Mid-Career Master in Public Administration

The one-year Mid-Career Master in Public Administration (MC/MPA) is an intensive eight credit program, preceded by a one-month summer program exclusively for Mid-Career professionals. The MC/MPA is designed to increase the knowledge and skills of well established, high-performing professionals, who seek to enhance their public service careers or to move from the private sector to a leadership position in either the public or non-profit sectors.

These experienced professionals, in consultation with their advisors, plan individual academic programs designed to develop new skills or to pursue emerging professional and intellectual interests. In doing so, MC/MPA students are constrained only by the requirement to take at least one course in each of the Harvard Kennedy School foundational methodological areas of analytics, management and leadership. Not surprisingly, the MC/MPA program includes some of the school’s most accomplished students. They represent many professional backgrounds and come from across the United States and around the world. They typically range in age from thirty to the early sixties, but HKS has also graduated a septuagenarian. Mid-Career students make valuable contributions to the school’s intellectual community during their year at Harvard.

Prospective students for the MC/MPA program from developing, newly industrialized, and transitional economy countries must apply through the Mason Program. Please note that the deadline for application to the Mason Program is earlier than the one for the MC/MPA.

Prospective students interested in either the MC/MPA or Mason Program are encouraged to review the prerequisites for academic and work experience prior to applying.

Alumni Spotlight

Bruce K. Scott
MC/MPA 1984

"My Kennedy School education did several important things for me. First, of course, was the learning that came out of the splendid curriculum. And the contacts I made then, and the Kennedy School contacts I’ve made since, have really allowed me, while in the Army, to move among circles of friends and acquaintances with whom I would have never had contact had I not gone to the school."

Alumni Spotlight

Sandra L. Pappas
MC/MPA 1994

"My Kennedy School education had a number of interesting impacts on me. First, and most important, I’d say it has deepened my understanding of the role of leadership in the public arena. It also caused me to be more rigorous in my approach to public policy issues. For example, I now look more closely at cost-benefit analyses, and other tools that purport to show whether or not something has a proven benefit."