GradSchoolGrad

First of all, it sounds like you from outside the United States. In that case the GRE probably is more important so that schools can know for certain that you can complete the quant requirements to graduate, especially if they might have a hard time understanding your transcript. It actually will be a problem that you don't have a background in math because data analysis is part of the curriculum. Second, you need to have a more targeted approach to thinking about graduate schools. Unless your undergraduate experience is ridiculous (published research, top tier internships, Fellowships, and etc.), chances are that you will not get into SIPA or Wagner straight from undergrad (but given COVID, your chances have increased). You could likely get into PACE and CUNY pretty easily, but I don't know if that would be worth the money for you because they deal more with domestic and local policy issues. Bottom line, don't waste your money and time. Use it wisely. It is better to go to the right school (even if you only think about NYC schools) when you are competitive (with more work experience) than rush into it after undergraduate.

So lots of things to unpack here, but I think I want to go to the heart of the issue. Do you care more about A: diving deep into policy and landing a policy oriented job (either as career pivot or boosting your career straight from undergrad) or B: Getting any old graduate degree for the purpose of checking the box and get some brand prestige? If you care about A, then you should go to Indiana SPEAs, especially since they are highly regarded for their domestic policy and there is a drastic shortage of people in health policy (and likely still remains true with a recession + COVID). AKA: You are pretty much guaranteed a job if you try. I remember at my policy school graduation, the people that go the best paying jobs outside of consulting went into health policy. Sadly, some of the lowest performing were in that bucket as well because they went into health policy. This is because SPEA is actually structured to be a holistic policy program with a full litany of comprehensive school offerings. Plus it really helps that you have PhDs, undergrads, and masters all under one house because that = comprehensive range of resource access. If you really care about B, then you should go to Northwestern MPPA. They are part of the latest trend of schools leveraging their brand names to make cash on the side by having "professional studies schools". You might actually have a pretty diverse education, and they do indeed leverage Northwestern resources + give you Northwestern diploma. HOWEVER... I'm not so sure you would really acquire the Northwestern network. Additionally, you have to realize that at the end of the day the MPPA program is essentially a high brow diploma mill and your classmates will range greatly. I kind of view as similar to Stanford MPP or Harvard A.R.T. program. The University is really prestigious, but people in the industry know that the program in particular is rather blah.

I think you should divide your considerations. 1. What schools you probably won't get into because they are really big on your GPA --> UK schools (which is a shame because they have really strong area policy programs). 2. What schools you could get into with a few years of solid work experience --> Georgetown or GW area studies programs (honestly people who do these tend to be younger anyway). It might not be a bad idea if you a really wanted to dive into your area focus. 3. What schools you might be able to get into with 5 years of solid star level work experience --> premier IR / Policy schools *Keep in mind, you better have a really strong statement explaining your failings in undergrad and how you grew

Your biggest challenge is that you don't have any work experience. Even during the era of COVID, I cannot in good conscious recommend a school that I think you have a realistic chance of getting into that in my opinion is worth your time and effort. If you had 2 years of work experience, I think you would be a lot more competitive and then I I can make some solid recommendations that actually could potentially give you funding.

Bottom line, you should go to a California policy school based on your job interest. 1. The best two fits for you are: a. Berkeley Goldman b. USC Price 2. In regarding to your interests. The deconstruction part is more History / Sociology/Journalism. Don't get me wrong, it. plays a part into Public Policy, but for all intents in purposes it ties to story telling and not necessarily policy in it of itself. The second part seems to be social policy as it ties to immigration support. For your purposes, I think you focus on these 3 areas as it applies to public policy. a. State vs. Federal powers (because the type of social support you are talking about really comes from the state) b. Social policy c. Analytics as it ties to social impact

There is a lot of talk of how COVID-19 will create a waterfall decline of Chinese international students at US and Canada graduate programs. Out of curiosity what did people observe as the impact (pros and cons - lets discuss) of the presence of Chinese international students at your program? How might that change with the likely decline of Chinese international student numbers? Lets keep this free of geo-politics and focus on the education experience.

Every Baruch person I have ever met was straight from undergrad (or maybe like a year of experience) and going to entry level positions after graduation. All those roles were also really tied to city level organizations. In all fairness, I did meet them at local volunteering events in New York City. Now generally speaking, I view Baruch to be an MPA program more focused on state and local level government / nonprofit matters, and that brand value is really tied to the tri-state area. I have never met any Baruch MPA person (that I can remember) in anything I have been involved in from an national and international level policy matter (be it work, conference, and etc.). Now I of all people am a big proponent of state and local policy (and I have been involved in it myself). However, I think this is important for your to appreciate because I think we have a misalignment of brand, peer benefit, and career gains for you. As a mid-level Federal (I'm assuming you have like 5 to 8 years of work experience), you will find the classroom experience to be challenging with lots of straight from undergrads. I don't see that much of brand lift for you, especially if you try to stay federal. Aside from the higher education check the box to go managerial, I also don't see any gains. From a pure economic perspective, SIPA probably won't exactly give you much direct additional career benefit coming out of school, but it will help you with the network in the long run. However, its value is really depending on your ability to network. I have seen people go to top flight schools (yes thinking Harvard) too network challenged to ever gain anything out of it. It will however be a much more thrilling (as you assume) to take advantage of the SIPA resources, but that will be interesting because SIPA isn't exactly big on community (nor is any NYC school). It really concerns me that you have to pay out of pocket for both schools. There was a lot of scholarship money floating around (they generally set aside the budget from the year prior, so it was before COVID-19 came into effect) during this admissions cycle, so I'm concerned why you didn't get enough from SIPA or Baruch that you would naturally mention it. Here is what I would do if I were you if I had to pay fully out of pocket. Don't go to either school. Assuming your goal is to just check box for your promotion + get some brand equity + get access to awesome resources + minimizing pain to your piggy bank, I would just find an online only (or blended with a week you have to be in person) Master's programs that are similar to an MPA. Some options are: 1. Northwestern's MPPA: Total Program Cost: 50K 2. Online Executive MPA from Syracuse Oh and I do believe they are still accepting applications for Fall classes.

I always appreciate people who are interested in immigration policy because I don't hear about people interested it in it that much. I think you are asking too broad of a question for anyone to coherently answer. Immigration policy is insanely huge in terms of coverage, probably equal to if not in greater scope as security policy (granted security always gets a lot of attention and money). I recommend you narrow down your focus first in these 3 ways. 1. Area focus? Are you talking about US, somewhere outside of the US --> If so where? You have to start somewhere and can't say everything. 2. What aspects about immigration do you care most about? Healthcare? Law enforcement? Labor? Legalities? Politics and Policy making? Economics and finance? 3. What type of job do you want to have with immigration policy? Corporate government affairs? Non-Profit? Federal government? Local and state government? Researcher? Once you narrow down your interests, people can be better able to help you because depending on your answer, it can yield many different recommendations.

So better doesn't always mean more. It could mean a better fitting or from an institution where a lot of alum occupy the employer.

Usually when you are shortlisted that that means they like your resume but during the interview process there is something about you that leads to concern or doubt vs. the competition. It is most likely not because you lack a Master's degree. Your JD + work experience overly compensates for this. I recommend you keep on applying and if you don't get a job, ask for feedback. It may be something you can change, or it might not be. I recommend you figure out the problem before you go get a Master's degree when the likelihood of that changing anything would be very small.

It sounds like that you are just unhappy with your career period. I recommend you think of a career pivot rather than go back to school. I can't answer you question about if an LLM will make a difference because I am not a legal professional. There are some mid career MPA, MPMs, and etc. that might be more of your interest, but the reality is that a lot of those are US based and US focused and they are one big networking festival + excuse to network. At the end of the day, I recommend you figure out what makes you happy job wise and network into that. A school might teach your tricks and tips to networking, but you got to muster up the will power to do it on your own at a minimum.

If anyone else with perspective in this area can give a 2nd opinion, I think that would be helpful. However, my thoughts are: 1. Unlike PhD, Undergrad, or even more hard science oriented Master's programs, in a "terminal master's program", aligning with your faculty's field is usually less important. Generally speaking faculty are generally removed from professional opportunities as their goal is to publish and do research. Adjunct Professors (not Adjunct Instructors) can be of value in professional connections though. That being said, I wouldn't translate a Professor's field directly translating to career opportunities unless they are involved an experiential learning program. For professional schools, I think it is more important to see where the alumni have gone (you can do that via LinkedIn) and ask Career Services to talk to a current student. Professors are important for what skills, topics, and insights and they can provide. You make you credibility in the professional world by virtue of the projects you take on (with the school and without). That being said, I would check out your schools less by professors and more by alumni outcomes and reach out to recent alums in LinkedIn 2. So I can appreciate the Policy work isn't what you want to do. However, in terms of pathways to non-profit management in the food security space, the two most robust are via the business side and via the policy side. Hypothetically, you can also get to the non-profit management via the fundraising or event planning side, but that doesn't require a master's degree. Food security/sustainability is also extraordinarily complex that any management of it requires some level of policy understanding and analysis in understanding regulatory impacts - at least the non-profits I know. Again anyone with another opinion please chime in.

I think interesting in consulting might grow within an MPP program. However, I don't think that more people will go into an MPP interested in consulting. There is a very limited route to do so via an MPP/IR. People at the elite MPP (HKS, WWS, and Harris) schools have a route to do private sector consulting at MBB. However for the rest of the top schools, its pretty much government consulting Deloitte and similar. Going the MPP/IR is actually the hard way there. The most straightforward way for those roles via grad school actually via MBAs. The 2nd is actually PhDs. MPP is probably tertiary, tied with "others Master's degrees".

I think you have to appreciate some things about yourself. 1. Your GRE scores are good enough, so it becomes a non-issue. 2. I am assuming your work experience is rather interesting and unique just by virtue of not being American / from Asia 3. You were an Econ undergrad --> that is the best major to have (tied with stats) to go into quant heavy IR/MPP/MPA programs because you are automatically seen more as an asset who can run with the class material right away. 4. By virtue of being German, that makes you unique. In most grad schools I visited, the European contingent of international students was far smaller than Asia / Latin America, and even the Canadian contingent sometimes. I believe SAIS has a larger European community than most. However, it is a uniqueness factor that works to your advantage.

So a few thoughts. 1. A lot of people conflate with applying to grad schools as the same as applying to undergrad. The big difference is that there is no common app for applying to grad school, thereby it makes it a lot more time intensive to apply to each school. Also, you really want to target in and tell compelling story about what that grad school is relevant for you and a great fit for you. Also, I don't know how many people in your war chest you have that will write you letters of recommendation. You want to make a plan to conserve them. I have never asked a single recommender write more than 2 letters of recommendation. I think at a certain people they would be annoyed to write more than 2 + I want to preserve those relationships. Most schools require 2 to 3 letters of recommendations. So that means if you have 3 people that will write you letters of recommendation, and each is willing to write 2, then you don't have that many schools you can really apply to. I always tell people that its okay to have a good list of schools you are interested in, but you should really apply to 2 at a minimum to 5 absolute max. In fact, most people I talked to applied to 2 to 3. They should roughly fall under these categories. Reach, target, and extreme safety (I gambled and didn't go for a safety). 2. In terms of degrees, three things really matter. A. How well the degree is known to the general public (Portability is important) B. Brand of your school (regional factors + national brand are important). C. Connectivity your school has to job prospects that you are actually interested in. I recommend you pair down your roster to what you will actually apply for based on those considerations. That being said, I strongly recommend you don't go to MNL, or any Master's that say leadership in it period. These are essentially money making ventures from Universities to charge tuition for programs that generally are not well resourced, don't really have robust career supports, and etc. I can't think of a single non-profit leader that I have encountered (big or small non-profit that came that way via a Leadership Masters unless it was a easy online degree to satisfy a promotion requirement. 4. Food Systems is an interesting one. I actually know quite a few people in that policy space. That includes a classmates who transferred out of my policy school because she felt it insufficiently prepared her that policy area. The reason why Food Systems is such a unique policy area is because it is arguably the most multi-discipline policy area. You need to decently well versed in: A. Supply chain / agriculture economics (more of a business school function) B. Some basic level of healthcare policy C. Some basic level social policy as it pertains to food... this is because a lot of agriculture policy in the US is married to hunger management policies (SNAP in the US, but international models are also helpful) D. Some basic level of environmental/food science (some basic sciencing here). E. Navigating Federal and State regulatory processes (USDA, FDA, and all that jazz) So the reason why understanding all these matters for picking schools is that you don't want to do an MPA in which you have insufficient academic/project support in any of these areas. For example, the girl from my policy school transferred to UT-Austin because that is a school that actually has a robust research and academic subject matter experts of food supply chain and agricultural economics. Honestly, UNC's MPA program sounds perfect for you in so many ways. I honestly can't think of a better fit.

So long story made short, in the 21st century, the is no longer any "defined job market" for anyone anymore. You have social science grads who go to coding and coders do consulting and everything in between. There are definitely legacy pathways for certain job that are strong and robust, but that depends on what you want to do. I'll answer your question very very very broadly. 1. What your college career advisor is saying isn't completely inaccurate. If you went and got an MPP straight from undergrad for example, you would be competing with those with at least 2 years or so experience and that would put you at a competitive disadvantage, while some firms might be reluctant to pay for a grad school salary, especially if they have automatic pay triggers (so for example, minimum salary at XYZ amount given this level of education). However, there are plenty of exceptions that are abound. At the end of the day, it is about how well you network and how much value people think you have. 2. Generally speaking, getting an MA is an asset period, you just may not realize the benefits of the asset immediately (again it also depends on what job you have). So for example, some of my sisters got a grad degree straight off the bat. That means they had access to a graduate school network on top of their undergrad network that they could pluck for career opportunities. Also, when their peers had to go to graduate school to check the box, they were already complete and not bothered with managing families and significant others. Bottom Line: In your 20s, these days its okay if you explore around as long as you making general upward trajectory in your career, that is all that matters. An MA buys you time and can add a network + brand + new experiences that can help you in the long run. If you manage to leverage those opportunities into real tangible career gains (PhD or otherwise --> depends on. That being said, if you know you want to get a job in the US, but uncertain about the PhD route, going to grad school outside of the UK or US might not be the best decision just by virtue of lack of brand recognition. For example --> I know Sciences Po is super prestigious and highly regarded and shame on me for not knowing better, but I had no idea what it was until a month ago.

So there is U. Chicago MPP and U. Chicago Committee on International Relations (CIR). Both are opportunities to go to IR jobs. HOWEVER, with Chicago MPP, they also have a premium on quant. Just because they have a preference for AmeriCorp (and I believe TFA too) doesn't mean they pull away their minimum bar standard (the do they believe you can graduate standard). I would say that the 3 most quant schools in the IR/MPP/MPA universe are U. Chicago MPP, WWS, and SAIS (in no particular order). U. Chicago CIR will still have a minor stat component, but won't be crazy quant like U. Chicago MPP. I don't know if they have an Ameri-Corp / TFA preference or not. Bottom line, if you are gonna struggle with SAIS due to quant requirements, you will struggle as much if not more with U. Chicago MPP from both a getting in perspective (questions on ability to graduate) + actually enjoying the program coming from a quant low side of the house.

So from what I understand, the only two ways you can demonstrate quant outside of existing school work is via: A: Work experience. So hypothetically this ties into learning R or Python. However, you really need to demonstrate that you used R or Python to make a meaningful difference on a project to the point that it becomes a resume bullet. However, coding is a tool. What they are teaching at SAIS and etc. are the fundamental equations + baseline principles. Doing coding definitely has lots of value for many jobs and over time you get to appreciate the principles by doing project work. However, learning code in it of itself without a project to prove it doesn't really mean much. B: Academic history in an accredited school that gives you an official transcript. I love coursera and all, but it doesn't give you a University official transcript (unless something has changed of late). This is why I recommend going to Colorado State online to take Econ/Stats courses to fill gaps. Its in my opinion the best bang for buck + legitimate teaching. quality + decent enough brand. At the end of day, it doesn't matter how you demonstrate econometrics or the ability to learn it academically, but as long as you provide enough confidence to an admission person, then you are good. Also... by 5 years work experience, I mean particular to the person in question. Harvard MPP is letting in straight form undergrads now in response to Covid-19 pressures, but their LinkedIn profiles are crazy ridiculously awesome. Work experience can partially compensate for good but not good enough to go to a Power School GPA (also it depends on exactly what you do and how challenging it is perceived).

I think you are conflating undergrad admissions with grad school admissions. In undergrad admissions, the common app makes everything easier. There is no common app for grad school. That being said, I recommend you think about letter of recommendation conservation. This is what I'm talking a bout: Context: For most people (especially those with limited work experience + only undergrad), you probably have 2 to 3. people that can write you a solid letter of recommendation. Lets just say they like you and they will probably be happy to write you 2 each and then after that they get super annoyed at you. So that means, at a best case scenario, you have 6 letters of recommendation to float around with. Most schools I know require 2 to 3 letters. Problem: If you apply to Harvard MPP, WWS, and SAIS and don't get it, well you just lost most if not all your letter of recommendation providers. I went to grad school with 8 years of work experience, and applied to 4 schools and 2 Fellowships and a big reason for that number was how many letters of recommendation I knew I had in my pocket. Recommendation: Don't blow your letter of recommendations + time + effort on schools you have next to no chance just because you want to gamble the dice. Conserve your letter of recommendations for your reach schools + target schools and not impossible schools. Btw... if you have any doubt of what I am putting down, just go on LinkedIn and look at the resumes of people in the schools of interest.

1. About Quant and SAIS... okay it improves your outlook knowing you took those classes, but your total GPA is still a 3.3. Maybe if you better explained what classes dropped your GPA so hard, that might help. If I was an admissions Officer and you had a 3.7, I might be willing to take gamble on you. I think the real way to quash any doubts about your quant ability is to do a project or take a class (at reputable institution) that touches Econometrics (a more advanced Econ class would probably do the trick). Not to sound mean about it, but there are some State schools where the 100 level classes are not the rigorous (I know because I have met people who got As in their quant classes in undergrad and struggled at grad school level intro to econometrics). 2. Harder to get into is relative. Given your lack of more intense quant (to the best of my knowledge), I find SAIS being really difficult for you. You are basically brushing up on something that there is some doubt of your ability to graduate from and you would be in the lower tier of competitiveness. With the UK schools, you might be on the lower tiers of competitiveness, but you aren't risking any doubt on your ability to graduate. The big unknown factor as I previously mentioned is the competitiveness of the applicant pool. Once you check the mark on believing that you can graduate, it is all about the pool of applicants and how competitive you are vs them. Historically, you would be uncompetitive, but like I said, I think market conditions with Brexit and Recession may be in your favor 2 years from now that you might legitimately have a shot to get into Oxford, Cambridge, and LSE (probably worst shot with LSE, and Cambridge might be your best). 3. Say you had 4 years of solid work experience (lets just assume it was moderate in terms of quan... so you used a lot of excel sheets but no econometrics... and weaker (but not COVID-19 weak) average applicant pool --> i.e. 2015 application cycle). I think for IR/MPP/MPA (and I bucket all three of these because they can all send you to jobs in IR), these would still be a reach, but might be at least marginally viable for acceptance: In no order of anything: 1. Elliot School (probably one the most extreme reaches) 2. Cornell MPA - (probably your best option) 3. Duke Terry Sanford 4. McCourt MPP (although I wouldn't go here for IR... although it becomes a viable opportunity) 5. U. Chicago Committee on International Relations (probably tied as the the most extreme reach) 6. Stanford - Master in International Policy You targets: 1. George Mason 2. Middlebury Institute of International Studies (this is a bit of a hidden gem) 3. Penn State MIA

Before we even talk about getting into their good graces, we need to talk about passing minimum barrier to get in period. Right now, regardless of how competitive the applicant pool is due to COVID-19, I suspect that an admissions person would easily move your application to the reject pile out of legitimate concern on your ability to graduate. This is just by virtue of how weak your quaint background is with relatively little work experience. Of all the IR schools, SAIS, is arguably the most quant heavy and pretty famous for it. If you only have a year or so of work experience, and no quant experience above STAT 101, that would be really concerning. A big chunk of the course load is based off of econometrics. On top of that you need to acquire a level of fluency in foreign language to graduate. The only times in which they will take a gamble on you for have limited quant background is if you can tell a compelling story that you regularly utilized advanced data on the job over many years + survived in highly demanding work environments (like at least 5). Examples of this would be technology consultants, military personnel, and etc. On top of that you have a GPA on the lower side of things, limited work experience, and (to the best I know) no interesting wow factor --> being published/honors thesis/interesting fellowship/major scholarship of interest. These are things that would normally compensate you if I thought you were within the zone if being evaluated as viable for graduation, but at this point in my opinion, your viability to graduate SAIS is in question. My Thoughts: 1. If you want to go to grad school to get it out of the way + ride out the recession, you might have to realize that your ability to get into the power schools is extremely challenged. In my opinion, a target school for you fit wise would be like George Mason (which is pretty good problem, but obviously the brand is not like the rest). SIS and Elliot are reaches that you might have a shot at if you tell a compelling story + it turns out to be a weak application cycle. 2. If you want to have a remote shot in hell at a Power School, this is what you need to do. a. get 5 years of solid work experience b. Take quant classes and get at least an A- (I took them at Colorado State since I was like you a non-Quant Poli Sci Major). You need to at minimum do MicroEconomic and Stats. If you brush up on Econometrics --> Great... c. (Not necessary, but really improves your chances) Get some sort of scholarship/fellowship/on some major press publication/award/being published 3. The one way you might get out of this is go to a top school abroad --> think UK where quant matters less (at least for now). Oxford/Cambridge/LSE --> you won't be considered a risk for graduation + they will be suffering from weak application pools with both Brexit and recessionary factors (my estimate, I could be wrong).

@bibble1998 1. I agree with @munch22 's main premise --> talk to your professors (or virtual talk to your professors I guess). 2. I also agree that the added value of Master's degrees is quite low from a pure getting into PhD perspective. However, I think it has value (although very expensively derived value) of long term career clarification just by virtue of having more time and experiences to figure out what you want in life. What people want to do in life changes from what their thoughts are at the end of their undergrad career and the worst place to be is being a PhD who realizes that they don't want to be a PhD a few years in the program. I know a lot of people who went to an a Master's program (both American and UK) mostly as a means of academic clarification to better target what they what they want to do in life + gain some cool new interesting life experiences. I will also warn that I know people who were likely competitive coming from undergrad but completely went off the deep in grad school and came out of it barely graduating, which really hurt their chances for a PhD (let alone a solid PhD). 3. So absolutely, people have been able to get into top 20 (even top 10) PhD programs with less than 3.5 GPA with a compelling story and lots of other achievements, but you want to swim with the ocean rather than against --> granted for you it doesn't seem to be an issue. 4. As for research --> I would clarify this with your Cornell professors first. HOWEVER... it is my understanding that with the exception of Political Theory (which you don't seem to be interested in), the #1 thing that matters for Political Science PhD is methods training and continued exposure to it. Most people I know who went to a top rate Political Science PhD (i.e. Princeton) were able to easily fill the methods gap. Some of them honestly weren't even Political Science majors, but Econ majors as stats/econometrics (as you can imagine) is of growing importance in Political Science. Research --> doing it yourself or supporting it is a great way to view methods up front and helps with a compelling story. It is not that difficult to do research within 1 year. When my sister went to Oxford for her MPhil, she arrived knowing what he research topic would be up front and narrowed it down quickly. Again, this all goes back to knowing what you want to do academically speaking.

So my exposure to what I think is the Savior complex to this: In my personal experience, I saw a lot of grad students project their perception of their own individual value by tying themselves to an issue that they were passionate about because they thought it mattered to people's lives. I would say the top 3 I heard all the time were 1. Women and Gender issues, Environment, and Youth Education. Don't get me wrong, I think all of these are super super super important to make the world a better place and have been involved in 2 of the 3 of these myself. However, what I thought was interesting was that there wasn't much talk about how much social impact of actually "saving others" or even potential social impact. What there was talk about was how much connectivity and access someone had to resources or experiences in these spaces. I quickly realized that the key focal point of many conversations was about how interesting or "cool" a policy area was to generate someone's own individual credibility and social status among their select group of peers. Hence for me, the "savior complex" is utilizing social admiration for a social impact space to lend oneself self-perceived and social value. I think this type of "savior complex" is terrific and really well meaning if it was all about getting involved and promoting genuine solutions that helped people (or saved people shall we say). However, the way I saw it manifest many times was that solutions and helping people were just a distraction. People exercised it by building likeminded communities to created loose networks of echo chambers to enhance their self-adulation to further generate their sense of value. In simple terms, this is about creating a community to pat yourself on the back for being involved in this space rather than making meaningful solutions to help people. The vibe was more akin to Billy Joel fans who get excited about being Billy Joel fans rather than doctors/nurses, teachers, you name your meaningful social impact profession on the front lines. The reason why I think this manifesting of savior complex is troublesome is because it funnels people to get excited about policy by virtue of the idea of being cool in a space with a fan base rather than actually saving people with meaningful solutions. Things like health policy, food policy, infrastructure, and housing policy --> areas that arguably have much more immediate social impact (and realistically --> job opportunities) were things that I saw people generally be less inclined towards (sometimes even shun), because they didn't have that much social clout to lend its devotees (I realize that is changing for food policy pretty fast of late). Hence why "savior complex" in my mind is a complex in that it isn't supposed to make straightforward sense, even be counterproductive to being a savior. My concern is that if so many policy students don't want to get their hands dirty and rather be cool, who is to be the saviors that the world needs? I would like to know. Maybe they aren't in policy school but elsewhere in lots of places? Maybe people that I saw in policy school will grow out of this phase one day, and actually be adults who do real saving of somebody. Who knows?

I think you are asking the wrong questions. I think the right questions you should be asking is. 1. From a pure undergrad perspective are you competitive to get a Master's Degree in the short term + PhD in the long term? A. If you don't have 3.66 GPA (at least) you can kiss a PhD at a top school goodbye... Yes, that takes into account that you are coming from Cornell as well. If you are close, I hope you really have the boiler plate standard items be really really strong. i.getting published in an academic journal, ii. Professors who will refer you, iii. at least one kind of an impressive extracurricular of a leadership or organizational capacity. 2. What do you really want to do in life and what are you willing to risk (in terms of money, time, and effort) to figure It out. A. Is money an issue? B. Do you need to stay close to family? a significant other? 3. What type of academic experience do you want to acquire? A. A research heavy one. B. Basically a focused one (undergrad on steroids) to figure yourself out + getting better methods training C. Exposure to UK pub academic culture? D. Exposure to continental Europe? 4. Who are academics or set of academics you want to work with + you realistically have a chance to work with (so you can scratch out celeb professors) if you went to their grad programs? I recommend that you identify academics that you think you would like to connect with and see what schools they are in. You can also do this in reverse whereby you look at the schools you are interested in to see if they have the academics you think you would want to do research for. Make sure there are at least 3 (non celeb academics) whose line of work you are interested in. If you want to do a PhD in the long run, it is all about with Professors will mentor you and bring you under their wing.

So the big unknown here is how many quant classes you have taken. I think you are not competitive for Harvard MPP, Princeton WW MA straight off the bat between with GPA, school caliber, and GRE in consideration. Your career experience may help you about depending on if you are rockstar at Ameri-Corp or not. If you were a quant Political Science guy who took really hard math classes + Econ classes with publications + honors thesis behind you, you might barely eek out SAIS, SIPA, Fletcher if COVID-19 continues to deliver bad years for grad school. GW and SIS seems to be an attainable, though still challenging target.