ocula

Great, thank you for that perspective!

Someone please tell me if I'm making a huge mistake! I am an international student whose interests lie in cultural policy and its intersections with social policy globally, but particularly in Southeast Asia. My current goals are to work within cultural policy in the US for a few years after graduation before moving back home. I've been really lucky this cycle and have been admitted to some great programs: UChicago Harris MPP ($), Duke Sanford MPP ($$$), Berkeley Goldman MPP (0), Columbia SIPA MIA (0), Yale Jackson MPP ($$$$) At present, given the generous funding, I am leaning heavily towards Yale Jackson. I am currently negotiating funding packages with Harris and Sanford, but it's unlikely that they'll be able to match the full funding Yale is offering. Other reasons why I'm leaning towards Jackson include: Focus on global public policy and there's also the Council of Southeast Asia Studies at Yale Access to classes at SOM which would be great for me to learn about non-profit management and to apply that to the cultural sector (Jackson students are apparently also very successful in applying for the concurrent MBA degree with SOM at the end of their first year) Smaller class size; tons of funding and opportunities for projects and programs at Jackson especially since it's just been launched as a new professional school Fantastic World Fellows and Senior Fellows attached to the program All that being said, there are some things that concern me about the program and I'm wondering if these are big enough issues for me to reject full funding from Yale in favour of one of my other options?: Jackson doesn't have the robust policy analysis core of other MPPs It's a relatively new and untested program Limited Jackson alumni network and career development support, particularly compared to programs like Harris I'd love to hear any constructive feedback! Please also let me know if there are other pros/cons that I should take note of.