George Mason Schar School - Grad Programs - Thoughts

[GradSchoolGrad]

I was hoping some folks can give some input about the George Mason Schar School graduate programs.

I know people who went to that program 2 years ago or so and have consistently the same feedback. I wanted to check to see if anything has changed. 

[Acrimonia]

I've considered doing a PhD there, so I'd be curious as well.  What was their feedback?

[EscapingBrexit]

Isn't the real draw of George Mason the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, and the Mercatus Center? Does Schar do much with them? 

Edited December 14, 2020 by EscapingBrexit

[GradSchoolGrad]

4 hours ago, Acrimonia said:

I've considered doing a PhD there, so I'd be curious as well.  What was their feedback?

So my awareness of the Schar schools comes strictly from the experience of their Master's students + my coordination of events with their programming professors. I will acknowledge that this is 2-4 years old awareness and I know they have massively invested in their programming, so there may have been meaningful change.

The Good / Cool:

1. Schar has a large group of Professors in really cool and interesting research in really niche areas. For example, the foremost expert in White American Working Class political disaffection is in Schar. The foremost expert on Scottish Independence is actually in Schar and not Scotland. You should get the point.

2. Schar does have numerous unique connections with the Defense sector - especially as it relates niche things like NPT and bioterrorism 

3. Its campus is in Arlington - not Fairfax, and is decently accessible to the metro

4. Lots of interdisciplinary options and freedom to craft independent projects (I knew someone who did this awesome project on Student Athletes and the NCAA. 

5. Huge diversity of students in every which way - you get straight from undergrad to 50 year olds trying to do a late career transition with all sorts of diverse groups in between. 

Why I Recommend People Don't Go There Unless They Are Sponsored / Have a Highly Desirable Niche / In the Military for their MPP

1. Student experience circle 2017 feed back was that it was generally terrible in the sense that there is little to no meaningful student community and programming of value. It was very common to not have grad school friends or to socialize with grad school friends because people just went to class and left.

2. My friends who went there mentioned regularly about how unchallenging and easy the classes were. I know people who had high stress 60+ hours per week jobs who purposely chose the program just because they couldn't get promoted without a Master's degree at their company, and they knew how easy the programs were at Schar

3. A Brand problem. GM is viewed as a commuter school locally, and a lot of times people just don't take GM seriously compared to the other schools with graduate programs in the space: American, Georgetown, GW, Johns Hopkins, UMD, and if you want to stretch it - UVA... and that is just within the Capital Regoin

4. A curriculum problem - bottom line GM is on the much lower end of quant in their curriculum - like you can graduate with 1 basic level stats class for their MPP. This can be problematic when conversations are moderately data intensive (and yes this did happen when professionally working with a GM grad - great person though).

Final Thoughts:

My friends succeeded after Schar because they were all sponsored and need grad school to check the block. But they mentioned how bad they felt for their peers in non-defense areas in terms of employment opportunities + grad school experience. Again, this is dated to 3 years agoish. Things could have drastically changed.