starting salary. People should do research before they enter possible debt and student loans. However, to say that all people who have made this choice are "not thinking clearly" insults hundreds of students and graduates who have already opted to do so because they have different values than you. It is kind of you to suggest a different career path, but in the future, I recommend that you carefully consider how you come across as a person. Condescension isn't a good look on anyone.

[Policy schools in NYC]

Yale Jackson's student bios have a lot of international development-focused students, from what I can tell. The benefit is that you can take courses across different disciplines all across Yale because the Jackson Institute doesn't have many required classes attached to the degree itself. Since the Institute is new, it will take time for it to grow a course catalog that rivals that of the Kennedy School.

As for Princeton WWS, I think it's a great program and confers possibly the most elite public policy degree in the United States, but the admissions process is highly competitive (~10% admissions rate). You would need stellar credentials to get in, so if you're not sure about your ability to get SIPA (about a 30-40% acceptance rate, from what I hear) then WWS is definitely out of bounds for you.

[Practicing attorney --> HKS MPP?]

I'd recommend filling out HKS' interest form. They went to lengths to find someone who matched my profile to email me. It was a pleasant correspondence!

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

On 10/24/2017 at 6:42 PM, doglover5 said:

Hi all, posting again since I didn't get replies to my last post back in August.

Program: MIA-type programs with a security focus

Schools Applying To:  Georgetown MSFS & SSP, American SIS, GWU Elliot, Tufts Fletcher, Uppsala Masters in Peace and Conflict

Interests: Conflict analysis and security studies, but I'm not sure I want to pigeonhole myself with a security-focused degree

Undergrad Institution: Top 50 university

Undergraduate GPA: 3.75

Undergraduate Major: International Relations, French

GRE: 165 V, 168 Q, 5.0 AWA

Quantitative Courses: 3 honors calc classes (A, A-, B+), stats for polisci majors (A-), intro to economics (A), intermediate microeconomics (C),  taking an intro to micro course online for credit at the moment to replace the C

Years of Work Experience: 4 years full-time experience

Age: 26

Languages: English (native), French (fluent), random West African language (conversational)

Work Experience: 2.5 years working in West Africa at a large well-known NGO in the security department, supporting security management and doing analysis of regional issues (terrorism, organized crime, civil conflict). I've worked my way up from an intern to an important member of the office. Before this, I worked with small local NGOs in the same country in various development sectors (health, microfinance) for 1.5 years. I've been living in West Africa for 4.5 years.

LORs:  1 from my current supervisor who is the director of the security department. 1 from a French professor in college that I was somewhat close with during undergrad. A third for Georgetown SSP from an IR professor I didn't really keep in touch with but who still agreed to write me a letter.

SOPs: Exploring a link between poverty/underdevelopment and conflict through my various experiences working with refugees, in the development sector, and with the current conflict contexts that I work on in West Africa.

Concerns: Is this a good range of schools? Am I reaching to high here? I'd like to include at least one school where I know I can get decent scholarships in case nothing else works out. Any schools I should add or remove?

I'm also getting a lot of conflicting feedback from my recommenders and friends on how the structure and format of my SoP should be. Some say it should read more like a basic job cover letter, discussing experiences and qualifications, others say I should talk more about my academic and research interests and career objectives. Since many of these programs have such short word limits for SoP, I find I can't really do both of these effectively. Any advice from anyone here?

I think that your GRE and GPA qualify you for the top programs that have the most cachet in the United States and abroad (e.g. Harvard, Stanford, Yale). The GPA might be "under the medians" so to speak but you have a wealth of international experience, which will really help you. I understand that you want to focus on security issues, but seeing as policy analysis is increasingly a data-driven field, it might be more financially worthwhile to get a public policy or foreign affairs degree with a security concentration/focus evident in your coursework. That way you can have your security degree without pigeonholing yourself.

The most important thing about the statement of purpose is to craft a compelling narrative about who you are, what impact you hope to make, and how this drive to create change has led you to apply to this school. I would never write a statement of purpose like a cover letter - your resume can and should do that for you. Your career objectives and academic interests should be made clear from the statement of purpose in a "show, not tell" sort of way, for this is a professional degree. Both objectives should be intertwined, after all.

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

On 11/18/2017 at 4:06 AM, milliedaisy said:

Thank you so much! I really don't think my score is going to near perfect at all... I guess we will have to see. I did see that you were applying as well and was hoping you'd respond! I just made an account to check out the top-law-schools thing. Alas, it is time to write a good statement. Just a quick lame question- do you know if many people are applying with this pilot? Glad to hear of another, thank you! 

I recently revisited that thread on top-law-schools.com, and suffice to say that I remembered the GRE score incorrectly: it was a 170V and 165Q, meaning a 335 combined score. I hope this (mildly) alleviates your anxiety.

I'm applying with a 168V + 162Q, 330 combined score, but since my letters of recommendation and LSAC report just sailed out yesterday, I have no idea if/when I'll be called to interview. I will let you know if/when that happens though, fingers crossed!

Most of what I've heard about this GRE pilot fall into two categories:

1. People with low GPAs and high LSATs are worried that they're going to be pushed out in favor of applicants with high GREs and high GPAs and are going positively neurotic about the application experience
2. Some international students are wondering if they should hail Mary an application because they want to get a shot at the famed Harvard Law School

I would argue that this is the best year to submit the GRE application to Harvard, ever. This is because there is no precedent. Starting from next year (if they continue this pilot program) there will always be a previous class of GRE applicants and their HLS performance to base future admissions decisions off of. However, this year is quite unique in the sense that since they're flying blind and taking a chance on this entire program, having an interesting and compelling application might very well help. Of course, the reverse logic is that since this is the pilot program, the adcomm might be particularly stringent in not letting unqualified applicants in, if their scores might adversely impact Harvard's rankings. However, this is the school where Dean Minow eliminated the traditional grading scheme and much has been done to increase non-traditional applicants (esp. from STEM fields) in recent years, so not taking risks goes against the school's recent ethos. Harvard is playing with its rankings by even letting this GRE pilot program kick off, so we might as well see where it goes together.

As for me, since I went to the school where Legally Blonde was actually filmed (shout out to Kerckhoff Hall!), at least I get to say that I've already been to "Harvard Law." Making stupid jokes like this helps me ride out this anxiety-inducing waiting process.

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

40 minutes ago, milliedaisy said:

Program: JD to defer for one year

Schools Applying To:  Georgetown University Law Center and Harvard Law School 

Interests: bioethics, health law/policy, research law/policy

Undergrad Institution: UC Berkeley

Undergraduate GPA: 3.9 

Undergraduate Major: Anthropology with focus on medical anthropology

GRE: studying now! Last practice test was 164 V 160 Q

Age: 21

Work Experience: The contracted community partner to serve all MA DOC facilities to provide services to incarcerated populations around matters of sexual violence (current)

Research Assistantships for faculty at UC Berkeley, UCSF

Other Experience: Current Master of Bioethics student at Harvard Medical School 

Honors & Awards: Phi Beta Kappa, departmental prize for outstanding thesis, best paper award from institute of international studies at my undergrad university, first undergrad selected for a fellowship in center for technology, society and policy, a prestigious undergrad research grant 

Publications: non-peer reviewed articles in journals... but a paper was selected for my presenting the American Anthropological Association meetings (so scared!)

Languages: English 

LORs: Taken care of 

SOPs: Very worried about a personal statement 

Concerns: I do not have any idea what it takes to get into law school and I feel very concerned that I might not be a traditional candidate. I am very young and fear that I may be naive about the possibility I would get in to either of the schools I am applying to (which I am only able to consider vis a vis their pilot GRE as opposed to LSAT programs). I think my GRE scores are too low to be a fair substitute for the LSAT. I really suck at math and don't expect to get much better. 

 

The best place to consider what it takes to get into law school would be on top-law-schools.com in their forums. However, as I'm someone applying to the exact same schools but not as a deferral student, I'd say that this year might very well be the best year to apply with the GRE seeing as how no one knows what the results will be like. Apparently someone on r/lawschooladmissions got a Harvard Law interview with a 340 combined score, so it's best that you consider that your ballpark.

With that being said, the GRE pilot program is intended for nontraditional candidates. I'm fairly sure that's why the LSAT-only policy is being substituted across the T14. What matters is that you can conceivably write a stellar narrative as to why you want to do a JD on top of your existing master's degree. You have to convince an adcom that yes, you can succeed in law school, that yes, you do want to do law work (ABA-required disclosures do not advantage graduates who do not select bar-required or JD advantage work), and that yes, you can be a useful graduate that will contribute to the legacy and reputation of the school (esp. in the T14).

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

On 11/15/2017 at 11:24 PM, jj1776 said:

If you want to work in the Gov, why didn't you do any internships in the Gov? Especially at State given its extensive internship program and your professed 'goal' of working there. 

Sorry for the late reply, but I had originally thought of doing more research-oriented work and possibly earning a PhD. Then I talked to friends who are in the process of getting a PhD and a number of mentors, who all are in academia themselves. I realized that I wanted to do more advocacy work in the public sector rather than research. Hence, the two research-oriented internships. With that being said, I contended adding an internship with Senator Feinstein to my academic year workload, but with Model UN and my part-time job at a law office (for three years) that proved to be quite impossible without sacrificing my GPA. I am confident that I'll be able to get a government-side internship while in graduate school.

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

On 10/4/2017 at 7:33 AM, wanderwhale said:

Hello, would be grateful for some feedback! Also, if you have any ideas for schools that would be a good fit for me, I am making my decisions inarguably last minute and could still be swayed to different programs. A program that tends to a more critical/less conservative direction is a huge plus.

Program: MA International Affairs or Human Rights (making last minute decisions atm)

Interests: Human Rights and US Foreign Policy, Latin America

Schools Applying To: Fletcher, Korbel, AU, SIPA (and open to suggestions)

Undergrad Institution: UCLA

Undergrad GPA: 3.87

Undergrad Major: Anthropology with a minor in Public Policy

GRE: Have not actually taken it yet, but my practice tests are looking around 152Q 163V

Age: 25

Languages: English, Spanish (conversational), French (basic)

Work Experience: Here is where I am most confused, honestly it's allover the place. My main work for the past few years has been in Outdoor Education and Tour Guiding. However, during college I interned for 3 years with the American Cancer Society on a state proposition campaign, I also interned post-college with a digital media strategy firm for political clients in DC. I volunteered full time for a while with a humanitarian group that works on the US/Mexican border (and is majorly controversial, I feel like it could be a big bonus or a big negative depending on who looks at it), am currently very involved (Executive Assitant to the President) in a new anti modern slavery NGO in Geneva, and have done volunteer work with refugees in Greece. I've also spent very large employment gaps traveling.

LoRs: President of NGO I'm working with now & college professor (who I am not still close with and can't guarantee an out of this world letter, I screwed this one up, and didn't stay close to my college professors)

SoP: Not yet done, but I think I can weave my odd experience into a pretty compelling story that directly relates to my academic interest

Concerns: Basically no quantitative coursework, low GRE quant score, unusual mix of experience, not stellar academic LoR

 

I hope that you're still looking at this thread. At any rate, fellow Bruin, your GPA is really good. It's enough to qualify you for top-tier MPP programs that have a lot of curricular flexibility should you wish. I think that you should work the GRE score up and take a few quant courses, and you could have a good shot at HKS/WWS etc. 

Of course, if you can write all of your experiences into a compelling narrative, I'd be interested in seeing where this application goes.

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

Program: MPP/MSFS - public policy with international/national security focus; JD joint/concurrent degree 

Schools Applying To:  Harvard Kennedy School (MPP), Harvard Law School (JD), Georgetown SFS (MSFS), Georgetown University Law Center (JD), Yale Jackson Institute (MA), Stanford IPS (MA), Princeton WWS (MPA)

Interests: Sino-American politics, East Asian geopolitics, counterterrorism (esp. counter-radicalization), Chinese law, public international law, Chinese cybersecurity and military thought

Undergrad Institution: UCLA

Undergraduate GPA: 3.877 

Undergraduate Major: Political science with concentration in international relations, minor in classical civilization

GRE: 168V/162Q/5.5W (slightly bungled my Q score, but it's neither here nor there)

Age: 23 (24 before matriculation)

Work Experience: two DC think tank internships (one non-published research project for reasons out of my control, and an opinion editorial in a national newspaper), administrative assistant for three years part-time during undergrad, two years' experience working in education sector in China by matriculation

Other Experience: a lot of Model United Nations, including a number of awards topped with a Best Delegate gavel, Model UN summer camp counselor, traveling to New York during the school year to serve on MUN conference secretariats, helping out with the Model UN team at the school I teach at (you can see what my entire life since high school has consisted of), advisor to two extracurricular clubs at the school I teach at, volunteering for my alma mater here in China

Honors & Awards: Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude, prize for outstanding work as a classical civilization minor (internal nomination process among faculty, top two students selected annually), prize for outstanding political theory work as undergraduate (internal nomination process from professor, top three out of ~200 students), outstanding research poster award at my school's annual undergraduate research extravaganza, another research award from one of my professors & recommendation letter writers

Publications: three refereed articles in undergraduate journals, aforementioned opinion editorial

Languages: English (native), Mandarin Chinese (essentially fluent, but working on building academic vocabulary)

Quantitative Background: Introduction to Data Analysis (B+), Introduction to Statistics (A), Microeconomics (A), Macroeconomics (A) 
Also, this technically doesn't count but I took AP Calculus BC in senior year of high school and received a 4 on it (AB subscore was a 5, so we all know what I should have done instead) 
(I can make a good case for being out with a serious bout of the flu in freshman year of university as to why that B+ exists)

LORs: two from professors (between the two of them, I've got three research projects and one refereed publication and another under review), one from current employer (who is also a professor that I TA for) 

SOPs: written already, got a lot of "very solid" comments from family/friends/coworkers/"it's complicated" relationship status friends
(Only one was on Model UN, I'm so proud)

Concerns: I know my numbers are very solid, but I literally freaked out after two months of continued pressure and application submission. From the list above, only Princeton WWS remains on my to-do list (still haven't written that policy memo, though I'm very sure as to what I'm going to write it on).

However, SAIS (MA-HNC) was originally on that list and in a fit of pique I decided that I don't know if I want to go to that school. I currently live in Nanjing (the site of their China campus) and I have friends currently attending that school. However, I'm really not sure whether I want to go to that school because I have such a good knowledge of it and it's striking me as "meh" now. As others have said, it has a very "undergraduate" sort of feel to it and I'm not sure whether this is the kind of environment I want to spend a year in. I think that their Bologna campus looks interesting, but I'm not sure whether I'm saying that because I want to spend a year in Italy, which would not advance my career interests. Any thoughts as to whether I should continue my application? If so, I have to take the STAMP exam and finish writing my essay on a "topic of national or international importance." 

My goals are to further my statistical and quantitative reasoning skills as well as combine my policy expertise with a legal understanding. My goal is to work in the Office of the Legal Advisor in the Department of State. I am thinking that I'll apply to the accepts-the-GRE schools this cycle and take the LSAT in June if no acceptances come my way. That will also help me set up an application for Yale Law or Stanford Law should I not get into Harvard Kennedy/Harvard Law, which is my top choice right now.

Also, any thoughts on Columbia SIPA as a school and whether it fits into this mess? After all, Columbia Law is accepting the GRE next year as well.

 

[HKS 2018]

From what little I can see of your intents, it seems like you lack focus. How did I arrive at this conclusion?

1. You mentioned that you were accepted into other programs of similar study, which indicates that you do have some background in public policy or some vested idea of what you want to do. In other words, your application's not completely out of left field.

2. Your acceptance to the Graduate School of Education as well as the Graduate School of Design indicate that you're not sure where to go, but you want to go to Harvard. In other words, you sound like you seek the external validation that Harvard Kennedy School can provide.

HKS values two things: impact and focus. You need to tell them, very specifically, what it is that you want to do and how you plan on doing that.

[Prerequisite Courses for MPP]

You need to take introductory micro- and macroeconomics courses before enrollment. At any rate, you might as well do it at a community college when you have the time and ability. It depends what policy area you want to focus on, but generally I'd say that statistics is more useful than calculus at the introductory policy analytical level.