state_school'12

Yeah, f'that - let's just go to Berkeley! It's a lot cheaper for someone out of state, that's for sure.

I'll just add that there is something about Harris' curriculum that captivates me. They have a lot of courses, and reading the descriptions and syllabi leads me to the conclusion that these are very, very substantial courses. But that's where the attraction to Harris ends, aside from the brand of the university, and its location. I want to start a thread titled, "What's the deal with Harris?" I've found those occasional negative comments from Harris students deeply troubling. Also, watching On the MaPP from 2010 I wasn't very impressed with the dean/former dean. For what that's worth.

Snippet: Apparently Sanford had 29 PMF applications, 12 interviewed, and 7 selected.

Check your email for the notice. Chat for newly admitted students. http://bit.ly/dukeMPPonlinechat.

Two points: One prospective I've heard repeatedly, which makes a lot of sense to me, is that the pedigree of the school will have the greatest impact on your first or second job. The effect will diminish, as the work that you've done moves to the top of your credentials. To that point, I'd add that having a reputable school attached to your name may help the chances at a senior position that bears scrutiny from the public. If you wanted to be the president of a non profit, I could see that having a degree from Harvard could help snag potential donors, etc. As to the money/prestige trade off, each gives you flexability in a different way. Obviously a degree from Harvard will open doors that wouldn't exisit (or wouldn't open as easily) as a degree from No-Name State University. However, $100+k in debt will also limit the types of positions you can take.

Go to WWS. This isn't a difficult decision (from my prospective ). At HKS, you'd be one of several hundred MPA/ID/MPP, etc etc students, many of whom are paying out of pocket. At WWS you'd be in a small cohort of elite students that Princeton has committed to supporting, because they believe you hold great promise as alumni. As for rural NJ being too quiet, it's only two years, you can internship in NYC or whereever you want, and you'll probably be so busy you won't really care. Harvard my have slightly more international cred, but compared to all of the advantages of going to WWS, there's no comparison. WWS is much more selective than HKS. Just go!

Nice job guys!

Arrrg, that's pretty much what I've learned as well. Not sure how CA is able to be so generous with in-state status when their budget problems appear to much more troubling. I'm thinking Michigan may be out of the running for me...

I just got an email with a funding award. $5000/semester. Does anyone know how hard it is to get residency for the second year?

What's your alternative school?

According to the grad cafe survey, they sent out notifications over the course of several days. So don't give up!

armychick, that really sucks! Why not just tell you? USC doesn't do email notifications?

Thanks guys.

Thanks eigenvector! Am I looking at this right? http://www.ro.umich.edu/tuition/tuition-fees.php#fullterm So, tuition and fees are $10k+ /term for resident, 20k+/term for non-resident? Or does "Full Term" mean three terms? Three terms/academic year... So, $57k for one year of out-of-state tuition and fees? That's got to be wrong...

And am I'm in! Funding info to follow. Wow, seven for seven. Unbelievable.

Berkeley is my dream school. Right now, my two concerns are funding my first year, and ensuring that I can take more advanced quantitative coursework. I emailed Martha about the second question, and I'll share what I find out.

I know, right? Last year they released decisions over a period of a week or so. They're running late this year. I'm so close to finishing, hurry up, Michigan!

I can tell you something from a slightly different perspective. LSE has one of the few economics masters programs in the world that is viewed as first-rate. Many econ departments award masters degrees only to those that drop out of the Phd program, so there's a not insignificant stigma attached to Econ MAs. However, an Econ masters (MsC, or whatever) carries no stigma. And "London School of Economics" will impress quite a few folks in the private sector consulting. No idea about IR/Dev though. I know the LSE places very strongly in the European Union, and is sort of the melting pot for future leaders. Funding is difficult, I've heard. In my current job (small U.S. consulting firm), we hired someone largely because he came from LSE (and fit all of our other requirements of course).

Hey Charlotte, I think you accidentally swapped the GRE scores and percentiles between quant and verbal: GRE Quantitative Score: 690 (94%) GRE Verbal Score: 640 (56%) GRE AW Score: 4.5 (72%) I got a 640 on verbal, too. Congrats on your admits!

Congrats you guys!

You could also ask the admissions folks at the school about what books to review. GSPP has a summer reading list, and then there are the math camps that some of the schools run, and typically go from college algebra through calculus.

Check out this online series for calc: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-01-single-variable-calculus-fall-2006/video-lectures/lecture-1-derivatives/

I suspect that those of you (us) that will trash the rankings will do so for the same reason you (we) trashed the last version: the rankings are rubbish. I mean, who the hell's heard of the University of Kansas SPIA (#9)? Which is apparently ranked above Duke, Michigan, Georgetown, Berkeley, Chicago, etc., etc. So, as hard as it is, continue to (almost entirely) ignore the rankings.

Oh, and Re the MPA/ID: Thanks for the suggestion, but that's not really my thing. I know that program uses a lot of heavy econ, but I'm interested in domestic policy exclusively. I've used Kennedy a little, and that book can really help with the intuition for sure. The thing about the PhD econ courses is that they're geared toward researching theoretical topics. In fact, most Econ Phd students just try to get through them with enough learning to pass the comps in the summer. They aren't even what 90% of Economists do. Most students will tell you that they learned most of the useful stuff in the field courses; drilling down on the specific models and theorems needed to analyze a particular area of economics, dealing with data, etc. Unless you want to study Micro theory, in which case you ace core micro. I'm looking for courses that function like the field classes, in that they use the language of math to fully teach concepts, but also provide a filter for the policy context. I won't need to prove why the Meyers-Brigs (edit: Haha) White test works for detecting Heteroscedasticiy (or whatever it does ), but I'd like to fully understand an applied economics papers that use that technique. Or give some justification for why and how to use in a Stata exercise. And re an economics MA, I am interested in the Masters in Applied Econ program at Ford. Do you know anyone there who's combined the MPP/MAE degrees?

Thanks for the responses you guys. One really nice thing that I've found about Harris is that they publish nearly all of their syllabi along with course descriptions. Do you know if Ford does this? I haven't been able to find it. So far, it looks like Harris offers a lot more in the way of quant, in terms of the number of courses, and the rigorousness of courses, than any of the schools I've looked at. (Wow, that's a terrible sentence. Moving on...) I see Harris has a parallel stats sequence, as well as advanced game theory (aimed at PhD Policy students). As I recall, Ford Policy/Econ Phds take mostly econ core classes. Unlike Ford, Heinz and Harris have in-house PhD policy courses that delve fairly deeply into econ/stats. Harris also has advanced Micro analysis, using Hal Varian's Microecomics. Then there are the field classes, education, environmental, etc. It looks like at Harris you have to use a lot more economics/stats than Ford, Goldman, and Duke. This seems like a major difference. At Harris is looks like you really apply the tools from the quant core to the subject areas. These are just a few observations I've made today from digging a little while at work. Let the discussion continue!