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PolicyApplier

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Everything posted by PolicyApplier

  1. For anyone applying for the 2022 semester, my application was submitted in March 2021 but was never reviewed because one of my official community college transcripts never got to USC. If you find yourself waiting longer than seems reasonable for a reply from USC, make sure to verify with admissions that ALL of your information is at the university. They won't inform you if parts of your application don't make it, or didn't with me at least.
  2. It’s great news, but I definitely wasn’t expecting anything before mid-December. Best of luck, y’all!
  3. Heh, I appreciate the perspective. I’ll also keep that money factory angle in mind as well.
  4. One of my letter writers worked at the FAANG spot, not me. The MPP and MPPDS programs are the primary ones, though the redundancy is definitely noted. We’ve talked about this in previous threads. The MPAs, or rough equivalents, are things I’ll pursue if full-time doesn’t work out for whatever reason and I’m still feeling that route. As far as the shotgun approach is concerned, I have a general idea of what I’m looking for and the advisors from each spot seem to think I can accomplish my goals within those degrees. My mentality currently is that I’ll shotgun them out and then decide afterward if a program or any program specifically fits. A lot of it stems from a “don’t count your eggs until they are hatched” mentality. Your words are noted and appreciated though.
  5. My updated AW score for the GRE is 4.5 (80%), seems I can no longer edit that post.
  6. All applications will be submitted on December 1st, except for Chicago which was submitted in August. Program Applied To (MPA, MPP, IR, etc.): MPP Schools Applied To: Georgia Tech (MPP), CMU (MSPPM-DA and MSPPM), Chicago (MSCAPP and MAPP with Research Methods), USC (MPPDS), Minnesota (MPP), Georgetown (MPP-DS), Berkley (MPP), Michigan (MPP), Duke (MPP) Schools Admitted To: Schools Rejected From: Still Waiting: All Undergraduate/Graduate Institution: Top 40 USNews school/Directional southern school Undergraduate/Graduate GPA: 2.79/3.25 Undergraduate/Graduate Major: Microbiology/Biology: Computational Biology GRE Quantitative/Verbal/AW Scores: 157(62%) / 164(94%) / 4.0(54%) Years Out of Undergrad (if applicable): 9 years out of full-time graduate school. Years of Work Experience: 9+ years of work experience. I've worked as a software engineer throughout that time and as a technical project manager and people manager in varying degrees as well. Describe Relevant Work Experience: I'm presenting myself as a technically competent person interested in creating robust data sets for national and state-level policies regarding voting rights and reproductive rights. Strength of SOP (be honest, describe the process, etc): I think it's pretty good. I've had them read over by about three people, all of who have had pretty good academic success, and have put them all through several edits. My general angle is bringing up policy lifecycles and the need for professionals that can sift through the noise to find signals for x or y outcomes. Generally, talking over these points with advisors from the above schools has gotten me positive comments, so I presume as long as they are well-written, I'm in a good spot. Strength of LOR's (be honest, describe the process, etc): More professionally focused than otherwise, but they show me as a civically active, compassionate, and capable person. One is the social worker contact that I have through some volunteering I did in the previous year, focusing on my ability to see that problems in society are often multi-faceted and my general sense of empathy. The other two are from my coworkers, one is my manager of two years, and the other is a staff-level software engineer who was previously an academic and 15+ year FAANG employee. Those two letters focus on my ability to achieve consistently, my fondness for learning, and my compassionate approach to business. Other: Given that I am a working professional and well out of school, I am at a point where I want to apply to these schools and figure out where I'd like to be, depending on the schools I get into. Should I decide against those above because I don't get in or decide that full-time isn't for me, I am also looking at the Minnesota MPA and UChicago MAPP programs. I know that my GPA is lacking, but my additional essay accounts for that and my hope is that my history of consistent promotions makes that less of a scare.
  7. I've seen a lot of people get full-rides to UCSD on this forum and seeing as you were accepted to all of the top schools that result should be possible for you. Anecdotally speaking, I have a friend that was deciding between two universities with one being ranked slightly lower than the other. She ended up picking the lower ranked one because they made a HUGE push (offering fellowships, stipends, etc.) to get her to go there. You may find your experience similar with the elite schools liking you, but the ones right below that doing most anything they can to get you.
  8. Yup! I applied to the MSCAPP and MA in Public Policy with Research Methods programs. I'm hopin' my early application will make the results a little more palatable than last year.
  9. Still waiting. This is ridiculous.
  10. Maybe it's due to me being in my mid-30s, but it seems like it'd be hard to uproot your life for a program when you only got a couple of day to week notice.
  11. Y'all still waiting too?
  12. I'm in the same spot. I guess they're slowly rolling out the results, so hopefully we'll get our answer within a week or two.
  13. I'll click into the new application part and see if that's the case for me as well. It's so strange that's July and they haven't gotten back to everyone yet. Weird times.
  14. I checked the youSC platform and didn't see a response, but the application site says I can only reapply at this time. I presume that means a rejection, but I haven't seen any sort of active confirmation one way or another. Anyone else?
  15. Thanks for your feedback, @2020applicant...! I didn't get accepted on my first attempts at UChicago or CMU and to some degree I'm expected the USC program to be a similar result. My end-goal is to have the tools needed to work in policy in some computational sense. That being said, I am battling GPAs that aren't up to par with most of the programs (3.25 in grad school and 2.9 in undergrad). My assumption that is unless I can get a 165-167 on my GRE quant (my last and only try was a 156Q/164V), these programs are all out of reach. That being said, I do appreciate your perspective as someone entering those programs. Hopefully as time goes on more programs will open up with fully-fleshed out mergers of computation and policy. With that in mind, I'm taking a look at evening MPP programs and information school programs like the Data Analytics and Policy MS at JHU. My hope is that they aren't as competitive and that I can still use them to work my way into data analysis and architecture roles at policy institutes.
  16. Out of grad school I was going to work at a place that heavily served the armed forces and I avoided going there because I thought I'd be handicapped due to lack of service. It would be odd to voluntarily handicap myself later in my career for an entirely different reason. I appreciate your points and I'll take them into consideration. Thank you very much for your input!
  17. Thanks for your input, @GradSchoolGrad! A little more history about myself. My academic background is a BS in microbiology and an MA in biology with two years of lab experience in bioinformatics, with one published paper. I was able to pivot that into a job as a software engineer about 9 years ago, so I will not be a new college grad at all. That being said, a lot of my knowledge of computation is more on an intuitive level than an academic or textbook level. The goal of this masters for me is to work my way into a policy research analyst role with the hope that I'll be able to institute some large data analysis pipelines as both a software architect and data scientist. Before that happens though, I'd also like to work in a policy research group and contribute to the field if at all possible. I know I'll likely be taking an income hit, but the masters is not only about the result as much as it's about having the ability to contribute at an academic level. I'm not sure if I'll be hunting for the typical MPP/MPA roles, but from what I've seen at Brookings, most of the people in research positions have MPP or economics degrees. Since I am wanting to get both data science and policy knowledge, with the hope of contributing to a policy research group, these degrees FEEL like the right move, but I am also a little out of my element here. Do you feel like your critiques still stand or am I on the right path given the additional context?
  18. I applied on April 30th and I'm still waiting.
  19. So you spoke to the Title IX office, which seems like the go-to spot. You could also request another meeting with the Title IX office and bring up scenarios like those happening at the LSU athletic department. You should also let them know that you are keeping a record of the correspondence and should he offend again you will promptly alert at the very least the student run paper on campus. The only other option I could think of would be to bring it up to either the dean of the college or the director of the program you are about to about to enroll in. Outside of that, you likely don't have any official recourse. There is always unofficial option of making sure people in your cohort know, but that feels like it could get you into some serious interpersonal/libel problems. If that doesn't feel like the right route to go, you can just make sure that when you're out at social events you monitor their behavior and promptly let everyone know their behavior part of a pattern of aggressive behavior should they act that way again. All of these actions involve a potential opportunity of retribution from either the university, should they have paid their way in, or from the individual in question. Keep records and make sure to store them in a spot that is outside of the university's reach (not on their servers, their email host, etc.).
  20. I'm a software engineer that is looking to get into public policy and found that MPP programs with a computational focus would likely be the best way to take advantage of the skills I currently have and the skills I want to acquire. That being said, it's a little difficult to find these programs as the internet is big and contains multitudes. Below are a list of programs I've found that match the criteria I've laid out, but I fear there may be some I'm missing. If y'all know of any that match the criteria, or would be a good spot where I could add some courses to make a general MPP a computation one, I'd greatly appreciate it. 1. UChicago MSCAPP: https://harris.uchicago.edu/academics/degrees/ms-computational-analysis-public-policy-mscapp 2. USC MPPDS: https://priceschool.usc.edu/mppds/ 3. CMU MSPPM Data Analytics: https://www.heinz.cmu.edu/programs/public-policy-management-master/data-analytics 4. Georgetown's MS in Data Science for Public Policy: https://mccourt.georgetown.edu/master-of-science-in-data-science-for-public-policy/ 5. Georgia Tech's MSPP: https://spp.gatech.edu/masters/mspp - I included GT because they are a technical school and I've talked to their advisors and they said you can include a whole lot of computational courses into their curriculum.
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