International MPP students

[azulverde]

Hi! I am Mexican and will be applying to several MPP programs in the USA later this year. Any international MPP students/graduates who can share their experiences? Was it relevant to your work in your home country, was in impossibly expensive, was it disproportionately difficult to get accepted (compared to American applicants)?

 

Any and all insights are welcome! 

[harrista]

Hi!  I'm Australian and am going to Chicago Harris - MPP this fall.  From the schools that I applied to (see my signature) I think U Washington was the only one that had separate consideration for international students although I'm guessing from the very small sample size who post their results in the database and it looked like we got our acceptances weeks after American applicants.  Some schools had different application requirements for internationals, eg increased application fee or some schools (NYU Wagner and CMU Heinz) needed to get a transcript equivalence report from undergrad.  This took a lot of time- nearly two months - because I was arguing with them about the nature of my degree since there isn't a direct equivalent in America. 

 

There are so many great programs that I think you'll be able to find a course that suits your area of interest and will help your career in your home country, it might just take time and a lot of research to figure out where will be the best fit.  If you check the government affairs forum, you might want to see what MPPGal has posted - she's from Mexico and could have some good insights/advice. 

 

As for expense, if it's going to be make or break I think it pays off to apply to a few more schools that you'd be ok if not thrilled to attend to see what funding turns up.  Chances are most schools have enough flexibility that you'll be able to focus on what you want anyway and every school has its own strengths.  Having said that, don't apply to schools that you absolutely don't want to go to and which won't help your future career.  Eg I didn't apply for some programs that otherwise looked great because the brand name isn't recognisable enough here, or based on location because my partner would need a moderately sized city to find a job in his field.

 

Good luck!  Also I think the best advice I got was to start getting organised early and study like mad for the GRE because that is entirely under your control - I'm positive that I wouldn't have gotten anywhere near this amount of funding (especially to make up for a lack of math/econ in undergrad) if I hadn't pulled out some decent scores. 

[mariiiiie]

I completely agree with above! I did not feel being international was a problem at all!

And it also has some perks. For example, many schools will only ask you to take the TOEFL and so you will be able to skip the GRE ;-)

In case your education or experience is very different from American standards maybe you can ask your schools to include a brief explanation on your transcrit. Mine did that (because the French system is a bit weird) and they even included a translation of French grades into American for reference)

You can also ask a native speaker to review your statements so that you are sure that you didn't make any "cultural" or "language" mistake.

Otherwise yes, start early and look for external funding early, because most of the time the deadlines are the same (for Fulbright it was even 2 months before).

Good luck!

[MPPgal]

Si quieres mandame un PM soy mexicana tambien, I got into most of my choices some with full rides so just apply and see what happens! My advice is to really study for your gres we were three Mexicans applying to MPP programs at my job, I had the higher GREs (but lower WE and GPA) and I had the best scholarship/offers, do look into Austin (really good scholarships for Mexicans plus a lot of the professors research is focused on Mexico), Duke and Georgetown (some good opportunities too from what I saw with my friends), everyone I know got into Columbia and Chicago but without scholarships (too many Mexicans applied, Chicago alone admitted about 16, they had an open house in Mexico City and only one had any money), if you work for the government each subsecretaria offers a full ride, sadly I do not, also conacyt is almost impossible but fullbright might be an option (if you studied undergrad in Mexico and have decent scores, the first batch went out already but they hold a post acceptance one too), also look at Banco de Mexico Fidereh, they have 200k mexican pesos per year interest free.