Is this a relevant excuse for not having work experience?

[callumabernathy]

I'm asking this on behalf of my friend.

He comes from a rural area of a developing country where professional job experiences just aren't available. However, he went to school and lived in a developed country; where he had always been on student visas. He's currently in UC Davis. Technically, he couldn't really get any relevant work experience even if he wanted to. He's also spent all summers and quarters taking as many courses as he possibly can because it's extremely expensive for him. His aim is to gain citizenship at the developed country he grew up in and work in the public sector. His dream is to be a cabinet minister or a member of parliament in his new country. He has accumulated a huge amount of volunteer experience from marine life conservation to teaching at impoverished schools in his country of citizenship. 

He's an Economics major with Math and Statistics minors. He's looking for masters programs that do not lead to a PhD. At the moment, he's looking into Berkeley, Chicago, Stanford and UCLA for his MPP/IPS. He's tending more towards Stanford's IPS. He is expected to graduate with a GPA of 3.5 (possibly lower since his remaining courses are mostly math and stats); which to me is quite impressive given the grade deflation at UC Davis. He's also doing intensive research with a professor whose focus is on South East Asian and Asian economics. The professor graduated from Harvard and is widely regarded as one of the leading experts in his area. He's also taken the GRE once on a whim where he has gotten a 165V 170Q 5A (I don't think he's going to take it again). 

How is his chances for these programs? Is his situation a relevant excuse for having little to no work experience? He could apply for a green card and work for a couple years but he feels that it's going to take too long (applying for a green card ain't that simple).  

[MD guy]

Hard to say whether/which programs would be willing to cut him some slack. Stanford IPS doesn't look too bright though, IIRC work experience is highly valued there and it's a tiny tiny class. The answer for him is quite simple, though...contact the admissions offices and ask them how they see someone in his situation since it's too unique for many on GradCafe to be of too much help. The bigger the school, the more likely they'd let someone like him in. So Chicago is good, UCB is a little small but idk, UCs do like their own. Georgetown might be good too and there's always HKS as the esteemed diploma milll where anyone with strong grades has a chance.

Edited July 27, 2016 by MD guy

[callumabernathy]

7 minutes ago, MD guy said:

Hard to say whether/which programs would be willing to cut him some slack. Stanford IPS doesn't look too bright though, IIRC work experience is highly valued there and it's a tiny tiny class. The answer for him is quite simple, though...contact the admissions offices and ask them how they see someone in his situation since it's too unique for many on GradCafe to be of too much help. The bigger the school, the more likely they'd let someone like him in. So Chicago is good, UCB is a little small but idk, UCs do like their own. Georgetown might be good too and there's always HKS as the esteemed diploma milll where anyone with strong grades has a chance.

I might be completely wrong here but I read somewhere that Stanford IPS is very academically-intensive compared to other public policy masters; given that they actually have pre-requisites which are all either Math, Stats or Economics courses. I don't even think the IPS is a MPP program since they also have a MPP program which can be taken in conjunction to the IPS. I not entirely sure what the IPS is, to be honest. 

[ExponentialDecay]

As a fellow F1 student from a developing country, I understand your pain, but international students get work experience in the states (which is the hardest country by far to work in on a student visa) regularly and consistently. Here are some common avenues: working for your university as an RA or in some other capacity (allowed by F1 if under 20 hrs/week), getting CPT (for which your university needs to award you class credit for your work, which you can negotiate with your department/international student office in the unlikely eventuality that your university doesn't run such a program already), using your OPT, volunteering, working in your home country... Most internationals have comparable work experience with domestics, rightly or wrongly. Getting work experience is hard, but without a doubt easier than getting a green card - unless you plan on getting married. I doubt schools will take you any more or less seriously than any case with lacking WE.

I'm also not sure that it's wise to sink all this money into getting a public sector job that you are currently fundamentally not eligible for.