Answering questions about Harris

[SHani]

Stephen n Xn...Hii

Surely some good points were broached. Stephen I am from south Asia where IVY stamp still holds supreme or at least what they say. I , on the other hand, not a big IVY fan. I am a known notorious for turning down places from LSE to UPen. :twisted:

Nyways, I am interested in economic/finance policy making that requires a strong Quant content. Based on the what I see from the curriculum provided on the website, CHicago (relative to Columbia) seems to offer more quant/statistical based courses hands down. My undergrad was in finance and I have been working to launch a monetary fund and policy framework for the development of micro-SME industry in the country.

Would U agree on the quant thing for Chicago??

Secondly, how about intermittent internship opportunities at Chicago? especially relevant to the private finance sector.

[iwantgradz]

does anyone know anything about the harris waitlist? i was waitlisted and i emailed for more details, but i'm wondering whether the waitlist is ranked, what my chances are, etc.

[nyr]

xnormajeanx and Stephen33,

Thanks for coming back to answer our questions.

I am interested in domestic social policy and ultimately plan to go into policy research at a think tank or to pursue a doctoral degree in economics. Are there many students at Harris who choose this path? Do you think Harris will provide good preparation for this?

How accessible are professors to students? Do they operate an open-door policy?

Are there opportunities for students to be a TA or an RA? What percentage of MPP students obtain these positions?

How easy is it to take electives in the economics department? I have an undergraduate degree in econ and am planning to opt out of the core econ/stats courses.

The Financial Aid letter mentioned that scholarship amounts can be increased for the second year given "outstanding work". I don't know if you know the answer to this, but would you be able to quantify "outstanding work"? Is it very difficult for students receive additional scholarship aid in their second year?

Thanks, again!

[xnormajeanx]

I am interested in domestic social policy and ultimately plan to go into policy research at a think tank or to pursue a doctoral degree in economics. Are there many students at Harris who choose this path? Do you think Harris will provide good preparation for this?

Absolutely! I think the largest policy concentration we have is domestic social policy, and indeed there's a large portion of faculty members who concentrate on domestic social policy -- labor, employment, housing, welfare, poverty, workforce training, etc. Most are economists. I think of the MPP schools you could go to, Harris will best prepare you for a PhD (especially in economics) or for academic research, as the coursework is generally more academic (versus applied) as and more academically rigorous than in other schools, as I've emphasized earlier in this thread. Particularly for your economics interest, I think Chicago is a great place because there is such a focus on micro and the micro approach to human behavior. Plus, or UC's economics department is top-notch, and you can take a great number of classes there too for Harris credit.

How accessible are professors to students? Do they operate an open-door policy?

Professors vary tremendously in their openness. There are some who seem very involved with the students, even to the point of showing up to parties and bar nights. Others avoid students at all costs and pretend not to notice them in the hallways!

Are there opportunities for students to be a TA or an RA? What percentage of MPP students obtain these positions?

In general, MPPs cannot TA policy classes. However, there are opportunities to TA at the College. Several students are RAs for faculty. I think there are fewer opportunities for TA/RA-ships at UC than at other schools, partly because the population of PhD students (not at Harris necessarily, but at other departments too, like Poli Sci, IR, Econ, Stats) is so huge, and they are more than enough to meet the demand for TAs and RAs. (U of C has one of the biggest grad student to college student ratios that I know of)

How easy is it to take electives in the economics department? I have an undergraduate degree in econ and am planning to opt out of the core econ/stats courses.

Very easy. Many people do this. It's just like registering for a Harris class. I believe you can only take 5-6 classes outside of Harris.

The Financial Aid letter mentioned that scholarship amounts can be increased for the second year given "outstanding work". I don't know if you know the answer to this, but would you be able to quantify "outstanding work"? Is it very difficult for students receive additional scholarship aid in their second year?

While they say this, from my conversations with admissions, it seems that this is very very rare and very unlikely to occur. I don't know what the criteria are exactly, however. You might want to ask Maggie.

[SHani]

hii xnormajeanx!!

Would u mind commenting on the quantitative content of Harris relative to SIPA (as said in my last message) ??

Chaoo.

[Adin]

I have a few questions for those of you currently at Harris. I applied sort of on a whim this January and knew from the beginning that I would only attend if I received a scholarship or funding assistance of some type. I was accepted, but with no scholarship - which should make it a no-brainer, since I already knew that would be a deal-breaker. But now that I have been accepted I'm pretty excited about the program, and would like to go. However, there is no way I will take out $35k a year in loans for tuition, on top of giving up my current salary.

I'm curious about how many students receive scholarships at Harris (is it around 50%, or higher?). I also wonder if there is any chance I can receive a scholarship my second year, or if I'm out of luck since I didn't receive an offer when I was accepted. Any ideas?

[Stephen33]

This is in response to the questions in the last two posts:

regarding quantitative content, I can't speak to SIPA, but here is what I wrote in an earlier post about Harris:

App4MPP

Thanks for your comments. In response to your question, I do not consider the quantitative requirements here excessive by any means. I think they are appropriate, in that they ensure that graduates have a sufficient degree of technical expertise to "ask the right questions" about any given piece of policy research. In addition, there are two separate statistics sequences here: one more theoretical and mathematical (appropriate for those who may be considering a PhD) and a second, more practical, stream for the rest of us who do not aspire to be academicians or researchers. The latter stream is not overly technical or mathematically demanding. Probably the toughest core courses for most students - assuming that you are not taking the advanced stats sequence - are the 2 courses in the core economics sequence. Even there, the technical requirements do not extend beyond basic calculus (for which you are taught all you need in math camp). There are plenty of more advanced economics/econometrics courses if you like that sort of thing, but none are required.

Regarding the questions about funding, I do not believe that awards are adjusted upward in the second year, but you should check with Maggie DeCarlo (Admissions Director) to confirm. As to the percentage receiving some form of scholarship assistance, I think in past years it has been around 50 percent. I don't know about this year.

[mppguy]

A bit off topic, but is anyone here planning on attending the On The MaPP event on Friday? I'll be coming in Thursday night and staying at the Ramada by campus. I just visited USC and am looking forward to seeing Harris.

[prospectiveMPP]

xnormajeanx,

Thank you for offering this service to us prospective students out there. I appreciate your insights immensely. I was wondering if you'd be able to comment on the Harris School regarding an Environmental Policy concentration? I'm interested in applying quantitative analysis to environmental policy, but I'm not familiar with the UofC's curriculum for environmental course offerings. Any input would be much appreciated.

[xnormajeanx]

There are good number of students who concentrate on environmental policy, and you also have the option of switching from the MPP program to the little-known MSESP (master of science in environmental science and policy) program, which is more science-based. However, the number of courses Harris offers on environmental policy are smaller than you might find for social policy, or that you mind find in comparison to other schools. CEPA, the student organization for environmental policy folks, is a great resource with respect to this, helping students find courses outside of Harris to take, such as Environmental Economics in the econ department or energy sector classes at the business school. So basically, studying environmental policy is a little more work in terms of designing your degree than some other types of policy, and this can be a disadvantage especially if your other option is say, GSPP, where the environmental policy track is much more defined. On the other hand, Harris offers a lot of great "tools" classes rather than topical classes, and many of these tools classes address environmental policy. For example, I'm taking cost-benefit analysis right now, and it deals a lot with measuring environmental impact and weighing the costs against the benefits.

xnormajeanx,

Thank you for offering this service to us prospective students out there. I appreciate your insights immensely. I was wondering if you'd be able to comment on the Harris School regarding an Environmental Policy concentration? I'm interested in applying quantitative analysis to environmental policy, but I'm not familiar with the UofC's curriculum for environmental course offerings. Any input would be much appreciated.

[chellie99]

Stephen33 or xnormajeanx,

Not to harp on the theoretical bent of Harris that everyone keeps mentioning, but that's still one of my major concerns vs. more practical programs. What's your take on the availability of opportunities to make the program more practical/applied? I know there's a practicum offered each quarter, but since it's only open to a few students, I'd be concerned that I might not get in or that the particular project wouldn't interest me. Does anyone do an applied/consulting capstone-like project, like many of the other schools require? Do courses offer the chance to apply the skills taught in the class to the policy areas you're interested in through papers or projects?

Thanks!

[xnormajeanx]

Stephen33 or xnormajeanx,

Not to harp on the theoretical bent of Harris that everyone keeps mentioning, but that's still one of my major concerns vs. more practical programs. What's your take on the availability of opportunities to make the program more practical/applied? I know there's a practicum offered each quarter, but since it's only open to a few students, I'd be concerned that I might not get in or that the particular project wouldn't interest me. Does anyone do an applied/consulting capstone-like project, like many of the other schools require? Do courses offer the chance to apply the skills taught in the class to the policy areas you're interested in through papers or projects?

Thanks!

I think there is a lot of flexibility outside the core in terms of how theoretical vs. applied you want your degree to be. I think I've probably already talked about this ad nauseum, but the difference between Harris applied classes vs. other schools seems to be that Harris offers more of a wide variety of "tools" classes versus "topics" classes. For example, GPPI offers more topical classes on the specific policy areas that you are focused in, and helps you analyze those problems. Harris offers topics classes too, but probably not as many, and its real strengths are teaching the tools which are applied to more than one type of policy. For example, the most popular classes are program evaluation, cost-benefit analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, etc. It's true that unlike other schools Harris does NOT require students to do a practical applied project with an agency or something similar. I also found that an attractive feature of some other schools versus Harris. But hey I might as well plug while I've got the chance -- I'm in the student consulting interest group at Harris, and we are embarking on a few real-life consulting projects right now and are looking for eager new first years next year to do much of the work! It's obviously extracurricular, not class-based, but we have been offered several potential projects and are ambitiously getting together people and resources to work on these in the coming quarters -- perhaps also with a faculty adviser and an outside mentor. So if you're worried about getting practical experience, I better not hear that no first years are signing up next year...

[phr6984]

Hey everyone, I have been waitlisted for Harris School and was wondering what people knew about their system and if they accepted a lot of people off their waitlist. I have a little bit of confidence after reading this because it seems like a decent number of people got into Harris but decided to go elsewhere.

[stilesg57]

My seat's open

If you're on a waitlist and really want to go to Harris no matter how much it costs I'd bet you have a good chance. If their endowment took the kind of hit everyone is talking about then they couldn't have offered much money to a lot of candidates (I didn't get any) and might have a lot of accepted students turning them down. Best of luck to you!

[nyr]

Can any of the current students at Harris speak about private apartment buildings in Hyde Park? Specifically, I'm interested in Regents Park, Twin Towers, Hyde Park Tower, and Windermere House. Has anyone had experience with these places? Do you have other recommendations? The places I listed aren't exactly on campus, but I know there are buses that stop near them. Do the buses run frequently and timely? (Worried about those winter days when I'll be waiting outside.)

Thanks for your help!

[figuringitout80]

Hello -- I hope you are still answering questions about Harris, which really pertain to my unique circumstance. I started out as a history major with illusions of becoming an historian (or lawyer) but ended up at a think-tank instead. Long story short, I am interested in pursuing a PhD at Harris (among other possible schools), but lack the quantitative background of many other students. Will Chicago even consider me for admittance in this case? Do I have to go through the MPA route first? I'm getting close to 30 and don't want to be in school forever.

BTW, I have decent GREs - 660V 790Q, good professional experience, and a less stellar GPA (3.3-3.4).