MPP program chances?

Graduate School
1

<p>Hello! I'm looking into different MPP/MPA programs and am anticipating entering grad school for fall 2011. Graduated in June 2008, undergrad GPA of 3.54 from top 40 university with a major in International Studies and minor in Accounting. I plan to apply to these schools for an environmental policy concentration:</p>

<p>University of Washington
UC Berkeley
Cornell
Brown
USC
UCLA
University of Oregon</p>

<p>I haven't taken the GRE yet, but plan to take it towards the end of August/beginning of Sept. I'm fairly confident that I can break 700+ on quant, but a little shaky on Verbal (500ish).</p>

<p>I only have about a year and a half of professional work experience in an unrelated field, but have done a lot of volunteer work since high school with an internationally operating NGO and have had a leadership role in this organization over the past year. (My involvement with this NGO is actually why I decided to pursue an MPP.) I also currently have an internship/volunteer position with a local environmental restoration group. I have excellent letters of rec from these experiences and also have excellent academic letters of rec from undergrad.</p>

<p>So here are my questions/concerns:</p>

<ol>
<li>Is the number of programs I plan to apply to enough? And are there any other programs that I should consider?</li>
<li>With my current stats, do I have a chance at these programs?</li>
<li>Will my lack of professional experience in public policy be a factor as an applicant?</li>
</ol>

<p>Any comments/suggestions/answers are helpful. Thanks everyone!</p>

2

<p>I’m a current MPP student. Our interests don’t match up well, and I applied to only one of the schools you’re looking at (UW), so I can’t really give you advice there.</p>

<p>One thing I can say is that your volunteer/internship advice is <em>probably</em> sufficient for experience. Most of my classmates do have at least a couple years of professional experience, but not 100%. A few do have backgrounds similar to your own. I think you should at least get into Oregon and Brown (which, despite being Ivy League, is not particularly highly ranked in policy), and I’d expect you to be admitted into several of the others as well. </p>

<p>Not sure what effect the GRE has on MPP admissions, to be honest. MPP students have such a wide variety of interests that the score ranges are all over the spectrum. My career goal is to be a researcher and analyst, and you won’t be surprised to know that I have much, much higher verbal scores than math scores. My friends who are interested in economic policy and hate writing papers scored much higher on the math than the verbal. I’d guess that if your overall score is over 1250, you’re into respectable territory.</p>

3

<p>you should look at the university of maryland-cp. They have great faculty and research opportunities in enviro-policy.</p>