Admissions Blog

Greetings from the School of Public Policy (SPP) Graduate Admissions Office! As we begin the New Year, we are very excited to launch our School's first Admissions blog. We hope this will be a site that you visit regularly for updated information on a variety of topics, ranging from the experiences of our current students, to faculty insights on our School, to recommendations from the Admissions Office. We look forward to this being an information exchange and opportunity for you to communicate your thoughts and questions directly to us.

It was already getting late in the year and I was worried that it would take time to get all the required documents together (transcripts, letters of recommendation, personal statement and resume). I had been out of college and had not kept in touch with old professors so getting my academic letters of recommendations was going to be my biggest challenge. Luckily the application process for GMU was not hard at all. I was able to track down two professors that actually remembered me and were willing to help me out. Soon enough, I assembled all the necessary paperwork and mailed it to GMU. Dropping that package into the mail was terrifying because I knew my part was all done and the rest was out of my hands.

Some School of Public Policy (SPP) students join our program after having taken graduate level courses elsewhere. If you have invested hours studying for classes taken before you apply to SPP you probably do not want those courses to go unused. Here are some guidelines to transferring credits into SPP programs.

Going back to grad school is a big decision. I had been out of school and working full time for a few years when I started the Master of Public Policy program. I work full time (and then some) at a very demanding job, so I was very nervous about having additional responsibilities. Faculty at the School of Public Policy (SPP) are understanding of the other responsibilities of part-time students. I have been able to complete (this is my last semester) my degree by taking classes that begin at 7:20. In no way is the work lessened or expectations minimized, and the workload is challenging, but it is manageable. Something that helps is that the school publishes the syllabi for all of the classes so you can select a professor that utilizes a class structure that you are most comfortable with or who has a research focus that interests you.

Making the decision to apply to graduate school can be stressful but it is also exciting in many ways. There are a number of items that need to be marked off on one's "graduate application checklist," including sending official transcripts from your college or university, which may cause some of you to groan...remembering that you may not have done as well as you could have during that time.