Fall Admissions Webinar (September 2021)

Hello hello.

Pink, we're connected.

Alright, hello everybody.

I think the first thing I love to do is make sure you can hear me and the way I love to do that as to ask where you are logging in from. I love seeing these registrations and coming in from all over the world and all over the United States and it's just.

Really exciting to see that, so hopefully you can find the chat box and can just pop in and say hi so.

Thank you, welcome from Turkey.

Here we go down South DC. This is great. I love it.

Great Pakistan, Spain, North Carolina. I hope everybody is safe and well.

Great to see these people logging in from all over Dubai. Welcome from Dubai. I missed my time in Abu Dhabi when I was there two years ago.

So you can wait a second for people to get situated. Hopefully you saw some of the logistics that if you do need to expand to see the slides, you can use the little expand button at the top right hand corner of your screen and this is a audio web and audio video of an R, but you won't be able to speak. You will be able to use the chat function, so please feel free to do so.

Either as we go along or towards the end. I do want to make sure I get to all of your questions we are.

Giving near application season, the application is open and ready to go, so I want to make sure I get to all of your questions, especially those of you who are applying this season.

And then hopefully we'll go over some some logistics with that. But why don't we go ahead and formally get started? My name is Melissa McGinnis and I'm the assistant director of admissions at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs at Yale, and we are back in the office. I've been here for a few weeks now. Still very virtual. So anybody logging in from local? We are still not doing in person things, but hopefully many of you who are.

Are here found this on our events calendar, so anything that we do schedule in the future we will be sure to post there. So keep your eye on that. If we're able to do any virtual or I'm sorry, live in person events.

Time so yeah, well greetings again, my name is Melissa and I have been with the Jackson Institute almost three years now, but my career has been in this graduate admissions public and international affairs space have been doing this for well over 20 years work today a friendly competitor down in New Jersey. And so I'm just really excited about all of the things that are happening at Jackson. Those of you might be new here and are exploring.

And learning about Yale and Jackson, or maybe some of you were here because you have followed us on this journey for perhaps many years. Maybe you've seen a lot of our changes. I think the biggest thing is that we are slated to become yells next professional school starting in fall of 2022 with our official launch. So that's a really exciting time. The last time that happened was with the School of Management just down the road 1976. I believe it was.

So this is a big deal for not just Jackson before Yale, and so part of these these growing things are we have recently made the announcement to change our degree name from an MA to an MP in Global Affairs. So that was an exciting time. The Provost office got that ball rolling on the front end so we could have that in place for when we launch officially next fall. So exciting times, and I'm sure there might be questions about that we can deal with those.

More general questions later, as we go forward, but I do want to get to sort of the the different aspects of Jackson that I believe, and I think most of my colleagues and our staff and our students and alumni believe that make Jackson unique among our peers.

So I'll go over some things, and if any of you are repeat visitors, you may have heard me talk about some of these five apps. It they they kind of came to me as I've done many many many, many, many of these webinars, so I apologize if you're you know you are repeat. Hopefully there will be something new. Inevitably there's new questions and new things happening that may make this a little bit new for you, but for those of you who are brand new, these, I think kind of these 5F.

Hopefully are things that will help you remember what makes Jackson unique and will help you know, sort of.

Explain that and they sort of nuts and bolts sort of way. So basically the five FS our family flexibility faculty funding in future. So we're going to talk really briefly about each of those categories, and then we can open up to questions. Alright, so we'll get started. So family now that might seem a little odd. The way I sort of think of family is, first of all mentioned.

You know size and we some of you may know we are a very small program. We have two masters, master of Public policy which are sharp traditional two year program. We also have a one year master of Advanced Studies from mid career professionals. Those are both very small. RMP is about 30 to 35 and RM as is has been about two to five but we're growing some peripheral programs there. So if you check out our student BIOS for this year you might.

See that the Ms Cohort is expanded and primarily anything that we talk about today will except when we're talking about culture and and the whole experience. But we're talking about requirements will be primarily focusing on the MPP, since that has various requirements, whereas the masses one year, eight courses. We do have a webinar focusing on that next week. It's pretty straightforward, but I know often a lot of the mass people.

It feel like they're slighted a little bit, since these are very MPP focused, but we have a dedicated web and R. For those of you who might be masc. Next week, check out our events calendar and hopefully find that maybe you can find the time. You can also register and there it will be recorded as is this one.

So, but all that to say, the cohorts are obviously very very small. So in addition to that being located not just in New Haven, CT, which is, you know, a small city, some of you in the larger cities, the DCS, and delays probably laugh when we call New Haven a city. But we are very small, manageable city, very New England vibe which I love. Very green. The picture on this slide in the bottom left is is our backyard right out here and some of the orientation events.

That we've just had, so that's a recent photo, and so it's it definitely has the best of these both worlds where it's like city and residential and it's a foodie town. So I think that that location being in the Northeast Corridor between New York City and Boston is a perfect location for us for getting around and having access to larger cities, if you will. But also being able to be in in just this.

Quiet community and on Hill House Ave which is a beautiful tree lined St in central campus and again located in these this large Victorian mansion Historic Victorian mansion and with us becoming a school sometime in the next few years or so will be acquiring the couple mansions across the street and so.

All of that to say, I think our size. I think our commitment to the global good is a theme you'll hear if any of you are on here who have been on like our alumni coffee chats that we had this summer or in the past.

We'll hopefully get an understanding of how community oriented R. Jackson cohorts are and that means integrating also with the staff and the scholars and the senior fellows. And we'll talk about that when we get to the faculty F but.

They're all very integrated, and I think that's one thing you we have a vibrant student life community that you can be sort of insular here at Jackson. Or you have the broader Yale community to participate in. So definitely a tight knit community here, all with that that threaten that commitment to the to the global good second half being flexibility. So maybe you're familiar with Jackson enough to know that we are tremendously.

Flexible program I think we are one of the most flexible. I think there might be one of our other colleagues in New York. DC might have a little bit more flexibility in the volume of courses, but leave that research to you. I mentioned the MAS which is the one year mid career which requires a minimum of seven years of relevant sort of IR etc. Work experience. No core, no requirements.

So that besides the prerequisite of work experience and but the MPP is the two year program and there are four core classes and we'll talk about that. We can go that back into that a little bit.

And on this slide you'll see that we talk about a little bit about the graduation requirements. So Yale Jackson does have a language proficiency requirement. So if there's questions about that, we can talk about that a little bit later.

But it's something that you need to meet by graduation, so many non native English speakers already meet that and their Yale has a tremendous, very robust language offerings. And we also have a required summer internship. And obviously maintaining a certain level of grade point average and then one of the new changes to us becoming a school that will be in implementing this year I think.

This second years this year, it's the we doing a trial run with this practice run. If you will is the leadership and ethics training workshop that students will be doing in their second year. So it's almost like a second year orientation if you will.

And I, I think.

Again.

So Jackson has the four core, right? The stats, the ECON history and the the policy class. The comparative politics class. So then students can take classes at Jackson or anywhere else at Yale. So we like to call that an academic playground, right? So you have tremendous flexibility. You had. It's very interdisciplinary meaning there are, you know, I mentioned the small cohort. We have say we have 35 different students. They're presumably doing.

35 different courses of study. We do not have prescribed concentrations like some programs do. You're basically choosing your path and you're choosing your direction, and we can talk a little bit about that if there's questions about that, and I will utilize the chat, I want to make sure I'm going to post some links in as I go. Some URL links as long as I don't forget them.

So one thing I want to make sure you have is this is the Yale course database.

So you can actually link on that and you can do a keyword search whether your interest in grad school is because you want to build maybe the different tools. Maybe the mathematical tools that the statistical analysis tools or languages like R, Python, etc. Or maybe you want to take some more theoretical classes and you can do those history, class history, department or anthropology. Or maybe you want to take a law class.

Do you want to take a more environmental class? You can do that with Jackson. You are most of our students. Take classes at the other professional schools, including the School of Management, School Environment, but Law School.

So you don't have to be in pursuing a joint to agree to do that, and that's the beauty of the program. OK, hopefully that makes sense, but there are a handful of students couple handfuls of students who do pursue joint degrees. Something to keep in mind with pursuing a joint degree with one of the other professional schools is that the admissions processes are completely separate. So if there's anybody here who is interested in the Yale School of the Environment we are doing in joint information session early in November.

Can check out our events calendar, which I could probably make your life a little bit easier and post that link in for you, but we're doing that that joint events sometimes. Our directors do a joint somd.

Session, I haven't heard if that's when scheduled or not.

But you would have to reach out to the professional school that you're interested in in pursuing and follow their application requirements because they are completely separate. There's no overlap. You may have to do testing like we are still requiring the GRE for the MPP, and we don't waive that unless you're a current Yale students. So if there's anybody here in that situation, I can answer that question.

But otherwise

you know will communicate with each other. The admissions officers communicate after the fact, so we know you know who has been offered admissions and so we know who our joint degree students are going to be. But do keep that in mind if you want to apply to the joint degree and there is an additional statement of interest on top of your personal statement where you flush that out a little bit more. But again, I want to reiterate that.

You do not need to be a joint degree candidate to take classes all across Yale, which really is. What, again, is one of the main main beauties of the program. OK, just to go into the more this this sort of the soft, I don't know if you call it soft, but like a little bit of description of the of the program features already talked about the core and the core is evolving with us again becoming a school. We're really building that up making that robust.

We added recently being 4th class which was the the the political science class to have more of a policy class that most students took anyway. But now we added that to our core with the change of the MPP having the policy degree, so making sure students do actually take them up more of a hard policy class. And there's. There's definitely you mentioned you create your own curriculum. You create your own path.

There there, this line shows samples of what people do and have done. This is not an exhaustive list by any means. I think I mentioned that before. When you are, there's various reasons for why people want to do a degree, especially with Jackson because of its flexibility in the future near future. I believe there is talk of maybe.

Presenting pathways so if you want to pursue this, here's our recommended course list. I don't have the details on that yet, but that is something that is being worked out, so it might not be as overwhelming. 'cause if any of you have already clicked on the course database and done a keyword search and see hundreds of classes come up in a particular area. You know classes 500 and above are grad classes, but if you find maybe there's an undergrad.

Class that isn't represented in the graduate level classes. You might be able to get permission to take a high level undergrad class as one of your grad classes with some extra work and and and stuff like that, but you can make cases for all of these things, and there's things like directed readings, which are basically one on one classes to do with a faculty member, so your options are so vast, so those of you who are applying now or in the near future, there may be a little bit more assistance with that and just.

Keep in mind you you're not left to your own devices, should you get admitted and enroll students meet one on one with our director of Student Affairs and RDGS and and you know we have resources for you. There's sample matrices on our website. See like what people have done in the past, but you get that one on one help as soon as you arrive. And I know our director has been meeting all these last few weeks. Just boom boom, getting meeting with every single person.

To see what their plans are and help them to navigate the academic playground right?

So let's see. I think the only other thing I wanted to mention was that we're we're building more of a writing program, and we're integrating that into the core a little bit more, and I think there is a plan to even hire our own writing, writing tutor, writing instructor. But again, Yale has tremendous resources already, but we want to build up our Jackson resources even more now that we're becoming a school, all right.

Next, F is faculty. I hinted to that a little bit in the family F, and that's because.

Again, I mentioned I've been doing this for well over 20 years and I've done recruiting on the road with all of our peers out there. You know, the.

Massachusetts DC New York you know, New Jersey schools and then so I'm familiar enough with a lot of these places. You have to reach out to each of these places that you're interested in and ask these questions, right? But I will say that when it comes to especially our senior fellows that we have, they are very integrated into the Community, right? They are, you will find these top names at.

All of these top tier institutions.

Right so.

What you want to find out is how they're integrated into the community. Not only do our our faculty and senior fellows teach classes, but they're available for for mentoring. You can do coffee with them. They host lectures, they bring in their networks for during their classes, or if they have larger events, and so they and.

Pre and post COVID, right? We're still in transition getting back to whatever might be normal, but being here in this, you know giant Victorian mentioned I mentioned there's, you know, share the same coffee machine and a lot of organic conversations happened, so I might be waiting for the coffee waiting for an ambassador that you end up chatting with so.

In our World, Fellows is a Yale program that that's under Jackson's purview. Their student lounge is right across the hall from our graduate student lounge, so they're here in the fall semester. 16 people really rising in their careers, and they are.

And they're not faculty, right? But they are here taking classes, but they just like faculty and senior fellows, will give lectures and talk about their experiences. So they are definitely fully integrated into the community as well. And then I mentioned our ladder faculty. That's that's one of the main questions I get this last year, with us becoming a school. What is the main wondered? Some major changes were not expecting to change the culture of who we are. The philosophy of who we are. We've really been operating.

As a school for quite awhile now, so now we're sort of catching up to that in name. But one thing I would say is is developing our own ladder faculty versus like sharing with other departments. Obviously people still have joint appointments and whatnot and that adds to the interdisciplinary nature of the program, but will have a lot more control over our tenure effectively and all that. So that's an exciting prospect, so we're already building those up and let me backtrack and put.

In some of these, these links to those things that I've mentioned, so you have them. Here is a list of our senior fellows, and I believe yes, the new ones. We had six new ones. I think it was this fall have been added so you'll see those there and for those interested in the world fellow program and students can apply to be world fellow liaisons. Which means you could be working closely with.

These people helping them? I'll put their link in as well. You know whether it's helping them arrange, organize events and lectures or helping them get settled in or whatever the case may be.

And before I forget, I didn't post this in when I was talking about the family and the community. I want to make sure you find our student BIOS which the pictures of the of the newbies aren't up yet. But the BIOS I believe are there. I don't know if they're 100% final, but those are coming, so I think that's really important for you. Between all the senior fellows, the faculty, our students to really get a picture of the depth and breadth of the.

The culture and the community and and representing different areas of interest. All right, let me keep going. 'cause again I want to make sure we have time for your questions and then of course the F really that everyone probably wants to know is the funding. We actually provide pretty decent funding here at Jackson. Again, I mentioned before. We currently are not providing funding for the Ms program. I don't know if there's plans to do that in the future, but right now we're not. So when you do look at the student BIOS.

When you see the Ms candidates, you often see that majority of them are sponsored. They're coming from the military, international government, different places like that because their employers are sponsoring them. That's not something that we are requiring are necessarily look for, but those are the people who are opting into coming because they are funded to get this one year degree. So when I speak of funding, it is for the MPP specifically and it really is as straightforward as in the application.

Form you check a box that says you're applying for funding from Jackson and we will consider you for funding. We consider our funding merit based. I suppose you could say it's a little bit that base funding is need based, right? 'cause if you're checking the box saying you need funding, you will be offered funding. Make sure if you're coming with outside funding, we know what that is. That's really helpful after decisions are made to to figure all that out, but the last few years the the minimum award that we have.

Offered everyone who asks for it is half tuition. Excuse me, so we're looking at 22 someone $1000 sort of right off the bat. So that is a straightforward that. And then when we are considering the rest of our merit based funding, we are looking at the typical data points. The how much work experience you have. The GPS jeries all of those things do come into play when we are looking at the merit based funding. Excuse me.

And let me actually post in this page. Here has the student profile. So you might have questions about that when we get to that portion of the webinar, but hopefully it gives you a picture and and again, a lot of these things do come into play when we are looking at the merit based funding. We also have the required summer internship and if you end up in an unpaid summer internship there is, I think.

Upwards of $5000 that you can apply for summer funding, so that's available. So again, pretty straightforward. I would say we probably come in.

I would say maybe second among our peers and funding. I again worked in New Jersey and a little.

University down in Central Jersey and.

Which I won't name since I don't work there anymore, but they have the mic drop on funding and you know almost fully fund their need based funding and almost fully fund their students, so are so that would be the second thing when people ask what is changing about Jackson becoming the school I mentioned the building up our ladder faculty. I think the second thing is, we're really hopeful that we will be able to increase our student funding.

Least as time goes on a little bit more and more, so I think in the end, once this this past year, once all of the admissions decisions that this admitted students admissions responses were made, we were able to reallocate some funding and everybody who's coming in if they weren't externally funded, has full tuition. So that's an exciting thing and we hope that with time we'll be able to provide even more, and it has been again. There's no quotas.

Your mathematical formulas about this, but it has been about a third of the class for each of those categories, the tears that we talk about or you can see on the website is about a third of the class gets half tuition about a third gets full tuition and amount of third is fully funded, so you know with the stipend and everything. So pretty good. Pretty decent financial aid. I would say all right and the last is future. I assume most of you are here because you were.

Thinking about your long term career goals and how a graduate degree, ideally in global affairs, would help you get there, right? So Jackson, being a member of Apsia, which if you are interested in and I are, you should follow them. They host events, general events, events. For us, they're doing a series of open houses this fall. We're participating in about three of them.

Those are on our events calendar as well, but they have resources for external funding.

But they're sort of the top 30 some odd IR schools across the world, right? And so we, as a member of apps you have founding member actually back gazillion years ago yells IR program was a founding member of EPSIO. We have our own dedicated career development office, so you not only have access to Yale's resources, but we have a dedicated career development office where again, like our student affairs with the class selection.

You meet one on one with crew development. I think the director has been already meeting with people throughout orientation and now the classes have started to do intake to figure out what your goals are. To help navigate you towards resources and help you find your summer internship as well as your first job. And I do have some of those links as well that I believe I have a part. Yes, so this.

Link.

Is the sample not sample? I think it's the actual. It's the literal summer experiences for the last at least half dozen years you drill down and you search for each year, maybe. Make sure you look beyond. You know, summer 2020, since that was obviously a strange year for all of us worldwide, but hopefully it gives you an idea of the kinds of internships that people do. It doesn't for privacy, it doesn't give names, but it actually gives the locations and and where they did.

Them up and titles.

Uhm?

So again, there's no locations for last summer because everybody was remote.

So also the first jobs.

Are in this link.

And you have to scroll to the bottom of that page to see the same type of data to see the kinds of things that our Jackson alumni do. Hopefully many of you have participated in some of the alumni coffee chats that we've done because we're still virtual this fall, we might might.

Continue those into the fall. So again, keep an iron or events calendar. We will post them there if we get. If we find time to schedule those in and symbiotic with the alumni schedules to schedule more of those coffee chats, they really are excited to give back and participate in those 45 minute sessions. Ideally they'd be in a little coffee shop in whatever location they're in, but we are still doing them virtual, so we might consider continue those this fall, so keep that in your calendar.

But in addition to helping with this summer internships and the first jobs there are.

This occurred development office does all the typical like resume review, mock interviews and all of those kinds of things, but also tremendous amount of networking. They bring employers in alumni in.

There's still fingers crossed already planning the October DC alumni networking or a networking event.

Downplaying the alumni and that because still sort of being in the pandemic. I think usually at the DC event where they go and they meet, meaning the MPP students get on a bus, go down to DC, stay in a hotel and they have meetings with employers and all sorts of things like that. Usually there's a very large reception with alumni, not just Jackson, Aluminum World fellow alumni. It's a great event. I've gone in the past.

We're not having that portion of the networking event, given the ongoing pandemic, but those things hopefully will be normal again and have all of those network events. They do that in New York City. They've done every now and again. They do that in London, so there are.

Plenty of opportunities to do that networking. So definitely you have a lot of assistance to help you through navigating your career goals, and that's what. Hopefully you're here for and then finally, logistically, the application is open. You can apply now. We do not have rolling admissions so there is no advantage to getting your application in early except if you do get it in by December 1st.

Your application fee is automatically waived.

Final deadline is January 2nd.

And again, no admissions advantage. We can't read applications all at once. We have to read them rolling, but you know.

Yeah, so it's really for your benefit to have that December 1 application fee waiver. Practically. Keep in mind this application season we are still part of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, right when we become a school next fall. That's when we will separate. But because we're still using their application, we want to make sure that this isn't confusing to those of you applying this year.

When you click on the apply now and choose the degree program, you will not see the MPP option. Don't panic over that, it's just they were not. They can't change that because the Graduate School does not offer an MPP. They offer an MA and and mass right? You still need to choose that option.

On the application form right, don't get hung up over that. You can use MPP reference MPP everywhere else in your application on your personal statement etc etc. Tell your your reference writers.

On and on, and it's just a timing issue for this year, so once students who get admitted and choose to enroll on the back end, you will be switched over. And when Jackson is independent and that timing is all.

All in all, roles out on the back end you will be an MPP student, so hopefully I want to make sure. I pointed out that that really logistical.

Sort of frustrating a little bit for us if you're interested in the future. Keep in mind that next fall we will have our own application and hopefully some of the confusing things about the Jesus application won't be as confusing. You will see that another example I want to make sure I ask is often people or make sure I mention people. Often this comes up when people ask about what should be in a personal statement.

Keep in mind that the Graduate School has changed their personal statement to be called statement of academic purpose or something to that effect, and that's not really the philosophical side that we want. We're professional program here at Jackson, and while we do want to know about your academic background, it really is about what your professional goals are and sort of the whole why Graduate School and what you want to do long term. So keep that in mind too. When you're seeing some of the more generic.

Prompts within the application OK. If you're applying in the future future.

You hopefully won't need to worry about that, so this bad that FY I is for those of you applying this fall. OK, I think I mentioned already that the jury is still required for our two year program and also the.

I should have mentioned this earlier for those who want to apply by the December 1st deadline to get the fee waiver. Do keep in mind your letters of recommendation and test scores don't have to come in until the January 2nd deadline. OK, so keep that in mind. You have that freedom. Those things that are a little bit outside of your control can come in a little bit later, and they also can come in within a week ish of the January 2nd deadline.

As I mentioned, the application for you will close, but you have to request your test scores from ETS. That applies to full as well for non native English speakers. So you have to request those to be sent from ETS and they do take 7 to 10 or 14 days to come in and get loaded so those can come a little bit later and some people want to tell their recommenders that their deadline is December 1, if that's when they're applying, and then if they're late.

They won't really be late, so I'll leave that up to you and your recommenders. You want to tell them about the deadline, but they do have sort of an unlimited time. There might be a cap eventually, but it remains open for them, but you might not want to tell them that because they'll they'll take advantage of that and they really should be in within a week or so of the January 2nd deadline 'cause we get right on reading as soon as the deadline is passed.

Alright, I think I know, and again the decisions go out in sort of early to mid March. We promise we get them done as soon as possible. We don't sit on them again with us being part of the Graduate School. Still there. There's a whole layer and level of approvals of our recommended recommended admission offers. So yeah, middle of March and then you have until May 1st to reply to the offer. So that's our cycle. Hopefully it helps. Here's our final slide.

Uhm, which has our different social media I keep forgetting. I need to add our Instagram on there. There is a link and I can post the link in to my calendly. Since these are slides that you can't actually link on.

What for those of you who feel like?

Maybe save this 'cause we're going to answer a lot of questions, but I will post this in now and for those of you who feel like your questions don't get answered here, I'm happy to have a short zoom chat with you, but hopefully we will answer a lot of questions we don't do interviews so the one on one meetings aren't anything that's going to improve your chances of admission, but I am very happy to help answer any questions you might have. I think I covered everything I want to cover and I see a couple questions.

Popping in, I want to make sure we get to those so I will dive right in and I will feel free to to keep posting and questions and I will try to get to them.

All right, Julia. Many thanks for clarifying that there's no admissions advantage. Getting up early. Is there a benefit to merit aid considerations by applying early? No, there is not, so there isn't.

Any advantage for funding either so it's the same application, there's no additional.

A little faster or any other.

Financial forms required. Unless you're externally funded, then having those sort of documentation as soon as possible. It's helpful. By mid March, more sort of making the offers. Ideally our funding offers would go out within 2448 Seventy 2 ish hours after admissions decision emails go out. Hopefully the funding offers will go out and very very soon thereafter and you will know what you're sort of working with. OK, great question.

Any D within a week of January 2nd. Is this the 3rd to the 9th? Might be a D. You're being a little too literal. It's there's not again January 2nd. The deadline. It would be most ideal to have everything in by January 2nd, but again, So what happens is we will read we have to start reading right away and so we read complete applications first for efficiency. Obviously so, and because we can't read applications all at the same time. And it's a large admissions.

Committee with many people you know from admissions staff, student affairs, crew services with faculty. We even have senior fellows so well. You might have former ambassadors reading your application.

What happens is we will eventually finish reading all the complete applications and we will move on to incomplete applications. We don't just throw you out if you're an incomplete application because we don't have your third recommender or whatever, but you don't want us to be reading your application. Incomplete, right? 'cause your application might not be as strong. So when do we start reading incomplete application? No idea. That depends on how human we are, how fast we can read, but being thorough.

And also.

How large is the applicant pool? So that's probably too long of an answer for you, but don't think about it so literally. Trying to get everything in by January 2nd, but if it comes in a week or so after, know that it's probably OK. You get much later, the chance that it is whatever you submit later is not able to be reviewed with your application. OK, hopefully that makes sense. Let's see and Henrik does your MPP qualify for postgraduate?

Studies.

Uhm, I might be a clarification on that on what you mean by that exactly. We are professional school. Most people I would say this. We consider this a terminal degree. So this is a degree that we believe you you complete and you cannot go out and do international policy. Do global affairs. We have a very small handful of people who might go on and get a PhD or another another.

Degree it's not common. It's we're not an academic program in that regard, and that's part of what our degree name change was. I think Ma often signify, you know, signal that we're hoping the MPP signals more of the professional degree. Jackson currently doesn't offer a PhD.

So I don't know if that was your question, but again, some people have done it and you can probably see it through looking at the first jobs. There might have been some people have gone on to to be PHD's to maybe work at think tanks or whatnot or maybe academics, but it's a smaller batch. Maybe that answers your question or feel free to to post and hopefully I'll get to it as we go through your welcome. Julia Stephen, are there any direct faculty, senior fellow mentorship opportunities? Not.

Well, formal like as in like a program.

Like where you feel something out? It definitely is more organic though. There is a more formal like take an ambassador to lunch kind of thing. Again, that's pre hopefully post COVID. There are those opportunities to be able to do that, but you can work out but it happens. I mean, it's there's been a student alumni who said when they were a student they were let me back up. I completely didn't mention. Hopefully you saw it in this slide, but in the funding slide.

Where people often enhance their funding, being TAS or TF's, I think they were teaching fellows course assistance, research assistants, doing that with faculty with senior fellows. Senior senior fellows especially usually need them 'cause they're often, you know, traveling back and forth and are maybe not as film familiar with academia, so the students end up getting those jobs. It's more than just enhancing your funding. It really is an additional networking opportunity.

So I you know one of our students ended up getting her first job out of Jackson with the person she was a TF4. So there's those kinds of things that happen. And also the again, I, I'll reiterate that there is.

They're here, right? They actually want to talk to students, and so it definitely happens. And and of course, it's case by case, right? Different senior fellows have different schedules and you know than others and are busier than others and some have been senior fellows for many years, so they like it here. They stick around so they are very fully integrated in the student experience, so hopefully that helps. It's not super formal but hopefully helps.

You guys have blown up the chat box. Let me make sure I keep going. We have about 15 minutes so I hopefully we're alright and Hannah apologize if you missed this. But how many applications do you receive? You did not miss in. I didn't really talk about that. Usually it's somewhere in the four 500 somewhere in there. That's what it's been. No idea what this unusual year is going to bring you. Nowhere with the degree name change and the school name.

I'm nervous that we're going to potentially blow up the applicant pool, and we still have to read all of those, so hopefully that helps. We do admit about 50 or 60 or so to get our yield of about 35 students, so hopefully that gives you a picture of the yield chi you're welcome. Is there a minimum GPA, GRE, or other academic markers so it posted in the profile and I will.

Post it in again, just in case I don't. I'm assuming the chat shows up even if you come in late after a particular chat has been posted, but oh, I think I did the student experience. Sorry my bad, let me. This is the link you want. I don't think I can delete chat.

Uhm?

Things so.

But something to note here is that is all medians and averages, right? We do not have minimum requirements except for the TOEFL. For those who are non native English speakers. Unless you've attended an undergrad degree in an English speaking country, get Graduate School rule and there's not a lot of flexibility there. But that's the only thing we have. A minimum four, and I think it's 102 I think, but otherwise, we'd really do look at the big picture.

Get the holistic picture of all the different components and everybody is going to have different strengths and weaknesses. So maybe somebody really bombed their grem pretty badly, but they did really well in their academics and have you know? And this rock star career in global affairs that is completely relevant in intermission with the Yale Jackson Institute, right? So we look at those those balances so we don't want to put a hard hard minimum on those.

Things, but hopefully it does give you a picture by looking at the profile of sort of the average of those things, and hopefully it helps. And again when we look at GPA, this might be helpful anecdote. It's not so much the overall GPA that will really drill down to, but the grades you've gotten in relevant classes, right? So ideally some quant classes you know some relevant IR classes. What were your grades and those things that will be more important than an overall GPA.

Because maybe you started as like premed or something and realized that wasn't for you and bombed or freshman year. We take those things into account. A little side note if you feel like there are any weaknesses in your application.

There is plenty of space to do additional information I think is what it's called or supplemental information where you can explain weaknesses. I wouldn't use your your personal statement to talk about weaknesses in your application, like poor cherries, gaps and resumes. Things like that. People often do that it's not required, but some people like to address those and there is space to do that. All right. Keep going here answered. Call Herschel for the empty. What is Jackson?

Dance on academic versus professional recommenders. Great question. We prefer so we require three. We require at least one academic and one professional, and then the third is really sort of up to you and again, going to where you feel like, your strength, your application needs to be strengthened and who can strengthen that right. Often people with less work experience may be less than the average coming right from undergrad or whatever the case may be.

Likely you'll have. You'll weigh more academic than professional.

People who've been out 567 ten years obviously will weigh more heavily on the professional side.

Though unless maybe somebody who's been out of work for awhile and have a poor academic record.

Maybe in your case your collective viewers, not yours Herschel in. In that case it would be. Maybe you want a second academic letter who somebody who can attest to your academic skill.

You know, if you if you struggled academically and they can sort of either corroborate your story or help appease our fears of that, it really is up to you. Again, at least you have one professional, one academic, and I know the academic is really tough for those who've been out for a while. So one thing I like to sort of reiterate, it doesn't have to be from a faculty member per say, somebody, a good letter is not a letter that says, Oh yeah, they showed up in my class and gotten a nice person that's not a substantive Graduate School.

Letter what you really want is somebody who knows you well and ideally and and again, if any of you are maybe freshman sophomores and just you know, doing research for the future. Keep in touch with certain professors that can be more mentors. People who who are you feel willing to follow your career and and understand you and your passions. 'cause that's really what we we want to know.

How? What is your analytical skill right? All of that? So? We are professional program, but it's still Yale and you have access to classes like you have access to the number one law school in the country. And so you do need to be academically prepared and we we do want some corroboration in your in your references in any mass on here we do still like an academic or even the mid career so we can talk about that more next week. If you can join our webinar then so hopefully that helps and makes sense up Kristoff. How relevant is the Jerry score for applicants?

You just graduated from undergraduate studies. It's it's I would like to say all of the requirements are equally equal, but it's going to be different for everybody else, right? Everybody is going to have different strengths and weaknesses like I mentioned, so.

Uhm?

A jury score you might actually think somebody who had his right from undergrad or more recent undergrad mate might score better because they're kind of closer to the academic experience. And it's, you know, I don't know that it really necessarily mean I think will take into account those maybe been out ten or more years than are taking the jury like that far removed. Those are the subjective kinds of things that we look at, like somebody who's been away from academics for awhile. Maybe a lesser score, isn't it?

Problematic, but like I mentioned before, it also will look at it kind of in conjunction with your academics. So if you have a terrible, I'm sorry for using the generalizations, but if you have a terrible Jerry and a terrible GPA, those are two red flags, so those might be concerns right? So keep that in mind. It's about how to balance out those strengths and weaknesses, so maybe if you have a terrible Jerry and a terrible GPA, you know.

Emphasize the work that you've done, and that's not relevant to undergrad. If somebody is applying right from undergrad, so maybe that's where an academic letter will become more important. To be like, you know, I I.

Don't pay attention to what the GPA is. The student can really do this, so hopefully that helps give a picture of how we look at the holistic process.

Alright, we still have like 7 minutes. I still see a bunch of questions. UM, feel free to keep asking. Let's see does Tom does Jackson accept the GI Bill for funding? Have any current students use it? Yes, Tom gets. I say it gets very confusing on our end. We do accept it that yellow ribbon except etc. There's I mentioned earlier that submitting things with your application or soon after. You know. I think you can upload things on the back end even in.

February, March so funding documents are really important and it just gets confusing for us 'cause it's not the same for everybody. It depends on your length of service and all of those kinds of things and people get it for different things, whether it's tuition or maybe you already get your housing. So as much information as you can provide is really helpful so we don't sort of get, you know, a little stuck in, you know how to how to maybe we make you an offer and then your GI funding comes in and then we have to like.

Reduce that offer since especially with military you can't offer more than is allowed and it does get a little confusing, but I don't have to do with that. Our finance people do, but absolutely we have. If you see our student BIOS, we have a tremendous military relationship, just.

More information we can have about what that funding is helpful, so if that makes sense, probably TMI as well. I guess. I answered Hendrix question, Julie, thank you so much. What separates a good application from a great application? Great question, I would say.

Something that we look for and I I is.

I would say that first commitment to the global good right sounds cheesy, but I hear all our students and alumni talked about that and we talked about that in the Community family aspect, commitment to the global good.

Ideally some quantitative experience right up and a unique story.

From there I mean, obviously we could admit probably 3/4 of the applicant pool right off the bat, with some of those things, but it really does come down to what the unique story is. Hopefully if you spend time looking at our student BIOS, you will see that depth and breadth everybody out of even just 35 people come from completely different backgrounds, right? Or even if there are similar background, you know having you know been working in a certain region. There may be studying different things within that region, so that's a challenge that we have.

But we also feel very proud of how we do that, and it still brings together this community. So that's where it gets sort of. That unique story is really what comes into play.

Because we can work around some of the academic things, right? We you know, if somebody needs a tutor for quote class, you know that's something we can try to work on, but we can't have too many people who need tutors, so you know, we we, we build this class and we look at how many PR are. Enough regions represented? Do we have too many people with you know the the poor Jerry's we've talked about?

You know I could go on and on about different scenarios, but hopefully that gives you sort of that. That idea it's keep in mind it's not just what you need to learn from us, but it's also what you bring to the table so.

When you're putting together application, keep in mind like you will be communicating with people from the private sector from the military, from the foreign service, from the peace core and how etc etc and and. And how can you contribute to that conversation in that international policy conversation. So making that clear the why Jackson piece I mentioned on the last slide, why Jackson so many? So many people tell us how great they are, but forgets and maybe tell us how great we are, yells my dream, but white accent.

Right, why this very flexible, very interdisciplinary small degree program? Why do you want to do this program? Don't forget to leave. Don't don't leave that out of your personal statement. And don't forget to tell us what it is you want to do long term, what you want to do in your career. People leave that out as well and it's very important for us to know that because we're a professional program and also because of the flexibility of our program, we're trying to piece together all of these things and bringing in this very broad cohort.

So I tried to do that and like as quick as possible, but hopefully that makes sense. It gives you an idea of kind of what we're thinking about as an admissions committee when we're when we're pulling together the class, so I hope that helps all right, honey, if an application is not accepted, will that applicant be put at a disadvantage for future second application? Great question. We get the question all the time we get re applicants all the time. There is no disadvantage. I like to say it's a whole new ball game.

The only disadvantage might be as if if we see no change right in your application, like another year has passed, so hopefully there's been a little bit more growth. Maybe maybe a recommender knows you a little bit more and can enhance their recommendation. Or maybe have new recommenders, but otherwise I I mentioned before with numbers. It really is. Sadly it ends up being a numbers game, right? We can only admit fifty or sixty people.

And uhm, that can be painful for us. 'cause there's a lot of great applicants that we can't accept just because we want to retain this small cohort. So reapplying is no problem whatsoever. And when we have our own application, hopefully we'll be able to maybe make that a little bit easier. I think it's a little more complicated with Jesus, but you absolutely can reapply, and you do need to submit a new application. You could use your old stuff, but there's some technical issues.

But feel free to ask you email us at the Jackson Jackson dot admissions if you have more questions about reapplying, but it's absolutely possible. No shame, no foul. Feel free all right. I hope that helps.

Christoph graduated I think I saw that and I think I knew what you were talking about. Paola High as having one year work experience after graduating College of disadvantage. Meaning is it rare that MPP student has graduated with only one year. I hate to use the word disadvantage. I really do. I like to say.

That the more work experience you have strengthens your application and I will. But if you look you probably see like just like I talked about with building the class. Maybe only a hand, small amount of people can have weakness in quant skills. We really being a professional program can only have a small amount of people who are coming right from undergrad or only like a year of experience. So it becomes an extra layer of competitiveness 'cause you're not just competing with the whole applicant pool, you're competing with this subset of people who might be applying.

Right from undergrad and how do you stand out among that? And if you look at our student BIOS, you probably see like many of those or pickerings or angles which are on the fast track into the foreign service and they have to come to grad school right from undergrad, and they put their going right into the foreign service. So, but it doesn't mean it's impossible. Again, think about what I said before about how can you contribute to the classroom and the discussion in the Community dealing with people who might be, you know, been.

You know working, you know 810 years in military and governments and whatnot. So think about those things so it does happen, but you need that unique story and you need and that might be where your recommenders can corroborate that this is what you want to do, because we do see work experience as evidence of commitment to global affairs, and it also one final thought. I know we're running out of time.

It seems to be and, and I've learned this and attending all of the alumni coffee chats that it is about that three year Mark. That is that sweet spot where somebody is in the field in this general field of global affairs of IR public policy, and they realize they have this moment of like, oh, I need a graduate degree because I'm lacking in this weather. It's it's the skills, the tools, the the region, the language.

Whatever, so that's where. And so it's those people who seem to be able to better formulate the why Jackson better formulate the create your own path, right? Define your own path.

Because it's so flexible, it seems to be those people who are in that 345 years can better explain that to us. And that's just what makes it a stronger application. So I don't want to say disadvantage, but more work experience is always better and hopefully some of that philosophical stuff I just talked about helps a little bit. All right, Alex, you're welcome. Happy to host what courses exist for technical professional skills at Jackson? I'd use that course 'cause I think I closed that tab already.

The course is database link. You could, depending on what technical skills you have, you can just search in their GLBL or the Jackson classes. If you get really, really technical, maybe languages may be different things. They might be out of the School of Management, ** and there are a wealth of opportunities. Again, probably too many. It might be a little bit overwhelming, so hopefully that helps as we we are running out of time. But I want to make sure I'm OK staying on for a couple of minutes if that helps.

Come and but if you have to bounce, feel free to mounts. Uhm, let's see. 80. How are exams up for the core module split across the two years? I don't know about exams, but assuming you're talking about the core, yes, the core. They've rearranged it a little bit for a couple helpful things.

So your stats classes in the fall, your history classes in the fall, they have moved the E con class to the spring.

For the reason that we don't require any con class, there's no prerequisite, but what we're finding is a lot of people weren't quite where they needed to be for the E con core class.

So moving that to the spring and adding a diagnostic test upon arrival will enable people who aren't quite prepared for the core. They can take a prerequisite in the fall semester. That's the biggest change, right? So you've got the this stats class. The history class in the fall you have the E con class in the spring, and then you can take the the new requirement that the.

The politics class that comparative politics class.

Either in the first year or the second year fall, so there's some flexibility there, and they are sort of spread out to help enhance the cohort nature of the program, right? So keeping that that that cohort community within the core is important to us as well, hopefully that that answers your question and let's see Cork. I'm going to say your name ROM Kuroko.

Car I'm probably butchering that and I really apologize. Can you talk a little bit more about the language proficiency requirement? Sure, uhm, so it needs to be met by graduation from Yale, right? So what happens is either you can prove it in your application, though it gets a little confusing the applicant in the application form. We're just really looking for the broad requirements we, the Student Affairs Office will not look back to your application when they are determining your proficiency.

Upon arrival in the fall and but you might be able to prove it through transcripts through other things, native language for example.

So people who can't prove that right up front, you have to take a proficiency exam and then that would place you it. Maybe you do test out with the purchasing exam, or maybe you will have to take some of the particular language while you're a student at Yale and you can use that course database to look up language is super robust. It does get a little bit tricky and this goes back to the strengthening application piece, right? Languages are not required.

When applying, but if you have some, it definitely helps because it really can be difficult to take enough language if you have no non English language proficiency to be able to meet that proficiency from from Ground Zero is can be really, really difficult. They're taught at the undergrad level, which means daily language labs etc etc. Those often they might not.

Line up well with the graduate level classes and timing. UM, their intensive right, so the more language you have, the more proficiency you have ahead of time strengthens your application. Again, not a requirement, but it's definitely, definitely helpful. And then for people who already have a language and want to learn another language, this wasn't necessarily necessarily your question, but it there are options to take additional language. You can do things informally as well.

Or audit classes, but you can take up to a certain number of classes in a language as part of your Jackson electives. I hope that helps. We're almost 10 minutes over. I think I might be getting to the bottom of the question. So another question. I think there's a section under specific questions on the application where you have to write about how you plan to fulfill a requirement. Yes, there absolutely is, but don't. That's why I'm saying that section don't get too too hung up over it because we will. We definitely want to see, because again, it strengthens your application.

Right to know how much language you have. Obviously we're very international Global focus program, so having the language can be helpful and it's more important, I think, also for people who have don't have their proficiency, like how do you expect to meet that, because it is it pretty intensive to do that, but you will be. You will provide the the proof upon enrollment issue to get admitted, so hopefully that helps. I'm saying thank you. So I guess that means I'm answering questions.

I think I see one final question up from Knowly. Do you have any advice for candidates who've been working in another field since graduation but have an academic and internship background on global affairs? Yes, happening is the typical feel. Again, others feel free to bounce if you need to. The pivot question is common. I would go back to some of the things I've already shared, like the the.

The idea that the work experience is evidence of commitment to global affairs. So if you're not working in global affairs arena.

How do we know that this is what you really want to do? Obviously we have to trust just what you say, but if you can have other aspects of your life, whether through your recommenders or through your Community service, volunteerism, what you did during undergrad, if those can corroborate your story that this is a field that you actually want to go into, that can be helpful. We just like all the other little things we've mentioned, we can't have too many in the class who want to pivot right, because again.

Uhm?

The Why Jackson piece comes into play with that because of the flexibility of our program, so here's a it's it sounds like it's coming from a pessimistic view, but if somebody is coming from the pure private sector and they are want to come to Jackson, we have to be skeptical, right? Because they can come to Jackson, take stats and econ and take a bunch of classes at the School of Management and we provide the funding and you could get it, you know, kind of a very discounted MBA, right?

I mean, that's obviously a very extreme skeptical example, but we have to have our radar up on these things. So if you are pivoting, make sure all aspects of your application sort of corroborate that story. Anything that could provide teeth to that right? Like I mentioned the recommenders.

Just that commitment to global affairs, right? That's really what we're going to be looking for, and and pivoting is fine because, you know, we we value all of the sectors. Obviously we're a very interdisciplinary program, which isn't necessarily the case with a lot of our peers, and so valuing the different sectors and being able to talk the talk and and speak the language of the different sectors is very important. It's why people take classes at the law school and the School of Management, School, Environment, Public Health, etc.

Because they want to speak that language in that particular arena of what it is they want to do in their career. One final cliche that I'll use is connecting the dots right. You want to connect the dots from what you did during undergrad? Academically extracurricular Lee, your your work experience. The Why Jackson piece I've already talked about and your future career goals. So can does that trajectory make sense?

So many people are pivoting because they started a career that they realized this is not what I want to do. Maybe they got disenfranchised or something, or they've realized I have this skill now. I want to apply this skill to policy, right? So there's many different reasons that people might pivot and you just need to make sure that you're making the case for the Y Jackson piece in that. And I think there's no more questions and I apologize, we've gone 12 minutes over.

Thanks to those of you who stayed, I will cut you off now, but if I didn't answer any questions and you're desperate to have it answered, email us at the Jackson DOT admissions address. Feel free to ping my calendar.

Uhm, hopefully you'll find some time in their attend future events. Webinars might be a little repetitive except in N1, which we're going to try to focus on last minute application questions or the Ms one next week and otherwise feel free to watch back. It's a little bear sing for me since it's just me telling very similar things over and over again, but you might get different questions answered. So alright, thanks for coming. Hopefully will see your application.

In the very near future or in the future future all right. Thanks for your interest, bye.