~MuNiYa~

Salaam all,

I need you're help.

A very good friend of mine is trying to get into the Kennedy school at Harvard.
He's currently a CSP officer in Pakistan with a very impressive CV.

Anyone know anyone in the school that can provide guidance? Or any know of any tips?

Thanks.
Munz

phoenixdesi

If he is trying to get admission to Kennedy School on his own (as an independent student), it would be a regular process. Give GRE, write good essays, get stellar recommendation letters and then pray. The chances of his admission would be as hard as for any other independent student.

But these CSP officers from Pak have an easy route to get into Harvard Kennedy or Columbia’s SIPA program. Every year, a group of sponsored CSP students (from all over the world) come to these schools and for them the admission criteria is extremely lenient. Basically if you get selected by the Pakistani government to be part of that group, schools have no problem taking you in. You still need to write GRE but you don’t need to score high by any means. I am not saying that those CSP students are not bright but they do not go through the regular process of admission which is quite brutal and rigorous. They sort of earn a back door entry to these institutions but then they are not part of the regular program either. These institutions have a separate program for sponsored students.

~MuNiYa~

thanks ---

any additional information about this process would be appreciated.