Apply this year or more experience?

[mwg4]

I graduated in 2008 (poli sci) from a top 10 US private university with decent stats for grad school: 3.79 GPA, GRE scores of 790 verbal and 790 quant, confident that I'll have good (but not incredible) recs ready. However, instead of going the normal professional or grad school route, I decided to move abroad to the Middle East and teach English at a private K-12 school for a couple of years in order to travel, learn some Arabic, and figure out what to do with my life. Now entering my second year abroad, I know that I want to go into international development, and so I am looking into MPP and MPA programs with a strong focus in that area (specifically HKS MPA/ID, SAIS, and SIPA). I also had a summer internship at an NGO (microfinance focus) in South Asia during college, and have done some volunteer work with a UN organization here in the Middle East. I know some colloquial Arabic, and am conversationally fluent in Spanish.

The question is, do I go ahead and apply this year for 2010 despite not having much directly related full-time work experience, or do I need to wait and try to get some solid NGO or nonprofit work under my belt? I feel that I'm ready for grad school, but I don't want to jump the gun and sell myself short when another year or two of experience could put me in a position to get into my first choices.

Thanks for any advice!

[mwg4]

PS I did indeed read the thread about work experience a few down from this one (I hate people who ask questions that were JUST answered in the same forum), but it seemed to focus more on Stanford. I just want to find out more specifics about how important it is to have directly relevant work experience at the top East Coast ID programs.

Cheers.

[riz1]

Work experience = important, but you can get into schools with less than perfect W/E. Two things:

1) Schools look for diversity of experiences in their incoming classes, and your time teaching in the Middle East is certainly unique!

2) If at first glance your current teaching work does not appear directly relevant to what you want to do (ID) -- and it doesn't -- then be sure to work very hard on your SoP to bridge that gap. Perhaps that South Asia microfinance experience has something to do with it? Make those connections very clear and relevant to the degree programs to which you apply.

I think you should apply for Fall 2010 and definitely not low-ball yourself. I only say this because my two years of work experience have been extremely disconnected and, unfortunately, not directly relevant to what I will be studying in grad school. However, in my SoP I was able to carefully and convincingly weave together my tangential, indirect experiences and create a cohesive picture of who I am, why I want to go back to school and what that degree will do for me.

With all that said, have you considered applying to The Fletcher School? There's a strong focus amongst students and professors on development that is very refreshing.http://fletcher.tufts.edu

Best of luck!

[mwg4]

Thanks for the advice! Hopefully I'll be able to bridge the experience gap using my internship, volunteer work in the Middle East, and the fact that I teach a global issues high school class here in Jordan. I would love to hear whether anyone has met people in their programs who were teachers beforehand, either in the USA (maybe through TFA) or overseas?

Thanks for the tip on Fletcher as well -- it seems like a great fit and it will go on my list right with the top group. From reading other threads, it appears as if people get pretty hung up on the big name status of "brand names" KSG, WWS, SAIS, and SIPA, but that Fletcher has a more tight-knit, welcoming community feel while also maintaining high academic standards and focusing on human rights and development. Sounds right up my alley.