Admissions Blog

We hope you are getting excited to meet your future classmates here at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. We’d like to share a little about your incoming class. While we’ll share more detailed information once classes begin, below are a few pieces of information we think you’ll find interesting:

Meet David McMillon, PhD Candidate and Math Camp Instructor whose work exploring solutions to the School-to-Prison-Pipeline issue recently won the highly competitive 2020 National Academy of Education (NAEd) Spencer Foundation Dissertation Fellowship.

We reached out to Maddie Soskin, MPP Class of 2021, who works as a consultant with the Illinois COVID-19 Response Fund to tell us more about this opportunity and how it is connected with her studies at Harris.

We wanted to share a recent message from UChicago President Robert J. Zimmer and Provost Ka Yee C. Lee announcing the extension and highlighting the impact of the COVID-19 Community Support Initiative launched in March.

If you are an incoming admitted student, you will have the opportunity to hear from key leadership at the June 24 Harris Incoming Student Assembly. Below are short bios of each speaker:

Esha Banerjee (MA'18), writes on how to write an effective admissions essay.

As a continuation of our "Day in the (Virtual) Life" series, Alejandro D. González López, MAIDP'20, writes and reflects on what a typical day looked like for him during the spring quarter.

We reached out to Leah Castleberry, MPP Class of 2020, to ask about her work as a Research Associate at the Beyond Schools Lab, directed by Dr. Eve L. Ewing. The Beyond Schools Lab is a small research group focused on understanding the how seemingly non-educational structures of social inequality—issues such as affordable housing, transit access, gender inequality, immigration policies, and policing—shape the everyday lives of young people and their experiences with school.

If you are an admitted student, you may already be thinking about how you can best prepare for the fall. We asked Hanna Seferos, an Academic Advising Specialist in Academic and Student Affairs, to share some key resources that will help you get ready to hit the ground running at Harris.

Many students, regardless of their academic background, choose to enroll in Math Camp as a way to connect with their peers and begin focusing on graduate school. Math Camp also prepares you for the math exam, required of all incoming master’s students.

Nora McConnell Johnson, MPP Class of 2021, and Chair of the Harris Student Government Social Committee, writes about what she is doing to maintain her social life at Harris as we transition to virtual.

As a continuation of our Day in the Life series, Sabrina de la Vega, MPP Class of ’21, writes about what a typical day looks like for her in the virtual format.

Alec Macmillen, Master of Science in Computational Analysis and Public Policy (MSCAPP) Class of 2020, writes about his experience transitioning to virtual learning at Harris just before graduation.

From our researchers to the dance program, we rounded up some recent news articles about UChicago’s response to COVID-19.

Are you an incoming student this fall? Hear from Brandon Kurzweg, Associate Director, Student Affairs, Student Life, on what your next steps look like. 

Whichever degree program you choose to pursue, here at UChicago, you’ll have the support and tools to succeed – and it’s not too early to start thinking about what your student experience will be like and what you can start doing over the summer to be ready on day one of class.

Harris recently released its fourth annual Career Outcomes Report, containing employment data for the class of 2019. In this post, we have included some links to key career outcome resources and facts from the report.

Hear from Derek Wu, fourth-year PhD student, about his Research Assistantship with McCormick Foundation Professor Bruce Meyer, who studies poverty and inequality, tax policy, and government safety net programs.

Many of you have expressed an interest in engaging with the Career Development Office as soon as possible, wondering how to make your LinkedIn profile pop; asking about opportunities in specific sectors and locations; and looking for guidance on what you can do over the next few months to be ready to hit the ground running before starting at Harris. In response, our teams have collaborated to make sure you have access to additional resources.

Harris School of Public Policy has been the home for global top talents to pursue academic excellence and diverse career opportunities since the school’s establishment. For over thirty years, Harris has recruited and trained students and professionals from China, and our Chinese alumni now work in diverse industries across the globe to tackle local and global economic and social issues. We are very pleased to offer a series of virtual panels with our alumni from China to create more learning and networking opportunities to Harris community members. These alumni are great representatives of the Harris culture and rigor. We sincerely appreciate their contributions in their work and to Harris.

This post is part of our “A Day in the Life” series, sharing what a typical day looks like in the lives of our students. Marvin Slaughter, MPP class of 2021—who recently participated in our Virtual Admitted Student Week’s Chicago 101 webinar, shares what a typical day at Harris looked like for him during Winter Quarter 2020.