GeraldineFord

State_school: Some syllabi can be found on the Ford website (home page > curriculum > course listing > [subject area search] >in the search results, a link to the course syllabus will show up under the course name if it's available). If the syllabus isn't on that list it might be on the professor's personal website (faculty > faculty directory > [professor's listing]). I've heard professors say that they don't like to post their syllabi because doing so generates a lot of email from people doing independent study. Plus I don't think current Ford students use the website much... people here tend to learn about courses by talking to the professor or going to Coursemart. (Coursemart is pre-registration event held every semester during which all the professors give two-minute spiels about their upcoming courses. It's fun!) There are a couple of second-years doing joint MAE-MPP programs and a number of people in the first-year class are considering it. I imagine the admissions office would be willing to give you some names, or you can ask around if you do a campus visit. It sounds like Chicago would be a great academic fit for you. I really hope you (and everybody here) end up in a program they love as much as I love Ford. Method: When I read threads like this last year I felt scared too! I'm not gonna lie: if you don't like quant, an mpp program can be a bit rough. But it will also be extremely intellectually rewarding and the challenge will help you grow professionally, so it will all be worth it.

Hey, current Ford student here. When I was applying I was also frustrated that evvveryone said their program had "really hard quant." During one of my last campus visits, I finally asked, "Okay, which schools don't have a lot of quant?" The students I was talking to just said, "Umm.... Bueller?" So obviously you're going to have to read between the lines! I asked a lot of questions about quant because I didn't want to spend two years doing nothing but problem sets (which sounds like it puts us at opposite ends of the MPP student spectrum), so take what I say below with a grain of salt. Honestly, based on the research I did as an applicant last year, I'm not sure that any of the schools I considered (Chicago, Duke, George Washington, Georgetown, HKS, and Michigan) have quite the level of economics coursework you want in the policy school. I agree with avr2012 that policy schools just don't see courses with a lot of economic theory/ proofs/ etc as a good fit with their core objective of training practitioners. So I think what you really need to be asking current students, professors, and academic advisors about are the provisions for taking courses outside the policy program. (You should probably also be looking at adding something like a master's in applied economics to your MPP/MPA if you haven't already explored that sort of option.) It's important to talk to current students who've taken courses in other parts of the university. When I was doing campus visits last year, the admissions staff all said, "You can totally take classes at other schools, no problem, you'll just have to get a couple of forms signed, yada yada." But when I asked students who'd actually tried to do this, I got a lot of stories about red tape, unwelcoming professors, scheduling conflicts, etc. Michigan was an exception in this regard (not even trying to be unbiased here-- I LOVE my school) and I've been very happy to find that taking non-Ford courses is actually even easier than people told me it would be. I've taken two business school courses, a law school course and a phd course in the political science department. I have friends here who are taking graduate courses in the math department and the economics department and it seems to have been pretty easy for them. (Full disclosure: the person who took the phd economics courses is a standout who's probably headed for a phd program, so I don't know whether their experience is typical.) I suspect that this isn't exactly the answer you were looking for (sorry!) but hopefully it gives you something to work with. Good luck with making your decision!