younglions

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'm pretty sure that LSE rate is how many students actually enroll relative to how many apply. In my experience, LSE admissions aren't super competitive (I got into their Public and Economic Policy program as a 20 year old with decent GRE scores and only an internship under my belt). I think the acceptance rate is three to four times that of the matriculation rate.

While IR programs, on average, are more selective than MPPs, the difference isn't too great. In fact, some of your schools have acceptance rates over 50% according to Petersons:

Columbia 39%
George Washington 41%
Fletcher 34%
Yale 21% (just a bit different than your figure)
American 66%
UCSD 53%

I'm almost positive that SAIS and Georgetown are less than 30%.

Also, the two different disciplines' acceptance rates probably can't be directly compared. IR programs typically desire previous international experience, which is usually harder to come by than domestic experience, plus proficiency in a foreign language. Public Policy programs typically desire more quantitative preparation.

If I were to crudely rank programs in terms of difficulty of admissions (as in how difficult it is to achieve the "desired profile") I'd probably come up with something like this:

1. Princeton WWS
2. Harvard MPP
3. Georgetown MSFS
4. Stanford International Policy Studies
5. Johns Hopkins SAIS
6. Berkeley GSPP
7. Fletcher MALD
8. Yale IR
9. Columbia SIPA (IR)
10. Georgetown GPPI
11. George Washington I.A.
12. UCLA/Chicago MPP

Yale would be higher than Berkeley, but my impression of Yale is that it's very academic and doesn't require the same international/career experience as the top programs in both public policy and international relations. The same could be said about the relatively unknown Stanford program.

Of course, these "difficulty rankings" are only relevant if you're interested in an internationally-focused career. They're probably also way off target. And I'm probably forgetting a school or two. It's all just for the sake of discussion.

I didn't see much in your post about career goals. As long as you're not out for one of the "sexier" public policy careers, there shouldn't be any problem with going to a school like ASU or Oklahoma. I have a friend who graduated from the ASU school of public affairs and he is now working in local government pulling in a bigger salary than I expect to for a very long time.

I don't know what it takes to get into some of the less-well-known schools you mentioned, but I caution you against setting the bar too low for yourself. College grades are often the result of effort, and not necessarily classroom intelligence. If you can get an above average score on the GRE, you're obviously intelligent, so all it will take is the effort. I recommend you not to just shoot for a GPA above 3.0, but a GPA above 3.5. Also, I would really work hard to get your cumulative GPA over 3.0. The psychological difference between a 2.95 and 3.01 can be huge.

Anyways, congratulations on deciding on a career path. Your GPA isn't going to keep you out of a lot of programs, just make sure you can put together a good application package. Good luck!