DefinitelyMaybe

I've heard people calling them teabaggers all week and it's HILARIOUS!

That is hilarious!

Thank you for clarifying this. Clearly in a haste to insult people, the troll seems to have missed the fact that if they aren't going to the Kennedy School of Government for their graduate education and then obtaining employment in the public sector, their opinions are completely irrelevant. Most KSG graduates won't have salaries like that for several years. Idiot. :roll: Hopefully that troll went back under the bridge where he belongs!

Uh yeah, I'm not reading all that shit. If you are 100% certain you have a job lined up for you after you graduate that will pay you $100k, then go for it. The income to debt ratio in that instance really isn't THAT bad, in my opinion. I'm talking about folks who will have typical SERVICE careers upon graduation (government, non-profit, etc.); where if they come out making more than $45k, they're doing extremely well. I would NOT advise borrowing $130k for a public service degree because MORE THAN LIKELY, you will not have a salary that will allow you to pay that back without making a huge financial sacrifice or enduring hardship. Public Service degrees are not like law school, business school or medical school, where your salary upon graduating and passing any requisite certification exams will be substantially higher than what you owe. I work for the government now; I hear stories everyday of the week from people who borrowed essentially a MORTGAGE to go get all this education, thinking it would open all these doors for them and they would have these awesome salaries and benefits. They thought wrong; even people who have these degrees are struggling. If they aren't UNEMPLOYED, they have a job that only pays them 1/3 (or less) of their debt burden and they are drowning in debt. All I'm saying is don't underestimate the effect that a huge debt like that can have on your life. I agreed with Math123's sentiment that people are being blase about borrowing hundreds of thousands of dollars like it's nothing; like they won't have to pay that money back WITH INTEREST. Harvard is great, but it's not THAT great.

EXACTLY.

Why is Harvard being so stingy with financial aid?

I completely agree. My MPA program is about half the cost of Harvard's and is a great program, but even I am concerned about paying that money back. KSG is an excellent program, but please remember at the end of the day, you are getting a public policy degree. If you're planning on working in an NGO, Government Agency, Non-profit, whatever, you more than likely will not have a salary that will allow you to repay these loans. And when I say repay, I mean being able to afford your student loan payments PLUS all your other expenses without major sacrifice. If you were going to Harvard's Business or Law School, I might think differently. But don't let the fuzzy feelings you have about possibly having Harvard on your resume outshine the fact that we are in a deep recession and probably still will be when you graduate. There is life AFTER graduate school and if you have $130k in loans to pay back, that can be a SERIOUS issue to deal with when seeking employment, buying a home, buying a car, getting married, having kids, traveling, etc. in this sucky economy. Even President Obama and his wife were still paying their student loans up until he wrote a bestseller; ONLY THEN were they able to pay their loans off entirely. I also don't get the impression that "prestige" matters with public policy degrees the way it matters with MBA's, JD's and MD's. I'm not sure where you want to eventually work, but the federal government is staffed with people from EVERY school you can think of (imagine the backlash if our tax dollars went to employing only or mostly graduates from "prestigious" institutions in government positions). In my experience as a federal employee, I don't believe that a Harvard graduate is any more likely to get a job than someone from a less "prestigious" school. Like other people said, after a certain number of years, your work experience will trump everything else. People want to know what you can DO, not where you went to school. If all the programs were offering you significant financial aid, I'd say go to Harvard, no questions asked. But in my personal opinion, a public policy degree isn't worth $100k if you have to borrow all of it. (WHY is Harvard being so stingy with financial aid, by the way?) ------------------------------------------ EDITED: I see the OP decided not to attend Harvard because of that debt load. I think that's a smart move! Congratulations on being accepted anyhow! Now when you schmooze with people, you can say "Yeah Harvard admitted me, but I told them no".

Congratulations! I remember reading about how much you wanted to go to that school!

That's fine, you don't have to like it. For me, it's all about motivation and proving that we don't always get what we want, but that doesn't mean you can't still achieve your goals.

So what if you aren't? They didn't say you wouldn't be a success at all; they just said they don't think you'd be a success at their particular program. This whole thing is a crap shoot and you can be rejected for the dumbest of reasons. QTIP, my friend. Quit Taking it Personally. My rejection letters were pretty nice compared to what some of you all got, but more than anything they are a serious source of motivation for me. In fact, I'm probably going to frame them and hang them up in my future corner office with a great view of whatever city I happen to settle in. Right next to the Master's Degree I do earn.

So a school is weak because they don't have a thesis requirement? I didn't apply to Ford, but I got into Indiana and they don't have a thesis requirement either. Personally, as someone who is in the workforce now and plans to be in the workforce permanently after I finish my MPA and who has absolutely no interest whatsoever in getting a PhD, I am SO GLAD they aren't gonna waste my time with a thesis. :roll: They instead have a capstone project that you do with another group of students, and I prefer that WAY more. I purposely did not apply to schools that have thesis requirements. A thesis is completely irrelevant to my life plans post graduate school. Give me something practical I can take into the workplace, thanks. What is a thesis going to do for me in a job interview? Absolutely nothing.

Someone I know was on the waitlist of one of the schools the OP listed. The school called said person two weeks before class began and asked if they still wanted to go. That's the most extreme example I have EVER heard of but it just goes to show you miracles do happen.

I only applied to three schools and got rejected by two of the other ones last week. But I got into my number one so I'm happy. I'm more pissed off that it took them four months to tell me and that they jerked me around for so damn long. This ish really is NOT rocket science. You either want someone or you don't. I HATTEE when people waste my time.

I know someone who was on the wait list of a top ranked school's master's program until two weeks before school started. They basically called said person and was like "So, do you still wanna come?" Naturally, they took their offer.