GradSchoolGrad

I'm curious why you didn't apply to more schools and why you chose Georgetown as your most competitive school. Unless there is something you are not highlighting, I think you could be competitive for more schools. Also, tax policy is more of a law school thing... than MPP thing... As in, it is more popularly discussed in law circles than policy circles. Budgetary policy - related but not the same is more of a policy type thing though.

California state budgets are being crushed this year (as it comes to Higher Ed).

Anytime a school, especially lets be honest, not one the is either highly ranked or has high brand cache doesn't make the career stats easy to find, I would be very concerned why: a. they aren't tracking *(or don't have the resources to track) or b. what the stats might hide Generally speaking, accelerated/part time programs are cash cows for Universities (especially state schools) to make up for budget short falls elsewhere. Unless you are being sponsored or this is check the box for promotion, I would skip it. For lower branded schools, employers have questions if they see you went to grad school without clear career pivot afterwards on your resume.

I mean, I don't know how competitive you are, but you feel like you got more money than comparable full timers with your stats + background you see in the forum for other schools, that could be a warning sign the McCourt MPP didn't have the great of an application cycle - which would be concerning since this has been a hyper competitive year for most grad programs.

You should have highlighted part time from the get go. McCourt MPP (based off of the part-timers I knew and their qualifications) is less keen on giving part-timers scholarships. General concept is that part-timers don't really help out with student life + activities that help out the school's branding is that. Also, part-timers are seen as cash cows generally in grad programs to help reach their profit goals.

Do it now. The sooner you do it, the more it shows that you care. Intent and effort goes a long way. That being said, as I am assuming you read in my previous posts, McCourt MPP is rather unique with lots interesting pros and cons. I hope you know what you are asking for by coming to this school.

So as much as they "no longer negotiate based on offers from other school", it always doesn't hurt if you put it on (tactfully). Think about it, if you got a full ride from Harris or HKS - the will be super impressive and have a psychological effect on the admissions rep because it validates you as competitive. I knew people who were stuck with McCourt due to personal relationship developments post-application (serious relationship and etc.)

You basically email admissions and ask kindly. It helps if you paint the picture of what other competing offers you have from other schools. At the end of the day, it depends on how competitive you are. Schools only offer scholarship for: A. Merit (Academic/Professional priors) B. Diversity (everything from identity to policy areas) If you aren't a gain in either categories for any policy school, they won't give you more funding (except in the rare occasions when they had trouble putting together a class, but given how competitive this year is - the is likely not an issue).

A lot of Americans do.

For those considering McCourt vs. other options, one highly visible way to help with your considerations is to cross check the twitter/Facebook posts for those who announced their admissions with LinkedIn. Granted it will only be a small sample, key things to look out for are: a. how many years of work experience do they have (average for top policy schools, it is roughly 3.5 years) b. Is their LinkedIn professional looking in the first place c. What people announce they are going to grad school for (gives you an idea of the policy interests that are trending and how diverse they are - or not so diverse). Keep in mind that since this is a highly competitive admissions year, if years of work experience isn't near or above the average, that should be concerning. This is especially so as the next application season is expected to be much less competitive and the average applicant competitiveness should go down.

Please read the commentary about Georgetown MPP - McCourt on the forum. It is a very different school with lots of unique cons and pros. If it works for you great. However, hate to see you buyer's remorse that I saw in too many of my classmates.

I posted on this forum. Great fun, but not the most productive (at least for me personally)

I don't think people realize how for school its caliber and history, Georgetown is a endowment poor school by comparison to its peers. This has to do with legacy issues with how they entered the endowment game late because aversion towards financial risk. That is why Georgetown usually has a higher bar to get scholarship for compared to richer Universities.

I will warn you that there are lot of mixed opinions about doing Georgetown SSP part time vs. full time Bottom line is that it comes down to exploration room. A lot of people who did SSP full time reply appreciated being able to explore and really find the career path that really fit them well + did arguably better in the post grad school job market. If you do it part time, you obviously have less financial stress, but those people get massive FOMO and miss out on opportunities ALL THE TIME.

you have to keep in mind that SSP also includes the part-time SSP students.

Good luck getting funding... I think you have a good shot at getting into all the places you applied to, but funding - not so much. When people say Senior Military College, it is rather vague (granted its higher education's fault for not better labeling). Do you mean Federal Service Academy or State Run/Organized Undergraduate Military Institution like Citadel and VMI? Have you had deployments? I remember one of my military friends trying to get into grad school without deployments and the admissions office gave him feedback that given lack of deployment experience, he needed to highlight substantial other achievements (like honor grad at CCC, major non-deployment event, and etc.). Not having these things may make you less attractive as a candidate to give funding to. You have to appreciate that schools give funding for 4 major reasons. 1. To boost their academic stats (you need to give your percentiles on top of your scores to give real feed back because the GRE has changed so many times) with GPA, GRE. 2. To boost their diversity numbers (IDK if you would be countered as veteran or military affiliated in a meaningful way because you aren't pulling GI Bill - I'm assuming) 3. Because you have something cool they can use for advertising (i.e. being a female West Point First Captain, being semi-famous of some sort, a known public figure, and etc.) 4. To get enough smart bodies against the competition (not that big of factor this year since the application cycle is crazy competitive).

So the first thing to consider is your ability to graduate. Granted your grades are a bit on the lower end, I think you'll be fine. Ultimately, it is but how diverse/unique you are. I'm assuming you are in the national security space. If there are a lot of other national security folks, then your chances might slacken. However, if you are you seen as unique, you might be able to pull it off. This year is extra competitive, but I don't know how it impacts folks with your national security background and competition set.

The New York Times had this interesting article about how female economists were found to encounter more hostility and outright sexual violations. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/23/business/economy/economics-women-gender-bias.html?action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage I wanted to ask the women in the forum in academia about your experiences relative to this subject matter.

Yep they are. A know military people who are in the some grad class boat who made it to HKS MPA.

What are you talking about? https://www.hks.harvard.edu/educational-programs/masters-programs/master-public-administration/what-we-look This is the website that talks about program application requirements.

Grad school is just a piece of paper and doesn't mean anything unless you work your butt off (no matter how highly your grad school is ranked) to get where you want to be.

Cornell, Penn State, and Notre Dame are all schools not located near major institutions / programs / non-profits tied to international development. You are basically handicapping yourself by going to those schools by not being in close proximity to experiential learning / networking centers. I am not a die hard Georgetown fan (people who been on this forum know how much I have highlighted Georgetown MPP's problems), but I will tell you GHD is a solid IDEV program and everyone I worked with from that program have been well supported and have had amazing careers afterwards (much of it thanks to Georgetown Brand + alumni + DC supported career opportunity).

Batten has an amazingly cohesive program and strong community. However, the reality is that Batten is relatively newer to the MPP game (although they have soared given their relative newness) and simply don't have as much brand recognition or historical career pathways as U. Chicago Harris. The career coaching at U. Chicago Harris is unparalleled as well as the broad range of research + connections going on. Assuming you get similar funding, I think it is about what you value more - better community experience - Batten or top notch career / research opportunities - Harris

I would be more concerned about how you only have 1 year of post college work experience. This is crazy competitive year for admissions. Normally, you might slip by, but this year it is going to be tough. I honestly never met an MSFS / MALD person with less than 2 years experience unless said person has a prestigious scholarship (Fulbright and etc.)

So I think @ExponentialDecay and I have a minor, yet distinct and important to difference of opinion on this. Where We Agree: Getting a marginally grad school brand name is definitely not worth getting into debt into (or even paying more tuition for). Where We Disagree: I believe you where you go to school can have a meaningful impact upon your career outcomes (if you make the effort to take advantage of things + have some good luck your way). Three things I want to highlight: a. Professional Culture - a policy / IR school that improves your professional ethos by virtual of having an amazing professionally oriented culture can make you a more attractive job seeker. I know of people who had terrific backgrounds who struggled to find internships/jobs post grad school, because they succumbed to the grad school's weak professional ethos. b. Specialty Areas - out in the job hunting world - it matters if you can seek the language, highlight your competencies, and etc. relevant to a policy/IR focus area for specialty that you are seeking jobs from. If you care to work in local non-profit, but your school focuses heavily on security relations, then you aren't helping yourself professionally. I have seen plenty of people really take advantage of a school's strength to develop themselves into subject matter experts and acquire a related job accordingly. c. Network - some schools don't really have strong brand recognition or alumni network to support you. That means less opportunities to explore career paths. Those that do really can open doors for you.