Early Graduation & Weak WE

[GOVERNMENTandPOLICY]

Hi. I'm pretty new to the forum, and so far the info here have been very helpful. I wish I discovered this forum a bit earlier

I graduated from college this year in May, and been started working at a local government full-time for about two months.

I'm planning to apply to MPP/MPA programs (HKS, WWS, Goldman,,, you name it) and my concern is that I graduated early (in three years) and have relatively weak WE since I spent one of the summers taking classes at school.

In terms of numbers I'm pretty comfortable but I'm worried that they might consider me too "green" ...well I must admit I am

College/GPA: Ivy 3.83/4.00 Political Science

GRE: 780V 800Q 4.5 AW

Applying to: MPP

WE: Summer intern at Congress (2 months summer)

Intern at DA's office (2 months ongoing)

So if I apply this fall and enroll next fall I would have 1 yr of full-time WE by the time I matriculate. personally I wanna go back to school next year, but I can't seem to decide if it would be wiser for me to wait and apply next fall.

I really wanna know what u guys think! Thanks!

[balderdash]

Honestly I think your instinct about being too inexperienced is spot-on. Your stats are wonderful, but at HKS, WWS, and the like, you'll be competing with people of similar academic backgrounds who have been working for the UN for 10 years, you know?

So in my humble opinion, I would advise getting 2-3 years of work experience before applying.

[greendiplomat]

Honestly I think your instinct about being too inexperienced is spot-on. Your stats are wonderful, but at HKS, WWS, and the like, you'll be competing with people of similar academic backgrounds who have been working for the UN for 10 years, you know?

So in my humble opinion, I would advise getting 2-3 years of work experience before applying.

Agreed. As someone who was in a similar boat as you, applying straight out of undergrad (though I did intern every semester and every summer I was in school), I'd advise you to think about why it is that you want to go back to school so soon.

In my case, my original desire to go back so soon was mostly based on school being the most familiar/known option, having been in school for the past 16 years and not quite knowing how successful I'd be on the job market. Now, having turned down my spot at SIPA and starting my second year of full-time work, I know that I couldn't have made a better decision in deciding not to go to grad school (yet), partially because I know that I can get better offers this time around (both in terms of funding, as well as fit/selectivity), but mostly because I have a much better sense of what courses I want to take at grad school to get me where I want to get in my career.

So, I'd firstly suggest that you think about what specifically you want to get out of grad school and how it helps you get where you want to be in 5 or 15 years. If you aren't able to articulate that clearly, I doubt that WWS/HKS/GSPP would admit you, and if you spend your two years exploring different sub-fields like one would in college, that would, frankly, be a waste of your money. Also, WWS has bios on each of their students, so you might also want to take a look at those that were out of college 1 year or less before applying (so '09 and '10 college grads since they haven't updated for this new school year yet) to get a sense of what kinds of students are admitted that fresh out of undergrad, and how you compare.

Hope this helps.

[MYRNIST]

Also, WWS has bios on each of their students, so you might also want to take a look at those that were out of college 1 year or less before applying (so '09 and '10 college grads since they haven't updated for this new school year yet) to get a sense of what kinds of students are admitted that fresh out of undergrad, and how you compare.

Cosign entirely on this - it is unlikely the original poster will get in to really top tier schools (which, considering their stats, is what they should aim for) with so little work experience. The people getting into WWS, HKS, etc. out of undergrad are people who managed to get really strong work experience despite being so young. Just because they went straight out of undergrad does NOT mean they didn't accumulate solid experiences - the aforementioned "young student" bios feature lots of blurbs like "started own NGO in college", "4 year summer intern for the State Dep't", and "undergraduate education interrupted by 2 year deployment to Afghanistan." Work experience is non-optional for admittance to the really good public policy schools.

Edited September 22, 2011 by MYRNIST