HKS vs. SAIS vs. Stanford IPS

[sneakyred]

I'm in a very fortunate position as far as admissions go this year, but now I'm having a hard time justifying to myself the cost. I'm interested in development economics research with a multi-lateral agency after graduation, and I'm well-aware that my salary would be modest. I've been accepted to HKS and SAIS with partial funding, but these amounts would still leave me with close to 100k in loans. Stanford IPS apparently provides wonderful aid opportunities (in the form of assistantships) during the second year, although I didn't receive any first year funding from the program. On the other hand, I could go to Cornell's CIPA with minimal debt.

I'm interested in getting the best quant training as possible, but the HKS and SAIS networks are tempting. In addition, many of the economists whose work I admire in development economics are in Boston at HKS or MIT.

So....what would you decide?

[lns25]

Congrats on your choices! From what I know, IPS is not going to give you rigorous quantitative training unless you go way out of your way to get it, and if you want to work for a multilateral idev agency, I would think SAIS or HKS is definitely your best bet. Stanford is awesome with social entrepreneurship and development start-ups, but not the place to go for multilateral agency goals. I know SAIS funnels a ton of students into such organizations, and I imagine you'd have similar options with HKS. Don't know about Cornell. I didn't get the impression from IPS admissions or students that the funding opportunities in the second year are all that significant, but it is a much smaller program so I suppose your chance of getting one of the 50% assistantships may be higher than elsewhere.

I don't know what "minimal debt" entails exactly, but if I were you, I would look into the specific quant classes you'd get at Cornell and the employment stats in multilateral agencies. If they both seem satisfactory to you, I'd take that and avoid ~$100K in loans. If the quant stuff is weak or hard to get into and they don't have that many alumni in aid agencies, you can just about guarantee you'll get to work in one if you excel at SAIS. Fortunately, pay scales in multilateral agencies are relatively easy to track down, so calculate what your payments would be and whether the positions you'd qualify for would be doable given your debt load.

Just my 2 cents. Good luck!

I'm in a very fortunate position as far as admissions go this year, but now I'm having a hard time justifying to myself the cost. I'm interested in development economics research with a multi-lateral agency after graduation, and I'm well-aware that my salary would be modest. I've been accepted to HKS and SAIS with partial funding, but these amounts would still leave me with close to 100k in loans. Stanford IPS apparently provides wonderful aid opportunities (in the form of assistantships) during the second year, although I didn't receive any first year funding from the program. On the other hand, I could go to Cornell's CIPA with minimal debt.

I'm interested in getting the best quant training as possible, but the HKS and SAIS networks are tempting. In addition, many of the economists whose work I admire in development economics are in Boston at HKS or MIT.

So....what would you decide?

Edited April 14, 2010 by lncs85

[globalsun]

Congrats on your choices! From what I know, IPS is not going to give you rigorous quantitative training unless you go way out of your way to get it, and if you want to work for a multilateral idev agency, I would think SAIS or HKS is definitely your best bet. Stanford is awesome with social entrepreneurship and development start-ups, but not the place to go for multilateral agency goals. I know SAIS funnels a ton of students into such organizations, and I imagine you'd have similar options with HKS. Don't know about Cornell. I didn't get the impression from IPS admissions or students that the funding opportunities in the second year are all that significant, but it is a much smaller program so I suppose your chance of getting one of the 50% assistantships may be higher than elsewhere.

I don't know what "minimal debt" entails exactly, but if I were you, I would look into the specific quant classes you'd get at Cornell and the employment stats in multilateral agencies. If they both seem satisfactory to you, I'd take that and avoid ~$100K in loans. If the quant stuff is weak or hard to get into and they don't have that many alumni in aid agencies, you can just about guarantee you'll get to work in one if you excel at SAIS. Fortunately, pay scales in multilateral agencies are relatively easy to track down, so calculate what your payments would be and whether the positions you'd qualify for would be doable given your debt load.

Just my 2 cents. Good luck!

Hi inc85,

I think you have severely misrepresented IPS. First of all, IPS has a superior quants than SAIS and the HKS MPP. The quant prerequisites are heavier than any other program outside of MPA/ID at Kennedy, and most IPS students have already complete the economics courses that most SAIS students are required to take for their economics track. The program is also tailored for multilateral work given its emphasis on transnational issues instead of regional area concentrations common at SAIS and SIPA. The program director and many IPS faculty also come from work in the UN, IMF, and World Bank, so to say it does not help student get into multilateral agencies is laughable. Most second year IPS students also do get real research and teaching assistantships that does provide for tuition and a generous stipends, something most IR graduate programs do not offer. SIPA's second year "fellowship" is really laughable by comparison. SAIS or HKS are also not known to provide additional support in the second year and low paying hourly assistant jobs are about the best you could hope for on campus.

FYI: Fukuyama is coming is also leaving SAIS this year and joining the IPS.

[lns25]

Sorry, it was absolutely not my intent to misrepresent IPS, I apologize. I was sharing what I learned from talking to an IPS student a few weeks ago. It's true that IPS has more quantitative prerequisite classes and that the program's courses start at a more advanced level, but the person I talked to said they were not as good as she was hoping, though perhaps that's only her opinion and other students are more satisfied. About the multilateral orgs statement, I should have said "maybe not the place," and explained that an IPS student told me that and what her evidence was. She said that the professors in general, including one specifically who had worked in a high level position in the UN, had been surprisingly unhelpful about getting students (or presumably at least her) job contacts in multilateral organizations. She emphasized this issue to the extent that I felt like, if I wanted to work in a multilateral agency myself, it might be trickier coming out of IPS than a bigger program. As it turns out, that's not really what I want to do and I'm much more interested in social entrepreneurship, which Stanford is probably a much better place for, possibly the best in the world, (anyone considering this should definitely check out http://extreme.stanford.edu/) but I can't go there due to some personal constraints. I agree that the IPS curriculum as a whole is well tailored for transnational issues and multilateral work, but the other schools have functional concentrations that could give you a similar experience. Perhaps the evidence I was given was too anecdotal and job contacts in multilateral orgs really aren't hard to track down for other IPS students. I know that Sarah Tung, who is responsible for a lot of the career advising and job placement for IPS students, is very well liked, but there are also no employment stats on the website, so it's hard to gauge whether what this student told me is likely to be true for other people or not. Do you know IPS students from the last couple of years who have landed in multilateral orgs?

I don't think anyone would argue that IPS isn't a very strong program and it sounds like the size allows for a pretty awesome experience in terms of face time with professors, advising, access to resources, etc. I'm assuming you know far better than I do about fellowships for the second year. If you say "most" of those students get fellowships, and those fellowships cover 25-50% of second year tuition, then it could make a considerable difference. If you know some of the numbers, it would be very helpful. Information on the IPS website about fellowships is, as with most of the schools, not all that detailed, so it's better to hear this from a current student.

As for Fukuyama, I think I posted somewhere above in this thread that I had emailed him about his joining Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute, to ask whether he thought I should go to IPS if it meant I could have a chance to work with him, or go to SAIS, and he suggested the latter. I pasted most of his email into the thread. I'm not entirely surprised that he said that; he built much of the IDEV program and is likely to be pleased with his results, whereas he said he didn't know IPS well. He's also working on a book, which I assume will be taking most of his time and explains why he would only be teaching one class per year (at least for now) while he's at Stanford. I imagine he'll do some great lectures beyond that, though. I'm sure any contact with him for IPS students would be very valuable, and it's certainly a loss for SAIS, but my impression from his email was that his involvement would not be as extensive as I would have hoped.

Hi inc85,

I think you have severely misrepresented IPS. First of all, IPS has a superior quants than SAIS and the HKS MPP. The quant prerequisites are heavier than any other program outside of MPA/ID at Kennedy, and most IPS students have already complete the economics courses that most SAIS students are required to take for their economics track. The program is also tailored for multilateral work given its emphasis on transnational issues instead of regional area concentrations common at SAIS and SIPA. The program director and many IPS faculty also come from work in the UN, IMF, and World Bank, so to say it does not help student get into multilateral agencies is laughable. Most second year IPS students also do get real research and teaching assistantships that does provide for tuition and a generous stipends, something most IR graduate programs do not offer. SIPA's second year "fellowship" is really laughable by comparison. SAIS or HKS are also not known to provide additional support in the second year and low paying hourly assistant jobs are about the best you could hope for on campus.

FYI: Fukuyama is coming is also leaving SAIS this year and joining the IPS.

[lns25]

Oops, it wasn't in this thread that I had posted the thing about Fukuyama's response, but here it is:

I'm in a similar dilemma myself and emailed Prof. Fukuyama about his departure to ask whether he thought I should go to SAIS or IPS (vs. Fletcher, SIPA, HKS, Wagner, etc.) given that I've been working in i-dev, will continue after grad school, and had really been hoping to work with him specifically. He told me to go to SAIS. He's only going to teach one course at Stanford and maybe not specifically for IPS students. He didn't answer my questions about whether he would be serving as a faculty advisor or hiring research assistants. Here's the gist:

" It's hard for me to tell you too much about the Stanford IPS program since I've never worked directly with it. I will probably only teach one course a year when I get out to Palo Alto, and it may not be in that program. I do know that it is much smaller and less well established than SAIS. One huge advantage that SAIS has is its location--much of the development world is physically located in Washington, which gives you a tremendous leg up in networking, internships, and seminars. So overall I'd say SAIS would be a better choice."

--note: this had nothing to do with the multilaterals question, it was more a response to my particular career goals and to say what his involvement would be at Stanford, at least tentatively

Edited April 15, 2010 by lncs85

[globalsun]

Sorry for the very late response to each of your concerns:

First, there are some people who did not enjoy the professor in the Stats and Econometric courses in the Law School due to the teaching style, but that has been ameliorated by the option to take the those courses in the Polisci department.

Second, in terms of placement in multilaterals, several members of last year's graduating class landed jobs at the IFC and the World Bank, mostly due their contacts at Stanford. In fact World Bank internships were being thrown at IPS students last year. So Stanford alumni and faculty are absolutely well connected in D.C. And yes, the Extreme Affordability course is amazing at Stanford since you get to work abroad and work along side top students from the law, business, engineering, and medical schools.

Third, in terms of funding, 1/3 of the class received full assistantships for their second year, essentially meaning they did not have to pay for their second year. Also tuition requirements are lower in the second year since course work is more project based, meaning average tuition is around 24,000 dollars. Definitely the most affordable major IR/Policy degree, second to WWS of course

Lastly, as for Fukuyama, he is currently teaching An Introduction to Political Development course in the PoliSci department which is open to IPS students. And yes, he has and will continue to do some great lectures for IPS students.

Hope you are having a blast at SAIS!

Sorry, it was absolutely not my intent to misrepresent IPS, I apologize. I was sharing what I learned from talking to an IPS student a few weeks ago. It's true that IPS has more quantitative prerequisite classes and that the program's courses start at a more advanced level, but the person I talked to said they were not as good as she was hoping, though perhaps that's only her opinion and other students are more satisfied. About the multilateral orgs statement, I should have said "maybe not the place," and explained that an IPS student told me that and what her evidence was. She said that the professors in general, including one specifically who had worked in a high level position in the UN, had been surprisingly unhelpful about getting students (or presumably at least her) job contacts in multilateral organizations. She emphasized this issue to the extent that I felt like, if I wanted to work in a multilateral agency myself, it might be trickier coming out of IPS than a bigger program. As it turns out, that's not really what I want to do and I'm much more interested in social entrepreneurship, which Stanford is probably a much better place for, possibly the best in the world, (anyone considering this should definitely check out http://extreme.stanford.edu/) but I can't go there due to some personal constraints. I agree that the IPS curriculum as a whole is well tailored for transnational issues and multilateral work, but the other schools have functional concentrations that could give you a similar experience. Perhaps the evidence I was given was too anecdotal and job contacts in multilateral orgs really aren't hard to track down for other IPS students. I know that Sarah Tung, who is responsible for a lot of the career advising and job placement for IPS students, is very well liked, but there are also no employment stats on the website, so it's hard to gauge whether what this student told me is likely to be true for other people or not. Do you know IPS students from the last couple of years who have landed in multilateral orgs?

I don't think anyone would argue that IPS isn't a very strong program and it sounds like the size allows for a pretty awesome experience in terms of face time with professors, advising, access to resources, etc. I'm assuming you know far better than I do about fellowships for the second year. If you say "most" of those students get fellowships, and those fellowships cover 25-50% of second year tuition, then it could make a considerable difference. If you know some of the numbers, it would be very helpful. Information on the IPS website about fellowships is, as with most of the schools, not all that detailed, so it's better to hear this from a current student.

As for Fukuyama, I think I posted somewhere above in this thread that I had emailed him about his joining Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute, to ask whether he thought I should go to IPS if it meant I could have a chance to work with him, or go to SAIS, and he suggested the latter. I pasted most of his email into the thread. I'm not entirely surprised that he said that; he built much of the IDEV program and is likely to be pleased with his results, whereas he said he didn't know IPS well. He's also working on a book, which I assume will be taking most of his time and explains why he would only be teaching one class per year (at least for now) while he's at Stanford. I imagine he'll do some great lectures beyond that, though. I'm sure any contact with him for IPS students would be very valuable, and it's certainly a loss for SAIS, but my impression from his email was that his involvement would not be as extensive as I would have hoped.