GMU is a member of the Washington Regional Library Consortium, giving students access to 4 million volumes. Various fellowships and assistantships are available. Research or teaching assistantships are given only to full-time students taking a minimum of 6 credit hours per semester and are allocated on a project basis. D.C. Its location near the nation's seat of government offers students and faculty members unique opportunities for studying federal policymaking. The program seeks students with exceptional potential for accumulating, sorting, analyzing, and communicating information and findings effectively.
Public policy is inherently complex and value laden.
In the end, high-quality policy analysis requires thoughtful and judicious management of complex and incommensurate information, both quantitative and qualitative. Thus, the program seeks students who can manage and integrate both kinds of information and produce convincing, well-organized, written syntheses. The ideal Ph.D. program applicant tends to have demonstrated capabilities in research and writing, basic mathematical skills roughly equal to the first semester of calculus and a competence in statistics, some background in economics, and a theoretical and working knowledge of public policy processes. Applicants with strong records who are deficient in one or more of these areas may be admitted to the program and will receive assistance in making up deficiencies. The School of Public Policy at George Mason University welcomes applications for the doctoral program in public policy from qualified individuals from Virginia, the United States and the world.