Lud

What's your degree ganenjie? I don't know about these grades you're talking about but I can say that when it comes to PhD admission grades aren't always the most important thing; what matters possibly more would your actual research on particular topics, your grades on specific topics related to your project proposal and the relevancy of your approach given the department you apply to.

You got admitted? Congrats! As for me I can't receive phone calls where I am but my family might get one (I understand they called you from your message). My status still mentions "in consideration" on the internet.

Decisions should be notified between today and wednesday so we're all waiting for now.

Hi Alicia, on this thread () you might find a few things. On the number 1, my personal advice would be that you should try to narrow down what interests you more in the "development affairs". Say you could select a sub field such as health -and working / volunteering experience would be great for that so you would be actually sure that s what you want. Once this is done, you should search good univerisities that are specialized in these sub fields and organize your application on that basis. Just my 2 cents. I have no personal knowledge of development MAs but I remember some friends who enjoyed studying at Lund, Oxford and I think Mc Gill, so maybe you could take a look into that. On the 2 just as a general comment I think it's ok to work for the private sector before going in development related careers; since competition is generally (overly) tough to get non-profit jobs, it is even a very good move to get a significant corporate experience before shifting your caree while using the skills you got. I know people at the UN who got there after studying management and working for banks / financial services for 10-20 years. Also something to look into.

... Come across this and thought I would share it here. Sorry that´s the French version.

Sounds great, good luck with that!

I am a European citizen though I currently live in Thailand. Where are you from?

After googling on this (I mean the way to write a SOP) I have also observed that there seems to exist a very American way to write this document -at least many official American websites show that. Apparently it's ok to begin by something very personal and supposedly unique (for example "My grandmother died during the genocide and this immediately called my attention on the fact I would like to study international affairs later on"), then putting past experiences in perspective ("I discovered x at high school then went on studying that at college while playing with x in an NGO") and finally a brief conclusion. I m not sure how relevant it is for the IHEID but it does seem to confirm that there are many legitimate ways to write a SOP.

HI! Sorry I don t have the answer you need as I didn t study there, but I was just wondering out of curiosity, do you totally master all these Asian languages ? Quite impressive if it's the case! Are you considering other schools? Speaking of Asian Studies (though it probably doesnt interest you now) you probably know that but Stanford has a famous school, and of course Asia offers a few great schools now (Singapore, South Korea). Good luck anyway!

I know quite a few people who got in having 2-4 years of working experience, including 2 years as Peace Corps.

I actually heard very bad things about this school but it was about another degree, so-called interpretation conference but that in fact was not a sound and adequate program -just a cash machine. Have you applied to other schools?

Right to the point!

I am not sure; you should ask them through the FB group, they seem quite reactive.

Surely there's no miracle strategy for your SOP anyway. I am even sure that you might write an outstanding SOP with a poor profile without making up for it, while you could have a strong profile and write a fairly bad SOP with no impact on the outcome of the admission. It also depends on your personal situation; say, if you have many experiences or few, if they relate exactly to the degree you're applying to or if you have to write 1 page before putting everything in perspective... Though I would say that, taking into account the fact that there's normally no space limit for your resume (so it could be a 4 pages resume with a brief explanation of relevant courses, research papers...) you could maximize your efficiency by strictly focusing on certain aspects on your SOP without referring to past experiences that would precisely be described in your resume. But once again what matters most is the quality of your overall application so there's no need to worry jumpercon, good luck!

Yes, maybe the school is great but that particular degree is not that outstanding. Or more accurately, maybe those who have not outstanding profiles but do have lots of money (or who are brave enough to take huge loans of course) take it whereas there's no real advantage for it.