rjs1635

Hey all! Been lurking for a bit and would appreciate some guidance. I'm early in the process (won't apply until next cycle, most likely) and I am mostly looking for advice on how to think about a) which schools I should target and b) how to assess how competitive my app would be. Background: I live in DC currently working at a small national advocacy/research nonprofit. My interest is in domestic policy, and specifically economic policy, land use policy, tax policy (kind of eclectic; hopefully still useful lol). I'm working in nonprofit world now and while i wouldn't be opposed to a policy analyst job with some prospect for advancement back in the 501c3/c4 space, I think my preference is for government work. I think I would like to end up back in DC but I'm definitely not opposed to school elsewhere (and open to being pulled elsewhere, geographically, post-grad). I've worked hard since undergrad to get my career off the ground - and get out from under some undergrad debt - and i'm pleased with the results(!) lol but i think it's time for a new phase, and it feels based on my resume and the market like an MPP makes the most sense. applying to: TBD but at this stage primarily considering programs w/good quant reputation and national brand e.g. Harris, Ford, Goldman (see below) undergrad institution: flagship east coast state school undergrad major: poli sci years out of undergrad: 7 undergrad gpa: 3.47 GRE: will take this winter - I'm a strong test taker and have a plan to prep so I expect to be able to score above 75 percentile quant background: outside of undergrad where I took basic stats courses for social science majors, i've taken more basic stats for inference and R courses on the job, though my R skills never really developed. otherwise my work experience has required basic quant skills but nothing beyond. lots of experience in basic data viz (we're a small shop and a lot of the visualizations we publish are done in-house), but definitely room to grow there too. relevant work experience: i think this is one of the stronger parts of my app: 6 years and counting at a national advocacy/research nonprofit based in DC working in a pretty niche field where i started in grantwriting, moved into research, and advanced from assistant to director in 4 years. my byline is on almost all our public-facing stuff (sector media articles/op-eds, reports, etc) and i've been leading advocacy research project teams since before i was promoted to director. i've gotten some direct policy analysis experience specific to tax policy, but not much. strength of LOR: tbd, BUT I am concerned about this because i've been out of undergrad 7 years and have lost connection with professors so all my LOR will come from professional contacts (but which I have every reason to expect will write great LOR!) strength of SOP: tbd; i'm a strong writer Big questions rn for me, again: a) which schools I should target/how to differentiate between the top tier programs and b) how should i assess how competitive my app would be? Thank you!!!!