Masters in Human Resources Management/Industrial Labor Relations

[cowmaster]

Hello there everyone! First off, a hearty hello to you all

I currently attend a small liberal arts college (ranked in the lower half of the top 100 US news rankings, not that it means much, I just thought that it might be helpful to provide a frame of reference). I'm double majoring in philosophy/poli sci. with a minor in management, my current GPA is at around a 3.85. I took the GRE this past July and got a 1350 (660 verbal 94%, 690 quant 64%). I've had a couple of internships here and there but don't feel like I really have significant full-time work experience. I'm an international student, and as a poli. sci/philosophy student I think that it'll be difficult to find an employer who will hire me straight out of undergrad.

My plan at the moment is to apply to grad schools for the fall 2012 admissions cycle. I understand that it would probably better for me if I get some work experience before I apply to grad schools for HRM/ILR but given my circumstances, I really don't have that option. I was hoping to just get some opinions regarding what would be good options for schools that I could apply to. My primary concern is to attend a school that has a great career placement record and strong alumni network. Ideally, I would like to work in HR consulting so a history of placing in grads in that industry would be attractive for me.

These are some schools I'm looking at:

Reach

Cornell - MIL

Columbia TC - Masters in Organizational Psychology

NYU SCPS - MHRMD

NYU Poly - Masters in OB

Targets

Rutgers SMLR - MHRM

Minnesota Carlson - MHRM

UIUC LER - MHRM

Safeties

Penn State

Marquette

 

The schools that are on the last list are there because of a variety of factors, mostly to do with location and career placement. They're all solid schools but they just don't seem to be a good fit for me. A lot of the schools seem to place their grads in the manufacturing industry. I would prefer to attend a school that has more grads in the financial services, tech or consulting industries. I was just hoping to get some feedback from people regarding whether the categorization of my schools is realistic (honesty is appreciated), whether there are other schools I should think about applying to, and whether there are any insights that you could provide.

Sorry for the long post and thanks in advance! http://www.urch.com/forums/images/smilies/smile.png

[bluejay16]

Sweet!! I'm planning on admission for the Fall 2012 cycle as well. I got my undergrad at my local state university, University of North Texas; graduated with 3.59 GPA in Psychology and worked 1 year and a half as an Education Director in a non profit organization for adolescents. Your list of schools looks great and Minnesota Carlson is one of my target schools as well because of their track record and network of companies. Best of luck to your application! I'm sure you'll get in since your GRE scores and past academic record is solid. As for Cornell, did you notice that it would be about 50 grand a year or so to attend their program (tuition & living costs) and the statistic for their grads getting jobs out of school is less than Minnesota Carlson!

Edited August 29, 2011 by Janomaly

[irisdpli]

I am applying for the HR program too, but my GPA is not high enough and have no work experiences, only internships~

[irisdpli]

How's the Columbia TC - Masters in Organizational Psychology, what is the program about and requirement?

[bluejay16]

This is a great blog post about HR programs: http://hrpatriot.blogspot.com/2009/11/best-hr-grad-schools.html

Definitely using this information to gauge where I should apply and what to aim for.

[cowmaster]

This is a great blog post about HR programs: http://hrpatriot.blo...ad-schools.html

Definitely using this information to gauge where I should apply and what to aim for.

I love that site! It was definitely really helpful for me in finding out whether some of the schools seemed to a be a good fit for me.

Sweet!! I'm planning on admission for the Fall 2012 cycle as well. I got my undergrad at my local state university, University of North Texas; graduated with 3.59 GPA in Psychology and worked 1 year and a half as an Education Director in a non profit organization for adolescents. Your list of schools looks great and Minnesota Carlson is one of my target schools as well because of their track record and network of companies. Best of luck to your application! I'm sure you'll get in since your GRE scores and past academic record is solid. As for Cornell, did you notice that it would be about 50 grand a year or so to attend their program (tuition & living costs) and the statistic for their grads getting jobs out of school is less than Minnesota Carlson!

Great to see a fellow HR/ILR applicant! It sounds like you have some great work experience, it would definitely be cool if we ended up at the same school! Minnesota is definitely one of my top choices of the schools on my list, particularly because of the strength that you mentioned. As for the statistics regarding graduates and careers, I wasn't aware that the statistics regarding jobs are higher for Minnesota than Cornell. Given that Minnesota's program is housed in Carlson, I'm not surprised that it does a good job of placing graduates. In terms of geographical diversity for job placements, however, it seems Cornell does a better job of placing it's grads throughout the US and abroad whereas a large percentage of Minnesota's grads stay in the midwest (56%), which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Cornell grads seem to have a higher mean salary ($73,982 vs. $71,284 for 2010) and higher signing bonuses ($12,065 vs. $10,335). Both seem to be great programs, I wish you the best of luck in your applications!

How's the Columbia TC - Masters in Organizational Psychology, what is the program about and requirement?

The TC Masters in Organizational Psychology seems much less focused on human resources (or industrial relations) from what I have been able to gather, but it seems to do a good job of placing its grads in hr careers. The program, however, strongly recommends that you have significant full-time work experience if you want to apply to the program. They actually recommend that you defer applying to the program until you've spent some time in the workforce.

They have an extremely helpful FAQ PDF file that answers a lot of basic questions about the program: http://www.tc.columbia.edu/i/a/document/12477_MAFrequentlyAskedQuestionsOrgPsych.pdf