My hunch is it doesn’t matter. Master programs, especially in policy, tend to be cash cows. That’s not to say they’re worthless. But you are paying money for the network, credential, and access to a cool career. So admission standards are lower. It wouldn’t surprise me if some internationally recognized exam like GRE took outsized weight in admissions.
When it does matter, it’s not obvious to me that (1) is worst. The more prestigious Master’s programs (typically those with full funding) do try to train their admissions staff to recognize differences in preparation across schools. And I wouldn’t discount peer effects or building general cognitive endurance through a challenging curriculum.
Finally, I really don’t know what middle-tier and top-tier mean here. And I think you should try to find a few people who took some Taiwan → US master’s transition to get their sense of where the ranking falls / how much it matters. I’m familiar with “tiers” in a few contexts: (1) NYC high schools, (2) US college admissions, and (3) Econ PhD admissions. There’s no portable rule that works for all cases. Sometimes, the quality difference drops really sharply at some rank. Other times, the quality difference is flat through the distribution. Other times, the real quality distinction is within-a-school rather than across schools (e.g. the prestige at a school comes from a specific program than only half the applicants get accepted into)
My hunch is it doesn’t matter. Master programs, especially in policy, tend to be cash cows. That’s not to say they’re worthless. But you are paying money for the network, credential, and access to a cool career. So admission standards are lower. It wouldn’t surprise me if some internationally recognized exam like GRE took outsized weight in admissions.
When it does matter, it’s not obvious to me that (1) is worst. The more prestigious Master’s programs (typically those with full funding) do try to train their admissions staff to recognize differences in preparation across schools. And I wouldn’t discount peer effects or building general cognitive endurance through a challenging curriculum.
Finally, I really don’t know what middle-tier and top-tier mean here. And I think you should try to find a few people who took some Taiwan → US master’s transition to get their sense of where the ranking falls / how much it matters. I’m familiar with “tiers” in a few contexts: (1) NYC high schools, (2) US college admissions, and (3) Econ PhD admissions. There’s no portable rule that works for all cases. Sometimes, the quality difference drops really sharply at some rank. Other times, the quality difference is flat through the distribution. Other times, the real quality distinction is within-a-school rather than across schools (e.g. the prestige at a school comes from a specific program than only half the applicants get accepted into)