This year, HKS has introduced a new analytical resume requirement for MPP candidates to complete. If my clients who have my expertise to lean on are freaking out about it, I know those of you working through this process on your own could use some help. I made something like a template/sample that you can use as you work on your analytical resume for Harvard Kennedy School or any other policy school that requires it. Dr. Travis Brown, Director of the Quantitative Skill Center at my beloved alma mater Pomona College, was kind enough to speak briefly with me and provide some great tips for thinking about how to discuss your quantitative skills. A huge thank you to him for lending me some of his quantitative expertise so I could translate it into English for all of you. Know that any mistakes or misstatements are mine and not his. I was furiously taking notes during our conversation. Below are some questions you may be thinking about and a mish-mash of Dr. Brown and my responses.
What counts as a quantitative skill?
Any time you are using numbers/data to draw conclusions and make sense of that data, you are using quantitative skills. If you were like me and avoided “numbers” classes in college, not to worry. Quantitative skills are useful and used in every discipline. You just need to know what to look for.
What kinds of courses can I list on a quantitative/analytical resume?
- Math courses, especially Calculus or higher
- Economics courses
- Physics courses
- Computer Science courses
- Statistics courses
- Accounting and Finance courses
You’re using quantitative skills when you…
- use Access, Excel, STATA, SPSS, R, or LaTeX
- use Java, C++, or any other programming language
- do research projects individually or with professors that involve data
- attend numbers-oriented labs
- perform financial analyses
Useful buzzwords and phrases for discussing your use of quantitative skills:
- descriptive statistics (a fancy way to say basic statistics in which you are finding the mean, median, and mode)
- basic data analysis
- advanced data analysis (i.e. you know how to do variance analysis and parametric tests)
- trend analysis
- experimental design
- and the list goes on and on… (I wish I had an actual long list of quantitative skill phrases to give you)
Other useful resources:
- This whole one-pager from Calvin College is gold, but the phrases under the column “Dealing with Data” are especially helpful.
- Those of you who follow policy school applications closely know that Columbia SIPA already required a quantitative and language resume. You can see a sample of one of these distributed by SIPA here.
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Important: The final deadline to submit materials is Tuesday, November 29, at 9 PM CT.
Or u can c the hks admission admission blog
That’s right! Here’s the post on the HKS admissions blog discussing the CVs: http://hksadmissionblog.tumblr.com/post/62784902616/application-resume-cv-update-post-2
(My post above was published about CVs before they had theirs out.)
Hi Kaneisha,
I am in DC right now and
I want to apply for the executive program firstly and in the future I want to apply for Master of Public Administration.
I am a french speaking and I got a Master of management of economic policy in France. I have some difficulty to write good resumes and cv. I am seeking some help if you can help me out. Thank you in advance for your help.
Kind regards,
Arison
Bonjour, Arison! Thanks for leaving a comment. My team and I can definitely help you! My assistant, Lauren, has just sent you an email so we can start the conversation.
Hope this message finds you. I am applying for a MS in Marketing at Johns Hopkins and I am crunch for time in writing a quantitative resume. I just showed interest in the program and found out it is only available in the fall and I should apply ASAP. I am seeking some help with pulling a resume together this week. Hope to hear from you soon and thank you in advance for your help.
Best,
Ramatu
Hi there! I’m so sorry that I missed this! We would have loved to help you with your application to Johns Hopkins. The best way to reach me and my team for client inquiries is through our contact form. I hope you were able to get some help with your application!
Hello Kaneisha:
I’m having technical problems trying to reach the example of quantitative analytical resume , the page says: error 404, not found.
Could you help me please?
Thanks
Francisco
That link sure is broken! I’ve let our team know so we can get that fixed. Sorry about that and thank you for your comment.