woolscarves

Agreed. Just work with any partners that do the kind of work you're interested in to see if you can get staffed and then find an exit opp. Another route is to see if there are alums from your MBB at the kinds of places you want to work. I'm sure you've heard this repeated about any other kind of exit at your firm and this really isn't any different. Don't undersell the doors that are already open for you.

Carnegie Mellon Heinz. Really excited about Pittsburgh and pushing myself to get some more hard skills. Congrats to everyone on your hard work and on making some tough decisions.

Well then you can't really go wrong here. Neither is significantly stronger than the other in the areas of your goals. I know you said you want to live in the North East, but I would pick based on whether you think you could end up living in Texas or California. Since the schools are so strong regionally, you're going to be presented with a lot of opportunities in the states in which they're located. So, as a back-up plan, imagine whether you'd be more comfortable living in California or Texas and go there.

1) It will go most of the way towards mitigating their concerns. It's obviously not as good as having a math degree or working in finance or w/e, but if you do well in lower level calc and econ (plus your GRE) then they won't consider it a real negative. Plus it will probably save you from having to do the "math camp" that some schools will require applicants that they like but whose quant skills concern them. 2) Do micro. A few schools have both micro and macro requirements, some have only micro requirements, and most have no explicit requirements. Start to think about what schools you may be interested in applying to and you can look at their app requirements to know for sure what the right option is for you. 3) I'm not familiar with the specifics of Coursera, but do something that gets you a transcript. An option that I saw recommended a few times around here was UCLA's Online Extension program. I took it as I prepared to apply this year and was satisfied by it.

What's your background and what sort of work do you want to do after graduating?

@ShirVer So glad to see you think that it's still the right program for you! I wasn't trying to convince you not to come, just wanted to ensure that the program was going to fit your needs/goals. Let me know if you have any other questions!

Your list screams Goldman tbh. Obviously money is a factor (especially with CoL being as high as it is in Berkeley), but Goldman would be the best fit by far.

Here's my Heinz review. Stealing the format from @TalkPoliticsToMe because I think it's great. Faculty: Although the faculty interaction was somewhat limited, I came away immensely impressed with the ones we saw. There was a session where two professors (Dr. Branstetter and Dr. Haviland) gave small ~30 minute lectures on their work and had a Q&A panel afterwards. They were incredibly engaging and their work was fascinating. They clearly demonstrated Heinz's commitment to positioning itself as the intersection of technology and policy. One of the examples is a multi-million dollar study that's about to begin on the use of AI to help deliver individualized learning to students from disadvantaged students. We also interacted with a professor who was in charge of my program (the MSPPM DA track), who was funny and insightful, although we didn't get to talk much about her work. She's the kind of professor whose class I look forward to taking. Curriculum Flexibility: This was an area whose value underestimated significantly before the weekend, particularly from the DA track. The DA track is very regimented and honestly allows for very few non-technical electives (maybe 3-4 classes over the course of the two years). This made me a little jealous of the non-DA track and their ability to spread their wings a lot more. Of course, this is offset by the quality of the technical electives. They were exciting and covered all of the types of analytics tools/technologies that I might want. The presentation also emphasized that you can test out of some of the core courses during orientation to make more room for electives. This is definitely something that I'm going to more actively pursue so that I can hopefully build a little more flexibility into my personal curriculum. Geographic Spread: Very wide geographic spread. At one point they asked people to raise their hand if it was their first time in Pittsburgh and I would guess that 80+% of the admitted students fell in that category. I would say from anecdotal experience that the distribution was weighted more heavily to the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, but definitely met people from California and Texas, as well as overseas. Program Funding: This seems to be a strong point for the program, as evidenced by the generous scholarships Heinz seems to give out and its well funded research centers. Things like the Block Center, Traffic 21, and Metro 21 were all very clearly well supported and have plenty of on-going initiatives. (They did resort to giving us only two drink tickets at the happy hour though, but that may not have been exclusively for budgetary reasons). Other things to keep in mind: Facilities: I liked the Heinz building (Hamburg Hall). There are definitely places that have received a bit more love and care than others, but nothing was bad. They had some cool collaborative spaces and meeting areas, but don't expect anything crazy. I did appreciate that none of the classrooms felt out-dated, which hasn't always been my experience at policy schools. Quick comparisons to other policy schools I visited: pretty comparable to Sanford but bigger, nicer than HKS imo. Policy vs. Adminstration: Didn't really get a gauge on this, honestly. I think Heinz envisions itself more as an institution that trains specific skills rather than trying to fit in a "policy or administration" box. Students: I experienced a similar situation to TalkPolitics to me, in which I met a wide range of people. There were those that were bright, engaging, and fun to interact with and there were those that were the opposite. I've been thinking on this and can't get a particularly good descriptor. I might say that the current students did seem to be a little more self-involved than I would have preferred. They didn't seem to be overly active in student organizations and things and many of them didn't seem to make a proactive effort throughout the weekend to try and encourage students to come to Heinz. Cost of Attendance: Definitely one of Heinz's strongest points. Pittsburgh was incredibly affordable and every year they seem to be relatively affordable with scholarships. Most admitted students that I met and talked with were deciding between minuscule scholarships from Harris or relatively generous ones from Heinz. They seemed conflicted all weekend and most didn't seem to have made up their mind by the end. Diversity & Inclusion: "Ford (and University of Michigan as an institution) is very aware they have issues with diversity & inclusion and are actively working to make faculty and the student body more inclusive. The Dean was very transparent about their efforts, as were the students." - What TalkPoliticsToMe wrote and could be repeated for Heinz. The very first thing on the agenda was a 15 minute speech by the associate dean. The second was an hour long diversity panel. They clearly want to address this moving forward. However, the panel did seem to indicate that although the university and Heinz seem to be taking the right steps on this, they had only recently begun moving in the right direction. I don't expect them to reverse course (obviously) but the students of diverse backgrounds on the panel clearly felt that there was significant improvements still to be made. Location: I actually loved Pittsburgh. It was a fantastic city and forgetting CMU, I would consider moving there just to live and work. Of course, I'm a sucker for up-and-coming mid-sized cities. If you're someone who has always lived in NYC or is craving D.C. is going to notice that it's smaller and you might be left wanting to a degree. Career Services: Like @SketchesOfSpain said, not overly impressed. The career outcomes for Heinz students are obviously impressive, but hard to tell if that's due to anything from the career services office in particular or just CMU's rep that attracts the employers like flies. They weren't bad by any means (offered plenty of resume & interview prep and the like), but nothing that stood out. Extracurriculars: Maybe one of my bigger disappointments from the weekend. While there are lots of clubs and activities, it didn't feel like a priority for many Heinz students. It felt like most treated them like sampler platters. They would go to a decent number of talks put on my the college, they're probably a part of a couple clubs, and they might have an internships or TA/RA position, but the commitment seemed to be low. They interact with a few college events, they might go to a couple club events per semester, and might do an internship for a semester or so. But I didn't see much of the people getting involved and immersing themselves in one or two things. This is likely just a difference between the undergraduate and graduate experience, but was something that disappointed me a little bit. One of the biggest things I was trying to discern was whether this was because students just don't feel the need to or if they're so focused on school work that they don't make time for it. (I don't know the answer, will check back in a year). Overall, I liked my visit. I found some people I feel that I could vibe with, left with a high degree of certainty that the program will give me the skills that I need/want, remained confident in the career opportunities that I would get, and finished the visit by counting down how long it would be until orientation started. (happy to go into more detail on anything or talk about any other subjects)

Got back from the admitted students weekend yesterday. Happy to answer any questions that anyone has. @ShirVer, I'm DA as well, so I'll answer these to the best of my ability. 1) These are two really two different questions here. The first question is about the experience of the professors and the second is about whether it's advanced enough for the School of Computer Science. I'm going to answer the first one here because the second one actually fits more with my answer to your other question. I think that the concern about faculty expertise is overblown. Heinz recently hired two PhDs in machine learning purely for itself. The teachers for any of the technical subjects have PhDs in the related subjects, whether it be statistics, information systems, etc. The capability of the teachers is one of the lowest concerns that I would have, especially in the technical areas. 2) This is not a "data science" program. @ExponentialDecay frequently says that if you want to really do data science, you should just do a masters in data science. This is a rigorous training program for people from data backgrounds ranging from nothing to low-intermediate. My impression is that it will do an excellent job of preparing people for entry level roles in data analytics at most companies (eg. you'll probably be well positioned to work at a good number of non-tech Fortune 500 companies as an entry level data analyst) or in a role for a consulting firm with an industry vertical in public/federal work. You can of course use the DA track as a differentiating factor for the other common kinds of jobs people in policy schools look for (non-profits, NGOs, federal agencies etc.), but that doesn't seem to be your focus. They talked with us about the School of Computer Science and said that it's fairly common for students to take a class or two in the School of Computer Science. Typically these are undergraduate level classes that can be counted towards your degree plan. It sounds like Computer Science is especially wary of people trying to sneak their way into their program by enrolling in a different degree, so it seems like there's not really an opportunity to take more than two classes in the CS department. All of that is to say that if you are looking to get another job specifically as a data scientist, I don't know if this is the best route for you. There are undoubtedly students that go on to get jobs as more serious data analysts/scientists, but that's not what the program is built for and not what companies come specifically to Heinz to recruit for. You can certainly use the DA track and leverage it to try and get those opportunities, but it's not what the program is designed to support. Besides, if you're already a data analyst, I don't know that you'll be in a better place after taking two years off from earning income and paying for Heinz, than you would be working at your current job where you can gain more experience and potentially work towards a promotion. Please let me know if I can answer any other questions for you! Again, the offer stands for anyone else as well.

Sounds good. I'm getting in Thursday afternoon. Trying to grab dinner somewhere nice Thursday night before all the events start on Friday, because it seems like we'll be booked pretty solidly once things get started.

Hey everyone, heading out to Pittsburgh in a couple days for admitted students weekend. Anyone else going to be there?

Hey, I was looking around the site and randomly found this: https://www.heinz.cmu.edu/heinz-shared/_files/img/current-students/petition-for-internal-transfer.pdf. So it definitely looks like there IS a mechanism to transfer, but this is probably more for students currently enrolled at CMU. I would e-mail Gladys Perez Sripraset (gladysp@andrew.cmu.edu) who is the director of all of the MSPPM tracks to ask if switching now is feasible.

Thanks for making that! Joined.

Congrats to everyone on their offers! Who all is planning on heading to the admitted students weekend?

The format looks like this: a short video to ask the question, 20 seconds to prepare your response, and then one minute to actually give it. They were pretty typical behavioral interview questions. Think things like "Tell me about a time you worked on a team." (this wasn't an actual question I had, but should give you a good idea). I understand your concern, but I would recommend doing the video interview. I think they really stress it as their own way of validating people's communication skills if they haven't met them. For example, I know someone that was able to visit campus in the fall and they told them that since they had met in person, there was no need to do the video interview. Since neither of us was able to make it on campus, I think they would strongly prefer if we did it. There's a reason they highly recommend it for international students. Good luck!

Glad to see you're in at Heinz! I'm excited about it too. They're actually really good at cataloging career outcomes by year and by program, which is one of the main reasons I decided to apply. You can find that data here: https://www.heinz.cmu.edu/current-students/career-services/employment-information-salary-statistics

Program Applied To: MSPPM-DA Schools Applied To: Carnegie Mellon Heinz (MSPPM - Data Analytics) Schools Admitted To: Heinz (65%) Schools Rejected From: None Undergraduate institution: Midwest State Flagship Undergraduate GPA: 3.77 Undergraduate Major: Chemistry Education GRE Quantitative Score: 163 GRE Verbal Score: 166 GRE AW Score: 5.0 Years Out of Undergrad (if applicable): 2 Years of Work Experience: 2 Describe Relevant Work Experience: Work for a consulting firm that does economic development and growth consulting for organizations and businesses. Strength of SOP (be honest, describe the process, etc): Like everyone else, hopefully strong. Talked a lot about my passion for economic development, how it shifted me from education, and how although I'm very happy at my job, I feel limited in my impact due to my position and skill set. Talked about how I thought Heinz would give me those skills and help get me into a position to maximize what I can do. I've done a lot of research into Heinz (obviously, as it was the only school I applied to) and so I was able to weave that into the essay effectively and describe exactly why Heinz is the place for me. Strength of LOR's (be honest, describe the process, etc): Very strong. Extremely fortunate to have two supervisors at my work who have seen me grow first as a student and then as an employee. Would've liked an academic one, but I wouldn't dream of not asking the two that I did. Other: Applying to only one school is a bit unconventional and probably not the best course of action. I'm not 100% on going back to grad school, so I only bothered applying to the one that I really wanted because of the combination of the hard skills offered by the DA track + reasonably confident about financial aid offered at Heinz. Generally leaning towards accepting and attending Heinz, but will decide for sure after seeing other potential job offers and how I feel about my visit at admitted students weekend.

Congratulations! That's a fantastic offer. I'm in at the DA track in Pittsburgh.

Just got accepted to the DA track with 65% scholarship! Pretty excited about it. Hope everyone else hears good news soon!

@lam426 Wrong forum. If you're looking at Econ PhDs you want to go here: https://forum.thegradcafe.com/forum/34-economics/

Just finished the video interview. Not particularly thrilled with how I did, but hopefully it was okay. For future reference, took a long time from me sending my GRE and transcripts to them before they were added to the system to enable the video interview, so make sure you submit very early.

If you've got 50% at Cornell then I think you've got a good shot at CMU. No kidding about the wait though! Also great to hear that they're happy in Pittsburgh. I've never been so definitely nervous about that part if this is where I end up coming. @DeepSeaFish I would recommend checking out this page: https://www.heinz.cmu.edu/current-students/career-services/employment-information-salary-statistics. I think both the DC and data tracks would be great options. If you're looking at consulting, both of the tracks have pretty good placement rates to some of the big consulting firms (Deloitte, LMI, etc.) My initial reaction would be that the data track might make more sense due to the 3 years of OPT and the fact that the median salary for that track is equal to the maximum of the DC track. Of course, that's only one factor in the equation though.

Hey gang. Who all is applying to/looking at Heinz this year? It's my main target; I've been very excited by everything I have read. I'll be applying for the data analytics track, which looks like it'll be a bit bigger this year (~35 students). Quick stats in case people are curious: 166V/163Q, 3.8GPA, 2 years work experience at economic development consulting firm.

Schools Applying To: CMU Heinz (Data Analytics track), Duke Sanford, Texas LBJ, USC Price, WWS, maybe HKS, maybe SAIS. Interests: Looking to work in economic development (either on the state or federal level) or federal consulting. Undergrad Institution: Generic midwest state flagship Undergraduate GPA: 3.8 Years since Undergrad: 2 Undergraduate Major: Chemistry Euducation GRE: 166V/163Q Quantitative Courses: Calculus, Physics, and some upper division quantitative chemistry courses. No economics, will be taking Intro Micro in the spring to get me ready though. Work Experience: Have worked since graduation at a state economic development agency. My role is to work as a growth consultant to help local businesses and startups expand. I have worked with government entities and non-profits on expansion plans as well. LORs: This is definitely an area where I feel slightly unsure. My direct supervisor at my job and the executive director of the agency will both be writing me great letters, but unsure what to do with the third one. I know I need an academic reference for many schools, but I just didn't develop any close relationships with my professors while I was in school. I think I'm planning on having the dean of my college from undergrad write it, even though it may be slightly impersonal. SOPs: Feel generally good about this, but I would assume most people do. It centers around the idea that I'm able to enact change on a micro-level with the businesses I work with for my job, but that my impact is limited. Then it will discuss briefly how I have seen the impact that policy changes can have on these businesses (both positive and negative) and how I want to study public policy to help push for more of these positive policy changes. Concerns: Would love to hear if there are any schools that you think I might be missing. I've read through the forums over the past ~6 months and have a general feel for the schools that are out there, but want to make sure that I'm not missing anything. Financials are a priority to me, so as you can see I've primarily concentrated on schools where I feel that I will get a good amount of aid. There are other schools I would love to apply to (Ford, Harris, etc.), but I do not get the sense that I would be competitive for significant scholarships from them. Also, happy to do any SoP swapping or anything if people are looking to work on that over the course of the application cycle.

If you look through people's posting history, you can usually find this information in the results thread.