Speaker 1: Hey guys, hope you're well, it's Angela here. This is my first actual YouTube video and I'm making it about how I got into six top graduate degree programs for MIP, so Masters in International Policy, Public Policy, Global Affairs, International Affairs, so on and so forth, this past cycle. I got admitted to programs at Harvard, so the Harvard Kennedy School, at Stanford, at Columbia, so Columbia SIPA, John Hopkins, SAIS, Tufts-Fletcher, and then a joint dual degree program between Sciences Po in Paris and the University of Toronto Munk School in, well, Toronto. So I got requested to do this video a lot because I posted on LinkedIn that I was going to Stanford and I was admitted to the schools I just mentioned, so that post has been viewed more than 40, almost 50, thousand times and a lot of people have reached out to me in my LinkedIn DMs asking how did I get into those schools, how did I get into programs with like sub 4% acceptances, how did I get in with up to 80, almost 90% of the, I guess, the sticker costs at times, so here are some tips that I have for you. I will caveat this with I think that I'm pretty much a very traditional candidate in the sense that I have a profile that probably matches what a lot of the schools are looking for, so I graduated from a top Ivy, I graduated from the Huntsman degree program at the University of Pennsylvania, which is dual degree with the Wharton School. After that I was a management consultant for four years and during this time period I took on various leadership roles for Deloitte. I also started a couple of different organizations, volunteered for NGOs, so a lot of that leadership, professional, academic thread was there, but nonetheless I hope that these five tips that I wrote down would be helpful to you as you try to go on with your grad journey, so hope that helps and hope you

Speaker 2: enjoy this video.

Speaker 1: Alright, so into the tips. The number one tip I wrote down was do your research. I think it seems very, I guess, typical for someone to say that, but I truly think that doing tons and tons of research about each of the programs I wanted to apply to helped me in two ways. One was that it helped me to understand whether I would actually be a good fit for the program or not, so is this a reach program for me, is this a match program for me, or is this a safety program for me, and the way that I picked my six schools was that I wanted a good mix of reach programs, so programs that are difficult to get into, compared with match programs and safety programs that I knew I would definitely get into in the end. The second reason why I think that doing your research is so important is because when you get to the graduate level, or what I realized, is that there's actually a lot of different nuances between the programs. So let's take the Stanford program that I am matriculating into versus the other program I was really heavily considering, which was the MPP at Harvard Kennedy School. Two programs are vastly different. So first of all, the MIP program I'm going to at Stanford, it's actually more of a traditional graduate degree, so it's not a school, there's not necessarily those extracurriculars that you would associate with large government schools or large MPA programs, but that was actually one of the reasons why I really liked it, because it was a smaller program, just 25 people compared to 150 or 250 at some of my other programs. I knew that selecting Stanford would help me to have a more well-rounded academic experience, where I can go and hopefully get to know my peers and the professors a lot better. So these are things that I wouldn't have known if I did not do my research very carefully about what was being offered, both in terms of academics at the school, so what are the various concentrations that I wanted to study, but also in terms of the more overarching student life and extracurricular selection. Okay, on to tip number two. The second tip I have for you has to do with your personal statement, and I think what helped my personal statement to stand out was that I focused not just on what I want to do or what I think I can bring to the table, but I made sure that I crafted a very, I guess, thought-out and easy-to-follow narrative. So I focused on my past, my present, and my future. My past I talked about how essentially my worldview was formed and why it's critical for me to continue doing that throughout my career. My present, I illustrated the work that I was doing as a management consultant, specifically focusing in the public sector and working a lot in public sector innovation. So how does my present work sphere relate back to my past worldview and how those two are interconnected? And then I made sure to say essentially why I need to go to the graduate program right now and why specifically that program to set me up better for the future. So I think that instead of talking a lot about like what the school can offer or me as a very static point in time, the way that I constructed my personal statement was offering a narrative of who I was when I was younger, who I am now in this particular role, and who I want to become through the help of the school, the system, the alumni, the network, so on and so forth. And by painting this very holistic view of me as a person, not just like a snapshot in time, I think helped me to potentially connect better with the adcom person that was reading my personal statement, and hopefully that helped them to see me in a more well- rounded light. And I think that's potentially one of the reasons why I had a lot of success this particular cycle. And I know this was a very like surface-level explanation, but I want to keep this particular video short. If you think that it would be helpful for me to go a little bit more in-depth into what specifically I talked about in my personal statement or how I thought about crafting it, definitely do let me know in the comments below, and I'll be happy to put out a video on that too. Okay, so now on to tip three, which is recommendations. So instead of just asking my... actually taking a step back, there are two things I did for recommendations. Number one is identifying people that would give the admissions committee a very well-rounded view of who I am. So the three people that I chose to be my recommenders, and yes I did make... I took advantage of all three recommendation letters instead of giving the two required. I wanted to paint the best and most holistic picture possible for me. But the three recommenders I had, one was my thesis advisor from undergrad. We had a really great relationship. I also did a lot of research work for him on the side, both in his role as a professor at Penn, but also in his role in some foreign affairs organizations outside, like globally. So I knew there was a great relationship there, and I knew that he would hopefully say some very complimentary things about me. My two other recommenders were from work. One of them was a very senior partner at work. We worked on a couple of projects together, and I've always helped him out on different extracurriculars, so different thought leadership works, different presentations for high-level stakeholders, and I've known him for the past three years. So 75% of the time that I've been a management consultant, I've worked or have known him in some way or shape or form. And the last person who I would say is arguably the most important and probably the best written recommendation letter that I had was from my senior manager at work. We worked literally every day together for about two years, and his background is also very much a subject matter expert in the area that I want to study at school. And because I knew I had a really great relationship with him, he's also one of my personal mentors, I knew that what he would say would be A, very truthful, but B, also very complimentary to me as a potential academic in the field. So definitely I put a lot of thought into thinking about who I wanted to choose to be my recommenders, and I would also recommend you to do the same. So when you're picking your recommenders, you want to do it in a way that balances things out. Ideally, if I was involved in more volunteering that had direct leaders, I might have gone to someone like that, because that gives a really good picture of how I really love to give back to the community as well. But because a lot of the community work I do is actually on my own, so I'm a founder or I directly mentor people, I didn't have that choice. But nonetheless, picking and choosing a holistic and well-rounded group of mentors that can talk to you as a holistic individual. So for example, my professor focused a lot on my academic abilities and how I excel that pen. My two work recommenders focused on me as a leader in the workplace and also me as a very competent consultant. By presenting a very well-rounded view of who I am, I think that helped the admissions committee to see that I'm not just a worker or just an academic, but really a combination of the two who would excel within the program. And yes, and the other thing I would say about recommendations is that I didn't just ask outright for recommendations. I didn't just tell them like, hey, I'm applying to X programs, would you just write a recommendation for me? I actually went a step beyond that, and I prepared these little dossiers for them that talk to you. These are the questions that admissions committees typically ask, and these are the qualities that they typically would like to see. So these are some examples from my life or our life together, as in our work occurrences together or our, I guess, study time or academic time together that really illustrate my ability to communicate or my ability to lead or my ability to think critically. And by preparing these little examples for them, I think it probably made it easier for them to talk about me in a positive light. And truthfully, when you are applying to grad school, you're essentially trying to sell yourself, right? But your recommenders are really busy people, and the easier you make it for them to put you in a positive light, I think the better it will be for you. And the more positive the recommendation letter is actually going to turn out. So if I were to summarize all of that in two very simple things, one is carefully pick and choose your recommenders, and two is definitely prepare your recommenders well. Give them little dossiers, give them examples so they know exactly what

Speaker 2: they could be talking about in their letters.

Speaker 1: Okay, so on to our fourth tip. The fourth tip I have for you has to do with owning your narrative and also making sure there's a strong narrative throughout your entire application. So I alluded to this pretty heavily throughout tip two, which was about personal statements, but essentially your narrative is your story, or at least a story that you want to be painting for your admissions commission reader. And when you're developing the story, you want to think about what's true to your experiences, present it in a way that's very authentically you, but also present it in a way that would give you the maximum chance pretty much of getting into school. And for me, I think one thing that I did very well throughout my application was that I made sure that the narrative that I have about my life, who I was, what I do now, who I want to be, how I want to help out in the future, how I want to innovate for the public sector in the future, it didn't stop at my personal statement, but actually was woven through the rest of my application as well. So outside of your personal statement, you actually have a couple more chances to make your voice heard, for a lack of better way to put it, throughout your application. And I would say the most important ones are definitely the short essays that you will have to write for the majority of the programs that you're applying to, and also your resume. Starting with the short essays, I would say like every short essay you're given a prompt. You of course have to adhere to that prompt, so that's your number one priority. But your number two priority, or at least like what my number two priority was, was to figure out what can I say that helps the admissions committee to understand me better as a person, while also addressing the prompt at hand. So a lot of the times, because my personal statement focused a lot on my career trajectory and my career goals, and how that aligns with my personal values, I chose to focus my short essays more so on what I was doing outside. So me founding Instructive to help students who break into difficult to break in careers, and then also the work that I was doing for Young Diplomats of Canada. So making sure that young Canadians essentially have a voice on the world stage. I think that overall, if you're able to make your narrative sing throughout your application, then you probably won't have a difficult chance convincing admissions committee, hopefully. If anyone actually sits on adcoms and is watching this video, please do let me know. I am very much theorizing because I don't know, but I will say at work I actually lead recruitment efforts for my team on top of just being a senior consultant too. And when I'm reading resumes and I'm reading cover letters, the people that I often pass on to the second round are definitely those who can convince me and my colleagues of the story that they have. So why did you want to go into consulting? Why are you a good consultant? Will you get out of consulting? And I very much took that similar mindset to recruiting to actually school admissions. So I think having that experience in my back pocket, seeing it from the other side of the table, really helped me to flip it around and understand what I had to deliver to be admitted in the end. Okay, so tip five, my last tip for you for now, is definitely you've got to plan ahead. This is especially true for people like me who are balancing a very non nine-to-five, but more like nine to eight or nine or ten job at the same time as applying for grad school. Because just applying to one degree I feel like is a part-time job. Because I think there's like seven, eight, or maybe even nine and ten components to every single grad application. So you have your like demographic info, which is pretty easy to fill out, got to get your GRE, your transcripts, your personal statement, your resume, any additional essays, probably three or four or five, sometimes even like for HKS. There were so many essays I was writing all the time. I think like at least five essays I had to write for HKS. So to perfect every single one of these elements takes a lot of time. And you, to have a good chance at getting into the schools, you want to make your story, your narrative, as specific for the school as possible. And to do that takes even more time. So planning ahead and understanding what your internal personal deadlines are, are really important. And one of the things that helped me was I tried to finish off my stuff as early as possible. So I can actually send it to some of my like committee, my review committee, to help me to look at it and see if I was coming across in the right way. So I tapped a lot of my friends to actually read my, read my personal statement, read my additional essays, and that was just such a blessing because A, they caught some of the stupid errors I had. Like I explained to some people before, I am not dyslexic. I might have dysgraphia. Like it's, sometimes I just have difficulties writing, like choosing the right words, making sure there's no mistakes, so on and so forth. And they helped me to catch a lot of those. But at the same time, they also helped me to reshape and reform what I was trying to say to the admissions committee. So am I really presenting me as the well-rounded individual that I want to seem? Or was I coming across too strongly one way or another? And they helped me to re-vector back into that middle or the optimal narrative that I was trying to present. So I think that planning ahead, like gives you time for those multiple drafts and reviews. So you're not just submitting the first thing that you finish writing to admissions. And also I think like if you're trying to balance a really demanding job and applying for school, which a lot of people are doing, then you definitely need to maybe have a calendar. Or if you're more extreme, like me, you want to have a Gantt chart telling you when you want to finish each activity. And I think that doing so will help you to take it a little easier to applying for grad school, it was pretty stressful, because there's so many looming deadlines, and you don't want to miss it. And all the schools are kind of due around the same time frame. So definitely having something to help you understand, okay, these are all my tasks, this is when I have to do it, it helped to put my mind at ease a little bit. And the last tip I do have is related to this planning ahead thing. If your school offers early admissions, definitely take it. Because that's one thing off your plate. Yeah, you have to get it done earlier. But that leaves you more time to focus on other things. I'm a very, very, very strong believer that the human mind can only focus on so many things at once. So for me, if I didn't apply for early admissions, I would have had all my programs due at the exact same time, aside from one, the dual degree program between Munk and Sciences Po, which would have been absolutely a nightmare and probably impossible to handle. But because I spaced out my application so that it was two due on one day, one due a couple weeks later, one due a few weeks after that, and then two due on the last day, it was a lot easier for me to handle. Alright, so with that, those are most of my tips for how I think I succeeded at gaining admissions to Stanford, to Harvard, Columbia, John Hopkins, and a couple more this cycle. I've never applied before to grad school, so I'm not really sure how other cycles are. But from what I've heard, I think the cycle was the most competitive in a very long time. So hopefully if these tips worked for me in a very competitive cycle, it'll also work for you in next year or the year after that cycle, which is hopefully a little less competitive. And like I said throughout the video, if there's a portion that you think I can elaborate on and that would help you out, definitely do let me know in the comments and I'll try to make a video on that, but no promises. And also if you want to be notified for that, definitely do subscribe below. Thanks again and I hope you enjoyed this video.