Which policy program is right for me?

[Revolution]

Hey guys. It's my first time posting here. I'm currently in the midst of studying for my GMAT and GRE and applying to mba and policy programs.

I graduated college in 2003, so i'm an older applicant. I have about 7 years of work experience in trading, mostly in equities. I want to do a joint mba/policy and go into NY Fed/World Bank or sovereign debt/currency research at a major investment firm. Basically I want to work in the intersection of policy, macroeconomics, and financial markets.

I've been talking to a lot of people and am very interested in hearing from people which programs would be a good fit for me. As of now I'm looking at HKS MPA2, Columbia SIPA (international economics and finance track) and johns hopkins SAIS.

I've heard pros and cons of various programs. For instance, people have said that HKS is not good for private sector and that SAIS is ideal for my goals due to its strong focus on international economics. I have heard mixed reviews on SIPA, ranging from good to downright negative.

[lost_0101]

So those are the policy programs you are interested in, what are the MBA programs you are interested in? With your background + MBA, it doesn't sound like the policy degree is going to do a whole lot for you. Your background + MBA would already be a very impressive prospect for the World Bank, for example.

HKS's employment statistics would disagree that they are not good for the private sector (has one of the highest % of grads who move into the private sector). If you look @ their first year curriculums, you would be correct that HKS is more quant/econ focused.

*There has been a fair amount of negative publicity on this forum about SIPA, but the criticisms of SIPA (too large, cash-cow program) are equally levied against two other programs - HKS and SAIS. For your interests however (NY-FED) SIPA would be ideal because of proximity alone.

[Revolution]

So those are the policy programs you are interested in, what are the MBA programs you are interested in? With your background + MBA, it doesn't sound like the policy degree is going to do a whole lot for you. Your background + MBA would already be a very impressive prospect for the World Bank, for example.

HKS's employment statistics would disagree that they are not good for the private sector (has one of the highest % of grads who move into the private sector). If you look @ their first year curriculums, you would be correct that HKS is more quant/econ focused.

*There has been a fair amount of negative publicity on this forum about SIPA, but the criticisms of SIPA (too large, cash-cow program) are equally levied against two other programs - HKS and SAIS. For your interests however (NY-FED) SIPA would be ideal because of proximity alone.

Thanks for the response.

For MBA, I'm waiting for my GMAT score before i finally decide where to apply. I'm still researching programs as well. As of now, I'm considering, wharton, sloan, columbia, tuck, stern, haas, london business, booth's part-time program. Obviously i won't apply to all of them but some combination thereof.

HKS and SAIS are much smaller than SIPA, and their career services are better structured. Also from talking to multiple people, the consensus is that SIPA is regarded as mediocre, one tier below HKS and SAIS.