Program Evaluation and Impact Assessment (Advanced Certificate)

Program Description

This Advanced Certificate provides training in assessing the effectiveness of funded, programmatic, and policy interventions. The curriculum is designed for evaluation researchers, social and community service managers, management analysts, and survey researchers, as well as policy professionals in domestic and international settings who are tasked with developing, funding, selecting, or assessing social programs.

As a result of the program, you’ll not only understand critical aspects of impacts in policy research, empirical methods, data analysis, and survey methods, but also walk away with the skills you need to work in government and nonprofit settings in roles examining the efficacy of policy interventions.

Admissions

Admission to the Advanced Certificate program requires the following:

• Online Application
• Essay
• Resume
• Transcripts
• Application Fee

Admission is selective and based on the applicant's prior academic record and professional achievements. Advanced Certificate candidates are not eligible for scholarship. For more information, please contact wagner.admissions@nyu.edu.

Due to constraints relevant to US immigration regulations, applicants who will need an F-1 or J-1 student visa are not eligible to apply to certificate programs.

Students currently enrolled in a Wagner degree program cannot be admitted to nor simultaneously enrolled in a Wagner Advanced Certificate program.

See Advanced Certificate and Non-Degree Application Checklist for additional admission requirements and instructions specific to this program.

Program Requirements

Students must successfully complete 15 credits to earn this Advanced Certificate. The curriculum is designed to be completed in three semesters, however students may take up to three years. The required CORE-GP 1011 must be taken in the first semester and it is a prerequisite to most other courses in the certificate. Students who are able to waive CORE-GP 1011 will be allowed to take an advanced elective in its place.

Sample Plan of Study

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of the program, graduates will:

1. Align organizational and institutional policies and practices with mission, strategy, culture, and broader policy objectives.
2. Secure and manage financial resources in a way that aligns with mission and strategy.
3. Demonstrate understanding of the policy lifecycle and the impact of social, economic, demographic, political, environmental, and regulatory factors.
4. Evaluate policies using appropriate, evidence-based methods and tools, including measuring differential impact on sub-populations.
5. Deploy conceptual frameworks to break down problems into constituent elements and to develop solutions.
6. Critically assess and synthesize existing research to identify its contributions and limitations, as well as possible research alternatives.
7. Demonstrate understanding of causality, including distinguishing between correlation and causation, the challenges to estimating causal relationships, and the importance of causality for determining impact.
8. Prepare succinct, well-argued, and well-organized written materials and verbal presentations with appropriately incorporated tables, graphs, and other visuals.
9. Translate awareness of the impact of individual and group demographics and identities into appropriate organizational, institutional, and societal policies and practices.
10. Lead projects, programs, and people, and manage resources in ways that adapt to changing social, economic, demographic, technological, and political conditions.

Policies

NYU Policies

University-wide policies can be found on the New York University Policy pages.

Wagner Policies

Additional academic policies can be found on the Wagner academic policy page.