UC San Diego GPS - 2024 MPP Applicants

[IndominusTaco]

Hey folks,

 

As the January 15th deadline just passed for many schools, just wanted to kinda reach out to see if anyone else is nervous like me. I’m mostly on edge for UC San Diego as it’s my top choice program and I don’t think it’s a very strong application due to my LOR’s. Anyone else applying to GPS and want to share their application experiences?

[isitimportant]

Hi, I applied to MPP at UCSD GPS last year and was accepted. It is one of my top choices, though for some reason I didn’t commit to it. Any specific thing that you wanna ask?

[IndominusTaco]

12 hours ago, isitimportant said:

Hi, I applied to MPP at UCSD GPS last year and was accepted. It is one of my top choices, though for some reason I didn’t commit to it. Any specific thing that you wanna ask?

What program did you end up going with? Was there any specific reason or reasons that you decided against GPS? And do you feel like you had a strong application or do you feel like you were surprised to get admitted? Just trying to gauge how competitive it is since the website says they only admit 50-75 students every fall and like I said I do not feel confident about the strength of my application.

[isitimportant]

16 minutes ago, IndominusTaco said:

What program did you end up going with? Was there any specific reason or reasons that you decided against GPS? And do you feel like you had a strong application or do you feel like you were surprised to get admitted? Just trying to gauge how competitive it is since the website says they only admit 50-75 students every fall and like I said I do not feel confident about the strength of my application.

Reason not going to UCSD: I end up committing to Harris at the UChicago, which I'll be attending in Fall 2024 (I deferred due to circumstances). Ironically, I'm not against GPS at all. As an international student who needs financial support, I want to boost my chance of getting the scholarship and ranks somehow still matter, which in this case UChicago is above UCSD (if we benchmark to mainstream rankings such as US News). If that's not case (i.e. if ranks don't matter or if I got 100% financial support from UCSD), I'd definitely go there.

 

About my application: I was quite confident because one of my recommenders is a full professor there and I used to work with the person as an RA, although the other two are not big names in the field. Also, GPS seems to have strong focus on Asia, a place where I'm coming from so I guess that boosted my profile. I didn't submit GRE, although I don't have a quant education background (e.g. Economics). On the other hand, I took Micro- and Macroeconomics, and some math/stats which was asked on the application form last year (perhaps this year too?), and my scores were good enough. My GPA is so-so, but I have relevant professional working experience in both research and policy. I'm a first-generation, which I think it increases the chance to get accepted these days (conditional on other factors of course).

 

If you're not confident because of your LoR, I think it's more of how the person can gauge you in terms of your potential instead of the person's credentials. What else that makes you think that your application is not strong enough?

 

Good luck on your application! I personally think GPS gave me the most pleasant experience, from admission process (there was even an interview on January 18, 2023) to admitted students week (one of students even would reach you out (they did to me) if you indicated a research interest that matched the person (mine was program evaluation)). Hope this helps! Let me know if I can be of any help.

 

 

[IndominusTaco]

On 1/28/2024 at 12:10 AM, isitimportant said:

Reason not going to UCSD: I end up committing to Harris at the UChicago, which I'll be attending in Fall 2024 (I deferred due to circumstances). Ironically, I'm not against GPS at all. As an international student who needs financial support, I want to boost my chance of getting the scholarship and ranks somehow still matter, which in this case UChicago is above UCSD (if we benchmark to mainstream rankings such as US News). If that's not case (i.e. if ranks don't matter or if I got 100% financial support from UCSD), I'd definitely go there.

 

About my application: I was quite confident because one of my recommenders is a full professor there and I used to work with the person as an RA, although the other two are not big names in the field. Also, GPS seems to have strong focus on Asia, a place where I'm coming from so I guess that boosted my profile. I didn't submit GRE, although I don't have a quant education background (e.g. Economics). On the other hand, I took Micro- and Macroeconomics, and some math/stats which was asked on the application form last year (perhaps this year too?), and my scores were good enough. My GPA is so-so, but I have relevant professional working experience in both research and policy. I'm a first-generation, which I think it increases the chance to get accepted these days (conditional on other factors of course).

 

If you're not confident because of your LoR, I think it's more of how the person can gauge you in terms of your potential instead of the person's credentials. What else that makes you think that your application is not strong enough?

 

Good luck on your application! I personally think GPS gave me the most pleasant experience, from admission process (there was even an interview on January 18, 2023) to admitted students week (one of students even would reach you out (they did to me) if you indicated a research interest that matched the person (mine was program evaluation)). Hope this helps! Let me know if I can be of any help.

 

 

Thanks for the detailed response! I also applied for the Harris MPP program last admission cycle and was waitlisted. I loved everything about it though, it easily would've been my top choice if not for the heavy price tag. I decided not to apply for Harris this time around as my applications would be pretty much the same and I know I'm not in the top tier of the applicant pool. Hope you enjoy your time at Harris and in Chicago, it's a beautiful world-class city.

 

Besides the LoR's, I don't come from a policy or research background, no relevant work experience, no GRE, and my undergrad was in business. The only silver lining is that I was an Economics minor so there's some overlap there, and went back to take Calc I to prepare for an MPP curriculum. We'll see where the dice fall, if not UCSD then there's 3 other applications I sent out. Thanks again for the insight!

[isitimportant]

4 hours ago, IndominusTaco said:

Thanks for the detailed response! I also applied for the Harris MPP program last admission cycle and was waitlisted. I loved everything about it though, it easily would've been my top choice if not for the heavy price tag. I decided not to apply for Harris this time around as my applications would be pretty much the same and I know I'm not in the top tier of the applicant pool. Hope you enjoy your time at Harris and in Chicago, it's a beautiful world-class city.

 

Besides the LoR's, I don't come from a policy or research background, no relevant work experience, no GRE, and my undergrad was in business. The only silver lining is that I was an Economics minor so there's some overlap there, and went back to take Calc I to prepare for an MPP curriculum. We'll see where the dice fall, if not UCSD then there's 3 other applications I sent out. Thanks again for the insight!

 

My pleasure, and thanks! I see that you're from Chicago, IL haha

 

If I remember correctly, there were some some admitted students at GPS who went straight from undergrad (or just minimum working experience). You probably might want to check GPS students/graduates on LinkedIn. I think that having Calc I on your academic transcript would help as GPS is also known for its rigorous approach, so fingers-crossed!

 

What other schools that you applied to? In any case, I wish you best of luck to all of them!

[IndominusTaco]

3 hours ago, isitimportant said:

 

My pleasure, and thanks! I see that you're from Chicago, IL haha

 

If I remember correctly, there were some some admitted students at GPS who went straight from undergrad (or just minimum working experience). You probably might want to check GPS students/graduates on LinkedIn. I think that having Calc I on your academic transcript would help as GPS is also known for its rigorous approach, so fingers-crossed!

 

What other schools that you applied to? In any case, I wish you best of luck to all of them!

Yeah all the programs I’m applying to do say that a significant portion of their students come in with zero work experience which is comforting. The other 3 schools (in order of preference) are University of Washington, CU Denver, and University of Illinois Chicago. Thank you!

[IndominusTaco]

On 1/29/2024 at 4:53 AM, isitimportant said:

 

My pleasure, and thanks! I see that you're from Chicago, IL haha

 

If I remember correctly, there were some some admitted students at GPS who went straight from undergrad (or just minimum working experience). You probably might want to check GPS students/graduates on LinkedIn. I think that having Calc I on your academic transcript would help as GPS is also known for its rigorous approach, so fingers-crossed!

 

What other schools that you applied to? In any case, I wish you best of luck to all of them!

Hey, just wanted to follow up and ask a quick question. I got the unofficial acceptance email and am waiting for an official communication from their Graduate Division. When you were accepted, did your funding/fellowship notification come later or was it included in that initial email? My other acceptance email from UW Evans also included $15k funding, but GPS didn't mention anything about funding yet. Not sure if I didn't get anything or if it's coming with the official email soon.

[isitimportant]

4 hours ago, IndominusTaco said:

Hey, just wanted to follow up and ask a quick question. I got the unofficial acceptance email and am waiting for an official communication from their Graduate Division. When you were accepted, did your funding/fellowship notification come later or was it included in that initial email? My other acceptance email from UW Evans also included $15k funding, but GPS didn't mention anything about funding yet. Not sure if I didn't get anything or if it's coming with the official email soon.

Hey, do you mean the "nomination for admission" email? If so, congrats! You're one step closer. Hopefully in just a few days you will receive the official acceptance letter (fingers-crossed!). Similar to you, I didn't receive funding/fellowship notification in that email, so don't worry. I wish you all the best!

[IndominusTaco]

5 hours ago, isitimportant said:

Hey, do you mean the "nomination for admission" email? If so, congrats! You're one step closer. Hopefully in just a few days you will receive the official acceptance letter (fingers-crossed!). Similar to you, I didn't receive funding/fellowship notification in that email, so don't worry. I wish you all the best!

Thank you! Yeah it's the nomination for admission email, looking back at past years threads I see that funding isn't announced til later. Is that the case with prep classes as well? Seems like a lot of students are accepted with the condition that they have to enroll in the summer prep courses.

[isitimportant]

8 hours ago, IndominusTaco said:

Thank you! Yeah it's the nomination for admission email, looking back at past years threads I see that funding isn't announced til later. Is that the case with prep classes as well? Seems like a lot of students are accepted with the condition that they have to enroll in the summer prep courses.

Yep, same thing with the prep classes. If I remember correctly (I once read their FAQ), most admitted students at GPS are provisional, meaning they need to take the summer courses