GradSchoolGrad
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Everything posted by GradSchoolGrad
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If you are going for a scholarship or nothing approach, you might want to apply with consideration of what schools have money. Yes some of them will be the prestigious ones you applied to (Chicago and Harvard). However some of the prestigious ones like Columbia SIPA and Michigan aren't exactly scholarship friendly. You might want to consider lower tiered programs that actually have money to burn (especially for diversity like yourself) Georgetown MPP has pools of scholarship to give (in my other posts I warn about the issues of the program, but if you are all about the dollars, that might make sense). There are others out there like Cornell MPA and Yale Jackson trying to grow their program. Both of those programs do have some issues/challenges, but they are flush with money to give students. Keep in mind, it is about the money they are willing to set aside for MPP/MPA students that matter, not the overall wealth of the University.
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Unless your essays suck and you can’t raise your scores a bit, you should be easy for HKS. Your diversity is rare plus you have all the quant background. -
You want to focus on schools that have a really strong founder / non-profit innovation network. HKS, U.Chicago, and Duke MPP are strong in this space. Georgetown definitely is not (they are more focused on traditional Fed government stuff). USC - I don't know enough about. Another route to consider is maybe think about MBA and go to the social impact route. You might actually get more out of it + better opportunities.
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This thread is for public policy and international relations programs. I don't think your area of interest is relevant for this thread.
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I would flat out not apply until you have more work experience period.
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So clearly you go to either Boston College or Tufts. I don't think you'll have any trouble getting into McCourt MPP, Brown Watson, or Cornell MPA. I don't know Yale YSE MEM well enough. I think Fletcher MALD and JHU SAIS is within reach, but it would still be reach. I think MIGHT be so because this is seen as a less competitive year. THAT BEING SAID, you should still get some work experience over going to grad school out undergrad. It would be fool hardy not to. A. Right now the job market is super hot, so it works to your advantage to get the job type and salary that is better for you B. You can get it but your opportunity for scholarships would be significantly less now vs. 2 - 4 years from now of work experience.
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Your years of work experience are only minorly below average (depending on year group). I think the bigger challenge is do you want to go through the pain of learning quant to graduate on top everything else form school and life. I knew someone non-quant who went to SAIS and his marriage struggled because he was in the library Fri to Sun learning quant + all the other academic demands. You might be better off doing MSFS instead. If your stories goes well, you may muster beyond your quant challenges and get in after all. Just be aware of what is on the other side of the door.
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So I recommend you revisit Georgetown, but pick the right program - as in pick Georgetown MSFS and not MPP or MIDP. MSFS is heavily international and has extensive amount of MBA collaboration and pairings. Depending what you want to do, I would put MSFS over JHU - SAIS (especially since SAIS does next to nothing with their MBA school - Carey - which honestly is new and doesn't have a track record yet). Also, it doesn't hurt to do 4. Oh and apologies about Cornell - got you mixed up with someone else I am advising.
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So academically and professionally you are fine. It all comes down to a matter of diversity for the top schools (Harvard MPP and Princeton). As in, how many people come with India experience and focus on India. You aren't necessary competing with the pool as a whole, but rather people of your type. So if the other India students or India focused students are more competitive than you, then you would lose out. Again, I only see this as an issue for Harvard MPP and Princeton.
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I think because of how unique you are, as long as you interview well + have a good written story, you should be easy. You have enough quant to be not seen as an academic risk. However, the quickest way to lose someone is use lots of acronyms. I recommend you don't have HUMINT (just say human intelligence) in your applications. You school choices are a bit confusing to me. I get Harvard MPP and Princeton (I'm assuming MPA). However, Georgetown - it really matters if you do MPP or MIDP. Oxford's Blatinoviak school is relatively not quant heavy - so that doesn't make sense. Cornell Dyson also looks odd.
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I am a bit confused. Are you an international or US student? It changes my answer to your question.
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This is one of those things where I recommend you engage each program independently because for IDEV, their measuring sticks for professional experience tend to differ (its a more tight knit community). I just don't know the bias of each program in terms of desired IDEV background. Since you are making a professional argument, it really hinges on how well the Program Director/Manager views your background. Another thing to think about is maybe you want to do an MBA if you care about the social impact business or investing. Although admissions for that is a very different game. Just something to think about.
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MPP or Political Science PhD (+ Profile Eval)
GradSchoolGrad replied to askandtheanswer's topic in Political Science Forum
What I'm getting at is do you event want to be a policy data analyst type job (AKA: a more traditionally policy school career)? Don't get me wrong, going to an MPP/MPA can open you up to new skills. However, in the job market, about 60% of what you are currently eligible for now (excluding the "campus hiring" status bump) is what MPP/MPAs will go after. The remaining 40% are more analysis oriented jobs whereby you'll just be plowing through data and going through insights (more or less). If you really really think you want to go the data analysis route, that 2nd masters might make sense. If you are cool with being in operational and relationship oriented roles, then what you currently have is fine (although MPA does do a bit more on teaching you management activities). As for competitiveness, for those top schools there are 3 things they care about. 1. Ability to graduate - do you have sufficient quant background + overall academic success to indicate that you can graduate (don't know how you are with quant) 2. Ability to succeed professionally - have you shown a long line of success in your career 3. (The big distinguisher) - do you bring diversity to the program (and I say this broadly as this includes considering ethnicity, academic interest, background, and etc.). If you don't bring diversity, your chances of getting scholarship + admission shrinks. -
MPP or Political Science PhD (+ Profile Eval)
GradSchoolGrad replied to askandtheanswer's topic in Political Science Forum
Speaking to the MPP/MPA angle, a lot of the course work you will be focused on will be data analysis. You touch theory, but you don't exactly focus on it. If you feel like data analysis is what you want to get out of your 2nd Masters and be able to use it for more data focused roles, then doing such a 2nd Masters make sense. If you don't care for data analysis and want to focus on more qualitative analysis (which your 1st masters should have prepared you plenty well for) then there is no real point to the 2nd masters. As for PhD - i'll let you the PhD people speak to that.- 3 replies
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This thread is for Policy and International affairs masters not MSW
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So given your background it is really difficult to know your chances of getting in because at the end of the day it will all depend on diversity and how unique you are. Schools like to have unique people, so if there aren’t that many others with East Asian international experience applying, that is to your advantage. If there are a lot of others, your advantage goes away. As for your baseline (as in before considering your diversity factors), not having quant can be super problematic for HKS and to a lesser extent SIPA. It doesn’t help that your quant GRE isn’t that high either. Wagner and GW would have much less issues with that, and I would expect them to give you scholarship offers of some extent.
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Will you be on scholarship??
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If I were you, I would ask the admissions office. Generally speaking, foreign service programs want to see a level of competency in a foreign language as a graduation requirement.
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Hybrids MPP-DA programs vs. Traditional MPP programs
GradSchoolGrad replied to mppdanny's topic in Government Affairs Forum
So all those data focused policy programs are data first (to varying levels of intensity) but with a policy touch, but I wouldn’t say you learn s full range of policy skills. Practically, it would be easier for you to get a data or operations analysis job coming from those programs than a run of the mill policy program. At the same the a policy employer looking for data analytics person would generally care if you can from policy or non policy oriented grad school, as long as you can crunch numbers and get the intricacies. If you want to do an ops or relationship focused job, MPP or MPA makes more sense. You can always max out your electives with data stuff if you want to go data heavy -
I am going put a controversial thought experiment out there. One of the key reasons for the current state of Afghanistan is because International Development (IDEV) academia trained its students to focus too much on the technical aspects of financial investments and measurable short-term outcomes rather than the art of of political messaging, cultural/ethnic dynamics, and governance with sustainable and more powerful impact. The illustrate this (speaking in a hypothetical example). IDEV calls success when clinic is built when $50K clinic is built to serve 150 locals a month. However, what really matters but what IDEV doesn't focus on is what is more important: - Do the locals have greater support for local government for the improvement - Was good governance supported by the building and operating of the clinic - How long will the clinic last without external support - Does the clinic meaningfully connect with improve the security of the community? Thoughts?
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It is easier if you can network in via an in person connection. I mean especially if you are in the policy community, it isn't that difficult. When I asked around, I found I knew 2 friends of friends who went to HKS.
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So your real question is if you want to get scholarship or not. You are less likely to get scholarship money without submitting a GRE school (although it is possible depending on how competitive the applicant pool is). I doubt you'll have trouble getting in. I'm also assuming that you have sufficient quant in your undergraduate career.
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So a few things to note first. 1. AU's MPP program's strength is domestic policy. Yes they have international connections with SIS, but anyone who knows the degrees will ask you point blank why you didn't pursue a SIS degree. So it doesn't really make sense for you. 2. UMD's MPP is also more domestic policy focused, with the exception of national security specialization. Also doesn't make sense for you. 3. The race is really between GWU and Georgetown. Even though GWU has a more formalized concentration in International Development, it only really matters if you choose to follow a professor and his or her connections closely. If none of the professors' background and projects really interest you, then there isn't any major applicable value add to it. I think the key thing you want to consider is if you want your IDEV career to be more focused on quant analytics or not. If you want your career to be quant focused, or have a heavy quant angle, Georgetown makes sense. If you are okay to have less quant and GWU's curriculum flexibility appeals to you, then GWU might be a better fit.
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You are shooting yourself short! Especially with next year being a easier application cycle (or so expected), you are super competitive. Granted HKS is always a crap shoot, I think you are a very strong candidate. Yes, and I think you have no trouble getting scholarship anywhere except for HKS (it’s a crap shoot like I said). Your only minor challenge is diversity. Ed Policy people are a dime a dozen in policy school and you would be seen as academically not diverse, but not that many people have prior research leadership that you have. If I were you I would shoot for schools that are amazingly strong at state and local for Ed. So I recommend. HKS - Reach Chicago - Target Terry Sanford - Target U Mich - Target Vanderbilt Peabody MPP in Ed - Special Consideration (I think this might be a uniquely great program fit for you) I think Georgetown MPP might not be a great fit for you since it is pretty weak on state and local. GWU is probably not as quant oriented as you would like
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Again, not speaking specific to USC Price, but what some schools are doing is allowing hybrid (basically optional online learning) so you don't have to move until later (if at all).
