Hilary89

Thanks for your response! I emailed the admissions office but I'm not going to hold my breath on hearing back from them (as they're likely in the throws of reviewing applications) but if they respond I'll post the details on here. I think I'm just going to go ahead and at least try to get the economics under my belt in the near future. I'm just wondering if it would be best to focus on advanced mathematics (like algebra and calculus) or focus on statistics. I'd be interested in the MIA, not the MPA, so do you think 1 or 2 statistics courses would compensate for my lack of math background?

Hi there, I'm not planning on applying to grad school for another year or two, but I want to make sure I am as competitive of an applicant as possible. I think the program I'm most interested is the MIA at Columbia's SIPA. The one thing though is that they appear to be very economics heavy in their admissions requirements, even though their curriculum for most concentrations only one basic econ class and one statistical analysis class is required. I studied econ in high school and learned a great deal of the fundamentals through my other classes in undergrad, but I only took one actual econ class in college and it was an environmental econ course : / So basically I'm missing the microeconomics and macroeconomics that they seem to emphasize in their application process. Would that severely hurt my application? I have a 3.6 GPA, a transcript well geared towards the program and significant research and work experience in Asia and Africa (although I haven't taken the GRE yet so I'm not sure how that would affect my app). Should I be looking into taking a micro and macro econ classes before applying? If I took them at a community college would the credit be accepted as valid at a school like Columbia? Any insights would be very much appreciated. Thanks! -Hilary