This is also one of the key factors for me to recommend public policy projects.
The MPP/MPA program is very friendly to the applicant's undergraduate background and encourages the applicant to have diverse backgrounds. Because the study content spans many disciplines such as politics, economy, finance, statistics, education, policy and management, there is no special preference for the applicant's original academic background. Some students joked that MPA is BA in the eyes of liberal arts students, which is a good example to describe the popularity of this major.
We applied for two students from the University of Chicago, one majoring in international business and finance, and the other majoring in economics. Both of them are interdisciplinary applications, which proves that this major is tolerant of the applicant's background.
2. Basic mathematical analysis ability is needed, but mathematical ability is not unique.
Throughout the public policy project, the prerequisite courses cover mathematics and economics courses. Basic mathematics courses, statistics courses and economics courses all need modules of advanced courses, and if you apply for top-level projects, your ability in mathematics, physics and chemistry must not be short-board. Here, there are bound to be students asking questions. I am a pure liberal arts and social science teacher. I have never taken these courses. Can I not apply? Please note that the social sciences in the United States and China are different at the undergraduate level. Social science in China generally does not require mathematical ability, while social science in the United States requires students to have basic mathematical statistics ability and study related courses. So the core of the problem is not whether you are a liberal arts and social sciences major in science, but how good you are in mathematics and physics. For example, if you are a liberal arts student, but you are not the type who can't learn mathematics, then you can make up the prerequisite courses through various channels. However, even if you are a business major, if mathematics is an absolute shortcoming, your grades are not high, and there is pressure to learn mathematics in the future, then I think MPP major will be a great challenge for you. This is a subject that cannot be separated from the foundation of mathematics and economics. If you don't have this background, you must find ways to make up for it in time through online courses or school courses. With regard to the statistical summary of the prerequisite courses of various majors, the teachers also summarized the practical dry goods information to serve our contracted students, so as to save you the pain of checking the schools one by one.
You need to have rich practical experience.
Both of our students have very different practical experiences. Each student has an average of 3-4 internships. You can find that almost no summer vacation is free from freshman to senior, and the internship level is gradually improved. Such as United Nations Headquarters, roland berger, Citibank and so on.
4, need to have a strong speculative ability.
This is what I personally think is the most important point. Because the public policy major has very high requirements for documents. This high level is first reflected in the fact that MPP requires more application documents than conventional business and engineering. There is no need to write papers for formal science and engineering majors, only 1-2 for business majors, and MPP majors win by quantity.