Fall Admissions Webinar (September 2022)

Hello.

Greetings everyone.

First and foremost, can you see and hear me OK and see the slides? Please find the chat function.

Thank you. Couple shout outs. Yes, while we wait for some people to get connected, we'd love to see where you are logging in from. There were registrants from all over the world from.

Pretty much every continent. Ireland, India, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Africa representing Mexico, Argentina all over the place of course New Haven, even local people joining. So great. Good to see everybody. Yes. Washington DC, Canada, welcome. All right. I love. I love seeing where everybody signing in from because it really just shows the.

The global reach and interest in these types of international policy programs, so great to have you.

I know y'all are probably in different time zones. We try to make these. We do a few of these throughout the fall to hopefully have different times. So they're early morning for us or evening or midday to try to get to all of you represented. So you're not up at 3:00 AM or up at 11:00 PM or whatever the case may be. So greetings, grease. That's on my bucket list. So hello, everybody.

Alright, well why don't we get started? Because I think we have a pretty decent sized group and I really want to make sure you have time for questions. And so pretty obvious by now. I think you should know that this is being recorded, so if you do have any technical issues or timing issues and have to drop off, there will be a recording available. Obviously this is audio so you can hear me. This isn't like zoom where there's interaction.

But feel free to we have I think, one more coffee tat left. That is going to be a zoom with one of our alum.

So please use the chat function. I'll try to keep my eye on it, but as I'm talking we may save questions. So later or maybe as we go, let's see how the vibe is of this group and there is closed captioning if you need it. There should be a little CC button on your share screen if you need that and just refresh if something gets out of sync. So with that.

Hello again. My name is Melissa McGinnis, and I'm the assistant director of admissions here at the Jackson School of Global Affairs. And I if there's any repeat visitors here often. We do have people who join these the.

The presentation portion of this will be pretty similar than it has as it has been in the past, but as I always say.

Your questions drive the direction of this usually, so please don't be shy and asking your questions.

It helps us plan and maybe update slides to know what you all are thinking about and what your questions are. And I know there's various levels of people here who may have never heard about Jackson at Yale and got a blast from us. Or you were registering for a different event and you heard from us, or maybe you've started your application. So we are here. I will do my best to answer many of these questions as we go. I'll try to do a quick overview.

Of Jason for those new people and then we will just keep sort of moving along. So I've, you've already told me a little bit about yourself, where you are logging in from and that's great. I just introduced myself. I am here in New Haven, CT, which if you're not familiar with where that is, we are about part way between New York City and Boston, so right on the Northeast Corridor.

And it's I think is it today, the first day of fall, I think here in in New England. So it was kind of a dry summer. So I don't know if we'll have that beautiful fall foliage that we normally have, but we had a very, very, very, very busy summer with launching as a school on July 1 that has been in the works for many years. But the official word came down last winter that we would launch officially as July 1. And so we've been doing.

One of the things, hopefully not too much, that you all will notice besides like logo changes and whatnot. Because the the culture and the feel of and the community of who we are and who we have been for many years is not changing. But all the stuff in the background is changing a lot. So if any of you have started your application already, would love your feedback. At the end of this webinar or maybe tomorrow you'll get an e-mail saying we love your feedback.

On the webinar, but we also ask about admission stuff. So if you start an application and you have concerns or complaints, we'd love to hear them because this is our first year having our own Jackson school application because we've been part of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences for many, many, many, many, many years and so we've always used their application. So we'll have an application specific webinar, I think the one in November is going to be geared towards that for you applicants for this year to ask the questions.

First, rather than driving the presentation.

OK, so that's who we are. Lots of cool things happening here at Jackson and for those local people, I see some New York and I think were there any. I know there are New Haven registrants, but we are having a couple in person visit days, first normal ones since 2019. So I hope I remember how to how to organize those. So we'll be having those one next month and the month after. So if you're local, we hope that you'll be able to.

Join us. All right, let's jump in really quickly. I have been doing dozens and dozens of these webinars since I started. And here at Yale Jackson in 2018, I had a great career at a our friends peer down in New Jersey. I was, I worked in graduate admissions at the formerly Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton. So I've been in this space for many, many years, and so it's been exciting moving to Jackson.

All of the the growth that is happening. So having done so many of these webinars and I'm talking about all of the different things that makes Jackson unique, I started noticing a pattern, maybe because I was an English major in my previous life, but I definitely started thinking, oh, there's lots of FPS here when I talk about stuff. So I came up with this, this little the five F's mostly for you to maybe remember.

About Jackson and what makes us unique. And so we'll talk about these going forward again very briefly because I want to save time for your questions, but family flexibility and features of the program and the faculty, the funding in the future. So I want you to remember those family flexibility, faculty funding and future, right. So we'll talk briefly about each of those family and your owner. What does that have to do with grad school? Well, I like that word as an opportunity, you know, as a different word for community.

Right. So we really are very small community. Our cohorts for our two year MP's are only about 30 to 35 students. We have a much smaller mid career program, RMS and advanced studies, sometimes as few as two, maybe eight students. So that's a very small program where we're located in a beautiful central campus tree lined streets in downtown New Haven, which many of you in these major cities probably don't even consider New Haven a city but.

It's a small city, manageable, very green in many parts and.

Has lots of resources and again being between New York City and Boston is, is is helpful and we're in, we're currently located in a giant mansion on this beautiful tree lined St so all of this sort of comes together and makes us feel like a close knit community that I would call a family. And as we talk about the F for faculty, the way they're integrated into the community I think absolutely adds to that the family.

A word, if you will.

So family flexibility, so I mentioned we have two degree programs. We have a two year MP in global affairs. That is there's no minimum work requirement for that. Most of our students do have three to four, three to five years of work experience, postgrad work experience. We do have a one year Ms in advanced studies that's a one year mid career program for people with a minimum of seven years of relevant work experience.

Always providing the disclaimer, if you have questions about the MAS, please feel free to ask here, but.

Keep in mind that many of the things we're going to talk about our MPP specific because the Ms is so completely flexible. There's eight courses or credits and there's no core. We currently don't offer funding for the MAS so it's pretty straightforward, pretty basic. But our Ms students are part of the Community here, so want to make sure you are following along. Don't don't let me lose you because of that, but do keep in mind that a lot of these.

The programming issues and the funding issues will be relevant mostly to the MPP students, so hopefully that will be helpful as you as you listen in.

We do have options for joint degrees, but that's the beauty of of the flexibility of our programs. You don't have to be a joint degree candidate with one of the other Yale professional schools like the School of Management, the Law School, School Public Health or the the school and the Environment are the four most common joint degrees because you can take those classes as a Jackson student. And that reminds me, as I go I will try to post paste links into the chat.

So you have some of these resources available to you, and so I'm pasting in right now the Yale course database if you use the keyword search or the any school dropdown GLBL or the Jackson classes. But be mindful if you use the keyword search for anything.

You know Africa.

For International Development or you know, whatever, development might bring up a lot of the funding, fundraising type things as well, but you can use that keyword search and see that hundreds of classes may be available to you. Yes you can. You have access to those classes such as a Jackson student. Maybe not the lower level underground classes that are available, but keep in mind if there is not a graduate level course that is exactly what you want, but you see a higher level undergrad class, you can work with the assistant Dean.

Potentially get permission from from us and from that faculty member to to make it a graduate elective class. There are so many options on the flexibility. We can talk about that with questions as we go forward, but just wanted you to know that.

You know it is our our Dean constant and academic playground, so keep that in mind. I know it can be very overwhelming, but we can talk about that a little bit maybe in the Q&A session section of the webinar where?

How you navigate all of that? OK, so we'll keep moving as we go. I see some questions popping in the chat, but let me just maybe blow through these a little bit. The MPV program features, again, talking about the flexibility, there's only four core, there's these stats, econ, we have political science, we have a history component and then we have integrated writing into the core curriculum as well and hired a writing instructor we do not have prescribed.

Areas of study.

You can do just about anything you want and that's part of the application process is you telling us what you what you want to get out of this program, right? So you utilize the resources like the database that I sent to you when you're preparing your application. I will post in another link. The courses and curriculum page will be really useful because it talks a little bit about the core.

But if you scroll all the way to the bottom of that page, there's sample course matrices there. I don't want to post them in the link they upload as they open as PDFs, but they give you samples like a curated list of the most popular classes that the Jackson students participate in over the last couple of years. So it just helps you narrow that massive course database down a little bit. Keep in mind that enrolled students actually have.

One-on-one. Help that you meet with student affairs and the Academic Affairs Office. You have advisors. All of that happens. But I'm here to help you put together your best application so you can get your foot in the door right before you get that help. So you need to navigate these resources so you know how to better put together a strong application. So hopefully that helps. Speaking of which, I wanted I meant to do this in the family section, but I want to make sure you have found our student BIOS.

Pictures of the first year students aren't there yet because these were just taken in the last couple weeks. Ohh actually they're slowly really. I'm sorry, a little excited they were not there this morning. They are actually there now, except for a couple people. Sorry, super excited. So now you actually can't tell which ones are which just by looking at them. But our student BIOS I think will really show you the diversity, the depth and breadth of of things that.

People are studying here at Jackson all they're coming from different backgrounds with different areas of interest, all within that vein of that commitment to the global good, right? So that's that's what we're looking for.

To make sure people have that commitment to global affairs and are already invested in doing this as a career. So what that looks like, it's going to be different for everybody, so.

That just adds to that family nature, too, because because we're so small and because people are doing global affairs all from different perspectives, they're not competing for the same internships, they're not competing for the same jobs. So that really adds to the camaraderie around here. So I didn't want to forget to to post in those those student BIOS for you. OK, so faculty, I mentioned them briefly as far as being part of the the Community here and part of the Jackson family.

This is something that I recommend and encourage you to do when you're doing your research for graduate programs. Drill down and dig deep into the programs to see how they utilize these people, because.

I have to say, all of these top ire programs, we all have these big name people, right? We have senior fellows at Jackson. I'm going to post their BIOS in as well. These are the current senior fellows that we have.

This year at Jackson, so paste that link in and.

They really are truly integrated into the Jackson community. They're not just here for a weekend or a week doing office hours or just giving a public lecture. They actually teach classes. You'll see them when you use the the, you know course database. They teach classes, they informally mentor. Some have may only be here semester, some are here a year, some have been around for many, many years. So they like it here and they're off. They're retired and.

Passengers and military generals and CEOs, climate change experts, they're all the things, right? So definitely take a look at those. But keep in mind they really are here. Like I saw, I think Howard Dean out at an outside table, hanging out with a couple of students yesterday. We're still getting our, you know, feet wet post COVID. So we're still figuring out like coffee, kitchen area food and stuff, but pre COVID, you know, sharing the coffee machine.

With the senior fellows and the students and the student lounges are right here in the building and there's all this organic interaction that happens. And so I think that's very important, something that I recommend you you doing when you're researching your graduate programs, because you might find that maybe people are coming in and other programs and just giving a talk now and again, so dig deep. But that Jackson is here at Jackson, the integration of the senior fellows is a huge part.

Of our program and our curriculum. And I think that's one of the main things that makes Jackson really, really unique.

So in addition to them though, we also have world fellows. World Fellows are a separate program. They're not degree seeking, they are a fellows program that they're here in the fall semester trying to find their BIOS for you, and they not only are taking advantage of yells resources, they are. We hire liaisons to work with them. The link, there's the link. You should definitely check those out sometime.

Their lounge is right across the hall from the student lounge, and they give talks and lectures as well as taking classes and they get leadership training and whatnot. So there's you need to consider them as part of your network as well, right? So in addition to our regular full-time faculty, and Jackson has a whole bunch of new faculty again. You know, we've been sharing with Gsas for many years. So that was part of we've been building that up and you'll see that on our website that we're building up our ladder.

Faculty, and that's really one of them, one of the main changes with us becoming a school, when people say, what does that mean, you're going from an institute to a school, having control over the hiring and tenure of our own faculty is a huge deal. And so we're building out our own ladder faculty, our Jackson base faculty. So when we also still have a lot of people that joined appointments and people that teach classes were from other departments as well as the senior fellows and World Fellows that I've talked about.

All right. I know many of you here are probably going to ask about funding. As I mentioned, the one year program is currently not funded. So you'll see when you look at the BIOS, you'll find that many of those are externally funded. The Amas are down at the bottom of the list of the BIOS. They are often sponsored by their employers or governments or military. They could be funding their own way as well. It's it's not a contingency of admission.

To be externally funded, but often.

People choose to go somewhere else that funds usually my previous employer because I think mid career for mid career Masters programs to be funded is pretty rare and my former employer does that. So that's where we might often lose people who aren't, who don't come with fellowship funding or or external funding. So you'll see that when you look at the BIOS. But as far as the our two year traditional program the we every year continue to grow and how we are.

Able to fund students. So this year and I think even last year we've been able to provide.

Full tuition to everyone enrolling in the program. It's merit based. You could imagine getting admitted as merit, right, but we also do, there's how it's, I think it's been about 1/3 of the class that also ends up receiving some form of stipend, living stipend as well. So we want to do everything possible to to, you know, make this program affordable again. That commitment to the global good often comes with potentially lower paying first.

Jobs, right? Like in government or nonprofits or the like. So we want to make sure if you can get out of here debt free, that would be ideal. But there are many, many resources available and this is also available to the Ms students. Find that link for you to.

People do teaching fellows, research assistants and the like, so there are opportunities like that, and I'll find that page. Here's the link for that. And again, another general advice for applying to Graduate School.

I'm sorry for you, but we all handle this very differently. We and all of our peers definitely handle our funding differently. So for Jackson, the funding that we provide, if you do get a living stipend as well, it is not, it's not built in with being a teaching assistant or a course assistant. It's it's just grant based funding. Whereas some programs might say we're giving you a living stipend, but it means you have to put in 20 TF hours.

So when you go and do those comparisons, when you receive your offers of admission, keep that in mind, right? But a lot of students do, whether they need the funding or not, participate in being a teaching fellow or a course assistant because you're typically working with our Jackson faculty and Senior Fellows. And for many, it becomes another networking opportunity, right? You might be working with a former ambassador on their class and being a teaching fellow with their class, and it really does broaden.

Your network when you're when you're a part of that.

Those positions, of course, aren't guaranteed. They start going out to enrolling students over the summer and throughout the fall as the classes schedule gets settled. So that's something else to keep in mind. I mentioned the job aspect, obviously. Presumably most of you are here because you are looking for that next step in your career. What do you need to advance in your career? I'm assuming most of you are interested in some sort of international affairs, international relations.

International policy, public policy, etcetera, etcetera, right. And So what does that look like and that's my final F is the future and there are I'll post those link, we give the overview of the aggregate data is here, but we also have.

Literal data from the last five or six years on our website. Obviously no names for privacy.

And then.

And, you know, be cautious looking at the COVID years, right, because those are all a little different, I think.

2020, it seemed like everybody was a research assistant helping a senior fellows write books and whatnot, because it was an unusual sort of year, obviously for all of us. But you'll see just like the student BIOS, people coming from all over, you'll see that where they go is also all over, right? And that's that's what our goal is, to bring in a class that comes from all different.

Places and regions and wanting to study different things and they go out from here that way as well. So please take advantage of those resources. We also have a required summer internship for the MP's and there's a good resource about that on our website to show you the different kinds of internships that our students often do. And so I'll paste that in so you have it. Or if you see this as recording, you'll you'll have access to that.

OK, that is my very brief overview. I could go on and on.

But I will leave it there because I want to make sure I leave time for questions. As I mentioned, our application is now open. It was a labor of love and we do hope that you will apply. Oh, I should have put the application link in as well. It is, I think pretty. I wish it was like a big button on our application, but you have to talk to our web person about that. But I will paste the link in because we obviously want to encourage you to apply if.

Is there's anything interesting about this webinar, then we would love to have you apply. So there is our final deadline is January 2nd, but we offer a December 1 application deadline to receive an automatic fee waiver. So there's nothing you need to do. You just need to apply by December 1. And that fee waiver, you're just not charged the $75 application fee. It is not rolling admissions. So we make, we read.

Role in the applications and have committee meetings usually in in February and build a class, right. We take that holistic approach. Not only do we review your applications holistically, but we are building that class. Like again, looking at the student BIOS, you'll see how important it is for us to have people with all different types of interest in the cohort. So decisions go out usually in the middle of March and admitted students have until May 1 to reply to the offer.

And something to note about the deadlines, and this is a very common question, is that if you you apply submit your application by December 1 things, any test scores that are required or your letters of recommendation, those don't have to be in by December 1 to take advantage of that. Those should be in by January 2nd or very, very soon thereafter. So that's something to keep in mind. The December one piece is for your.

Pieces of the application, uploading all of the things that you see listed here in the application requirements, pretty much the basics. We are still a GRE required degree for our two year program. We are waiving it for the mid career program.

And let's see, I think that covers the basics.

Why don't I take a peek? Let me take a drink of water 1st and I will scroll back a little bit to see I think I missed questions coming in.

I want to make sure I get to everyone.

More hellos go, Hoosiers. Let's see. I think our first question that I might have missed is from Diego, who's asking if we recommend Graduate School fairly soon after undergraduate. Great question. Common question. Thanks for asking it.

One other thing before I forget, this will be relevant app. See if you are interested in international affairs. Absi is a professional organization that we are a member of. We are a founding member of it a gazillion years ago.

Yale, when we were just the IR program at Yale.

They're a great organization to followers 30, some odd member schools. So when I speak generally when I'm talking about our peers, I'm often referring to the app C member schools. The fact that we all handle funding differently are requirements or recommendations are often different. And I would say that, you know, I mentioned before that our average and let me paste in again the student profile.

For the MP, it's about halfway down this page. You will note that it's medians and averages, and this might answer future questions as well, but this is where you'll see that our average years of work experience is 3.9 years, so almost four years, right? I mentioned three to five. Some schools might have room for people with less experience. I think because our cohort is so small, we can really only have a couple and considering that we are.

What we call a professional program that we believe this is a terminal degree. You can get this degree and go out and get on the ground and do international policy or international policy politics or whatever the case may be. So with that in mind, it's usually people who have.

I would say on average about three years is that sweet spot where I hear from students and alum that they are in the field, in relevant field, and they have this epiphany that they need something else to continue advancing. They know this is what they want to do and they know why they need Graduate School. So typically they're the ones who are making the stronger application, right? And I think Jackson's, it's twofold for Jackson, because you're not saying I want to apply for Jackson's field.

International relations. You're first of all telling us, I know I can do just about anything at Yale. Jackson, this is what I want to do and This is why I want to do it. And this is how Jackson can get me there, right. So it's it's it's you're telling us how great you are and how great we are, but you got to tell us what you want, what you want to do here because there's no prescribed areas. And it's often, again, I'll reiterate, it's those people have been working for a while who really know what.

That is, and I'm not. We're not saying that people who are right from undergrad can't, but it is, you know?

If you'll see again I keep pointing to the student BIOS, you'll see that often the people who are coming right from undergrad are in the US they're part of the Pickering or wrangles which are on the fast track and the foreign service. So they already know they're going in the foreign service and they have a three-year commitment after Graduate School, so things like that. So if somebody is coming with less postgrad work experience, we're going to look for something else that drives and and corroborates that commitment to global affairs and the global good.

So a little bit philosophical answer because it's not a yes, no answer. We do not have a minimum requirement for postgrad, but your application is always a bit stronger and the more not the more work experience you have. But for those who don't have any, having a little bit definitely helps. Your internships will weigh much more heavily. They weigh heavy. Obviously for everybody I think connecting the dots is super important, but they will.

Way more heavily for people who don't have the postgrad work experience. Hopefully that helps them. Maybe that answer is even a little bit of future questions. Bill H is saying this small cohort mean two to five, admit no. When I say cohort, I mean enrolling. So admitted drawing a blank.

You know, for the MAS we might admit 6 to 12 maybe, you know, there's we don't have a hard and fast rule. We look at our yield each year.

So and same for the MP's probably admit about 50 or so to get our our cohort of 30 to 35. So hopefully that's helpful. Hello, Abu Dhabi. I was there in 2019, so good to see you. One of the basic requirements for MAS the Ms mentioned there if you're talking about.

It looks like you're asking about test scores. The Gerry, GMAT, etcetera are not required for the MCS. We do require an English language proficiency test for those whose native language is not English or who did not attend their undergraduate degree from an English speaking institution. Meaning, if you got an English speaking degree from a masters program but not undergrad, that does not waive the English proficiency.

We're accepting the TOEFL, IELTS or Cambridge for that and that goes for MSRP. Are there GRE waiver or conditions for the MPP program? We do not formally waive the Jerry MPTP for example. Thank you COVID right? Better or worse is there are many options for taking the Jerry test. Home test will be flexible about the the format so.

Home tests are now available if need be, if it's not offered in the country where you reside. So there are ways to do that, but we are not one of the Jerry optional for the MP's. If I do get questions all the time a lot 1 yesterday, I think about wanting to waive it for various legitimate reasons and the best advice I have is sort of informal. Unofficial advice is.

I would encourage you to provide an explanation with your application if you are going to not submit a requirement. So there is an additional information or additional document section of the application where you can upload things like explanations. People often use it for. You know my gears are terrible and they don't reflect my academic etc or reasons they can't get an academic letter or.

Explaining grades or gaps in resumes. There's many reasons that people upload things. I'm not encouraging you to do that. Less is more often in the application process you want clean, concise, but you don't want us making up stories about weaknesses or holes or gaps or things like that. So I would utilize that to explain if for some reason.

Whether it's refugee status or whatever, the case may be that you absolutely cannot take the jury. You could provide that explanation, but keep in mind.

It's not a formal waiver. It becomes up to the admissions committee if they're willing to consider based on the rest of your application, an incomplete application. I promise we do review all applications. You're not cut off just because you haven't submitted everything we do save those to the end for efficiency, right? We need to, we get hundreds of applications and we need to be as efficient as possible to get it all done in this concentrated period of time. So we do look at complete applications.

Keep hanging those recommenders as well. You know, to make sure they're annest on time as well, because your official test scores and your recommendations are really what makes you complete and move to the review process. But we do review all applicants eventually, and there's no admissions advantage to when you're being read. It's just we have to push through. And it's a large admissions committee with lots of readers. I mentioned senior fellows and faculty, their readers in the applications.

As well as admission staff and career staff and student affairs, so very robust review process. So hopefully that explains a little bit a little digression, but on why we how to handle things.

Like waivers that we don't actually provide, but just making sure you provide all the explanations so there's no questions that the admissions committee might have. All right. Jack B is asking about the language partnership. Yes, that's great. The Middlebury specific, I don't have all the details on that. This is our first year doing it. This past year, I think was our first year doing it. Our Registrar's office handles that. But what it means is Yale.

Let me back up for those who might not know, Yale has a Jackson has a language proficiency requirement that must be met by graduation. So you need a non-english modern language. Modern meaning like Sanskrit doesn't count for example. So that needs to be met. My graduation. So you can meet that in many ways and I think there's resources on the website.

Might have trouble finding them. I think it's on the curriculum page. I don't want to waste too much time trying to find those links. They are public.

You can meet them through your native language. You can meet them through what was if your bachelor's degree was not in English. That usually meets the proficiency if you've taken X number of classes to be. I think it's an L4 level that you've taken during your education. So all of those things can will waive the need to take additional language classes at Yale, but if you do need to, and what happens is enrolling students.

Will who? If there are any questions. Again, the registrar and Academic Affairs Office handles that. You might have to take a proficiency exam.

In the summer or early fall before arriving, so you know if you need to take classes, language questions, classes. While you're right, yeah, the language, the course database will be useful if you want to look at the languages that you'll offers. Very, very robust, very, very difficult. They are five days a week.

Language labs. They're very they require a lot of commitment. But a side note, too, with some students who've met the language requirement may also.

Just want to take additional language and again, it's part of like why they want to do a flexible interdisciplinary degree like Jacksons.

Incorporating.

A language into their their academic training as well. Hopefully that helps a little bit. I can try to answer better if need be.

Collin is asking about the Ms being such a small cohort. Are you looking for extremely specific career directory trajectory or experience? That is a great question.

Umm.

I think the quick answer could be yes, right? I think often in these settings regardless of mid career or not these type of we get a lot of questions about the pivot. I think that might be an over used word by now, but you know switching you know in different genres or whatnot. But pivot for lack of a better word, people want to pivot. I think that's a little less possible with the Ms because it is a one year 100%.

Flexible program, yet we still need to know. You know, when I say 100%, it means you can take classes all across Yale, you can take them at the law school, at the School of Management, right. But we want to make sure that you are still a Jackson student, part of this community and and all of the resources that we offer here at the School of Global Affairs. So we are looking for people who are proving that commitment to global affairs. And I say the minimum is 7 years on average, it's usually about 12 to 15 years of experience.

And and we have people who are in the MPP program who are eligible for the Ms but they want the two year program, right. So you need to make a case for, for what you're looking for and it does seem to be people who are on that their mid career trajectory and you know their employer has said you need you know to brush up on this, this or this. Maybe it's econ, maybe it's language, you know, whatever the case may be. So yeah, absolutely I think it's definitely a stronger.

Trajectory, even though that's important even for the two year program as well. Alright, hopefully that was helpful and I haven't rambled too too much. Jack, the Hoosiers.

GAIL, I think I gave you, might be a repeat, I think. Good to see you. We don't have last names. It's for your own sake and your own privacy. So I want you to feel comfortable to use the chat and people don't have your personal information as far as the WS evaluation or or the like because there's different we you need to upload that. We don't require it upon application, but we do need your transcripts. Unofficial transcripts are fine for your application.

They need to be in English, so some people choose to get the evaluation from WS or other services.

While they're applying because they do those translations right? So we do need if your any of your degree programs were not in English, we need the translation as well. So we will accept the was but do not send us anything. Now you have to upload these things with your application or you won't be able to submit your application right. You need to upload your own official transcripts.

If you are offered admission, we will then require you to send your credential evaluations so you can have them on hand, but they need to come directly from Lowe's or wherever you're sending them from.

China has a couple specific they're, they're all on our website as well. There are. So yes, please do not mail or e-mail us anything. We don't have the bandwidth to handle that for hundreds and hundreds of applicants. So you know, there are restrictions like we those are verified later and if there's any fraud or errors, you know there are, you have to sign off that you can attest that these are accurate and your admission.

Could be revoked, but obviously nobody here is is is thinking about that, right? So with that being in mind, yes, you can submit them along with your transcripts and your application. They will be considered unofficial. But please do not mail us anything. I'm sorry, repeated that over and over again because.

Yeah, we we don't need those.

Anyway, in hard copy or electronic format besides through your application. Alright, Bill, I think this is a repeat question. I did see it, I promise. Let's see, Fernando for international applicants. Do you require at least strongly? I'm sorry, I'm repeating questions. Yes. Again, not required, can't hurt to have them upon application. But for application it's enough to have just the the transcripts in English. So it's totally up to you.

If you want to get those ahead of time, but if you get them yourself and have to open them, be mindful that that renders them unofficial. So anytime you get something official from your school or an organization like WS and you open them, they are rendered on officials so you can use them for all of your applications. Because we know you're applying not just to yield Jackson, but you would need another official copy that is signed and sealed should you be offered admission. So just keep that in mind.

When you're getting copies of things.

Hopefully that makes sense again. I've been doing this for, gosh, well, almost 30, probably over 30 years now, but we won't go there.

So, Colin MAS? Oh, am I? Maybe I oh, I think. Sorry, I'm rambling. So I'm seeing lots of duplicate questions so I thought maybe I went back. See, this is good to know. I should make sure you know that they're there and the questions are there, and then I promise to eventually get to them. Candella, you asked about Jerry no minimums and I pasted in the profile a little bit ago, so don't worry about minimums. You'll see. Also, I'll paste it in again in case any.

I don't know if late.

If late people can scroll back or not, like I know in zoom chats, I don't think you can scroll back. I think your chat becomes new as soon as you arrive. But if you can't scroll back, oh Leon, thank you, you can scroll back. I did not even realize that because I've only ever been on this side of one of our webinars.

Great, cool. Well, well, there's the new link for you anyway. But you'll see in that profile, not just the averages and medians, but we started adding the range for some of these things because we want people to see that. It's.

Right, like I can't, I'm I'm more of a percentage girl. I can't remember what 149 is for example for the verbal range, but I think it's a fairly lowish percentage if I remember correctly.

And so for us, it's about that, the big picture, right? It's you're not just your jury score, it's it's about, you know, if somebody has a lower GRE score, there's obviously something else in their application. Maybe they've had this amazing career trajectory, their recommenders think they walk on water or whatever the case may be that we're looking for that balance, right? Perfect Jerry scores with.

Five years of experience and great recommendations don't mean admission, right. We're looking for that commitment to global affairs and we're also, we're tied by numbers, right? We're tied down by numbers a little bit. I mentioned before, the admissions numbers, our cohorts are small. So oftentimes it's just sheer numbers. We can't admit all of the great applicants. So we're looking for and this is something I should have mentioned before is, you know, what are we looking for? We're looking for a commitment to the global good.

We're looking for ideally some decent scores and decent academics. GPA even isn't so much about the GPA, but how did you do in relevant courses? How did you do in in maybe stats or ECON or language classes or relevant global affairs classes? And then the third thing we're looking for is a unique story. How do you stand out among the applicant pool? Right? So you're hearing the questions and you're seeing these people coming from all over the world just in this.

Very webinar, right. And So what we're we're looking for is how do you stand out and so that when you're sitting in the classroom with your classmates that you're all coming at a policy issue from a completely different perspective. That's what we're looking for. So part of your application needs to be about what is unique about you that you can bring to the cohort. I think even the faculty, the students say this, the alumni and the faculty.

Thank you. And same as you probably learn more from each other than you do. Like in the academic classroom, right? You in the classroom. But what your classmates experiences have been in this type of professional degree is so very relevant to what you learn and what you're going to take away. And of course networking in the future for future careers and all of those things. So, so, absolutely.

Hopefully that makes sense about, you know, no minimum. We do have a minimum TOEFL, which is I think 102. I think that's the only thing. English language proficiency is the only minimum that we do have.

OK, I think questions are backing up, but we still have like 10 minutes. This is good. Sometimes I'm really running out of time for these.

Jury, other special requirements for the joint degree with MMM, great question. I don't know about MEM specifically because if you're interested in a joint degree and there is a web page on there, you have to apply separately, completely separately. We don't have anything when you apply to a joint degree.

It's not the right.

When you apply to the joint degree.

Umm.

We each, each school handles its its admissions process completely separately. So but I will say in the last couple of years we've done a joint webinar with Wyse.

Johnson, NYSE, we haven't scheduled that yet. We're trying to look to see if that'll be a little bit different or if myself and my colleague over there will do them. So I should know more because I've listened in on a couple of those doing the joint webinar. Keep your eye on our calendar. If we do decide to do that, we will post it on our events calendar.

But you need to reach out to NYC to see what their MMR requirements are because the only additional requirement we have for joint degrees is that joint degree statement which you see here on the application requirements page. It's in addition to your statement of purpose, obviously. Your statement of purpose will probably mention interest in joint degree, obviously, but we want you to drill it down a little bit more, go a little deeper in the joint degree statement, maybe talk about the order the sequence usually joint degrees started.

Jackson first do their first year, then they go to the other program and this is the case with all the joint degrees do New Year there. And then the the third year is sort of split and that's sort of your preference whether you want to be at Jackson in the fall or maybe you do. The World Fellows are here. You know, there's various reasons for why you might want to choose that. So hopefully that makes sense.

And let me keep going. Giroud, I might have. I'm sorry if I butchered your name. You're welcome. What are some of the common fields of study for admitted students? The best. Again, it's everything, right? I don't know how to reiterate that any better.

I think if you the student BIOS, you'll see and I think you know the jobs after Jackson, that link where people are going is commonly where people are coming from, right? But they're going back to those potentially different levels. So, you know, we are definitely looking for people from all different kinds of.

Areas from, you know, they're coming from military, they're coming from nonprofits, they've been in the Peace Corps, they're working for international governments, they're in the foreign service, the US Foreign Service, International Foreign Service. They're working even in private sector, usually doing public related things in the private sector, social entrepreneurship.

You know, fiscal accountability. You know, I could go on and on and on, right, because it really is. And that is, I think, what another thing, you know, it does. I think I've reiterated this, that it makes Jackson super unique that people are coming from all of these places as long as there's that commitment to the global good. I know it sounds cheesy, but I've heard many, many alum refer to that, that it really is about, you know, making a difference in the world and how you get there is going to be unique for everybody.

That makes sense. Hopefully that makes sense. That would sound like a nice way to end, but we still have a few minutes and there's more questions, but that seemed like a nice little. I hope I remember that for next time. All right. I know Nara asked about minimum toll, fully answered that. That was the one or two. I'm getting some thank yous.

Zero is also asking what the rough acceptance rates are. I think I I talked about that. I'll let you do the math usually.

And again, this year, we have no idea how many applications we're going to get. Are we going to be stable like we've been in the last number of years or because we've become officially a school this year, well, things double.

So which I hope on one hand I hope not because we have to read them all, but so it's hard to know, but we're not growing our class really that much. So again we'd be admitting about 50 or so.

NP candidates out of usually about 400 or so applications and the MAS has been about 50 to 75 I think and we admit maybe 8:00 to 10:00 or so of those. So pretty don't don't use that as an excuse to self select out. I think that's why we don't publish that regularly because we.

Again, I'll reiterate that unique story you saw, the lower GPA, GRE scores and whatnot, you know, there's there's people who've done amazing things who may have a different type of academic background and and we want to make sure that, you know, opportunities are available to everybody. So that's why we don't really have minimums for for a lot of those kinds of things. All right, I hope that helps. I'm getting really philosophical here.

You're welcome. You're welcome. Thank you for doing your best to answer your question on the Middlebury. Yes, I hope that helps some more. Thank yous.

Down below my links, Sylvia, how many applications do you get yearly? Oh, I just answered that. And does the MPP require background undergrad classes in ECON? Great question. I didn't really address that. I addressed it generally, I think when I was talking about our peers we do not require.

Econ or quant?

We strongly recommend it because it's part of our core seeing with a lot of our peers. They're not paying me to do this so I'm not going to talk about them. But we all have differing levels. Some require like an ECON and stats or quant related things and others don't need it at all. And and I think I would say Yale Jackson falls in the middle of a lot of our apps he appears in that we really strongly recommend it. One thing that we did change in the last couple years.

With rolling out, getting prepared to become a school, besides changing to the MP, we went from an A to an MP is also the we we changed around our ECON core class and moved it to the spring semester.

That is, that allows for their and again, they is like academic affairs and whatnot are have planned a, I think a like a a diagnostic exam.

That if people are.

A lot of people know they have to take the ECON core, but there are.

If you I'm gonna get this wrong. That's why I'm Hemming and hawing I want to say it right, taking the diagnostic test to see if they need to take a prerequisite ECON class to get them up to the level they need to be at to take the ECON core in the spring semester.

Go back and rewatch that. I don't think I could say that again the same way. So that was a change that was made in the last couple of years to actually help with people who don't have who might not be strong enough, at least specifically in ECON. But having some decent quant experience is very helpful, and you don't have the grades in those classes or never taking those classes. That's a perfect example where the GRE quant section will weigh much more heavily. So again.

Think about the balance of what are your strengths and what are your weaknesses. And don't forget to utilize your recommenders if they can corroborate your story. If you have a particular weakness and they know you well and say, oh, don't worry about that, they bombed econ. I know they can do this because they did this in my class, or they're doing this in their job right now, whatever the case may be. So do keep that in mind. All right. Thank you. I got it. You did great. I should print that out and give it to my supervisor.

Daniel, thank you. You're welcome. What would you say sets the Jackson School apart?

Ohh, with two minutes left, I would say our size, I think we are the smallest program out there. I think there's Stanford program might be small, one of their programs is pretty small, but I think pretty sure we're the smallest school out there, you know, in this international, public, international affairs space. So I think our small size, if that's what you want, you're going to get that attention. Funding, which we talked about, it's pretty rare. Again, my previous employer has the mic drop on funding, so we can't compete with them.

Yet we're working on it. If there's any Princeton spies here, you know, I'm kidding. So, but I think we do. The fact that we can provide tuition and hopefully we'll be able to continue doing so going forward, I think that's huge. And then the flexibility I think is being this very, very interdisciplinary, very flexible program where you're choosing what you want to study. I think that completely sets us apart. And if I would add a fourth, I would say.

The integration of the senior fellows. So that's my really, really quick answer. Well, there's a couple more long questions here before we run out. Let's see if I can get to them, Alexandra.

Oh, let me switch my page before I answer these last two questions.

I will beg you. I put my calendar in here. We do not do interviews. Meetings with me do not have an advantage in your application. I'm really, really, really, really busy. So I asked that you please, if you really, really feel the need to have an appointment, please use my calendar very judiciously.

Because you can e-mail us at at the Jackson admissions e-mail address if need be, but I am putting my calendar in there because I know everybody's getting a little antsy. And if you're applying this year, if you're not applying this year, maybe hold off again so there's some openings in the next couple weeks. But please be judicious. I promise you, you do not need a one-on-one to have any advantage with your application, and your questions are actually very relevant to each other. So thank you for those of you asking.

And again, I'm getting hoarse from talking as fast as I can, and I know a bunch of people have already dropped off at it's 2:00 o'clock, but let me see if I can blow through these last two questions really quickly. Alexandra, you're welcome. I've talked about work experience, but would like to ask you about volunteering. Oh, that's a great question.

It's important. We want it in your resume that you know one to two page resume, we want all of the things. So good luck with that. No, but I think it if you for example, that's a good example of like if you're working in in not maybe you're in the private sector, maybe you're not doing global affairs things, but if you're community service and your volunteerism is relevant that could be very important. It shows leadership, it shows those kinds of things. So think about the whole person, right. So it is about maybe maturity and what you bring to the class.

It's not just about your academic.

Experience. But it is about you being a whole person, so definitely very important. Thanks for your question, GAIL. Visa applications. Ohh yeah, hopefully these stuff will clear out. I know a lot of it's left over. COVID stuff. We have an office, OSS, the Office of International Language. I had time to paste that in for you. They handle the visa process for enrolling. So as soon as you if you get admitted and you say yes, I'm coming to Yale.

ISS will work with you on all of that, so I stay out of it a little bit. Alright, we're a couple of minutes over.

You're welcome on all the thank yous. Hopefully it was, it sounds like it was informative. I'm sorry if I went all deep philosophical or rambly at times, but it's definitely not. There's not a lot of just yes no answers. It's definitely the holistic process is is good. It can be hard to explain, but it's a good process. Hopefully you can see from our cohorts that are here now. Please stay in touch again judiciously.

Please stay in touch and we hope that if you apply this year in the future, feel free to join future events.

And yeah, anyway, thanks for thanks, thanks for joining and maybe we'll see you somewhere and we look forward to reading your application. So alright, thank you. Bye.