GradSchoolGrad

I think you need to figure out how much risk you want to take for flexibility vs. topical focus. Also, please keep in mind that MBA and MPP are very different things. Each should be its own bucket.

What are you trying to do with your degree?

I feel guilty saying this because I'm basically telling you to go to the school with a lesser student experience, but McCourt by virtue of being STEM and being in DC has much better pathways for international students than Duke. Duke's specialty is State & Local policy + Public-Private collaboration. Yes, they have international development research and activities, but unless you are going to the academic research route, there isn't exactly that many opportunities to develop your career for staying in the US. McCourt is better for international students, but you have to understand why it is better. a. McCourt is a data focused school and there is a shortage of data analytics talent in the US, for which employers will pay for visas. Every single international student from McCourt that I know of (not including IGO like World Bank or working for their home government in the US) did Data Analytics or Data Analytics connected work. b. As an international student, no major consulting firm will be interested in you unless you have some crazy unique skill that is demand. The major consulting firms that hire from McCourt focus on US government (most Federal, but some State), so they want US residents. There are some boutique consulting firms that hire international students, but in all cases I have seen, they are serving data analytics roles. c. There are international communities within DC and they help each other with jobs (well at a certain point it depends on which community. Some are apparently more supportive than others).

So this depends on how much support you feel like you need. GW Elliot has lots of opportunities for you do research and conduct internships with the local DC environment, but it might be tougher to get those roles outside of the school as an international student. You also have to aggressively advocate for yourself. Fletcher is a kinder gentler more community driven program. It has an issue with brand (no one outside of the IR space knows what it is) and comparatively is less diverse in terms of background (disproportionate non-profit / liberal arts background). The opportunities to have internships and research are okay at best to boring at worst. There are some awesome opportunities to get in the Harvard circle and do stuff with them, but that is a lot of work and commuting. It is also not as easy as they make it sound out to be. The people I know who went to Fletcher as unmarried singles came out rather smug and overly obssessed about the Fletcher mafia, that they became kind of annoying people to spent time around. Some married people go to Fletcher because it is in the suburbs. So it all comes down to what are you willing to risk.

Okay one at a time. - No one looks at the US News rankings for public policy other than people applying to schools and administrators. People that hire don't know it exists. Unlike US news rankings for other things like business or law schools with its well thought out formulas, the Policy one is basically a popularity contest based upon academic reputation. That naturally favors schools with a PhD program. GW has a PhD program and Georgetown doesn't (although it plans to have one in a few years). - As for Georgetown, you get support (academically or career wise) if you try to do things that are popular. So career wise, if you want to do Presidential Merit Fellows, which dozens of people apply for every year, you'll get help. If you want to do Education Policy, you'll get help. If you want to do something that is a little bit more niche, no one will care for you, and it is on your own to figure out. Most likely, you didn't hear academic grumblings because you likely talked to someone who was in a popular policy area (Education, Environment, Gender/Family Policy, and International Development). Housing Policy (at least when people get serious about it) is consistently one of the less popular policy areas at McCourt. In my class, there was 1 person who was interested in it. There was 1 person in the class above me (he was a dual degree with MBA actually). 0 in the class below me. More importantly, there is no professor that i know of, who is a natural fit to teach the subject or help you with it in the Georgetown empire. The closest might be the real estate professors on the business side. Part of the problem is that Georgetown is trying to get better but in the grand scheme of things, its weak on local and state and public-private partnerships. So usually people with unpopular policy interest do one of the following things at McCourt: a. persist by themselves and be lonely. This is what housing policy friends did. b. Transfer to another policy school due to lack of academic support. I knew a Food policy person do that. c. change policy areas to something that I would get more support in (this is what I did) and stop chasing academic passions. In U. Chicago Harris, there is a Plethora of Urban Policy and Housing policy support just by virtue of being Chicago + academics who research the topic. - Newsflash, very few people with MPP without a non-MPP graduate degree (usually law or MBA) get elected into Federal Office, or even State/Local office. - By prestigious jobs, I mean the most competitive or high risk Tier 1 jobs in what I call the "dancing with the HKS and Princeton alumni crowd". Keep in mind a significant number of the HKS/Princeton MPP alums go to non-competitive jobs to chase their passions, but a vast majority do. I would categorize these prestigious jobs into these 7 categories. a. Anything related with a start up (especially tech) as a public benefit company. b. Competitive federal career roles or programs like the McCain Fellowship or working for the Department of Energy de-nuke Agency (very few new roles) c. Highly Competitive (emphasis on competitive and not branded) Think Tanks, Research Institutes, or Research oriented consulting firms (ABT associates for example) d. Competitive Private Sector stuff (e.g., The McKinseys... The Deloittes) e. High impact state/local or non-profit via an accelerated promotion track - so the Mayor's Policy advisor or Speech writer or City Council's Legislative Aide or Non-Profit Policy Director g. Policy Shop for a major private company or consortium h. Elite Public Sector Politically Connected Roles like White House Internship/Fellowship or Housing Committee staff role *As a note, PMF is highly well regarded and has a lot of real opportunities. However, its luster has kind of fallen over the years. When my sister was at HKS, there were stars from her class who got rejected. Now the standards have been lowered a lot to pass muster. I know people who self-admittedly were B students with lackluster career backgrounds who got PMF when their much higher achieving spouses, siblings, and etc. got rejected from an earlier period. If you go to Harris, these positions are in striking range. McCourt, kind of within striking range if you work hard and network well. Go to GW, you really have to work your butt off and get really lucky.

So realistically, you have 5 choices. I think your challenge is identifying what trade offs are you more willing to make and what trade offs are you less willing to make. So lets do this one by one. - Brandeis - just drop them period. Unless you really want to do local Boston activism, they really don't have much value for you. The program is basically amateur hour and their student's don't exactly have competitive outcomes. Even the stars that career service spotlight aren't doing anything special (AKA: run of the mill stuff in other schools) - Syracuse Maxwell - this is probably the best academic school. If you have any ambitions to go for your PhD, this is the best option. - U. Chicago Harris - this is the best school if you want to focus hard on urban and housing policy from a combined academic/applied approach. I would argue they have more a sophisticated quant than Georgetown and much better applied opportunities. I think it is important to explain where the bad student experiences come from rather than paint with a broad brush. a. U. Chicago Harris is a terrible place for international students because it isn't exactly an international city. b. The size of the program makes it challenging for those who don't try to be proactively social c. The intensity of the quant creates a lot of anxiety From a pure career potential perspective, I would choose this one. - Georgetown McCourt - this gives you the most career flexibility between the brand and the quant skills that you learn. Just be aware you'll be on your own career wise. You also won't have too many peers or faculty to help you with your policy area of interest. This is especially true since urban and housing policy is a rather niche field once people realize that getting involved means financial modeling, zoning policy, and land management laws. If you are okay with striking it out on your own academically and career wise but take advantage of everything DC has to offer, this is a good option. - NYU Wagner MSPP - this is a good option if you want to just whirlwind into a NYC internship while at school and hopefully land a job from there. Basically, not have a minimum real grad academic or community experience and get a degree stamped. NYU Wagner is infamous for have a very weak community experience and peer support. - Georgetown Trachtenburg - I think of this as the all around compromise option. They aren't particularly good at one thing, but there are no major drawbacks. Your career would be based heavily upon what series of internships you get from the DC area. You arguably get the bare bones with quant, but enough to make you on par with the average. I do like how GW Policy students tend to be the nicest and most supportive among all the ones I encountered. They have the 3rd weakest brand and alumni of your roster after Brandeis and Wagner (arguably they have large numbers of alumni, but the affinity isn't that strong). I think of GW as the objective lowest branded school where you are still within striking distance to most prestige jobs, but then if you do want a prestige job you are going to have to work your butt off networking unless you have a special status or a Congressman's son/daughter.

Why don’t you dual degree? As in apply to MBA at Booth while you go to Harris?

Here is the deal... all three of these programs (or MPP at large) are not the best pathway to get an Econ PhD period. If you really want an Econ PhD, get a job doing econ research (or related to Econ research) and then apply directly a PhD in Econ. Then you can work for the Fed after you get your PhD. Also, you just put yourself in a high risk high reward situation where if you go to grad school and don't: a. Get nearly all As (As, not A-) b. Do research that gets noticed (preferably with awards c. Pick up a faculty member who will sponsor you with a LOR for your PhD Your MPP can actually hurt you because it showed lack of academic/research chops if you don't check the box on those. This forum is full of MPPs who found themselves waitlisted or unable to get into PhDs after failing to do that. I mean hypothetically, you can probably get into a PhD without sponsorship at a lower tier University, but that is generally a bad idea at large. Now as for working for the Fed... post-Masters You are kind of in luck because the Fed does kind of have a labor shortage to find post professional degree folks. Then among these schools, U. Chicago will be the best fit follows by Heinz. Simply put, U. Chicago is known to have quant rigor, and just by virtual of surviving U. Chicago's quant is a mark of academic capability. As much as I love Duke Sanford for the student experience, it is not known as the quant heavy/econ centric school. Heinz is new to the block, but they have a major DC presence and does a fair amount of policy innovation. As for the bad reviews about U. Chicago Harris. Yes, it is very easy for you to hate the Harris experience. They definitely have increased class sizes and moved away from the small community feel. The people I hear who have the worst experience are international students who quickly realize Chicago is not a great launching pad to help them find jobs that let them stay in the US. As for jobs, every policy school underfunds their career services (some more than others). I would say Harris resources their career services better than others with the MBA style coach system - although there is still a clear gap with needs. That being said, those who proactively tried to find community definitely have and there are a crazy amount of opportunities (especially in econ and domestic policy) their - far and away above the rest of your options. Here is a crazy thought for you though... instead of going for PhD in Econ, why don't you try to dual degree with MPP and MBA and then try to work for the Fed (if that is your true passion). I know people from all three paths that went to work for the Fed, but those with an MBA have the most job mobility (as in you have the most flexibility in how you carry on your career). If you played this game, it is best to do it as a Harris-Booth dual degree (not so much Sanford-Fuqua).

I don't know the school and I don't know the program. It all comes down to if you have enough exposure to professors that matter and if you think you can win them over to mentor you towards a PhD.

Both options are high risk. Both might help you get into a better grad school for PhD if and only if you: a. Get nearly all As b. Your research (you can wins awards or has high professor sponsorship c. You research an area that major professors care about. If the professors don’t care about your interests then it doesn’t matter how good of a student you are, they are less likely to refer you for PhD. Please understand that McCourt is the better school for landing you a professional job, but it doesn’t have that large or strong of a research background among the teaching faculty. There are a lot of research organizations within McCourt but getting a research assistantship can be really hard and competitive. Penn’s program is newer, less developed, and more regionally focused. However you do get access to Penn’s pool of faculty at large. So basically, if I wanted a job, I would go McCourt. If I wanted to resume boost for a PhD, I would go Penn. However, both schools are crazy high risk for the PhD boosting game that you speak of. As an American, I would have a 5% to 10% chance of succeeding on getting a top PhD program this way.

Fletcher MALD already has issues with awareness outside of IR. MGA is a joke since it is money grab for Tufts to get more grad school profits. No one in the real world has heard of MGA and those who do know Tufts isn’t equipped to give a competitive business education.

All you get with SIPA is the brand name and not much else. Duke Sanford will give you the best academic experience here... But the career field you are trying to focus on is doing to be tough without a business or public health angle.

Also maybe asking for a bit more scholarship. McCourt is swimming in cash

This sounds crazy, but ever thought about applying to Georgetown MPP (or asking if you can transition to an MPP admittance... I am thinking it might be a better fit for you).

I 2nd your Princeton call since you don't have private sector inclinations.