Background on myself: I went to a decent small Liberal Arts school and received my undergrad in English. I interned at an environmental non-profit and spent my first summer doing a conservation internship for Americorps, and have been working full time at another environmental advocacy non-profit for close to two years since graduating. While my GPA is competitive enough for good schools (3.6), I’m worried that my job experience isn’t sufficient to be a good candidate for the programs I’m currently eyeing. the bulk of my work has been in social media/some light IT stuff, but due to the size of the organization I do have a kind of familiarity with the political process (from the non-profit side) as it pertains to environmental legislation in the conservation and energy sectors. My top two programs are currently Syracuse University (MPA) and Carnegie Mellon (MPP). I would take the environmental policy concentration at either school if accepted.
I am thinking about taking an intro to stats course to bolster my resume since I lack the quantitative background. I am also planning on retaking the GRE to improve my quant score about 5. My GRE scores were 150 Q (ugh), 161 V and 4 W. I could definitely get the writing score up, but most of the programs I’ve looked at don’t seem to care about this score.
Are the “top” programs a pipe dream for me? Outside of my quantitative score, my GRE and GPA scores are decent among accepted students, but I’m worried that my academic background and lack of truly (rather than tangentially) related work experience will hurt me.