[Maxwell School, MPA]

Does anyone know anything about it? It's consistently ranked number 1 (which everybody knows)..but why? Is it incredibly difficult to get into the program? Has anyone applied/gotten in and willing to share their experience?

I've just started the program and unfortunately can't give much insight, since I'm only about a week in. Don't know anything about admissions statistics, though I will say most students in my class have a few years of relevant professional experience and are generally pretty amazing people (there are a couple I've met so far straight out of undergrad). So far I'm really happy I came here.

What I'd recommend is both calling the admissions office and asking them for info as well as e-mailing previous years' students. Their contact details can be found on the Maxwell School website, under "MPA Community"

[Retaking GRE?]

Hey forum,

I am an international student who is planning to apply to MPAs and various other degrees (with a focus on energie, environment and economics) this year. Since I probably want to work back in Europe (or internationally) the name of the school and its international alumni network are quite a factor for me. The schools I am mostly interested are SIPA, HKS and Yale FES (with a dual degree). I am not sure how important the GRE is and would like to hear opinions if you think I should retake it.

I did well in the quantitative section (800) but didn't have time to exstensively prepare for the verbal part, so I did quite bad (430 and 4.0). I did okay on the IBT TOEFL with a 110 out of 120 but I still have doubts how schools will view my fair performance in the verbal section. Would you recommend me to re-take the GRE or spend the extra time on the rest of the application.

Any advice is appreciated!

You could try phoning up the schools and asking, or just e-mailing them. I got a 4.5 on the analytical writing section; I asked someone at a top 5 IR school whether it would be a problem and they said no, since there was plenty of other evidence that I'm a good writer (majored in literature, won award for my thesis). Given that you're an international student and you did fine on the TOEFL there's a chance they won't care about the verbal GRE score (I really doubt they will care at all about the analytical writing score), but it's a good idea to ask them.