Summer Admissions Webinar (June 2023)

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You will only be an identified by your first name for privacy. Thank you Julian. I'm glad you can hear me. It's always fun.

Looking at the registrants of these coming from all over the world, so that's pretty exciting.

I know there were people from well, hello Beijing, great see people all over the world and I think all over the states here too. So we'll give people a few minutes to sign on before we get started.

Welcome Michigan. Welcome Ukraine. I hope all is well where all of you are.

Very exciting.

Give another few seconds.

And to get let people get connected.

You. While we do that, I can go over some of the logistics. Just a reminder that this webinar is being recorded and will be sent to you later. So if you have any technical issues along the way, no worries. It is audio and video for me, but.

Feel free to if you need to use a headset and it is one way so most of you have found the chat, so that's how we'll be communicating today. Feel free to post questions there. You will just be identified by your first name to protect your privacy, so please feel free to ask any questions that you'd like. Chances are they are applicable to many people in the session. There is a little CC button on the top right of your screen if you.

Do need closed captioning, and there's also the little arrows. The expanded arrows you can use if you have trouble seeing the slides, that might be helpful. And again, just feel free to refresh or log back in if need be. Your link should work until the end of this presentation.

So thanks for being here. All right, let's see where are we here?

All right. So you have introduced yourselves, some of you from where you are. And I want to tell you a little bit about me. My name is Melissa McGinnis and I'm the Assistant Director of Admissions here at the Jackson School of Global Affairs. I have been doing graduate admissions in the public and international affairs space for many, many, many, many years. I worked prior to coming to Yale. I worked at Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, and.

Their graduate admissions office as well, so I have a lot of.

Experience in this space, so I am here to talk about Yale Jackson, and if you have questions about how to apply, I can help with that as well. So please keep an eye on the chat as we go. I will try to post in, paste different links into the chat box so you have those, and if you want to, feel free to bookmark those as we go. They are mostly from our website, so if you've been poking around there you may have already found these things.

But as some of you I assume know, we are located here in New Haven, CT and Jackson Jackson School is Yale's first professional school since 1976. So it's been an exciting year at Jackson. We are a newer iteration of Yale IR program which was started decades ago and it back in 2010 we became the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. Thanks to AJ.

Generous gift from John and Susan Jackson. And as of July one last year, we became a school. So it's a really big deal. There's not a lot that will change about who we are, and we can talk about some of those things going forward that are going to be different. But if you've been following Yale Jackson at all for any length of time, the sort of culture and community of who we are is not planning to change.

So we can talk about that as we go forward. And Speaking of culture and community over the years I've I've been here at Yale Jackson I think I'm starting my fifth year I believe it is. I've done so many of these webinars and as I continue to to talk through them I came up with this these little enact not an acronym but the the alliteration of five F and it just I think it's something that helps people kind of remember what we're about.

Talking about family flexibility, faculty funding and future. So we'll go through what each of those means and hopefully you'll learn a little bit about our program as we go. So family, I think family is the most confusing. When people hear that they're like family, how what does this have to do with Graduate School? But I think because of Yale, Jackson size and our location, I think that really.

It really comes across as having a pretty tight knit community, therefore family atmosphere. Our cohorts in our two year MPP are only about 30 to 35 students, so really small. We do have a mid career program that program is usually only about 2:00 to 5:00. So they're they're usually higher levels than their careers. They're integrated into the Jackson community, but their cohort is super, super small and also we are located.

And Yale Central Campus on a beautiful tree lined St. and our current building is a giant mansion located here on Hill House Ave. and we are going to Sunday acquiring a couple more is not new to us. They're not new mansions, they're new buildings to us. But across the street there are a couple more buildings that will be acquiring over the next couple of years. So we're excited to see how that all plays out, but it really is you know.

We're here at the top of Hill House Ave. and and Inhale universities campus and and it's a beautiful beautiful spot. We are also located, for those of you who don't know, about halfway between Boston and New York City and pretty easy train ride on the metro north or Amtrak. Been in DC it's it's pretty easy straight shot down to DC. So we're right there in the New England northeastern hub.

So some people are like, well where's New Haven and that's where we are and we are definitely making a difference in all of the careers in global affairs by being in those locations, whether it's you know getting in and out of New York from the UN or down into DC for the the obviously the the government hub there. So that's what we mean by family and also it's about flexibility. So these cohorts are really small and also that that's one of the main things we're known for.

Another of the main things were known for is our flexibility. So for the one year Master of Advanced Studies, there are no core. So most of this presentation will be about the two year MPP when it comes to all of the programs and academics. So if there is anybody here today who is interested in the MAS, just keep that in mind. You don't have any of the requirements, whereas the two year is we have 4 core classes that are required.

And we have the required summer internship that is done between the 1st and 2nd year. There are language requirements. You know you must meet an English language proficient and a non-native, non-english language.

Requirement before graduation from Yale. We can talk about that if anybody has questions about that. So one thing again, not just that we're flexible with the four core. Most of our students take classes across Yales graduate schools, so I will post paste in the first link. This link here goes into the MPP curriculum a little bit and talks about the.

That's the graduate students. Sorry, my bad. I wanted to post that in earlier when we were talking about the family, so it's good for you to have that. Forgive me. It's a Friday morning. I've been traveling for a very long time, so I I'm still sort of nursing my coffee here.

So yes, please do definitely check out that the student BIOS that we have, there'll be some transition as we graduate. Our recent student, our recent graduates will move them off the site and we'll be starting to build and the new students. So it'll look a little wonky over the summer. But I think reading our student BIOS shows you that students are coming from all different backgrounds and studying all the different things. And that's really the beauty of the flexibility and interdisciplinary.

Nature of our program is that people are coming to Jackson for all different reasons and that's what we're looking for. We want to build a class of people who are actually coming to Jackson for different reasons, wanting to study different things all within the context of the global good. So that being said, this is the.

Link about the MPP core requirements and a couple of the other things like a couple other workshops and things that we also have and as well as the new leadership and ethics workshop done in the second year.

But this is something that is on our website but really, really buried and mentioned this flexibility. So I mentioned the four classes that you take at Jackson that are required and the rest people take at Jackson or or anywhere across fields, professional schools and they can even potentially take an undergraduate level class, a higher level undergrad class if you find that there isn't a graduate class that needs a specific need that you have.

If you get that faculty member to do the extra work with you and approval by the Jackson academic team, then there is an opportunity to even take those higher level undergrad classes. You can utilize that course database, do a keyword search, and hundreds of classes will come up in whatever topic, whether it's courses across the anthropology or the School of Management, the Divinity school, school of public health, there are the resources.

The academic resources are vast are Dean likes to call it an academic playground that is Yale, so definitely keep that in mind. So I am here to help you navigate this because again being that small cohort, you are also able to get that individual attention which points back to that family atmosphere. So once you're an enrolled student, should you get admitted and choose to enroll, you get one-on-one attention individual.

Meetings to navigate all of the different schools and all of the different options that are available to you. But on the front end, you need to have access to this so you know what it is, the resources that you need in order to apply. So unlike many programs or many of our peers, we do not have prescribed areas of study. You don't apply to a certificate or apply to a regional focus or apply to a field.

You actually create that.

Whatever you want to call it, field or whatnot, it's all an MP in Global Affairs. But you're telling us what you want to study here at Yale, Jackson, and that's why you need to utilize some of these resources. So you know what we offer tapping into the faculty resources and I'll include those links in a moment as well. We incorporate a lot of practitioners and again, knowing the access that you have to all of.

Yales course catalog is really, really important. You don't need to tell us in your application that these are the 16 courses that I want to take. You do need to have a very good idea of what it is you want to get out of it. Because our concern was we we don't want you to be completely overwhelmed and it's most people have about two, about three to five years of experience when they are applying and that's not a minimum requirement that.

Seems to be the the highest average because people are in the workforce and they're having this epiphany that ohh this is what I want to do and this is what I need to get there so.

People who have had some work experience already seem to to formulate that better in their application telling us that I want to study, you know, this national security here or there or you know, whatever the case may be. Again, looking back at those student Biozone I think will be super useful. So just I'll quickly keep going through these slides so we can make sure there's time for some questions. But hopefully I'm giving you a quick overview to get us started.

Um, and I mentioned faculty. So with that flexibility, I mentioned we have practitioners who are fully integrated into our program. So we have, we call them senior fellows. And the nice thing about the senior fellows, and I say this all the time, I just came back from annual meetings with all of our peers and you know, we all have these.

Top names in the field in our programs in some way, shape or form. So when you're doing your Graduate School research, definitely drill down to see how they're integrated into the programs and and what you're hoping to get out of that. Because when I got here a handful of years ago, I was shocked at how truly integrated the senior fellows are. At Dale Jackson, they are.

You know, they, their former ambassadors, former military general, CEOs that come, they teach a class usually for a semester, 2 semesters, one to three years. They may be based in DC or other places. And they come up and they spend a couple days on campus. They they do lectures, you know, outside of the classroom. They bring their networks in Now that we have this, you know, virtual knowledge. Thanks to COVID.

Be you know you can have an in Person class and then you can be piping in.

A colleague from somewhere across the world, and a lot of our senior fellows do that. So there's.

There's no isolation here. There is. The broader world is happening around us. Obviously being a global affairs program, that's super important to have people who are integrated into your curriculum and into your your daily life here at Yale Jackson.

Because they are on the forefront of the things that are happening around the world. So that's a really exciting part about the curriculum and the community. So and I want to also mention on this slide I talked about the senior the World Fellows which are a really unique program. I will paste that link in. I didn't open that one up. They are 16 people, 16.

Sort of rising people rising in their disciplines who are all international, coming from all over the world as well. They come to Jackson and to Yale in the fall semester and they hear they're here in the fall. They're here at Jackson. They're student lounges across the hall from the the their lounges across the hall from our graduate student lounge. They're really, really unique people. I love to share the stories and some in the past like a Nigerian Olympian.

And an Iraqi comedian. And I think this year we have like a a UK jockey who I believe might be doing.

Disability things I I can't remember all they're they're just there. You need to look at their BIOS as well and think of them, even though they're in their own sort of separate program if you will, they are here. They're active. They students are hired to be liaisons for them to help them manage and organize their any events that they have they give talks. They are happy to be mentors and in a way you can consider them part of your.

Alumni network even we just did an event in DC and alumni event DC and all of the former world fellows are invited as well. So they're very integrated into the Jackson community. So and I'm a really unique.

Part of Jackson. So I mentioned earlier about changes in becoming a school. So besides our name, the next biggest thing I think is, is our faculty. So when we were part of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, it was they had control of the faculty, but now we have control of our own tenured faculty and can do our own hiring and that's really exciting. So we're we're doing that we're able to grow the faculty.

And I think that really is one of the major parts about.

The change in becoming a school. So that's it's just a really unique time to be a part of that. You can always see the faculty on our website as well. Senior fellows are usually announced sometime in late, late summer. So somebody out there sort of knows and a lot of it is work contracts and getting them to be able to come here and do all of the things. So we always post that when they come, but the world fellows are usually announced in the spring.

So those have already been published for this year. Alright, let's move on quickly. Funding, so it is MP funding. So again if there are any MAS students here, we are currently not funding our mid career students. So do keep that in mind. Most of our mid career students are externally funded sponsored. So when the BIOS are up to date you will see that people are typically.

Domestic or international military, domestic or international governments. So all of those kinds of things are usually part of the MAS. But when it comes to our traditional two year MPP we are. This I would say is probably the other big thing that's going to hopefully change about Jackson becoming a school is that we will be able to provide more funding. So we've been slowly increasing as we go.

For the last few years we've been able to give tuition to everyone who asks for it. There are people who also obviously come into the MP that are externally funded and that's, you know, super important to us as well because often those external funding usually are tied to fellowships that are really strengthens and application, whether it's Fulbright Fellows, whether it's we have something in the States for called the Pickering and the Wrangle and their foreign affairs.

Fellowships. So there's pain. There's all sorts of different things that are that.

Truman Scholars there there's many I could go on. There's I let me, I think they have a website where we list some things let me paste that in. So you have that link as well. So it is really exciting. I mentioned before that I had a previous employer for 20 plus years prior to coming to Yale Jackson, little place down in New Jersey and they currently have the mic drop as far as funding is concerned but alas we are.

Fast on their heels, I mentioned we've been able to do full tuition, but even this year we've been able to move around some funds once the class was settled and provide variations of stipends to all the incoming class. So it's pretty big. I think if you're doing your research, you'll find that most master students are not funded, PHD's are funded in the States, but masters not typically. You have to sort of find who provides.

Funding and and it is merit based for us, but as we continue to grow our funding base hopefully we will we'll have that and again all you need to do is check the box in the application that indicating that you are.

Are hoping to be considered for funding from Jackson. So that's the funding. And then obviously Graduate School is about finding that dream job.

And preparing you for that. So this is just a little slide about.

Sort of the top destinations. We sort of update these every year. I think the biggest thing is some people see the the 32% private sector being mindful that a lot if not most of the people in that 30%, thirty 2% are doing public sector work within the private sector. So I this I'm going to post paste in a link here at the bottom of this page where you can find.

Those stats.

Is a very hidden link.

That gives the actual jobs, the locations, the organization names and the titles, not the student names for their privacy. But I think just like looking at the student BIOS, I think looking at the actual jobs, I think it looks like, what is it, 5-5 or six years, I think worth of data? Five years.

And obviously we've got a couple weird years in there of COVID times that are going to be a little bit different than they probably would be. I think there was a lot of research and book writing going on during our forced virtual days. But if you look back and also we have the same data for the required summer internship, so on the student experiences page you can find actual data.

And so these are this is looks like 6 years. These are the the employers and locations where our students do their required summer internship. So.

I think it's again, you'll see how vast and how different everything is and that just goes to show how.

You know the depth and breadth of experience that our our community has and I think one really nice thing that a lot of students and alumni talk about is that it really adds to that.

I would say family atmosphere because you're not competing with each other for jobs or internships because you're all doing different things. So that's something we in admissions are looking for is how to how to build a holistic class by bringing people in from representing all different regions and studying all different things and having all different life experiences. So that's our challenge, but I am here to sort of.

Give you the advice and resources on on how to build your strongest application, so hopefully some of the resources that I've given you here. This is one of my first dabbles into QR codes. Feel free to laugh if you think we should already be well above that, so hopefully this works Again. Just goes to one of our web pages which talks very specifically about the application requirements, but on this very wordy slide it really gives some.

Advice. There's no links on how to actually apply right now because our application is not live right now. It'll usually go live in August or September. We this summer, we've got to revamp it. Last year was our very first time having our own application that wasn't just tacked onto the graduate schools, and so it was a lot of work and if anybody had had applied in the past or applied this past year and didn't get in and wants to try to get in again.

You know that's perfectly allowable, but hopefully you'll see some changes as we continue to improve the application to make it clear for you. And as the world changes and things change, we want to keep it as updated as possible. We understand there's a lot of challenges. We are for better or worse for our two year MPP still requiring the GRE and I know that a lot of our peers have gone to your.

Cherry optional. Some are going back to requiring it now that COVID is over and but there's a handful of us that are still requiring the GRE and in our.

In our cohort of top IR programs, but.

If you're not familiar with standardized tests, I definitely recommend practice, practice, practice. Practice tests are free. It is not usually about the knowledge that you have or the academic preparation. It's often the test format itself. So if you practice how to take to take the test, that should help when the time comes, the earlier you try to take them, and the more opportunities you can have to take it if you feel like you didn't do well enough. We do not have minimum scores.

Because I mentioned the holistic process, we want you to um.

Have.

Experience and leadership. And we want you to have a good commitment to the global affairs and all of the things. So it's it's really the big picture of things. So your GRE and GPA for that matter, are just one piece of the application. Because we're doing this early, kudos to you for joining and doing your research early, because even though the application is not live, you can start to think about who you want your recommenders.

To be it doesn't matter their names, their titles. I mean, we want those things, obviously, but it's not the.

The importance of who a recommender is as long as they know you well and can attest to why you want to do this degree, ideally at this program. So giving them an early start is definitely a good idea. They they can you can talk to them. Sometimes they like copies of your resume, maybe even personal statements as it gets closer. Our deadline currently is January 2nd.

For the MPP, we will have an automatic waiver for December 1st. If you there is no admissions advantage to getting it in by December 1st, it really is just to save you the application fee and to give us kind of an idea of what is to come. But you don't necessarily even need to have all your recommendations and your test scores in by then those as long as those come in by the January 2nd deadline. So you can submit your application by December 1 if there are any.

Mrs. Here we are thinking of changing that, so keep that in mind. Keep an eye on our website for deadlines. We might make the mid career deadline earlier and no application fee waiver. That's tentative. But want to want to make sure you have that awareness as you plan for your application. Statement of purpose. No special prompt really. We want to know the question like why Jackson? Like why do you want to do a global affairs career?

At this point, and what do you want to get out of it? What do you want to do with it? Connect the dots on where you've come, how your academics and how your extracurriculars during your academics and volunteer work and community service. How all of those things actually tied together to bring you to your whether it's your current position and why you want to to either keep doing this or pivot to something like this. So think about those things.

You know, again, no special prompt. So you can be thinking about those things as you frame this and do it on your summer vacation. Resume obviously is a requirement. The challenges, we want it to be sort of a clear, concise, 1 to 2 pages, but we want to know all of the things. We don't need publications listed there. That's really more of a PhD focus and if there are something you really feel you need us to.

No. You can always use additional information sections of the application, but we want to.

We don't want to see any gaps in your resume either, so that may also be your summer project is how to build out like a clear concise resume with with everything on it that shows your commitment to the global good. And think about your transcripts. If you are coming from a non-english institution where you did your academics, they do need to be translated before you can submit your application.

And do keep in mind that um.

Unofficial only is required for the time of your application and if you end up admitted and enroll then there's all of the official transcript stuff. I think those are the basic things for being this early and giving you some pre planning. We do not have rolling admissions. We have the one deadline and again we do it's a robust review process and we.

Make our decisions typically in the middle of March and students have until May 1 to reply. And usually within a few days of your admission, you'll know what your funding package will be, and.

There you have it. I think those are the basic things. Here's our contact information. So one thing I will apologize for is sometimes in the past I have included my calendar link for Zoom one-on-one meetings.

Has, I apologize the timing. It has been a year with the launch of a school building our own application doing all of the things COVID sort of quote UN quote ending and still doing virtual things and trying to do in person things. For example, we had our May 1 reply deadline that I just mentioned to you. So our class was pretty much finalized for the fall and I left that night for a two week trip to Africa.

And was there recruiting in five cities and four countries and then came back and we had commencement. And then there's the Society for International Development in DC And then we had Memorial Day and then Software Conference in Nashville, back in DC for the last week, leaving sometime late next week for California to recruit joint foreign affairs officers out there. And we have a PA.

Expo in person in July, so keep an eye on it. You've probably found this on our events calendar, but I have a link.

Should be easily found.

Make sure you check there are some things that are um.

You gotta make sure you know which ones are in person and which ones are virtual. For example, our coffee chat in Monterey is is in person, so please don't RSVP unless you can absolutely come because there's like only 10 spots. So things like that. Keep an eye on our calendar. The calendar will change and be added to as we go. If anybody is in DC, would love to see you at the PPA Public Service Expo. And there's more webinars for the summer, they'll be pretty much.

The same but one thing I will tell you ohh sorry back I just pasted the calendar in the link.

In the chat, so hopefully you there was just a delay for that but.

I want to.

I haven't created this event yet. I will put it on the calendar and there will be a registration form for it.

But what I have decided to try instead of opening up my daily calendar, Um.

I just don't have time to have one-on-one meetings these days.

I am.

Going to have a Q&A.

I'm going to try it, it'll be our first one.

This is the zoom link.

So if you want to hold on to that, um, this will probably show up in the recording later. Again, I'm going to create an event later. And so it'll be on our calendar where you can register for it and don't lose it. So this is what this Q&A I'm going to try to do is I'm going to go ahead and answer questions today. I see Angelina has one in there right now.

But if you have done your research, you've learned more about us through this webinar, and you've poked around the website and you have additional questions.

I want to have an open Q&A for people. So I want to give those of you in this webinar first dibs on that. So you have that Zoom link if you need it, but keep an eye on our calendar to have that since I just don't have time for the one-on-one meetings these days. So that being said, you have all our contact information here. Why don't we get to questions? OK. Thank you for bearing with me. I'm going to take a quick quick swing here.

And then we'll get started in the questions in the last few minutes that we have. So ohh good. Sorry back. It looks like maybe you found that. And I apologize in advance for butchering any names. Feel free to correct me even though I can't hear you. But if I'm I apologize if I'm really making it bad. I think it's Angelina. Angelina has a question regarding work experience. If you don't have many years of work experience but have a clear understanding of what you want to get out of a masters program.

Uh, do I have a chance? That is a great question. Um.

So yeah, there is no minimum requirement. Let me find the page that shows sort of our overview statistics because hopefully it shows that we are.

It's it's again not about one particular thing. Yes, this profile shows that three to five years is the average. I think it's 3 point something, but it is about 3.9 this past year, so closer to four. We do have people who are in the program right from undergrad or with very little experience. There are very few of them though. We consider our degree a professional degree, a terminal degree, meaning you get this to your masters and you can get on the ground.

Do international policy. So what we're looking for when we look at the whole class is we want a mix of representation from people with all different levels of experience if we and because our cohort is so, so small, we can't have really too many of of either. So when we have and there's no quotas, but if we have two 3-4 that's actually a lot and a cohort of 30 to 35. So we usually do.

Have a couple. So it then comes to be how do you stand out among your peers of of younger applicants if you will. So it's almost like you have you do have sort of a twofold test ahead of you. You're not just applying just to get in with the whole applicant pool, but you're also thinking about yourself as a subset of these younger applicants who get fewer of the spots spots if you will. So when it comes to people with less experience or even this is.

Good for those who maybe are pivoting and don't have relevant global affairs related experience, it really is about think about, I think you mentioned your intercultural reactor interaction projects, all of those kinds of things, those are super important. So we want those from everybody. So regardless of how much work experience you have, we will look at all of that, your volunteerism, your community service, all of those things are super important, your internships et cetera, but.

The less postgrad experience you have, the more weighty those things will come. So people often ask us, like, how do you weigh this requirement? The GRE or that or letters or etcetera, etcetera. I'm like, technically you could say they're all sort of equal requirements at first, right? Because they're all requirements for a reason. But every applicant has different strengths and weaknesses. And think about it as a portfolio and think about how maybe where you were. And I used weakness, for lack of a better word. I'm not saying that.

Less work experience as a weakness, necessarily, but how can you sort of strengthen that? And so for somebody with less experience, that obviously means you're going to need to point out those internships even more. So recommenders are actually really useful for people with less experience or privateers, because they can.

They can sort of corroborate your story. So they can, since you might not have the work experience that corroborates your story that you want to do this, career recommenders can help with that. So there are various ways that you can show that, and that's the case with anything. Thinking about the balance, I might be getting ahead of myself here, but we I mentioned we do still require the GRE. Well, well, why? We understand there's a lot of biases around it and it has its own.

That has its own flaws, for sure, but it's also, in a sense, maybe a normalizer.

I'm not sure I like that word either, but it just because it has a quantitative section. As long as we have quant courses part of our core like our stats and our econ for example, I think the GRE will still be there. And the way you can think about the weight of the GRE is do you have any quant courses on your transcript? So those who have no quant, no math, no econ, no stats, no nothing on their on their transcripts that GRE.

Quant score is going to weigh much, much more heavily than somebody who was maybe an econ or math major. For example, the the the quant section might not weigh as much. We do still require we do require an English language proficiency for.

For non-english speakers, non-native English speakers who did not attend undergrad degrees in an English speaking institution that's written on our website, you need to to to remember that.

But it's the same idea. There is a verbal section on the GRE, so those of you who need to take English proficiency and maybe you don't do well on the TOEFL or the IELTS for example, well, then you better hope you do really well on the verbal GRE section because it's going to balance, right? So hopefully that makes sense. I think hopefully I answered other questions just besides yours, Annalina, but I.

And like the idea of also making sure you know how everybody's going to have different strengths than weaknesses and and how you can put together your application. So I hope that helps. Amia, Can one apply right after finishing their undergraduate degree? I think I just answered that absolutely.

Um.

It's rare for us to admit somebody right from undergrad. There are always a couple though, so I can't say not to. But one thing we do say is we would never say no to more work experience. So more work experience, more relevant work experience definitely strengthens an application but we also like to have voices in the classroom. And so whether it's.

30 year old German military officer who's in the class with a, you know, US Peace Corps and a, you know, Pickering Foreign affairs fellow who just graduated.

Think about how you can contribute to that conversation in the classroom, right? So just like Annalia Angelina was saying.

It's yes we can admit people right from undergrad but it's it's very very few, few people. So you really need to think about how to strengthen your application and I like to I think one thing I like to say is that we consider work experience as evidence of commitment to global affairs and the global look good and the global good. So that's that's how you need to sort of think about that really knowing what you want to do and also because of the flexibility and that you can have.

Access to like 3000 classes and we don't tell you what those are except for four. It's.

We would worry that somebody who doesn't know exactly what they want to do could get completely lost trying to figure out how to access all of the things, because they could do just about anything. So that's why it's ideal for us to know what you want to do. It was a little rambly, so I hope that makes sense.

Just asking, can you give the estimate on the range of years of experience? I think I did that as well.

I think 8 which I thought we did an age range so this doesn't isn't a perfect experience.

Correlation, but presumably it is. We started adding age range to our stats and this past year we had people with 21 to 38. So that's sort of shows you the broad range that we have. You're welcome, Joanne, for the delivery. Will there be a video interview at this point? No.

That could change. Um, we're talking about it. A lot of our peers utilize it, utilize videos.

Whether they're not necessarily interviews, maybe they're just a a brief video that you submit as part of your application.

To date we do not have those, but we will put that on our website if we do and if we do make those changes, I don't know that we'll be able to make those this year. Again, bandwidth a lot of work and still doing double the work post COVID, so we will see if we can build that out. So currently no. Short answer is no and that was a long answer as well. Julian is asking whether being accepted.

Being accepted but unable to participate in a State Department internship still help applicants chances.

Not sure under the stand the question. State Department internships aren't solely what our students do. So back to did I close those links back to the summer experiences? I think it's pretty clear that people do. Yeah, I just saw that link. I'll paste that in so you have it.

Our summer experiences are, I mean, people are doing them all over the world, mostly internationally, but not necessarily so.

Not being able to participate in a State Department internship isn't isn't part of the admission process. But you also I mentioned planning the courses. I sort of left out that that individual attention also overlaps into Career services and the career development office. Before you even get here in the fall, they start working with enrolling students, doing intake forms and having meetings, and those are one-on-one and they start to figure out what it is.

You want to do and help you navigate what you want to do for your summer internship as well as your first job. So you get a lot of attention for that. Obviously you need to put the work in and they have workshops to tell you how to do that and weekly newsletters and all of the things, so you definitely get that help. But.

You know, our students do so, so, so many different things that State Department internship is, is not.

Going to hurt application chances, um, what? Having a prior masters degree be helpful? That's a great question. I would say it depends. I would it's probably less helpful. And the reason I say that is because we would want to know like why do you need another masters degree. So with Jackson being so very flexible.

You can do just about anything here. And you could take your classes, and then you could do most of the rest of your classes at the School of Management if you wanted to. We would hope you'd take more of our Jackson classes, but you could really essentially take the rest of your classes at the school management. So we have to be really not suspicious. Isn't the right word we need to be, really.

I can't think of a good word for it, but um, scrutinize. We scrutinize the applications and we want to make sure that it's the Global Affairs degree that you want, not just a back door to the law school, which again, is 100% what people do. Like they, our students, all take classes at the law school, at the School and Management School of Public Health, School of the environment. That that's the beauty of our.

Program so.

Because you can do just about anything.

The wide Jackson piece needs to be really clear, especially if you have a previous masters, you don't want the admissions committee members thinking, well, why? Why do they need another masters now? Maybe it's completely different masters and that's where you can sort of justify that. How are these going to be different? Often I could make stereotypes that seems like in the UK and a lot of Europe, a lot of the masters, I know that.

One year masters. A lot of the masters programs are more theoretical approach, whereas we are much more the practitioner of focus and the professional degree like I mentioned. So that might be why somebody wants to get another masters. But keep in mind a masters degree does also does not mathematically count towards the post grad work experience, so that's not.

You know, somebody went and they did their bachelors and got another masters and now wants to apply that. I would say the question that was asked above about applying right from undergrad is the same answer if you've done your masters right from undergrad. So keep that in mind. It's still not postgrad work experience, but any internships and things that you've done will be super important during that. Does that make sense? Hopefully that makes sense.

Alright, so I'm back. Hello. You're welcome. There is no minimum GRE. That is correct. I think I mentioned you're asking about the weight of the quantum, the verbal. We do post some of those things in the profile which maybe I hadn't pasted in before you asked that question.

The we don't look at the overall score. I know that's posted sometimes, but we definitely break it out between the the verbal and the quant and the analytical. So that's more important to us than the overall score. So it's definitely bisection and we do take the highest section regardless of the test. So you can take the test multiple times. You definitely maybe you scored higher in one section the first time and then hire an.

Another section, the second time we will report on. Obviously we have all of the the test scores when you send them from ETS, but we report on the highest, so hopefully that makes sense.

You're welcome J PMS great welcome. You mentioned mid career military officers. Are there many private sector applicants included with a focus on social enterprises or International Development through business be welcome fit that's a great question. Yeah, I mean obviously it is they would be welcome because those voices the pure private sector maybe a little less so because what is you know but again if it's you are talking about.

Um, social entrepreneurship and things like that definitely are a little are more in alignment with our mission, more of the pure private sector stuff, less so. And that would go for MAS or MP or or any of the things but.

Just thinking about how again with admitting we might admit maybe 5 to 8 students to get our small cohort. So it's a lot about.

Being mid career and what are you going? How are you going to utilize this degree knowing, and I mentioned before, we don't need our MP's to tell us the 16 courses you want to take, we might need a little bit more.

Information on the MAS because they have 8 courses and it's 100% your choice, which is again the beauty of the program. But we would want to know same idea what you plan to focus on here, but also more importantly how you're going to to continue to use it. We are planning on making some MAS changes, maybe adding in an employer.

Confirmation that either you are returning to your employee employer or you have another employer already lined up.

Don't ask me too much more about that because that's above my pay grade and we're still sort of navigating those changes that will. If that happens, we'll roll out this summer. So that would just be sort of an additional requirement because what we're finding is pivoting is not really working with the Ms. So we want a little bit more, you know.

Structure and whether that comes out of partnerships or or all of the things but.

That's a little rambly as well, but hopefully it shows that we're talking about these things, but it's not completely rolled out yet. But I hope it's sort of answers your question at the same time.

Julian clarify, I was accepted for State Department internship but ohh but could not participate. Ohh gotcha. I mean there are different reasons for that. I mean it might be useful for us to know why somebody couldn't participate. Obviously we've had, we've come out of COVID lots of visa issues. If there's security clearance issues maybe that could be a concern. But I'll reiterate that anything that could be a concern or a question for the admissions.

Really, You don't want us asking why? Definitely utilize the additional materials, additional information section to put in any explanations. I would say Jill and you wouldn't want to waste time space in a personal statement to talk about that stuff, but if you think it's.

Noteworthy and and it probably is noteworthy, you can always address that or maybe one of your recommenders knows the story and can address it. So as long as that's addressed somewhere in your application, I think that's sort of fine. I mean if you want to do work in the foreign service in Azure long term career goal that may be a bigger concern which we can always talk about offline if there's issues there. But so again connecting the dots whether it's State Department or whether it's.

Whatever the career path, if there's a blip or a concern that may cause career, career development staff are also on our admissions committee. So when reading applications, we're thinking about your future job. So we want to make sure that we can help you get there and we want to do everything we can to help you get there. So the more information we have, the better. And so explaining quirky things like that, just.

Be super useful to the admissions committee. Alright, OK, great. I got some thank yous. We have like 4 minutes left. Happy to to hang on for the next few minutes. Otherwise Ohh, Julian, great Q&A. Keep an eye out for that and again it'll be a first time trying that. Hopefully it'll work and I think I think we're all over zoom, but at the same time I think having the conversation is useful, but make sure you.

Research all of the things because it's not going to be a presentation like this. So tell your friends, but they should attend a webinar. Watch your webinar recording first before they go to the Q&A. Because I want the Q&A to be driven by you. I want to be there to answer your questions. So any final thoughts?

Follow us, Contact us. Forgive any delays in response as.

Um, I We travel and do all the things and try to take.

I don't. I can't remember the last time I've had a vacation. Um.

So the Q&A, I thought for this, the Q&A is going to be this time I think next week. So figuring that people in this webinar since you were able to attend this, that maybe this would be a good time. So that's going, that's what I'm going to try to do is schedule it for this 8:00 o'clock Eastern Time, 8:00 AM Eastern Time next Friday and.

You know, have a chat then so and I'll try to do more. If it works, I'll try to do more. And we also have, you know, more webinars. And even though the webinars maybe repeats, people asking questions actually drive how the webinar actually goes. Somebody might ask a question that I wasn't asked here and I think every time somebody asks a question it it opens up a little bit more.

So you can learn more about Jackson. Alright. Well, on that note, I will leave you be to wherever your time zone is. Good morning, good evening and hopefully we'll see your applications in the future. And thank you for joining on this, either early morning or late night depending on where you are. So thanks so much and hopefully we'll see you again. All right. Thank you. Bye.