GradSchoolGrad

So here is the deal about consulting.
1. It is crazy competitive to go to MBB. Even if you come from Harvard Business School (HBS), the majority of people who want MBB roles don't get an interview / pass interviews. At HKS, you get a shot, but the odds are against you, even if you sufficiently prep for it, and they will be longer than HBS
2. You really need to make a bet here, knowing the risks.

Lets paint this in some worse case scenarios for you in wish you may wish you went to an alternative program.
A: For HKS, you could very well end up in the same job that you could have easily gotten had you went to SAIS, but be in the money hole. Sure you might have the Harvard name and 2 great years to talk about, but you won't be able to afford the membership to go to the Harvard Club with student loans (even if you get funding, you won't get much) in mind. The recession takes a while to recover, so the job market is tight. 
B: At SAIS, you might not have much debt, but you realize you don't like IR / international development so you are stuck in the field. 
Now lets paint the best case scenario
A: At HKS, you really like the innovation and and broad spectrum education, and really take advantage of the network to take a job you really like... and tell yourself the debt was worth the road you are going on.
B: At SAIS, you find your love for international affairs/development and really like the focused education and opportunities to dig deep. DC gives you plenty of opportunities to build your DC network and stretch your academic chops. 

I also personally wouldn't go to Fletcher. This is just a me thing, but the world is getting more multi-disciplinary and it really helps to do projects with and have access to people from other programs. Tufts simply doesn't have a law school, a business school, or etc. that would have meaningful collaboration for someone in Fletcher. Hypothetically, they are port of the consortium with Harvard and MIT, but being able to cross-register and actually collaborate with people in other programs are two very separate things. 
I know someone who went to Fletcher, who even took a class as Harvard Kennedy School, but she really was academically isolated from other disciplines just by virtue of logistics. 

The two programs at the two Universities are very different. McCourt's is much more academic focused with an emphasis on data analysis. GWU's is more geared towards experiential learning. Granted students from both regularly have part-time internships in DC, I would argue that GWU's students generally have greater exposure to the latest and greatest in policy vs. McCourt students. 
The Georgetown brand is generally a bit stronger, but the McCourt school brand isn't anything special. It ultimately comes down on what you want to do.
It might help if you identify what policy area you are looking for and what jobs are you looking for after the fact. As an international student, please identify if you are trying to stay in the US or go back to your home country after graduate schools. That might help me help you give more targets guidance. 

Okay this is super interesting. I think it really comes down to what policy area you are more interested in and how you want to approach it.
On the surface, Chicago Harris makes more sense simply because it has much more robust pathway to apply for a PhD (keep in mind, no matter what MPP school you go to, you basically can't go below an A- GPA, or else you are going to 2nd tier PhD program). I don't know what you are going to get your PhD in, but as long as it is Policy, Economics, or Political Science, you will have a better range of professors to give you recommendations and referrals. 
Chicago will also be much better for urban policy simply because it has a lot more robust programming and academic focus on the details of urban policy. That being said, Washington DC is doing a lot of innovative policy efforts. McCourt some alumni connections and some policy innovation extracurricular involvement in it, but I would hardly say it is robust or really academically involved. However, if you are okay with just diving in with uncertain real support - McCourt makes sense. Additionally, if you want to approach Urban Development from a Federal powers angle, DC makes sense for networking, but just realize you'll be very much alone. Urban policy isn't exactly popular at McCourt (parts of social policy - but not exactly urban policy), so you might not have a good professor to mentor you.
So international development is interesting. You can piggy back on Professor Wiebe (he is the primary IDev professor at McCourt) and ride his train, but then you are stuck with his train (some people like it and some people don't). If you want to go it alone, there is the entire slew of Federal infrastructure out there to help you. However, if you want to go on the academic side of IDev, Chicago will be stronger period.
I haven't heard of a McCourt alum going to a Tier 1 Think Tank in a while - that would be Brookings or CATO (even when they had a referral of its best professors). About 1 or 2 have opportunities to join 1.5 tier like Urban or CNAS. Tier 2 places like Mathmatica do get 2 or so McCourt students year, but they aren't exactly the ones that leap frog into PhD. With U. Chicago however, you can be better off leapfrogging into the entire world of think tanks and research institutions. However, if you are okay with a Tier 2 or 1.5 DC Think Tank - McCourt can make sense for you.
One thing I want to highlight is that 60%+ of the people that I know had a major career interest shift in grad school and bottom line is that Chicago Harris has much better career support than McCourt. McCourt really underfunds their career services (it doesn't help that so many students are from China and really struggle to find jobs). They work their butts off, but there are only so many people. At U. Chicago Harris, they have a career coaching system that is pretty robust. 

What are you trying to do with your future career? If you are a person that likes to be independent, know your career interests, and you have a good idea on how to pursue your career interests aggressively on your own, McCourt would work okay for you. If you are someone who cares a lot about having a strong student culture and a collaborative community + need support to figure out what your career interests, UVA would be a better fit. 
I actually have friends that went to Batten and compared notes. The programs are actually decently different! 

Happy to talk more on direct message. 

So lets be clear, there MS-DSPP the track, which is awesome (granted its collaboration limits) and there is McCourt/the school.
For all intents and purposes, your MS-DSPP cohort of 20 to 30 something will collectivize and bond over data science stuff. Think of this like function. However, at the end of the day, you'll probably have to pick one a policy area (if you choose to stay within policy) that you actually care about and presumably want to get a job from (or at least know enough to sell that you know something in the area). 

Within the DSPP cohort, if you choose one of the super popular policy areas like Education or Gender issues, there will probably be 3-5 others like you. If you choose something less popular like Transportation, you might be alone. Dr. Bailey and the rest of the the professors are terrific and can definitely give career advice and guidance + your cohort might organize some social stuff.
HOWEVER, the main career and social functions are via the school. This is where the organization and structure for social and career support come from. 
Career: 
With Career Services, they work their butt off, but they are severely understaffed. You have 3 people for the ENTIRE SCHOOL (for all programs). 1 executive to run things, 1 event hosted, and 1 career coach. That career coach has to deal with all 250+ people across full time/part time (don't forget the alumni that they promise to serve as well) and etc. As you can imagine, that person is stretched thin and altogether career services doesn't have the capacity to really help you, as much as they try (and they try - first in the door and last out the door (sometimes as late as 7PM).
In many grad programs, you mitigate this by starting a peer career coach system, but McCourt doesn't do that. Also, McCourt in general has a bit of anti-career culture where its taboo you talk about career stuff because you don't want to make other people feel bad
Social:
McCourt's social activities consist of 3 things
a. Clubs - these are generally based off policy area. Most clubs, you can join as a member. However, to really be involved or mean anything, you have to apply to be a club leader or Officer and most clubs have about 10 positions or so. However, it is based upon application and whoo the previous year's leadership likes that gets allotted a position. For example, in regards to the Education Club. I am a higher education person with years of experience in the area, but since the leadership board the I was applying to were all K-12 education people, I was of little interest to them (and they told me as such). 
b. Social Events - there are some cultural social events (pot luck dinners) and silent auctions, but they don't invest in team building and bonding. Most programs have a cohort system whereby you are a split into teams/families/cohorts (whatever you want to call it) to have level of social cohesion. McCourt got away with that ages ago because people conducted sit in protests about not getting into the cohort they wanted (another story in it of itself). There is a really cool Christmas party though... 
c. Culture... - this is the most shocking, the McCourt culture is basically the policy wonk version of high school. You are seen as cool if you are associated with people that do niche things that sound cool for the time being. We had a person who came from a human rights non-profit. People formed a posse around her and wanted to be seen around her to get the halo effect. She was indeed a nice person and very real, but didn't exactly do anything meaningful to make the school better with her social capital. 
What is utterly uncool is talking about career stuff (which is not the norm for most grad schools) or about actually policy innovation and making an impact (if it doesn't sound cool). Just like high school football players reading their press clippings, the McCourt social all stars love it when they see their name in the McCourt magazine, instagram, or website. The shock hits many right before graduation / summer internship season that they are comparably less competitive for jobs because they haven't focused enough about career. 
 

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).

Each of the programs has different strengths and weaknesses. Key things:
1. Harris MSCAPP will by far give the most resources and opportunities to leverage the latest and greatest in data science models mathematical capabilities. If you want to emphasize as being the most quantitatively proficient - MSCAPP is the way to go. 
2. Georgetown McCourt MSDSPP will give you the best opportunities to engage in live public policy data sets and Federal level policy practitioners via the Georgetown empire + compacts it has. That being said, if you are big on the technical side, don't expect to do anything too technically novel and innovative. They kind of built this program from scratch as a collaboration between the Data Science Masters, Policy School, and Business School without the benefit of having strong computer science/math department institutional support because Georgetown is not driving this based upon technical prowess but policy connections. Also, if you have dreams of being in a management role, this is not the program for you (at least in terms of priming you to go from grad school to management).
3. CMU - First and foremost, this is a policy management program. The Data Analytics is focused on trying to help you conduct policy management whereas the other programs broadly teach you data science for policy analysis. Lots of cross over, but the emphasis is different. I really really like the how CMU Heinz does business in having a really innovation driven and go getter attitude.
4. U Penn - M.S. and Social Policy - never seen these people from this school in the policy universe - period (and I am decently plugged in with the policy community as practitioners). This program could make sense if you are trying to prepare for a PhD, but if you are trying to go straight to workforce, I would skip. I believe this is part of Penn's effort in the past decade to make all these cash cow Grad Programs and bank on the Penn name but they got programming struggle. Also, this is a 1 year program and it looks pretty basic.
5. USC - don't know enough to talk about it coherently. 

It sounds like you are doing a shot in the dark strategy and honestly even if I was on a fly in the wall in every single admissions committee, I honestly don't think I could coherently tell you which schools would likely or not likely give you a shot. Your situation is just rather unique to begin with.
Here is what I recommend you do:
1. Rock the GRE (all 3 categories)--> Thiswill get rid of any concerns about your ability to graduate + you can more easier chalk up the less than stellar GPA to youth indiscretion. If you don't do stellar, you chances in an established reputable program may likely be game over.
2. Have a coherent story with why your undergrad GPA is so bad. If you don't have a compelling story, at the very least chalk it up to being young and dumb and how you have matured as an adult. 
3. Figure out how the school is relevant to you. You seem to have done a scattershot of every single program and I struggle to see how some of these would even be relevant to you. Maybe I am missing here, but I fail to see how any IR program like Johns Hopkins SAIS or Fletcher is relevant your tech interests. You need to differentiate between how a class might have been relevant vs. how a program might be relevant. This is because though GDPR has international influence and ramifications, at the core of it, it is domestic public policy interest. That being said, from the outside looking in, a policy program is best suited for you. 
That being said, you probably want a program that actually has some meaningful engagement in tech, so that in my mind kills of Brown, William & Mary, McCourt (ya they have a tech club, but beyond that, they don't really do anything in tech or collaboration in tech) 
Lets be honest, you are not going to have recommenders send a dozen or so LORs. You are better off just applying to 4 schools which in your case would be a. super reach, reach, less reach, and target. Among the ones left, I would figure out what those 4 will be. 

The key thing is this:
1. At Heinz, you'll have more robust opportunities (although not guaranteed) to get very intense on the technical side of things. Also, if you look at the career diversity in terms of career outcomes - a lot more things outside of DC.
2. McCourt MS-DSPP - you'll have lots of experiential learning opportunities with live data, but because Georgetown doesn't have a robust CompSci program, so you won't really be integrate your data skills into the most cutting edge for data science, or go deep beyond the class offerings. If you want to get super technical, this is not the place to do it.
If you want a cookie cutter federal consulting / federal service career in DC.- MS-DSPP makes sense. However, if you want to be focused on policy innovation or things outside of Federal government, MS-DSPP doesn't make sense. 
McCourt Notes
Culture: 
Dr. Bailey runs MS-DSPP, and everyone loves him and he has done a terrific job building a program from nothing + makes himself super available to students. However, at the end of the day, it is part of the McCourt Program. The program underinvested in community and career support. 

1. I think you are conflating academic competence and target job, which can be related but not necessarily. I still don’t know what type of job or career you are interested in within the broad category of politics, so I can’t more precisely advise you. Yes a grad degree can help in certain respects, but more so for campus hire roles into the federal government, consulting firms, and research orgs. Also, let me tell you point blank that it is pretty rare for a career switcher to land a Associate Director, Director or CoS role after policy grad school at a major organization (not counting small shops with title inflation). You will have to start as an Associate or Senior Associate and then work your way up. If you are referring to politics as in campaigns, lobbying, and political management, that is definitely networking and grinding it out although a grad degree can grease the wheels. You might get away with being a Manager if you do something tangential to your current job, but the further away you switch, the less you can expect.
2. McCourt is where ethics and ambition comes to die (exception for the MPM program since that has a much better program management). As an alum, I would be wary of hiring a McCourt alum unless there are significant mitigating factors that show ambition and ethics. Also if you want to go into politics, political power players don’t really go to McCourt. GU Politics program they brag about caters to undergrads and will matter less when McCourt moves downtown. The few McCourt alums that are elected to federal office are either unremarkable or arrested for crimes.
My recommendation is to figure out what jobs you really want to have and then I can recommend school options. 

1. If you are looking for a career in politics, you do not need to go to grad school - period... Figure out a way to get involved in local politics and rise up. If you want to go the work in DC for a fed government politics for a little bit route... grad school can help, but it is really easy to burn out that way, and I know next to 0 people who did it and lasted.
2. I don't think you would qualify for MPMs unless you have 7 or 8 years of non-intern work experience. Even if you did, you should not go to them unless you have a deeper resume. MPM programs are really for people to add some grad school shine to their resume + advancing in their current industry and not really for job switching.
3. You can and should do much better than McCourt. If you hate quant so much, I recommend more suitable academic options than McCourt.
4. The fame or prestige of your recommender doesn't matter beyond being an established professional who knows you well. The recommendation is about understanding how you would fit in the community, your employability, and compensate for any of your weaknesses. 

I think you need to understand how they are quant heavy. They are quant heavy on data/economic analysis, which only really gets at on part of math. The reason is because in a more data centric world, in order to be fully competent in understanding the details of the policy formulation/performance side of the house (emphasis on policy... not politics), there is a strong argument for understanding analytical methods and processes.
Quant should also be understood in terms of two ways. Depth of quant and scope of quant. A program like NYU Wagner is not too deep and not that broad. My program at Georgetown McCourt, was moderately deep (we had to understand Calc principles, but not do Calc per se), but really intensely broad (5 mandatory quant based classes). A program like Chicago Harris is intensely deep, and moderately broad. Some programs at Johns Hopkins are intensely deep and intensely broad in terms of quant.
 

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.

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).

Just got waitlisted to the MPP program at McCourt, doesn't feel that great considering MPP programs aren't that competitive. Makes me second-guess my credibility and competitiveness as an applicant 
Also thank you @GradSchoolGrad for being so active here and on Reddit about MPP's and McCourt! Have been a follower of your podcasts for a while and they truly helped me when preparing for my applications!! 

Quick Q; why not YSE?

So essentially McCourt Scholars is a two stage process (there are some modifications over time, but broadly, this would be how it is done).
Stage 1: You get the call for an interview. This is usually consists of two professors interviewing you who are generally aligned towards your professed policy interest area. This is because they generally want McCourt Scholars that have diversity in policy interest areas (and identity diversity in general). Usually those people who get to this stage impressed upon their interviewer with their policy interests/background per the application packet.
Stage 2: Based upon the interviews, there is generally a scholarship board that discusses who are the 5 or so people that get the scholarship. 
From the rumor mill. There have been lots of complaints in recent years that a shockingly high number (pushing even to vast majority in some years) of McCourt Scholars are not involved with the student community, and so more questions and more consideration for potential community involvement have been structured.
Winning the Game:
There are essentially 2 things that give you a leg up on getting a McCourt Scholarship
a. Coming from a top brand undergraduate and/or master's institution. If you went to Harvard/Yale/Princeton/Oxford/Cambridge your chances of getting a McCourt Scholarship is roughly 50%.
b. Appeal to the sentiments of the interviewer and build a connection. If you look at the background of those interviewing you, you'll figure out what they generally care about how and how to speak to substance that appeals to them. Everyone I know that got an interview that didn't get a McCourt Scholarship generally had more obscure policy interests/background that simply didn't appeal to the interviewers as much. 

You should probably get work experience and then apply for MPP, but you might be a graduation risk if you go for DSPP to the admissions office. Please appreciate that both DSPP and MPP best cater to quant focused jobs coming out of McCourt.

Why you are mad homie?
If you think you are Kofi Annan, go ahead a get your groove on, and leave this board and resplend us with some peace and quiet.....

In what universe have development jobs decreased over the past decade? WTF are you even talking about. 

A big picture you are missing is that Development jobs overall (for lots and lots of reasons I can make a podcast about) have decreased in the past decade, so there is overall less demand for people interested in development. So naturally, the pipelines going through IDEV have only become drastically more competitive,

I go by two things: one, if you gotta ask, you probably know the answer; two, don't ask anybody here, they know nothing about your institution, go directly to HR, they will have a specific answer for you.

Agree on the above esp. the quant.    
If you want to pivot you might explain why/ what you have done in order to start achieving that goal.  If you write about immigration, have you done anything in your roles? Did you work on visa sponsorship in your previous HR/ recruiting job?  Did you volunteer at an immigration non-profit/ ACLU, etc?  
I agree on GW Elliot and Georgetown Walsh.  Also, look at Princeton SPIA, they give full tuition + stipends to all enrolled students.  Yes, they focus on public service, but if you look at student + alumni bios some have worked at FAANG jobs. Yale Jackson has good funding, too.  
Admissions have in-person and virtual sessions some with just admissions some with students/ alumni/ faculty.  I would attend if you are able even virtual sessions as it gives you an idea of the program. 

Why are you seeking an MPP? I am asking to understand how I can better advise you.