stilesg57

Very possible. I met my Fletcher friend in Beijing last spring when I was living there, so you may have a point.

I'm also sensing that the MBA isn't what it used to be given our current economy and the recent flood of MBA grads. 5 years ago yeah, the MBA was the more versatile degree. But I don't think so anymore. While I'm seeing an employer demand for MBA skills I'm still glad I'm at an MPP program for what I want to do. I think there's incredible value in coupling the degrees. That gives the you MBA and all its benefits while also specializing in a specific field and demonstrating your seriousness in that area. The MBA will give you a business-skills advantage over the IRs and MPPs while the MPP/MPA/IR degree will be the edge over all the other generic MBAs by showing you're seriously committed to your specific field. Just my thoughts. I am currently applying to an MBA program under this reasoning.

Man, what is she doing with a joker like you? Since you're married and you'll be paying for both of your degrees out of the same family pot, the way to look at it is that you both got half-rides w/ a $4,200 stipend - a solid package! Then you just owe your wife dinner every night for the next two years

Caveat: Other than an alumna who's a good friend, I don't know much about Fletcher. That said, when I was working in DC, before I even knew what an MPP/MPA degree was, I knew about Maxwell. That program's alumni base in is famous in DC - jeez, I think even "The West Wing" mentioned it in an episode. Orange is worn proudly in the District. Fletcher, however, I hadn't heard of until I got on these boards and decided to look it up. So on name recognition alone - particularly recognition for a fervent alumni base - I'd have to give Maxwell a slight edge in profile over Fletcher. That's just my opinion though and name recognition isn't everything of course; it could be that I was only in certain circles in DC.

Regarding Duke, I've posted this somewhere else but I thought it would apply here. Someone was asking about specializing in a policy area when there aren't many elective openings: There are two schools of thought on specialization at Sanford. The first says that there are a ton of great resources for most specialization tracks (especially the Global, Health, and Social Policy concentrations) including incredible professors, an outstanding fellow group of students, and other campus resources that go along with attending a world-class institution like Duke. You can even focus on your favorite policy topic from within the core courses; many assignments and papers allow you to choose to do them in light of an education, environmental, health, or international relations focus. Also, the Spring Consulting Project your first year will most likely be related to your area of interest, and your Master's Project definitely will be. The other school of thought is that the program doesn't allow a whole lot of electives because there are so many core courses. There's only about five openings in the two years, which frustrates some people. So there are two ways to look at it. I was primarily concerned with the latter when I was shopping schools and marked it as a negative against Sanford, but now that I'm in the program I think the first scenario is the more accurate one. I don't know of anybody having a problem specializing in their desired field.

Oh, whatever! Final Four baby, here we come!

Whelp, clearly you'll do well at either of them This is a really tough call, almost a coin flip. Pretty similar programs, the intangibles mostly balance out, and the alumni/career situation is absolutely top notch for both. There is no clear answer on this one. Think of it this way though: you may be frustrated now, but in a year when you've been learning a ton in a great program you'll look back at this and think "what a great problem to have had!"

I'm sorry I missed this! Shoot me an email at garrett.stiles at duke dot edu (sorry for the cryptic email address, I just don't want any bots to find it and start sending me spam). I can put you in touch with a couple MPP/MEMs so you can get their take; I'm working on a big project with one so I see her like three times a day. I'll give them your contact info and perhaps they can answer some questions for you better than I can.

Hang in there - admissions season isn't over yet! As for what may have gone wrong, it's tough to tell. I lost an entire year back in '07/'08 when I applied all over the place - even to a couple "safety schools" - and didn't get in anywhere. I didn't know what I did wrong, but I sure felt like I wasn't out of my league or anything. I wasn't sure why until I had a friend who worked in the admissions office of one of the schools I applied to check my file. Turns out an undergrad professor (who I did a lot of work for and believed he liked/respected me) that I thought was a good reference sunk me with his letter of rec. The jack*ss literally wrote that he didn't think I had the capacity for graduate-level study. Who does that instead of just politely declining to write the letter? No wonder I didn't get in anywhere; I found another recommender for the following year and got into every school I applied to save one. Very frustrating as you can imagine (to say the least). I still want to choke the guy and do plan on one day calling him out face-to-face. So you never really know unfortunately Best of luck to you though!

The advanced track works like this: You are required to take two microecon courses and two stats courses. If you are a quant whiz you can test out of the first class of each pretty easily - about a quarter of my cohort did. For the next semester it is heavily encouraged that everyone take the standard micro and stats courses as they get significantly more difficult and are focused on policy applications; however, if you can show that there are better classes offered for your ability level (often deep in the bowels of the Economics and/or Mathematics departments) and you have the knowledge to test out of the standard courses, you can take harder ones. 2 people from my class are doing that. Both are numbers guys and have strong finance backgrounds (one of them is one of the aforementioned classmates who chose Sanford over Harris after visiting both). As for "facilities," the condition of the Harris building is what they were referring to. Harris is supposedly pretty run down and scheduled to be moved into a new building in the next few years. Just from the pictures you can tell it's not on par with the (much newer) Sanford or Ford buildings. I hear the rest of the U Chicago campus is nice though.

Hi all, Sorry I've been away for several days, I wish I had a better excuse but I've just been catching up on a mountain of work (so much for spring "break"). Paradox has a great point with the caveat that "everything is subjective," so it's important not to take the boards or alums or open house weekends or US News as gospel. That said, it's a good thing when you agree pretty much 100% with someone else in your program who has an entirely different background, is at a different point in the program (2nd year vs. 1st), has an entirely different skill set (Paradox could teach the stats class that I struggled to pull a B- in), and has different goals. It's interesting for me to hear that a 2nd year has seen a difference in Sanford's openness with other programs. I don't see that because, frankly, in my short experience Sanford has been almost completely transparent with the other professional schools. I've taken a class at the business school (Fuqua), the environment school (Nicholas), the engineering school (Pratt), and as of next semester I'll be taking Environmental Law at the law school. I have not run into a single issue with this - not one. So its interesting to hear that there's been improvement on that front in the recent past. As for a couple of the other questions... I did not ask for additional funds for a couple reasons. First, up until the deadline to request additional aid I believed I was likely not going to go to Sanford. Second, while the package was smaller than some of my other offers it was bigger than most, and I didn't feel right asking for more (I would not recommend doing this again - poverty changes your sense of personal morality a bit). Finally, I didn't get a huge aid package from then-first-choice Michigan until VERY late in the acceptance process, well after the Duke deadline to ask for more funds had passed. So while I didn't ask for additional aid, I would encourage anyone to do so if you have other good offers. BTW, while I would have about $20k less debt had I gone to Michigan, I can't say that thought has kept me up for a single night since orientation week at Sanford. I like Sanford, and I'm about 95% glad I'm here instead of Ford While I also feel a little on edge talking about other schools since I didn't get to visit many of them outside of places I'd lived since undergrad (I did see, over the course of a couple years, all the DCs, UW Evans, UCSD, UCLA, Princeton, and CU Denver), I feel a little better after talking to classmates who got to attend several of the open houses last year. Interesting enough, one of the top two or three strongest quant students we have in my class turned down Harris after visiting. There were enough quant options for advanced students here at Duke (let's just say we haven't been in a single econ or stats class together - he's on the advanced track and I most definitely am not!) and he liked the rest of the program better. He really liked Sanford's facilities better; frankly I've heard that from every person in our class who visited Harris. Personally, I took Harris out of the running pretty quickly because I didn't feel comfortable with the required quant load (not necessarily harder classes, just more of them), I didn't get any funding whatsoever, and I don't want to live/work in Chicago or the Midwest where their alumni base is the strongest.

My point was this: I didn't really consider career resources very carefully when I was choosing a program. Though its worked out splendidly with Duke having such a strong career center, I could've easily ended up in a place that didn't. Now that I know how important it is, I would've spent more time shopping career services last year than I did. A lot more. That said, Duke's career services are ridiculously on top of their game. Coming from an undergrad with virtually no career services, I'm frankly shocked. The career center is almost another class here - required workshops and progress reports and so forth. They're always keeping tabs on you and helping you out. Again, all very new to me and VERY nice. I don't want to rip on UCLA's career services since I'm not a student there (and have never been one), but I didn't come away very confident when I spoke to them over email last year and I haven't heard many nice things said about it since. Make sure you check it out very carefully and get details. Good luck with your decision!

Like the topic says, this is the Duke / Sanford MPP thread. Feel free to ask any questions and I'll answer (as much as I can) in a somewhat timely manner. There's also a 2nd year in the program who lurks around these boards...

For you So-Cal peeps who applied to a couple schools in the area (UCLA, UCSD, USC, etc.), I'd STRONGLY advise shopping career centers as much as programs. It's something I didn't prioritize as much as I should have when I was making my decision last year, and frankly I just got lucky. All of these top-tier policy programs are excellent academically, but its the career center that's going to get you a great job. FWIW I shopped UCLA and UCSD very hard last year after being accepted to both. I turned down UCLA due to living costs basically washing out the scholarship they offered and turned down UCSD because I decided the IR wasn't the degree for me. If I had known then what I do now, I would've shopped career services MUCH harder.

I don't know anything about the school, except that Sanford does a one-semester study abroad exchange with Hertie. The two students we had last semester from that program were awesome and very smart.

One thing to remember is that the actual course curriculum you put together - what you actually learn from your degree - doesn't matter nearly as much as the three letters of your degree, where it's from, and what the school's alumni/career center situation is. This is why many MBAs are all too often academic jokes; they're designed to be two-year networking programs, not to teach a ton of graduate-level knowledge. But the three letters are better known than "MPP" so they generally do better in the private-sector job market. Sorry to be cynical but that's what I'm seeing. Virtually nobody has asked for my transcript, but they all see my resume and go "whoa, Duke eh? Nice." Depressing, but true

I committed to Ford first and then changed to Sanford. There are good reasons for each; Ford's a great school. It has several advantages from an academic standpoint in my opinion, whereas Sanford is has a more developed/emphasized management component IMO. Frankly, if I was committed to the "eventually getting a PhD" route I'd have stayed with Ford. Search Dagger's comments from last year and you'll learn a lot about the decision process (and mine, for that matter )

I don't know anything about financial aid announcements, except that last year I got mine within about a week. You can petition for more aid; it's a beautiful thing. See what other aid packages you're getting and let Duke know that you'd prefer to go to Sanford if the cost is at least competitive. They're willing to work with you (to a point of course) if you want to be here and recognize that Duke is going to cost more than No Name State University.

Not just different, but grad-exclusive. I'm in an elective course right now in the engineering school, and it's the first time I've had any undergrads in any class with me. The MPP core curriculum - which essentially makes up your whole first year and a good chunk of your second - is 100% exclusive to grad students at Sanford.

I think I can shed a little light here... Some MPPs do work in the policy centers, but not many, and virtually no first years. The reason is you're taking almost exclusively required courses the first year (perhaps my biggest complaint of the program) and you are UNBELIEVABLY busy. I took one extra class and audited another beyond the standard first-semester five-course load, and I averaged over 100 hours of work a week. No bullshit - I've never worked that hard in my life, and I did the 70 hr/wk consulting thing in Beijing. There's literally not enough time to sleep. I pulled more all-nighters last semester than I did in all of undergrad - by a pretty wide margin. I went 2.5 months without watching a single movie or a tv show, and I LOVE the Daily Show. This semester's better, but it's still a full plate. Sanfordites all joke we want to get jobs so we can finally relax That said, several teams working on their Spring Consulting Projects are doing work through or in conjunction with Duke policy centers, so there's some interaction there if you want it. Some 2nd years are pretty heavily involved with them too in their electives, internships, and master's projects, as are most of the PhDs. As for the lefty-ism: YES, it is frickin' uber-lefty. I'm left of most of this country and I've worked on two Democratic campaigns, but because I also worked for the NRA I'm perceived as being just to the right of Glenn Beck It's insane and annoying of course, but I guess I'm used to it because my undergrad was in the Pacific Northwest and I'm just used to academia being crazy left. I will say the military/security clique at Sanford makes it a little rightward of my flower-power undergrad, but not by much. Some of it's institutional to the MPP degree itself: everyone in a program like this by definition believes the government can solve problems and there's nothing morally wrong in working for it About that girl Megan - she's a hoot, it's a bummer she'll graduate before the next class gets here. And she's pretty centrist by eastern Massachusetts standards too. Don't read too much into a featured article - they rotate all the time and the last one was on a recent alum who had been appointed to something by Bush a couple years ago. As for the op-ed, you don't agree? You'll love Prof. Cory Krupp, a good ol' neoclassical economist and the best prof I've had so far. When you're perusing through the curriculum, I'd spend a lot of time looking at the required courses. They make up the bulk of the degree, and are the most challenging. It's very important that they're stuff you like.

She's class of '05. Majored in Public Policy Studies too, so questions about overlap might be particularly apropos. Send your contact info to garrett dot stiles at duke dot edu and I'll let her know you want to talk. We're all in the middle of a ridiculous 48 hr exercise (like a fraternity initiation for policy geeks) right now, so I wouldn't expect anything before Monday. And sorry for the cryptic email address, but I worked at a software company a few years ago and learned about all the spam bots that troll the web looking for addresses in the standard format and I'd like to avoid them

Just had a thought: if you're interested, I'm pretty close with a girl from our class who went to Duke for her undergrad (graduated in '07 I believe). I could put her in touch if you have some specific questions or just want to reminisce about how much the Tar Heels suck

That's definitely an issue in academia, where institutional diversity is valued. But from what I can tell, it's not an issue at all among the employers that are hiring from professional programs. Not one bit. I don't blame you for wanting to come back - Duke is really nice Some locational diversity might be beneficial from a personal standpoint, but perhaps not if you've experienced many different parts of the country/world already. For example, I grew up in Colorado, went to school in Washington state, and have lived for the better part of a year or more in California, Idaho, Beijing, and DC/Virginia/Maryland. I knew when I went to Duke that the locational diversity experience of living in the Southeast wasn't really a positive for me, since I've been around and decided that I won't settle for living anywhere other than the west coast or mountain west. I'm not really "growing" by doing my gradschool in NC, just wishing every day that Duke was located somewhere west of Denver So the whole "grow as a person from diverse experiences" thing may not necessarily apply.

Take your pick. A guy 5 years out of SAIS who wrote a letter of rec for me is working on green technology investment in China with PriceWaterhouseCoopers. His partner, a Harvard undergrad from Moldova (yeah, I had to googlemap it too), was 3 years out of SAIS. Another girl working on a similar project is 10 or so years out, but she's more senior and working on the money/finance side of things rather than the analysis/consulting side and I feel very comfortable saying she's a millionaire. The head of CSR for Nike in China is a SAIS grad; judging by her age I'd say she's no more than 10 years out. Three people I worked with at KPMG in the Shanghai, Manila, and SanFran offices were all SAIS grads - all were mid-30s or younger. Finally, a girl I grew up with (who's a couple years older than me) just graduated last year and is working with the UN on public health issues in central West Africa. I was shocked at the utter dominance of SAIS grads in Beijing and Shanghai. Consulting, finance, social entrepreneurship - you name it, they were running the show. Seeing how Natalie (my childhood friend) is doing in a completely different job on the other side of the globe leads me to believe it's not just a China thing either. That's my experience with SAIS grads. I knew it was a great program before last year, but my experience in China really opened my eyes to just how good SAIS is.

Hey Diver Gal Sorry, I don't know anything about Nick's numbers, other than their minor debacle last year (and that everyone's app numbers are up). I'm working with a Nick dual degree tomorrow morning on an outside consulting project, I'll ask her and see if she knows anything.