younglions

No idea. I'm just a student without any involvement in the process. It is very late here though, and I hope our dear admissions folks are taking a deserved rest from work.

Congrats to those who have been accepted so far. WWS is a great program, and should you decide to come, I'm sure you will enjoy it.

I received an e-mail today confirming an August 14th move-in.

This actually sounds great. I'd love to have you as a classmate.

You might want to look into strict economics/statistics programs. I'd suggest Columbia's MA in Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences. You could also go over to the UK for a year and get a MSc in Economics/Econometrics from a school like LSE, SOAS, etc. There are lots of US terminal econ programs, but they're generally considered weak. I don't know if the reputation is actually warranted though. If you prefer a traditional MPP or IR program, Berkeley and Chicago are reputed to be quant-heavy, especially if you take the more rigorous courses. Unfortunately, there's going to be required soft courses.

The Graduate Institute in Geneva has some great offerings in international economics: http://www.graduateinstitute.ch/economi ... aster.html . If you want a lighter quantitative load, look into their MIA. They're also a member of APSIA and are surrounded by international orgs. The UN is literally across the street. LSE has a pretty wide variety of programs, but I think most have their faults. (Either being too academic (IR), too quantitative (msc economics), or not quantitative enough (development studies)). My favorite program they offer is their MPA in Public and Economic Policy. Oxford has an interesting MSc in Economics for Development. Other European IR programs that are accredited through APSIA are at the University of St. Gallen, MGIMO University, Sciences Po, and the Stockholm School of Economics. My preferences, as an English speaker, would be: (1) Graduate Institute, (2) LSE MPA, and (3) Oxford. If you speak French, Russian, German, or Swedish, you might want to look into those other APSIA schools. If you want to work in the US afterward, you might want to stick to one of the bigger names.

HKS is a great school, but if finances concern you, make sure you don't limit yourself to just one option. There are a lot of fantastic MPA/MPP-type programs that award substantial aid. From my experience, the programs that hand out the most are Princeton, Chicago, and CMU. I specifically applied to all three of these schools after researching typical aid packages, and I was handsomely rewarded as a result. To answer your question on HKS, it seems that they consider both need and merit, and probably strongly consider cohort diversity as well. Unfortunately Harvard's funds are rather limited compared to some other programs. On this board there was a pretty sizable contingent of admits last year, but only a small handful received any sort of funding.

Have you taken real analysis? I recommend checking out the testmagic economics forum. It's very active.

I never received anything. Just the electronic contract, and some information from my department regarding logistics for a pre-term "camp." If housing/the graduate college does plan on sending something, they better do it soon as I'm moving into Princeton housing on August 14th.

You have an impressive academic profile. If Princeton does turn you down, it won't be on account of inadequate GRE scores or grades. I'll be matriculating into WWS in just a few weeks, and I've read brief profiles on most of my future classmates. There's a decent percentage of students--perhaps 10%--who are coming straight from undergrad. A common trait uniting nearly all of them is that they've received prestigious scholarships or fellowships (e.g. Truman and Pickering). If you're eligible for these, and still have time to apply, I recommend doing so. Regardless, send in an application because you're at least competitive. Your internship experiences sound quite relevant and might be what gets your application into the admit pile. As for IPS, I think you've got a great shot. They don't demand as much work experience and seem to appreciate academic accomplishment more than some other schools. Good luck!

Stanford IPS is a great program, however it's young and hasn't had an opportunity (or perhaps hasn't tried) to establish itself as a topnotch terminal policy degree program. Considering this, the barriers to entry, especially in terms of work experience, are lower than you'll find to the north at Berkeley or at east coast schools like Harvard and Princeton. On the other hand, Stanford has more stringent academic prerequisites than most other programs including calc-based stats, which undoubtedly reflects its more academic approach to the field. I think Stanford is a great program for academic high-achievers who aren't interested in gaining some work experience before pursuing their masters. It seems like a great match for you, and I bet you have a good shot.

Yes, that's the complex. Personally, I was hoping for OGC, which is right next to NGC, and by all accounts, nicer.

Congrats on getting into a great program. I'm sure you've had some interesting experiences. But, you don't believe in volunteer work?

sisepuede - I'll be showing up to Princeton with only luggage as well. I've been doing it over the past three years though, so I'm used to it. What math camp track do you plan on doing? I'm going to go for Track C, but I've been real lazy with my prep.

I have a best friend who received both an MPA and an MPP from ASU's program. He worked full-time while studying and still managed to graduate as the program's outstanding student. Most of his classmates were mid-career types pursuing their degrees in their free time for career advancement within their current organizations. Overall, he was happy with the experience and the degree has contributed to a pretty solid career. He's currently making more than 80k/year working in local governance on the west coast. Also, I would caution against painting any large state university with a broad brush stroke. ASU is home to some outstanding departments and is consistently one of the top 5 schools in the nation in terms of national merit scholars, fulbright scholars, USA Today academic first-teamers, etc. Yes, the school is largely a sea of mediocrity, but within that sea exist islands of excellence. Edit: I don't believe admissions are difficult. My friend applied real late in the game after deciding his political science degree wasn't going to get him anywhere. Within a week or two he decided to apply, took the GRE without preparation, and sent in his application. He's a smart guy, but I don't imagine he put together a fantastic application on such short notice.

I received my contract Tuesday morning for the new graduate college--an option I didn't even request. Nevertheless, I accepted the contract. I think they are sending out contracts by building, so if you haven't received one yet, it's likely you're in neither Butler nor the NGC based on this forum.

"I am driven by something lacking in most of my soon-to-be-colleagues: an actual (as opposed to lip-service) love of country and a desire to drive through change and reform in the best interests of the people." That sounds like public service to me. Just make sure it comes through in your personal statement--I think not focusing in on the public service aspect is one of the biggest mistakes prospective students make. Also, I probably don't even need to say this, but make sure to tone down the cheekiness in the personal statement. I probably wouldn't point out faults in any other group.

unigenitus - I don't think most schools are going to discriminate against your private sector experience. In fact, I believe most will embrace it, but only if your commitment to the public sector is revealed through your activities outside of work. Do you volunteer, do you belong on any foundation oversight boards, have you involved yourself in the political process, etc? You don't need your public activities to dominant your body of work, but there must be at least something of substance. Remember, actions reveal preferences. Linden pointed out that Princeton values previous public sector experience more so than other schools. Broadly defined, this is true. Princeton is in the unique, and enviable, position of having a gigantic (recently $800-million) endowment that stipulates that the money must be used to train future public leaders. If the school doesn't meet this mission, the security of those funds becomes jeopardized. In fact, the school recently reached a settlement with the donor's heirs for a case in which the heirs claimed the school wasn't meeting this mission because, among other reasons, not a sufficient percentage of WWS graduates were pursuing public careers. Princeton needs to ensure that its students are going to pursue public service careers after graduation, and I'm sure they've determined that previous public sector involvement is a great predictor for that.

I just wrote a long reply, but my browser closed unexpectedly. This one will be much shorter, and only cover one of your questions. The difference between an MPP program and MPA programs are discussed at the Berkeley MPP program website: http://gspp.berkeley.edu/admissions/faq.html . You mentioned that you are interested in Princeton. Although the Princeton program is abbreviated MPA, it is not an MPA program as defined on that website. The Princeton MPA abbreviates Master of Public Affairs, which is the precursor to the masters of public policy. (Princeton's program started in 1948 and has retained the same name even though new programs offering the same curriculum are now referred to as MPPs/)Of course, the ubiquitous "MPA" title represents master of public administration.

I'm in the Woodrow Wilson School. ---- Anybody receive their housing decision yet? As of 3:05 Princeton time, I haven't received anything.

FSIA - thanks for the great information on housing decisions. Hopefully I will get mine Friday. On Sunday I am going to go camping and won't have internet access for at least a week! Also, just for everyone's information, I live in the western half of the US and received my netid and password on Monday.

Has anybody received their Princeton NetID password in the mail yet? I see that my name/email/netid has now been added to the directory at princeton.edu, but I still haven't received the password. I believe that I read somewhere that our housing decision gets sent to our Princeton email address, so I'm eager to have access! I also applied to the OGC. Does anyone know when we should hear by? I have mid-June in my head, but that might just be wishful thinking.

Received an e-mail today stating that I wasn't selected. Overall, I'm not too disappointed since I am already fully funded. I hope some of you receive better news!

I don't know anything about MIT IR, but my guess is that's it more academic and doesn't weigh work experience as much as other more professionally oriented IR schools do. In that sense, it might be easier to get into because you don't need to go through the requisite 2-3 years of accumulating relevant work experience, but it's perhaps more difficult in that you need to make sure your academics are quite strong. For schools like HKS, WWS, SFS, and SAIS, (among others), you need both.

I'll probably randomly check the board and look for opportunities to champion WWS... Got to protect the value of my degree! In all seriousness, I will return next year--posters like xnormajeanx really added a lot to the board this year with their insights into programs.