soaps

I don't know why you think a minimum 3 years is somehow "all-the-work-experience-in-the-world," or why it's an unreasonable requirement. Rather than thinking you're being discriminated against, maybe you should consider that it's not really in your interest to get a public policy degree with no work experience and that these programs are specifically tailored to hone skills/interests developed in the (relatively) early stages of public policy careers (rather than requiring, as you said,"a career behind [you] already"). What is a degree from a program like LBJ (which I point out only because it's the one you mentioned) going to do for you with no full-time work experience? Without that work experience, what basis would you have to even answer that question? I think you should reconsider how you'll spend a mere 3 years of your life. It can be hard in this economy even for those with work experience and a PP degree to get a job. Just a thought. That said, many programs talked about here admit people straight from undergrad. There is, of course, the risk you are paying a ridiculous amount of money just to start at square one again once you graduate. That is why many students with master's degrees from these schools that admit straight from undergrad are competing with undergrads for entry-level jobs.

A graduate degree in IR is important for working in federal agencies, not as much for working for Senator/Congressman X. You'll eventually find your Hill career stalled without an advanced degree, though, just like everywhere else... "professional staff" and doing "inherently political work" in DC will generally require a grad. degree. But the way to work on the Hill isn't to go to a school in DC... many people who go to DC policy schools think they have privileged access to internships and jobs (it's a marketing ploy by those schools), when really several schools there just oversaturate the market. I know that, where I worked in DC, we deliberately sought out people who weren't from those schools (especially since they tended to admit people straight from undergrad...i.e. with no real experience). I also got all my DC internships without living in DC, and that's not remotely uncommon. None of the top IR schools will be looked at any differently for DC jobs/internships, and for the Hill, it has a lot more to do with your home state and connections for an entry-level staff ass position. Easiest way to break onto the hill would be getting an internship where you want to work, then working up the ladder. It doesn't mean going to a DC policy school. You'd be spending a lot of time/money only to end up in an entry level Hill job anyway, which you can do without one of those degrees. DC experience is essential to get DC jobs, but DC schools aren't necessary for DC experience (especially not on the Hill). I hate to say it but the "instant gratification" path would have been to get a Hill internship while you were an undergrad, then get hired out of college. As it is you'd be in a kind of awkward limbo where you've probably come from a lucrative job and are too experienced for an entry-level staff ass position (and an internship), but you lack the DC experience that would allow them to confidently hire you for something more senior. I'd consider a more traditional IR path (defense/intelligence/diplomacy) and, if you like, you can always be hired as professional staff on the Hill later. Starting an IR career on the Hill is kind of a strange trajectory, in my opinion. The Hill can be very insular. It sounds like you want to be involved in policy planning, and foreign policy planning for the United States really happens in one branch of government, and the other provides review/oversight. How easily you can switch between the two (and which side is more substantive) is open to question.

When it comes down to it you're not going to get around the lack of Hill experience if you want to be a foreign policy LA. You're far more likely to be elevated to that position if you've worked for Congressman/Senator X for however many years and you've worked on foreign policy issues, or Congressman/Senator X trusts you and recommends you for that position elsewhere. A background (especially at a foreign policy think tank or something similar) and advanced degree would help you in that regard, but the experience matters more. I think anything in the executive branch is rather different. For the White House, you can break into the west wing fastest if you worked for the campaign. On the junior levels you might be able to secure something that way, but even then you'd have to be a networker extraordinaire and it's far more likely you'd get a strictly political position. Obviously senior foreign policy advisers have distinguished diplomatic/intelligence/military careers and there's no way around that. If you're a "hot shot" and don't like delayed gratification, try becoming a White House Fellow while going to school. That's a tried and true way of getting onto policy planning staffs, whether at State or elsewhere.

What are you guys even talking about? I've admitted defeat.. my Reese's have been eaten and my axes ground. At the end of the day you just can't argue with advice from some guy "at a more science-y university doing an unrelated master's." I shouldn't even try. You guys will have to excuse me now. I have some important career advice to give over in the physics subforum.

I don't think I'm misconstruing your posts at all. You admit not knowing anything about this field and yet you say HYP "basically run the US" and base your advice on that, despite OP's post about a very specific job that most certainly does not require HYP or law/business degrees. That not everyone is criticizing you shows how terrible these forums are at discerning good from bad advice. Everyone knows the value of HYP... it goes without saying, but you seem to think this is special insight based on life experience as opposed to being the eye rollingly banal observation we've all heard a hundred times. What makes it bad, though, is that you seem to think HYP is the proper remedy for any/every problem/question. If not, then what has been your advice exactly? Based on my life experience, nothing about your post is really relevant to this field or the specific job in question. Going to HYP would be great for everyone... but it's like a doctor saying "be healthy" or "don't get diseases!" It's not helpful advice... it's just obvious and not targeted/relevant. There's an excess of terrible advice on these forums and I'm free to point that out. But I guess I shouldn't be so critical. Nabad is right: first, get into HYP, preferably not HYP-lite (i.e. a public policy program), toil for a few years in the private sector, then--and only then, once you've paid off the extra debt of a JD or MBA--go try getting a job as a foreign policy LA with no Hill or foreign policy experience. Despite that needlessly circuitous path, you'll be fine because you went to HYP and could potentially be POTUS.

Funny how none of that has to do with becoming a "foreign policy adviser." No, you don't have to go to Harvard, Yale, or Princeton to be a foreign policy LA and you certainly don't have to go to law or business school. Where did OP ask about most of the stuff you're talking about, Nabad? It just seems like you wanted a soapbox to preach about HYP and diminish the value of non-HYP public policy degrees, while not even understanding the relative value of these schools in a purely IR context. Your friend went to Yale/Jackson and got a great position at the World Bank. That's great, but a lot of grads from IR programs go on to the World Bank... I know two just from GWU. Where did you get the impression from OP's post about "paths to becoming a foreign policy advisor" that he was asking how to navigate the upper echelons of government to become a "top leader" like POTUS or managing director of the IMF? There are certainly more "top leaders" than Ban Ki Moon, even non-HYP ones. Many cabinet-level posts have been filled by non-HYP public policy/IR grads, the most famous of which (right now) would be Geithner. And beyond all that, the blanket statements with regard to law school (any law school) and its value compared to a PhD are hilarious. Talk to an actual law student about whether debt should be a "big deterrent," even ones in T13 programs. I'm sure OP, contrary to everything he said, would be willing to sacrifice a few years of his life at a private law firm before switching tracks to foreign policy and gaining the necessary experience on the Hill that's far more important than an advanced degree. You sure as hell don't need an MBA, PhD or law degree to be a "foreign policy advisor" any more than you need Yale/Jackson to work for the World Bank. A JD/MBA will be just as marketable if they're from good programs as a public policy degree for what OP wants to do (assuming he has the prerequisite Hill/DC experience), but there's no point spending more time or money on something you're not even interested in unless, as Nabad seems to think, you want to become POTUS. Then yes, an MBA or JD from HYP might serve you better. @myshemblable, any of the top IR programs will do just fine. You don't even need an advanced degree, necessarily. It has far more to do with "climbing the ladder" on the Hill than anything else. You won't magically become some senator's top foreign policy wonk without having worked on the Hill on foreign policy issues, whether as a lower staff assistant or with a mix of Hill/NGO experience.

Jesus. These forums are ridiculous sometimes. Even if you think she has taken an excessive amount of time, it's not anyone's place to try to publicly shame her for it, especially if you have no actual stake in the outcome (which some of you clearly don't). Now that I think about it, it wasn't anyone's place to report someone's activity in a private Google group on a public board in the first place, and I regret it ever happened. @are we there yet? You can change the Google group settings so you can get fewer e-mails (or none).

I haven't either, but we aren't supposed to hear back until this month anyway and we still have half the month to go. Searching for off-campus housing this early won't prove very fruitful. June or (more likely) July are when most things for August open up.

Of course. I just think things have shifted to the facebook and Google groups.

Looks like it. Funny how your mind can change so radically day-to-day with grad school decisions.

I think taking 5 courses at SIPA is pretty standard after the first semester, even if you're working. But there's no doubt the time commitment and academics are rigorous and competitive. Living in NYC has the same unforgiving (but rewarding) characteristics, and that's true no matter what you're doing. You have to invest more to get more (interestingly enough, Thomas Friedman just wrote a piece about this in the Times, even though I normally can't stand him). Anyway, the biggest thing is just the "fear of missing out" that is greatly exaggerated there. You have to strike a balance if you want to be academically focused, and it just depends what type of lifestyle you want. There are weekends in the city where I just chill in the park, cafe, whatever... it doesn't have to be a fast/furious lifestyle on the LES every weekend, and that has diminishing returns anyway. The same is true of academics... there's a point at which you don't need to invest more time/energy into either. You can strike whatever balance you want in NYC, as nothing prevents you from having a pure academic focus at either school, and NYC at least provides the possibility of more. I imagine you'll do fine at either school and both will be distant memories soon enough. A rational calculus doesn't reveal much after a certain point. You just have to choose.

They are completely irrelevant (and absolutely misleading) for public policy schools that focus on international affairs, so they most certainly aren't the "best source out there." Somehow I doubt, even for pure "public affairs" schools, Indiana is better than Harvard and Georgia better than Princeton, which has nothing to do with prestige and everything to do with a school's resources, quality of faculty, and so on. Public affairs as an academic, non-professional discipline is what is being measured here. It's like "public relations" as an academic discipline (i.e. irrelevant). Academicians will have a natural bias toward academic programs, and most of the top programs discussed on this forum are not pure academic programs and most blend public with international affairs. If US News attempted a similar ranking for international affairs programs with no public affairs ranking, it would be like using APSIA to survey schools about the quality of pure public policy programs. It doesn't make sense and it's a fundamental flaw with the ranking. Anyone who goes to Indiana thinking they're at a more highly regarded program than Harvard/HKS is absolutely, 100% delusional. The schools with the best reputation in the government/public sector/NGOs as well as the private sector are not represented accurately in this ranking.

Just look at the top schools being talked about in this forum.... half aren't even on the US News top 25, mainly because those schools have an international affairs focus, but also because the US News definition of "public affairs" is completely unclear (and so is their methodology). The survey response rate is notoriously low (somewhere in the low 30th percentile), and professors will have a natural bias toward pure academician-types that are often only half the faculty at top programs. US News also has the International Studies and Politics ranking (http://www.usnews.com/education/worlds-best-universities-rankings/best-universities-politics-and-international-studies) that is more accurate for int'l affairs programs but is still an academic ranking and not oriented toward professional schools.

Oh Jesus, everyone knows the US News ranking is wildly inaccurate. No need to repost it here thus giving it more false credence. Asking people to provide their own rankings accomplishes literally nothing except revealing the biases of everyone here. If you want an informal assessment of the top programs, you can search practically every thread in this forum.

If you're having trouble finding a job, you can expect to continue having the same (or more) trouble in NYC. It's a tough market for people in our field. I'd send your resume out to employers there to test the waters. Maybe even use a friend's address in the city just to gauge your marketability. If you need to take classes, maybe look at one of the CUNY colleges (even out-of-state tuition is rather low) and consider finding a part-time job or volunteer work. I think that's a good way to fill gaps in the resume, but this is a hugely expensive proposition in NYC. Look at some cheaper neighborhoods/boroughs as well. As for the ROI, any public policy/IR degree should be an improvement on (and not a substitute for) work experience. You may find that, even with a graduate degree, you're starting from square one. That applies to any public policy/IR program in this economy, I think.