SAIS vs SIPA vs Fletcher

[bmiller]

- SAIS MA ($12,000/yr) *2 years in DC

- HKS MPP (no financial aid)

- SIPA MIA ($22,500/yr) *Dean's Fellowship($20,000/yr) + International Fellows Program (+$2,500)

- Fletcher MALD ($18,500/yr)

International student.

financial aid all renewable during second year.

planning on pursuing political risk analysis or think tank (regional research on East Asia) after Master's degree.

With this information only, where would you go?

Your personal thoughts are truly appreciated!!!!!!

Edited April 8, 2011 by bmiller

[dmacd99]

Those are great financial aid numbers, congrats. I'm deciding between the same schools except harvard, but much less aid.

If you have such specific interests, you should get in touch with the career services office at each place and see how many people they place in those kinds of jobs. Also, those programs all post employers of their graduates on their websites. But the careers offices could more specifically answer your question. They make a lot of money out of these programs so I've found them to be responsive. You should also check out the curriculum of each program, professors, etc. Personally if all else were equal I would go where there was the most funding. But I suspect that after research you'll find that certain programs better suit your interests. For DC think tanks it's hard to beat SAIS, their people are all over. And even if HKS is a bit better, the difference wouldn't be worth 100K to me.

[carpecc]

I'd do HKS if you can do it without too much debt, otherwise I'd take SIPA over SAIS and Fletcher, but that's just my preference. Look closely the curriculum, faculty and classes offered. SIPA is really throwing the cash at you, remember you can always put those fellowships on your CV, which will no doubt make you stand out.