giraff

Waitlisted :(

Claiming acceptance from UCSD. Email to check portal, mine was uploaded with the acceptance letter. No information about financial support yet, though.

Absolutely this. I only applied for 3 PhD programs in PoliSci. Nowadays I think it is insane to apply for 10+ programs in the top 20, there is no way they could have a large correlation of any kind of concentration. I often see folks here with "pending" lists consisting of programs with drastically different profiles/faculty research it is insane. A random Anon will put in the same basket Yale, Chicago, Columbia, NYU and UCSD and I'm here thinking: what was even your target interest when doing this lol EDIT: Anyone claiming being waitlisted by NYU?

Wait, you've been waitlisted for NYU and Duke?

The current situation of PSR is simply bewildering, but similarly to EJMR people there don't have filter, which can help if one knows how to skim correctly.

I think it is really hard that you (1) find, get interviewed, and be contracted as RA and (2) do meaningful research in time to get good letters and apply for the Fall 2023. Most RA positions I've came across are for one year. But I might be wrong.

This is what I was about to say about the usnews ranking. Yes, the "overall prestige" ranking is an implicit measure to know one's possible placement upon graduation. But that says little about the success of any given PhD graduate. Not necessarily they would fare better in a higher-ranked department than a lower one, at least considering schools in the top 20 tier. For instance, I want to have extensive quantitative training and do quant research, so Rochester/NYU are better for me than UChicago, definitely, even if UChicago is top 10.

So... since I got radio silence from NYU and the portal didn't change, I should take I was rejected, right guys? EDIT: late to the party, but also claiming a Rochester acceptance from Thursday (Methodology + CP).

Applied in 2019 and got only some MA offers. Now I'm considering applying again for top-25 PhD programs with a great RA experience, but still unsure. I'm wondering now if 166Q/161V is okay for an international student, given ETS just knocked down the percentiles. My 166Q puts me in the 84th percentile now and I'm worried. Places like NYU says on their website that they require 90th percentile, that is 168Q now....

My grades from econ will look dysmal to a US perspective. My college distributed terrible grades like candy, no one from my cohort graduated with more than 3.4 GPA as I'm aware of... But since I worked as RA at the IGO for an applied microeconomics research, plus was a TA in statistics, I hope to explain my grades were more an issue of my grading system being different. Speaking about the RA at the IGO, the short answer is: the project ended, and with it, so the budget for renewing my contract. The long answer is that I was helping in multiple projects from my PI, but 70% of my time I was allocated in a single research - renewing my contract for an extra 8 months was a budget miracle. I've learned researchers have to juggle really tight budgets every year to allocate shrewdly their resources in external contractors and pray that by the next year budget plan will get better (usually, it doesn't). Right now I've been given a verbal offer for a senior analyst position to structure some geo data plan for an international development non-profit in LatAm. Hoping it pans out. Thanks a lot about your suggestions! Definitely will put them in my essays/SoP.

My referees pointed out that in order to "keep the doors open" for a potential Policy PhD I must have formal Economics training during my Masters, and such "Economics" focused MPAs such as HKS MPA-ID or Princeton's MPA Field IV have intermediate/advanced micro and macro courses. That I already know. My worry is that my lack of specific professional experience is not enough to enter those highly competitive programs. Hmm... I didn't get it, that is to demotivate me to pursue the Masters? hahahah or to point out candidates will not have the necessary experience?

But then I took a look at the people from those IDev / MPA/ID classes from the top programs, they're usually one of the two profiles: They almost came from the same places, usually with 3+ years of experience: J-PAL/IPA/IDinsight, World Bank/IGO, Central Bank of their countries or the Ministry of Development, the UN. If from the private sector, the person worked for an MBB or a large IB for 3+ years in projects for the government or funded their own NGO. If not from those places, or with less experience, they did BA Economics from a prestigious American university (say, Berkeley). I'm sad because I prepared for so long for this application cycle: Economics undergrad from the top uni in my country, vast research experience in policy, cool volunteering, worked in policy/development in a developing country, strong LoRs and GRE scores... but my experience is fuzzy: I worked for 2 years in a Specialist policy/government position, and had to report the development programs of said company to the UN Global Compact, but this company is not MBB or IB - it was a mining company. I volunteered, but not for the UN - one was a RA for an Oxford program, and another in a small NGO in my hometown. I worked for a IGO, but not for 3+ years. The project ended after 1 year and 8 months. My academic background is very appropriate for PhD in Political Science, but I decided to not follow this route anymore. So I want to do this Masters exactly to pivot into this industry. I'm finding really hard to get an IDev kind of job with my experience in my home country (in here, one must have good connections to get in). I want to be able to do policy research and perhaps, in the future, get into a Policy PhD program, so I need a masters with heavy Economics workload, so MPP would not cut for it, it seems. I'm almost certain my profile does not fit the "cookie cutter" with what I've been seeing... perhaps it is a better idea to just apply for a MA in Economics?

Thanks for the advice! Programs more focused on domestic policy is not something of my interest, but being accurate on which schools to choose has been hard, because not all departments provide detailed placement stats. Ie., HKS MPAID has stats for employment for international studens, but many of those don't discriminate between national or international. More than the curriculum, there's the financial issue. I would not be sponsored, so I need some security I will find a job that pays in dollar or euros after graduating in case I have to take in loans. I'd like to ask, if you have this info, about the PhD. I'm struggling to find on internet any information about PhD in PP, most probably because there are very few graduates... All programs I've been seeing are really, really small. Generally PhDs take in a small number of students each year, but Policy seems something else: ie., Berkeley PhD in PP takes in 2 to 3 applicants each year, according to their website. I wonder if those PhD programs are designed to take in former MPA/MPP students from their own department, or even if have a Masters in a top American program is a must. In that case, applying for PhD now would be a waste of money I guess

I am an international student who will apply for MPA/MPP AND PhD in Policy programs this Fall. This is my second time applying. In 2019 I exclusively applied for PhD programs in Political Science (only top programs, my biggest mistake), didn't receive any offers for PhD but got 3 Masters offers in related programs. One of those was UCSD GPS. I'm going insane with my chances due my undergrad GPA. It is below 3.0 converted to 4.0 scale. Granted, I wasn't the best student having working or doing research for most of my undergrad (65th percentile if memory serves me right), but our grades were SEVERILY deflated compared to the US system. No joke, I guess the top student of my cohort had 3.3-3.4. My Masters GPA is very good, however. I'm mainly interested in programs with heavy quantitative workload, especially if it provides STEM visa. Schools / Programs: Harvard HKS MPA-ID, Columbia SIPA MPA-DP & GSAS PhD in Susteinable Development, Chicago Harris PhD in Public Policy, Princeton SPIA MPA, Berkeley Goldman MDP, Duke Sanford (awaiting response if I can apply to PhD and be considered to MPP as well), Tufts Fletcher PhD in Public Policy, USC Price PhD in Public Policy, Georgetown McCourt MPP, Yale Jackson MPP. Undergrad: Top college in my country, both BSc and Masters. Degrees: Masters of Research in International Relations/Political Science; BSc in Economics GPA: 3.85 (Masters); 2.75 (Undergrad) GRE: 166Q / 161V / 4.5 AWA (planning on retaking it to score 167Q+) Language Skills: Portuguese (Native); English (Fluent); Spanish (decent) Work Experience: 5 full-time by the time of application + 1 year of internships + academic-related jobs (TA mostly): Internships: economic analyst intern of Congress bills for a large national consulting company; worked for the Dean of the Economics dept of my University; 1 year at a Big 4; Almost 3 years as a Government Affairs professional for the private sector. Mostly working as a Legislative Specialist and analyzing bills, but also doing low-level typical lobbying stuff (meeting with State-level lawmakers and associations). Had the opportunity to represent the company at initiatives such as UN Global Compact; 1.5 years as a full-time Research Assistant at an IGO in a development-related research. Veeery intensive Quantitative work here; TA during my Masters (Statistics). Graded assignments and conducted Stata labs. Volunteering, Grants, Fellowships, etc.: 6 months: Coordinated and created the Advocacy initiative of a small Migration NGO linked to my University. Even had the opportunity to dialogue with a Congress Representative invested in re-creating the migration legislation framework in my country, which was nice 6 months analyzing COVID-related policy for the Oxford Government COVID Tracker chapter in my country; 1 year Grant for independent undergraduate research on urban transportation policy; Fellowship for outstanding performace during my Masters; Affiliated to the Quantitative Analysis Research group during my Masters. Presented working papers on international conventions such as ISA and LAPOP (nothing published, though); Very proeficient in Stata and R for quantitative analysis. Policy Area of Interest: International Development LOR: 2 from my RA at the IGO: one from a Head Economist (knew me well); other from a Policy researcher (PI, knew me really well). The other one will be from the Dean from the time of my Masters (she already wrote a letter, which was outstanding). My plan here is to ask for my former IGO superiors to write about my capacity to conduct heavy quantitative research, especially in policy. The ex-Dean will vouch for my academic credentials and quantitative preparadness (she once wrote me a letter saying I was one of the best graduate students of the history of the department, let's see if she still share the same sentiment now lol). International Experience: From a developing 3rd world country; Travelled solo to multiple countries, including Middle East and Cuba. Visited some zones of conflict/dispute such as Palestine, Ossetia and Abkhasia and the Iran-Iraq Kordestan border. Quant Experience: my undergrad was a true baptism of fire, it was rough. Had linear algebra, 2 calculus courses, 3 (!!!) econometrics courses and 2 statistics courses with professors from the Mathematics department. 2 Microeconomics courses and 4 Macroeconomic courses (including int. economics). Additional quantitative methods for research during my Masters. And, well, was a TA in Statistics. SOP: I will focus on my experience as Government Relations Specialist and RA at the IGO, but also on my research experience (of course, for PhD will be the RA + Research xp first and Specialist second). My Master thesis was in American Congress immigration policy (very quantitative), undergrad research was in urban transportation policy and my main project as RA was on environmental triggers for economic migration. I hope to leverage my experience as legislative analyst to explain I know how policy is implemented on the political level and my academic/RA experience to show I am deeply interested and capable of becoming a policy designer. Both Masters and PhD have the same objective in mind, to make me an effective policy designer for population most prone to be impacted by climate change & emigirating as result. I wish to work for INGOs, IGOs and the like. Thanks in advice for any suggestions.

Hey guys, Got a rejection from UCSD Tuesday and today I receive this overly generic e-mail inviting me to apply for their MPP program. They send this to everybody who is rejected? Just curious, because I didn't put to be considered for Masters in any of my applications.

Schools Applying To: Top choice is UCSD (superb fit, have Skype-talked with 3 professors about my intended application, at least one seemed thrilled). UCLA, UPenn, NYU, Chapel Hill, Chicago. Accepting suggestions!Undergraduate institution: international student, underdeveloped place, attended the most "prestigious" school in the country.Undergraduate GPA: no clue. Undergrad grades for Economics in my country are heavily skewed towards zero. Hoping to explain it in SoP and make up for it with grad ones.Undergraduate Major: Economics Graduate institution: same as undergrad Graduate GPA: 3.79 Graduate course: International Relations, research Teaching experience: teaching assistant, Statistics 2 Research experience: researcher associated to the institution, Master thesis, undergraduate research funded and presented at local university conference (independent research), co-autored paper (still working paper) as first author. Master thesis and paper are related to my main macro-interest in Ph.D Conferences & Publications: no publications. Presented poster in a a Canadian institution conference held here and accepted poster to be presented overseas in a conference jointly held by an American known university. Presented working paper in a regional conference and accepted working paper in a major American conference. All of those in my macro-area of interest. Other minor conferences attendances.GRE Scores: 161/161/4.0. Will retake in a couple of days, but not confident will keep my Verbal 161, so might use this in the end.Years Out of Undergrad (if applicable): 4, finished Masters this yearYears of Work Experience: 3 full-time, plus time as undergraduate researcher.Describe Relevant Work Experience: currently coordinate the legislative analysis in the government relations department in the local branch of a huge multinational. Often report Legislative analysis to the global office. Have to report legislative and political trends, committees activity, and write up my personal interpretation of political affairs for directors, industry associations and the board. Employ statistical analysis to identify Legislative clusters of representatives aligned with companies interests. Planned and implemented the advocacy group in a small NGO in my location related to my Master thesis main topic. Other experience includes measuring economic impact of critical bills and public policy. Quant Experience: TA of Statistics, applied advanced quant methodology in my master thesis (Writing Sample will be a trimmed version of it), graduate-level summer school in causal inference and computational tools. Plus all the quant that comes with Economics undergrad (calculus, linear algebra, econometrics, time series, spatial econometrics, and so on).Strength of SOP (be honest, describe the process, etc): Comparative-Legislative-focus on Latin America, explaining relevant research experience in this area. plus work experience that is totally relatable. Will mention quant background and experience with models. Have interests clear, choosing departments according to them.Strength of LOR's (be honest, describe the process, etc): My master's thesis advisor (not recognized overseas, but he is the person who most closely know my research). Professor who orgnizes the Methodology PoliSci group I attend, has close ties with Top 10 departments in the US. Professor who I briefly worked with and is largely recognized in Comparative overseas. All three from my country.Languages: Spanish, English Sorry if it got too long. Dunno, super insecure with GRE and such, especially because UCSD has an average of 166V/164Q.