Spring Admissions Webinar (April 29, 2021)

Hello hello.

I see people popping in.

Kind of give everybody a minute to get connected.

Thanks for being here.

Good morning, good evening. Wherever you are morning for me.

Still drinking my morning coffee.

It is still too hot.

Right?

I'll just give give another minute or two.

Actually, I should always ask if people can see and hear me. There should be a chat box there. It is moderated but good. I'm getting some hellos and it sounds like you can hear me great. And for those who are on already, this is my very very first time using a slide in our presentation you're my Guinea pig, so can you see the slide? Can some of you.

Just say if you can see that slide or not. 'cause this is a new technology that we're trying. OK, thank you good just one slide, nothing fancy but I wanted to try it since we have the software to do that so.

Alright, well let's see you know about one minute in, and I think the numbers are going up a little bit, but I'll get started. Maybe talk about some some housekeeping things. So first of all, my name is Melissa McGinnis and I'm the assistant director of admissions at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs and Heal University. Coming to you from my apartment just North of New Haven, CT.

Campuses is open to students and classes and.

Research labs and whatnot, but most of the rest of us are still working from home, so I do want to first of all, wish all of you health and safety. I I love doing these and I looked at the registration list and I see, I mean, not everybody might be showing up, but I see people representing 18 U.S. states in 32 countries were registered. You know, feel free. I think I saw a shout out from somebody in Bangkok and.

Feel free to give a shout out from where you are. I am moderating the chat myself, so if you pose a question or anything like that, trust me, I will get to it eventually. You might not see it in the chat because again, I'm, I'm managing the chat myself. So hello Hong Kong. So yes, all over the world and I hope all of you are well and safe and.

Roger here still.

Alright, well why don't I get sort of officially started? As I mentioned, I just have a slide open so you're not just staring at my face the whole time, so hopefully to help. It'll be a nice trigger for me to remember to touch on all of the different things, so really glad to have you. What I'll do is I'll give a brief overview of Jackson. Maybe go through some of the things and then you know, open up to questions. I want to make sure that I'm answering everything that you all want to know.

And some of you, I think I've seen a couple of familiar names popping in. You know, I forgive me if any of this is repetitive, but sometimes there's questions that are asked that you know might be new, or add a little bit of a different, maybe something you haven't heard before, and with apologies, my work phone is ringing. Forgot to turn that down, so hopefully that'll that'll stop shortly. Hopefully it's not somebody having trouble connecting to the web and are this morning.

So anyway, let's just.

Yeah again, my name is Melissa McGinnis and I've been with the Jackson Institute at Yale for, gosh, just over two years now and.

It's been quite an exciting experience. I've been in the public and international affairs. Graduate admission space for well over 20 years, so excuse me this is. I have a lot of experience in this arena and I've been really, really appreciated. Jackson and Yale, and the experience I've had as a staff member. Even though you know last year we've all been sort of working remotely, but the community is is been amazing and we can talk about that so.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Jackson, we are where the Jackson Institute of Global Affairs is.

In its current name has been around were designated as Jackson. Sometime around, I think 1011 years ago we became the Jackson Institute and some of you may know that we are slated to become Yale's next professional school, so this is a really exciting time.

And I think will be like the 14th professional school at Yale. The last time this happened was in 1976 when they founded the School of Management, which is yells Business School. So it's it's really an exciting time, and there's lots of changes. And, you know, I think a lot of things we'll talk about aren't planning on changing, so we can talk about that. If anybody has questions about that, but it's, it's just. It's a really interesting, unique time to be a part of the community, because we're able to do a lot of things.

From the ground up, like working on DI initiatives and so many things, excuse me and.

Some people express concern about, well, Jackson is new, So what does that mean for networking and those kinds of things? But something to keep in mind is that we are the were another iteration of what used to be the international Relations program at Yale, which had been around for 40 plus years. And we've adopted their alumni and they're all part of the that alumni community and the network, and we can talk a little bit about networks going on in some of the various fellows and initiatives that you see here on the slide.

So it's you know, a couple of things I wanted to make sure I mentioned that are new with, with Jackson becoming a school. We don't see the size of the cohort or the structure of the curriculum really changing. What really is going to be an advantage will be.

The increase in faculty and sort of a lot of our independence with faculty hiring and there will be hopefully an influx of money and be able to support students financially more than we already do. And I wanted to make sure I mentioned we're getting some leadership centers that are coming under Jackson, so there's some exciting things happening. The International Leadership Center is coming and that is to support rising leaders and government. Private sector civil society.

And you know a lot of you know geopolitical understanding and all things sorts of things happening there and then. Also, coming under Jackson will be the International Security Studies, which is the study of international history, grand strategy, global security. This was founded back in 1988 and then established at Yale. And now it's coming under Jackson's purview, so there's so many exciting initiatives and things like that that are that are happening and coming so.

Pretty exciting times.

So to start about, I'm assuming most of you here to learn about the Masters program. We do have two Masters programs. We have an MA Master of Arts in Global Affairs and we also have an MSN Master of Advanced Studies in in Global Affairs. The masses are midcareer or one year mid career program. When I'm talking in this webinar will be primarily about the MA program or traditional two year programs. That is sort of the the.

The traditional degree that people are looking for and the masc, is very, very straightforward. It's it's one year. It's a classes, all of them, your choice. And currently we don't offer funding for the Ms program, so, but you also have access to all of the goings on in the communities that Texan and Yale, so I so when we think about this, most of these requirements and all of the things that I'm going to be talking about are really.

For the MA degree, so let's go through some of those. I often like to talk about. If you've been on these webinars before I talk about the 5F's, I call it family flexibility, faculty funding in future, and we can sort of talk about what those mean a little bit. But yeah, so when I talk about family, I talk about the size and the community and the location. So we are one of the unique features of VL. Jackson is our small size, are cohorts.

The MA cohorts are usually about 30 to 35 students, and we are probably about 40 to 50% international, and we use the holistic admissions approach and people are coming from all different backgrounds and ideologies and it just we're looking to build that class of people representing people from all over the world in different areas of study.

And many people don't know where where New Haven is and we're in a really great place right in the Northeast Corridor. We're sort of in between Boston and New York City and an on the easy train ride into DC as well. And so I think, you know, we get a lot of people who end up having doing that stuff the UN. And in New York City and various things. So we're really. I think we get the best of both. Worlds were very New England area, so we're.

But we're still sitting, but it's a small city. Lot of you people on here, from Wetherby, Hong Kong, London, New York City. It's definitely small in size, but I think that's what makes it have the best of both worlds.

And also I think location means to where we're located in on a beautiful tree lined St in the center of campus in New Haven and part of our growth of becoming a school were going nowhere in this beautiful Victorian mansion. And we're going to be adopting two more mansions across across the street from us that will be part of the Jackson home if you will. So it's. It's really. I think that's when you know we're currently still in the middle of our admissions process.

Where we've the the admitted students still have a couple days to reply to their offers and people who are choosing to come or not both acknowledge the the tight, intimate community that we have. So I think that family really that F really does does apply 'cause it really is quite the family, even remotely, we've learned that.

You know that that community is still there even with the remote situation, which obviously we all hope will change in the fall. That's the plan. As long as everything seems to go back to normal, that is the plan. And next I want talk about flexibility because that is the other unique characteristic of the program is is basically our curriculum, so we have I mentioned the Ms has eight courses that are 100% your choice, that the MA has.

Only three core class requirements. We have a stats Class A Nikon class in the history class, and the rest are yours to choose over the two years and majority of our students take advantage of taking those classes, not just at Jackson with our faculty and our senior fellows, but also at the other schools around you around Yale. So a lot of classes, a lot of students take classes at the law school, and they take classes. This school and management public health school of the environment.

So it that really makes the program very unique, very interdisciplinary, and we get lots of questions about.

Well, what kinds of you know, do you have particular concentrations? And the answer is no.

But it's yes because you basically build your concentration. And before I forget I want to paste this in because I think this this is our course database and I think sometimes it can potentially be a little overwhelming.

So basically you would have access to.

Pretty much all of the courses that Yale offers and you can do a keyword search in the course database to get an idea of everything that would be available to you. So if you chose Asia for example, or China specifically, or whatever, the case may be.

You know social entrepreneurship. There are classes on that so you can do keyword search. GL BLR, the global affairs classes and then there are classes that you might take. You know even at the Divinity school like oftentimes people talk about needing that sort of cultural component to different things when your specific area of interest is on particular regions. So there is a whole lot of flexibility and I would say that.

You know that makes. I think you'll see if you've seen any of our class profile, which I will paste that in an sometime in the course of this webinar. I will also send you the link to our student BIOS, but I think in the class profile a lot of people get hung up on.

The three to five years average experience and that is not a minimum requirement, but what will what we find is that those people have been out in the workforce for two or three years.

Probably have a better idea of exactly what they want to get out of our program because the opportunities are so broad and so vast and and you choose it yourself now. Don't get me wrong, you actually have one on one help. If you are in a rolling student, the Student Affairs Office, our director of Graduate studies, they work with you one on one to to make sure you know how to navigate what's out there and help you formulate that so you have advisors so you don't have to worry there. But on the front end sort of having an idea you need to drive that, right?

You need to know that you want to have like the weather. It's humanitarian issues and what kind of classes you might want to take the law, school or whatnot and do keep in mind to you do not have we have lots of people who do joint degrees and apply to both programs and we can talk about that. If anybody on here is interested in that, but you do not have to be a joint degree student to take classes at the other professional schools. So basically you're you're pulling it. You could take all your classes at Jackson. I would say that we have.

Wait the the robust offerings. We have our own faculty and we have our senior fellows and so that's definitely possible, but I think majority of our students do end up taking various classes. Maybe they want to take higher level quant classes or econ classes like through the School of Management and things like that. Or obviously if you have interest in environmental issues, the School of the environment is available to you.

And many of those programs want our techs and students in their classes because we bring in such a unique cohort. So that's something to keep in mind. So two more.

Specific things we do have a language requirement for the MA program, so you must meet if you if English is. I mean this doesn't apply to people whose native language is not English because that your native language would count for that. But we do have by graduation. You would need to have a language proficiency. Many people come in and get tested, and you can test out of that. And if you test below a certain level then you would have to take classes at Yale and you could use the same.

Course database to check out the language offerings and then some people actually like to do additional language right? We're very international policy heavy program and so obviously language experience is is is pretty key. And yeah, so those that's a requirement as well. And then for the two year program we have a summer internship and that is done between the 1st and 2nd year. Majority of people do that internationally we do have.

You know, being a global affairs program, I think most people do that, you know, touch on those kinds of things so.

That's basically the flexibility side of things for the Crimson family. Flexibility faculty have talked about that a little bit, and I think let me find I think one thing that really sets us apart from a lot of our peers are our senior fellows, and many of you may have found some of these things on our website already, but hopefully this will help sort of direct you in the right place, but in addition to having our own faculty as well as affiliated faculty.

Who are you know joint with other with other departments and professional schools. We also have our senior fellows who are former ambassadors, CEOs, Generals etc etc. So they come and they Ann unlike our peers. And again I've been in this in this pocket for many many years and I can't speak to details of other programs, but I know generally enough that you know these types of people are at all of these top IR programs, right so?

You're not going to have bad choices, but in my experience thus far at Jackson, they are seriously involved. They're not just coming for a day or a weekend, or a week, or giving a talk, or having meetings. They come, they teach classes, they have 123 plus year appointments. Or they re up their appointments. We've had some senior fellows who've been around for quite a long time, and, you know, in addition to teaching classes that are available for mentoring.

If you apply some of them, read your applications so and and they they love it and they help us with.

Even outreach like with our admitted students to help answer questions about the experience.

So the likes of you know Ambassador Harry Thomas, General McChrystal, Howard Dean. There definitely very involved in in the student community. So they're not just in and out. They really are coming and and are really part of of the whole experience. So I think you know, having faculty being one of the apps I think is is definitely huge. And if you're looking at the slide, I mean it even goes beyond that. You know, we have the different from the Kerry initiative and we have the World Fellows which are not faculty. But they are.

I think of them as sort of part of the mix of.

You know the community, the different communities, smaller communities within the Jackson community? Who are the world fellows? If you, if you aren't familiar with them, they are. They're coming to Jackson to learn themselves. They come in the fall semester. There's usually about 16 of them. They're sort of on the rise in their careers. Unlike the Senior Fellows, which are much more established and they are doing leadership training, and they're taking classes. But in a.

Pre Covid world and hopefully post Covid world their their lounges across from the Graduate Student Lounge. And so there's often a lot of organic interaction that happens and you know, we recently had a town Hall meeting and getting some feedback and and about how maybe we could formalize some of that a little bit more so those kinds of conversations are happening. Students can be liaisons to work with the World Fellows as well as you know, being liaisons with Carrie Initiative.

So there are.

Lots of opportunities to have those types of faculty conversations. So family fixed flexibility. Faculty funding we do. I mean, everybody wants to know about funding. I think I pulled up the web page for that, which gives an overview and I'll paste that in. So basically, it's it's pretty simple.

It there's a question on the application saying I'd like to apply for funding from Jackson. You check the box, everybody checks the box.

Get something and 100% of people who are not externally funded and asked for it. Get something. Usually it is about.

It's been historically about half tuition so that I think right off the bat is great and then additional funding is merit based. We do have merit based funding and I would say you know getting into Jackson's merits pretty merit enough that I would say probably about a third.

I it seems to have in the last few years been broken up into into thirds. I would say third of the class ends up fully funded with full tuition interval stipend. Third of the class ends up with tuition and then a third of the class ends up with half tuition. And we're like I said we're still finalizing our class this year. But I will say it looks like we'll be able to make sure everybody in this year's class has full tuition, so again, we're hoping that with the getting closer and closer.

Becoming a school and then when we become a school that those opportunities for additional funding will be available. And unfortunately for anybody here who might be interested in the masc.

In less you're externally funded. We currently don't offer funding for VMS except in rare, rare cases where there's like maybe a military agreement or something like that and that could be why when you look at the student bio Switch, now might be a good time to post this basis, and now that it's on my mind.

The student BIOS you might find, I think, some people.

Anne.

The sorry.

Define I lost it and these are grad students. An vman students are at the bottom and sometimes people think, well, gosh, they're all military or they're all government or whatever. You know, we do admit a much more broader class in that, but again, I think because of the people that you see there, they're usually funded. So people in the Ms program are often funded by their governments or by their military. US and foreign national and.

So again, maybe someday we could get to the point where we could offer me as funding, but that's not in the near future, so keep that in mind when you are applying for the program. So the one nice thing is we did waive the jury for the MAS this year, and that's a permanent thing. And for all of you were listening who are interested in the MA, we have not waived the Jerry and we can talk about admissions requirements going forward, but I just wanted to make sure we talk about the funding issue that we actually do.

Had pretty decent funding.

And also there's funding available up to $5000 for summer internships if they're paid, and we also have.

Student lot of students do jobs. The link I sent to you goes into teaching assistants and course assistants and research assistants, and those have sort of a two fold advantage. People use them to supplement their their funding. But also there can be an amazing networking tool. I one of the first alumni I met when I started at Jackson. Her first job out of Jackson was with somebody who was a senior fellow at Jackson.

Who she worked with as a course assistant or teaching assistant. And so she worked with him for the year. And it's only you could think of it almost like as a trial. And then he hired her after her graduation so it does become a really unique networking tool as well. And you get a little bit closer access to some of these. Again, the senior fellows, these people, these ambassadors are teaching class and you might be their course assistant or research assistant. And so there's lots of opportunities like that. So think about that.

As you go forward too, and it really, I think, enhances the whole experience an finally, let's see how we doing on time. We're OK. The final FI like these future. So clearly most of you were thinking about grad school because you are looking at your career trajectory. Whether you've been in the field for awhile and you're starting to realize what additional tools or topics you might need to go and continue on this on this career path, you're on.

So Courier Services alumni networking.

Those are obviously huge questions that we get all the time and I wanted to make sure I have some of those links for you.

Excuse me, I'm sorry. It's it's morning here still and I do still have a. I have the morning Frog.

This, I think most people want to know what our students do, so this link I'm going to give you because it can sometimes be hard to find 'cause it's way at the bottom of one of our web pages. It's actually live. I think. How many years?

It's like five or six years of data of positions taken after graduation.

So it doesn't have names of students, but it gives you their titles and their locations and hopefully gives you an idea of the kinds of things that people do. And if you're interested, we also have that data for the summer.

Experiences which I will post in. It's well so you have it.

Alright, and again I think I mentioned this before, but.

You know the alumni network goes beyond the 10 years of Jackson, right? You have not only access to the Jackson alumni, but I mentioned we adopted the International Relations alumni of 40 plus years. You also have access to the Yale Alumni Network, something called God Cross campus. I think it's called. It's like the alumni, the internal alumni networking tool like Ailes LinkedIn if you will.

And you know you also have access to the World Fellows. They become an amazing alumni network as well. And on top of that again, most of this is pre covid things. But the career Development Office arranges networking trips to DC to New York. They every couple of years they do London and have meetings with employers. But also alumni events.

And things like that to continue to foster those things. So it's you know, it's out there. And then you also get one on one help for finding these jobs in these summer internships and whatnot so.

Yeah, so there's my 5 apps. The family flexibility faculty funding in future, and I think I've been talking for half an hour. I think I will stop there and see if there are any questions that you might have and I will address them one by one and they'll likely bring up some various issues so.

Alright, so again, I think you've all found the chat box, so feel free to post your questions there. I'm going to take a quick swig of my coffee and try to maybe get rid of the frog and then I will dive into your questions.

Excuse me

alright, Tyler is asking a great question about is there such thing as too much work experience.

No, technically no.

Assuming you are interested in depending which degree, so you say 9 years of experience so.

1st, I'll mention you might be interested in the two year, and that's fine. I think our average age is about 2526.

And they. But there are people who.

Maybe hit 30. They are likely to be on the older sign of the cohort, but for the MSN I mentioned it's a minimum of seven years of experience. The average is usually about 1212 to 15 for the class, but it's something that keep in mind if you just don't bring this up, even though this isn't Tyler, your specific situation, but if you have.

A whole lot of experience.

Keep in mind we're a professional graduate program and we are looking about looking at your career trajectory and so you do need to be at a point in your career where you're going to be able to take, take the tools and the skills that you've learned and apply it to your career and go on and work for awhile. So there's not too much, but definitely, you know, keep that in mind.

Let's see, there are lots of questions came in. I gave you time an you did it, I'll just try to go through them one by one rather than sorting through some of the follow up. If that's OK, hopefully it'll be fine. You're welcome Mariana, the ma. More research oriented or policy oriented. We're definitely very policy heavy. We consider ourselves an international policy program.

And as I mentioned, we consider ourselves a professional program. We consider this a terminal degree, meaning you finish this degree and you can go out and do policy. You do global affairs, get on the ground and you shouldn't need anything additional. There are a very small handful of people who do go on to get pH D's.

And if you want to do that, or if you are, if your career wants to be more research focused, there are. You can get that within individual classes. So it's a matter of sort of looking at the class, the course offerings, and seeing you know does this particular class have a research paper attached to it, or does it have field experience where there's travel involved and you're going out into different countries to do things so you can actually.

That that's a nice thing is you can actually choose the mix if that's of interest to you. Your Jackson classes will be more. You know, our core classes are going to be more about teaching the stats in the con in the history from a policy perspective, so we definitely leaning more towards the policy side, and I've learned from current students too that sometimes they'll take PhD level classes they might not want to get a PhD, but maybe they want some of those skills and so people have been able to do that.

As well, so I hope that answers question.

Let's see, my Mama is talking about what trends and types of internships do Jackson students typically pursue. That's a great question, you know, career services will probably have a lot more details, but I think the websites that I sent those links will be pretty helpful. And The thing is, if you follow us for awhile, you'll see sometimes the the things shift the percentages shift.

Of course, looking at the last years data or most things were remote, that becomes a little bit trickier to track, but I think you know we're sort of being a global affairs program. It's it's almost like we follow what that's going on in the world. If you will, right? So ideally people are learning from what's happening in current events, and people are going into those fields doing a lot of that. So I think when any of whether it's you or any of the other programs, I.

I feel like you'll find that people are passionate, usually about coming into a program because of something that's going on, whether it's climate change or refugee issues, or, you know, whatever the case may be. So I think that ebbs and flows with with the tide effect sort of makes sense.

Alright Tyler, yes.

Asking the question, follow up about your situation. Two year MA yes, so if you look at our student BIOS it is usually I don't wanna stereotype this, but it is usually the military officers who have a little bit more significant work experience coming in. I think is it.

Thinking from our student BIOS, I remember joking with him last year. Well, I guess it's almost two years now because.

Again, we're still sort of stuck in our apartments and not interacting as well. Yes, Nick Lewis walls. I think he's a he's an army guy and I remember him saying he was on the other side and sometimes they have kids, so that that's definitely a mix of in the community. So I think that's fine.

Alright sweet, I think yeah, we've chatted before. I think what's the acceptance rate at May this year? Still in Covid, assuming the the numbers might be different? Yeah, that's a little tricky so normally and this is good. You know. Hopefully things are normalizing a little bit. We normally do not allow for deferrals in our two year program. Again, 'cause of the size of the cohort, it would just kind of it kind of messes up the balance and again we mentioned.

Building the class and sort of. You know how well you all fit together with each other and so.

With Covid last year, we did allow for deferrals for international students who couldn't get their visas, or, you know, couldn't travel because of restrictions, so that did sort of cause some weird things for this year. We were actually able to admit we got permission to admit a few more people so.

It didn't hurt the applicant pool two too much, but again, we're still waiting. We still have a good couple. Dozen people are waiting till the last minute. May 1st is our reply deadline to decide. But we did including the deferrals we did.

Still, admit the usual we were able to admit the usual class size of. Usually it's usually about 60 or so that we admit to get our class or cohort of about 35 or so. So we're going to meet that this year, so we're excited an all of the deferrals from last year will be able to come. You know, God willing with hopefully, visa things. I know a lot of consulates and things are still aren't open, or they're backlogged, so we are still like you said, we're still.

In the middle of it an we're going with it and we'll see how things go forward in the next couple of months, but hopefully will be full time residential this fall and everybody back in her Chow Hall together. And that visas will be rolling in just fine, but we're keeping our fingers crossed like, well, like everybody else so.

Alright, got a shout out. Namely yes like the age thing that's funny even from from Iran, great.

Yeah, I think even the question about money is.

It depends, right? We are merit based. So as I mentioned before, everybody receives something. But if you think about it could be as little as half tuition so it you'll know if you were offered a spot of admission you will know within usually 2448 maybe 72 hours, what your funding package would be. And so you would be able to utilize that in making your decision. I think many people who get full tuition find that they can supplement through.

Some of that EA jobs that we were talking about to get them through an out pre covid.

Didn't even need to worry about food and stuff, 'cause of events and food. And there is always stuff hanging around our building and stuff. So yeah, which obviously wasn't going to happen during Kovit, but there are ways to.

Now get get funding. There are things external that you can apply for, but it is merit based right now and again I mentioned some people do get fully funded, but that's where a lot of those key admissions things will come into play like.

You know the jury scores your GPA, how much work experience you have. What's your unique story? Those things come into play when we are looking about the additional merit based funding. OK, keep going here. We're still OK with time and I do see lots of questions. Let's see Kyle. I was wondering about students starting right after the undergraduate degree. So, great question. Yes, I. I do get that one more often.

Again, the the three to five year average that you see is not a minimum. It's not a minimum, but with a cohort of about 30 to 35 students.

That we do I mentioned consider a very professional program we can't have. We are looking for people 'cause it's not just about what you need to learn from the program, but it's also about what you bring to the table and your experience. So you'll learn even the faculty say this. You'll probably learn just as much, if not more from each other than you do in the classroom, and you could see that through some of our student or student events and organizations that we have from the Jackson Salon where people weekly come together and they.

Students have a chance to present their careers and what they've done and give their wisdom to their classmates. So things like that happen so.

We're looking at that mix in that balance when we are pulling the class together.

All that to say, we usually do have a couple of people who are coming right from undergrad.

But you have to. You have to actually stand out even that much more right? Because we can only have and it's not a quota. When I say a couple spots, something else to keep in mind is often those spots are going to people like many of you in the US might be familiar with the Pickering or the wrangells, or pain. Their fellowships that are very, you know, like Pickering Rangel, are on the fast track in the Foreign Service, and that's part of the requirement of the fellowship.

And so that makes a lot of sense with the mission of Jackson.

So you know, it just becomes that much more competitive we can't have.

Being a professional program, we can have two too many who are coming right from undergrad, but those who do usually are are sort of rock stars if you will and will look much more heavily on your the internships that you've done.

You know the extra curriculars, the volunteerism community service, all of that and it also will need to sort of make sense with their long term career goals. I mentioned that before we are looking for career trajectory. Being a professional program and how Jackson fits into that. And so I think that's why sometimes the people are right from undergrad, don't necessarily know exactly what they want yet, because I haven't had the the field experience. So that's why those internships may maybe come.

That much more important to you and for us, so those are some things to keep in mind that you know we're going to run out of time to talk about.

And which reminds me, I will do this you those of you who have stuck this out.

I am usually more than happy to have conversations with you an I have a calendar link.

That has little 15 minute time slots that schedule a zoom.

And I am happy to offer that to you. I think it's slots over the next couple of weeks, so if any of you do have follow up questions that maybe I don't get too.

Today

feel free to to use that link and schedule a few minutes with me in the next couple of weeks. So if we want to talk about that a little bit more.

OK, especially because the questions are still coming in, which is great and we do have about 15 minutes. So alright, I'm Russia. Final year law student in India India. Hope I hope you are well. It's scary seeing what's happening in India on the news right now.

Do you accept students right after the undergraduate degree is inadvisable, so it's the same question, right? I think so. I think I answered that.

And.

Yeah, I think I pretty much answered that with my previous question.

Also, my legal internships account or my work experience. So just in a practical, in a practical sense, when you see the numbers about the three to five year average, it's imperfect as we do it by year of graduation. So we do see it. We do that math by postgrad. That also doesn't count non traditional students. There's often students who do, whether it's military service or take breaks before they go to college, and so that doesn't.

Factor in some of those statistics that you see, so again, it's very individualized, but we would always encourage people to get additional work experience, but sometimes that's not possible, and again, I think pointing out.

Emphasizing your previous experience, I think is super important.

Gabriels asking would you look for candidates and Dan to Jackson? I think this is a great question and I do get it all the time, but I think that's probably the makes the most sense because you'll hear a lot of admissions Graduate School admissions officers talking about fit and so we want to make sure that you know we're on the same page so you know what we're looking for and hopefully you're looking for us. But I would say the number one thing and this.

This might sound a little cheesy, but I've heard many alumni Jackson alumni say this and I've seen it and felt it, and I think anybody who's interacted with Jackson, like our admitted students currently.

Is number one. We're looking for a commitment to the global good.

You know at its core we're about making the world a better place, and that's going to look different for everybody. So obviously if you look at the jobs and some of the summer internships, you'll see people are coming going to all different areas. I mean, global affairs is obviously so very broad, so we're obviously looking for that on the people coming in. So the commitment to the global good, ideally a little bit of quant skills, helpful, it's not required.

Program, you know we don't require economy stats before applying. If you don't have it and you do get admitted, you will be recommended to take a refresher before enrolling.

But I will be completely transparent and say if you have it, it. It definitely strengthens your application.

And then the third thing I would say is.

Your unique story. We really do look for people having unique stories, and ideally if we admit 60 people, ideally we want to admit people with 60 different unique stories, and I think that's an advantage to it from the the one on one personal attention you get, you're not competing for jobs or internships with your classmates, and you are also your world is sort of broadening too because you have people you might not have seen things from this perspective or that genre, organization or whatever.

So I think those would be the three things that I would say to answer that I hope that helps.

Lily is saying, wondering whether not having an undergraduate degree in political science or economics put the Candidated at a disadvantage.

No, absolutely not. The major really doesn't matter. They might be some of the popular ones, but.

Even major itself doesn't matter. What really matters is the classes that you took. Have you taken some relevant IR type classes? Again, maybe some of the quant classes, maybe some language, some regional cities, ideally something that makes sense and what your interests are and what you want your long term goals to be. So don't get hung up so much on the major, but it's more about what you, the class, the kinds of classes that you choose and how they can apply to your graduate degree.

Turns out.

Let's see is a mid mid summer program internship requirement for Jackson. Yes, absolutely done between your first and second year.

The Mariana saying. Thank you. I don't remember the question, but you're asking about support for international students, so I think it was a funding question, right? Yeah, there's it's international. Domestic doesn't matter. The funding is available to to everyone.

Not clear about your response to Tyler about years of experience. Once again, two years of experience like 9 or 10 count against a chance of being admitted. When you're talking 9 or 10, absolutely not it. That doesn't. That doesn't matter. I think we've had people who have like 20-30 forty. I think that's where it gets into like a real Gray area. So now it what matters is the type of work experience that it is or was.

So we're looking for people who obviously are wanting to go into a relevant, maybe international policy global affairs degree, right? That's what we're about so.

And we do. I like to use the phrase connecting the dots. So what you did in undergrad, even those internships, what you, your couple first jobs, or as you've risen in your karere

and what you want to do in the future, and how program like Jackson fits into that. Connecting those dots is really important to us. So if somebody is all over the place and pivoting here and pivoting there and doing this and that, we might be like, well, what do they really want to do? And because of flexibility of our program, will they be able to hone in on what they want to get out of it? Because you have to choose your own sort of area of study? So we're definitely looking for sort of that solid.

Trajectory so doesn't matter how much, it's just matters how relevant, if that makes sense. Feel free to ask again in a different way. If I'm still not answering that.

Tyler, this came out the GPA Jerry scores, so the student profile has this balance with like life experience etc. Well, you kind of answered the question. It's a balance. We're definitely looking at a balance and I like to refer to the application as more like a portfolio. A big picture where everybody asks how much is this way or that way.

Right on the outset, it's it's all equal right there. All admissions requirements. We wouldn't require them if we didn't think we needed them. So your personal statement, letters of recommendation scores.

Transcripts etc. Those things are all on an equal plane, but everybody has different strengths, strengths and weaknesses. So we're looking for that balance. So an academic example might be.

People, somebody didn't take any quant classes in in there, they don't have any quant classes on their transcripts. In that case, the quant section of the Grem is likely going to weigh much more heavily.

Or vice versa, right? Like if you bomb your quant section of your GRE, but you you know you've taken.

Algebra, calculus.

No static on got knees, whatever that's a balance right? Same thing I think with we've talked about with the work experience in your resume, resume is required.

Yes, people are replying right from undergrad or completing competing with those people who have the 8-9 years of experience. And so how is it that you need to strengthen that and show what you're all about? Maybe you have your recommenders tell us that I know this person doesn't have postgrad experience, but this is what they've done and I know that this is their passion and what they want to do, that their future, and they're committed to that. So those I think are the different. Hopefully a couple of examples that might help to.

Think about what the balance is. You know, Gee, we don't have a GRE GPA minimum either, but we will look at the individual courses so.

If you know somebody has a decent or like maybe it really poured GPA but they started out premed and realized that wasn't what they wanted to do and then they realize this is my path I want to do. You know are you know whatever kind of policy you want to do and then you start taking those classes and your GPA goes up. So are you getting the better grades in the classes that are relevant to to Jacksons program so hopefully those are some brief but good examples to show how how that balance might work.

An let's see in listed Tyler and listed. Is this an issue in terms of admissions? No, absolutely not. I mean we have often people are in listed and those those are the rare examples to where we will allow a deferral. Like if somebody has to go into active duty we have done that even pre covid if they get called back up.

Things like that. So we work with the GI Bill yellow ribbon. All of those kinds of things and you know, as long as you're able to do the full time 2 year or one year, as the case may be.

Programming and fulfill that then then yeah, we have usually a handful in class.

Alright, let's see Tyler also asking about. I don't know what green to gold is.

I might write that down and have to follow that up. I don't know that I've heard of green to gold, so I need to remember that and look that up. Feel free to again. I think our email address is right there on the slide. Our websites there feel free to ping us if there's any questions that we didn't get to. And like I mentioned, happy to answer. Follow up questions like the ones I'm getting that I don't know the answer to and I can look into it.

Let's see, I couple repeat questions again, I'm moderating the chat so they're not giving posted right away, so hopefully.

I will sort through those.

Let's see Mary Ann's asking about recent undergrads or people. I think I've touched on that lately is asking pretty much the same thing about 1 1/2 years. And how can you help you prove yourself? I don't know anything much more at except really just touching on the things we've talked about about connecting the dots. Really pointing out what your experiences. Hopefully it's.

Making sense, having your recommenders corroborate your story. And that's really the case even from people who've been out for awhile, right? So it's the same idea, but I think people who haven't had significant post grad work experience just have to work just a little bit harder. I'm sorry to say to just convince us that you know this is what you want to do. 'cause I think a lot of us and I I need to work fear have this in the back of our minds that you still don't know what you want to do yet and you come to a program.

That doesn't have a whole lot of structure and you can choose it and you could end up choosing we try to direct you to not do that, but you could end up choosing from all over the place. And then what if that put you on a path that is not in the right direction for the mission of Jackson? And so we would actually want this to be a really good experience for you, and then you would know what you want to get out of it. So it's really my, I think just the clarity of knowing what you want to do and what you want to get out of this program.

This should be a huge part of your application and just convincing us that yes, I know I'm young. I know I don't have postgrad work experience, but here's what I do have and here's how I know that this is exactly what I want. Hopefully that makes sense.

Let's see alright more duplicate questions coming in. I'm sorry, I've I've answered them all. Trying to reiterate that they come in, but because I'm monitoring I can only get to them as I see them. Do you think the transition from Institutes Institute to school will affect the design? That's a fantastic question. Thank you for asking that those conversations are still happening. We don't anticipate a lot of change. We like the personality and.

The nature of our program. We like it small. We like the flexibility.

There is talk of a possible degree name change that's I think in the hands of the Yale Corporation. Like the Board of Trustees and with covid they just it was not on their priority list to talk about. So there is talk of maybe having a change to a Masters of public Policy, which may mean will have an additional requirement. Maybe you'll have to choose. You can take. We have policy classes, but we currently don't require them right? So we might end up needing to require.

Another class if we have the policy degree from those things, are way above my pay grade, but those conversations are happening, but otherwise the sort of broader general scope isn't. We're not intending to change.

Which one was asking about the cohort size for me, yes, that's a great question as well. We've been sort of only about 2 to 5, two to five. We also are. There's a lot of new initiatives happening which are sort of.

It's already a non traditional program, but we're having partnerships and agreements with a lot of international military candidates coming in. We have something called the PMK Fellowship, and there's other agreements happening. The senior administration is working on these things, so we actually have almost twice that coming in, but some of them are these unique fellowships.

That are again special agreements so, but ideally they'll be fully incorporated into the whole experience. The whole Jackson student experience. So we I think could have 8:10 or so, and that may grow in the future. So that's sort of where we're at with that. It's much more flu, I think the masc is much more fluid with size, and you know, we do allow for deferrals for that program because it's less cohort driven with the required classes and whatnot.

Hopefully that makes sense.

Alright.

China is asking what have students told you they've gained in terms of skills. Do they primarily primarily describe it as a pipeline for professional opportunities? Yeah, I would say both. I think I touched on this a little bit. Depends on what you want to get out of it. I think some of our students end up taking Python classes and are and things that I don't understand, or, you know, taking additional really tools, heavy classes through the School of Management.

Or maybe they want to take more theory classes and take classes through the history Department or other programs, or they want to take some of the really heavy field classes with some of our senior fellows. Clara Lockhart has a very popular class where they travel to a couple different countries during the course of the semester, so you really can. You can build it, you can mix it, you get it, can be a mix of theory and practice, and you could sort of go heavy.

Either way, so I think that's sort of the beauty of it, but it could also be the overwhelming aspect of it too, right? Which, again, it's why. It's helpful for you to know exactly what you want to get out of that.

Let's see Tyler's asking about advantage of nontraditional bachelors. Absolutely not. I think we have somebody coming in this year's class who did 70 years military service and is just graduating from the Citadel now. So that's not unusual, and that's fine.

Transfer credits we actually don't do transfer credits, but I think the question more might be, you know, those people who don't have the quant classes.

People take them at Community College online like anything you do beyond your graduate. You know your undergraduate degree. Taking a local class, anything that those things we do look at is commitment to wanting to do this. And obviously they're strengthening your skills, so I think that's something that.

And we definitely look on alright. It's 9:00 o'clock. I see a few more questions. I'm happy to dive in and try to answer these really quickly, but if people need to popoff, I've seen people have been popping off through the last hour, but I will, and I think the recording will be available, hopefully with the new slide. I hope that doesn't put a bug in things. Doesn't that affect the recording, but I'm happy to if any of you want to stay on, I'll talk for a couple more minutes. Answer These questions. So Mariana is asking about the letters of recommendation.

Perfect question about should they be from her professor, an institution ministry, foreign affairs? That's that's a great question. Actually, very practically, we do. We require 3 letters of recommendation. We want one to be professional, one to be academic in the third can be your choice. And again, that goes into what are your strengths and weaknesses? What are you trying to bolster up a little bit more? What do you want to touch on? And the academic question gets a little tricky for people that out for awhile. It doesn't necessarily have to be a faculty member.

But if it's somebody who can touch on your academic experience and your academic strengths, maybe the skills that you could do, sort of this analytical.

Staff and you can do this pilot do this program. You know we are Yale so it is still an academic program, so something to keep in mind too is, you know, trying to find those can be tricky I think.

You know you don't want to pick a professor who's just going to say, I remember her.

You know he was in my class. He has. She gotten a. You know that that's not a strong letter and he and this is something anybody who's currently in undergrad right now, or even younger.

My advice is try to find mentors, academic mentors, people that you can stay in touch with, who are interested in following your career path and keeping in touch with you and what your passions are. Because I think those people are going to be. We're not the only program who wants an academic letter, even though we're a professional program, so.

Developing those relationships early is good, so you can get creative I guess is a good way to to answer that question, but definitely the we do want at least one professional 1 academic Simon. You're welcome about the program. The program flexible an offers the opportunity to specialize. Yes, I think the answer that's completely flexible you built new. Basically build your curriculum again with help.

And distraction except rhe applications absolutely and I apologise. Anybody who's on here? You know? We did the blast and we haven't taken out all this years applications yet, but in the end you're like you know anybody who doesn't get admitted often it might come down to just your numbers were small. Program will receive hundreds of applications and we have to reject many many highly qualified applicants, and that's painful for us. But it's just the nature of the beast if you will so.

There there might be a three year limit.

But maybe not. I can't remember if they've stopped that or not. People reapply again and again, there's no harm in that. It's a whole new ball game. Different people might be reading your application the make up of the applicant pool is going to be a little bit different every year, so maybe one year you'll stand out a little bit more than the next. We do like to see progression though, so if you're will still have access to your old application, so ideally you are still progressing. You know, even if you aren't going to grad school.

Anne.

So those kinds of things hopefully are helpful when you're reapplying and obviously attending. Keeping attending these webinars and events and hopefully cleaning, cleaning some additional tips and tools. You're welcome Tyler, and on Russia, good. Glad you're find in India.

A sweat, you asked about the.

The recommendations being out for awhile, I think I sort of answered that it's not two from academic. I mean it can be too from academia, but one and one professional academic and then probably most of our people do have two professional, but again people are applying right from undergrad or probably going to have the two academic. But maybe you should have somebody who did your internship so it is sort of professional. Again, think about the big picture where you need to strengthen your application where you think we might see as a weakness.

And can you get your recommenders to sort of touch on those things there? They are quite important.

Alright, is there a list of what languages are offered? I'm not a list, but I think if you use that courses database, you could use a keyword. Yale has amazing language opportunities. It's kind of mind-blowing so their undergrad levels, so keep that in mind, and so their daily they are. You know language labs there really intense. So even though their undergrad just keep that in mind, they are.

You are learning languages when you're doing that, so you can just do a keyword search through the database. OK, it is 905. Lost some more people I'm getting thank yous and I think I will end there and say thank you for attending again. Please be safe out there. We're not quite out of the Woods yet.

You know we'll have some more of these. Feel free to attend again. I mean, sometimes you know they're pretty much the same. Maybe I'll have a different slides and maybe I'll experience experiment with other things being my brain. This is the first web and R of the season since we've, you know, since the fall. So maybe I was a little rusty and where we still don't have our final class yet. So my minds a little distracted, but otherwise, I really feel free to apply. Email us at Jackson Dot admissions.

Follow us.

Here our journey and how things are changing, and so far only for the better. So thank you and I hope to see you either virtually again or your application or maybe someday in the future at in New Haven. Alright, I'll cut us off now so thank you. Take care bye bye.