Burnt Orange

Congratulations to all who've been accepted to the LBJ School! A group of current students will be making contact with you all in the coming weeks to talk about the programs, school community, life in Austin, etc.

I have a Lenovo ideapad and love it. It's light weight and pretty reliable. Easy to trek around campus with it. I've decided to buy books though rather than using ebooks and take notes by hand for stats/econ. So that's something to consider. A lot of folks use their tablets in class and choose to buy ebooks for assigned reading to minimize costs and weight. So I think as much as your budget and preferences will allow, consider how you learn and how you want to learn. Best of luck!

Tangle wood is far enough from the action that the area is not crawling with undergrads, but I cant say what the demographics of the complex are.There may be a lot of undergrads there.

Congratulations! You are making the right decision. Be happy and enjoy graduate school. It's awesome...but don't take game theory. Ha!

As an LBJer, I have to say we're pretty upset about our lack of recent PMF placements. And it's not for lack of trying by students. Some programs do a much better job helping students prepare for the application process, test, etc. That's something we've struggled with in all honesty. While I wouldn't want to steer you away from LBJ, @Method makes some great points and if PMF is a major consideration for you, then your choice might be clear. Additionally, CHASP, LBJ's Center for Health and Social Policy, covers all facets of Education research (with a fantastic group of students and faculty). But a Center at Ford dedicated strictly to education might be something to consider. LBJ also had several Ed Pioneers selected this year with other folks working for the Texas Education Administration (TEA) and State Legislators covering Ed policy. We offer several education classes every semester at LBJ. And if you're interested in something not covered at LBJ, you can easily take classes in UT's top tier College of Education. You've got two good options. Consider the debt, experience, education, and quality of life. Good luck.

Camp LBJ is free to attend. No cost at all. It has a heavy math component to refresh concepts and mechanics but doesn't substitute for formal coursework or independent study and the qualifying exams. Rather, Camp compliments all of that. Camp also offers philosophy and policy lectures on a range of topics, many by LBJ faculty who stop in to lead a discussion. It's also very social. You won't be disadvantaged by spending your summer elsewhere but you'll certainly feel much better acquainted with Austiin, UT, LBJ, and your cohort if you attend. Hope that helps. Good luck with your decisions.

I concur with @ZacharyObama. The name of the degree, especially among the well regarded programs, matters less than student experience, learning environment, school specialties, faculty interests, etc. The two DC programs you mention will be different in those terms than LBJ. But you'll take courses on methods, management, policy analysis, etc. at all three. Best of luck. Feel free to PM me if you want to chat about LBJ.

LBJ Student here. Please feel free to PM me with any questions or post your concerns. I'll do my best to address them. Congratulations!

Congrats to the LBJ admits out there! Open houses will be held on Monday, March 25th and Monday, April 8th. This is according to the LBJ School Calendar.

The adcom should be meeting the last week of Feb to finalize the list with letters probably coming out the first week of March. I believe we do admission and funding in the same letter too.

Another UT Austin admit here. I'm actually already at UT in the LBJ School and taking classes in the Department. So if anyone has any questions, PM and I'll do my best to answer them.

I know the committee is meeting this week to finalize the list and probably hash out funding offers. Not sure which day this week but after reading @dworkable's post, I'd imagine no news is good news at this point.

I'd agree with ridofme insofar as "public affairs" being a dated title for the master's degree. But I wouldn't say that a "public administration" degree is more professional. Historically, public admin focused on management while public affairs/policy focused on analysis. But these days, public admin programs require policy analysis coursework and public affairs/policy programs require management coursework. The lines have blurred quite a bit. Moreoever, all of the top schools prefer if not out right require prior professional experience in candidates. I think any of the top schools/programs will give you what you're looking for. As far as degree names go, I know the LBJ School had to settle on MPAff as opposed to MPA (like WWS and SPEA) because UT has a 100 year old Master of Public Accounting program that preceeded the LBJ School. With regard to affairs vs. admin vs. policy, President Johnson was quite involved in the school's development and initial charter and favored "affairs" to "policy."

The MA in Security Studies at KSU is a solid option given your preferences. Something to remember about Government jobs is that federal hiring doesn't really take into account prestige of degree. That sort of thing will apply once you hit political appointee status. I'd read about KSU's program before applying to grad school and have looked at their PhD program a bit. A quick glance at the faculty will show that for the most part, they are folks with reasonably strong academic credentials and IR backgrounds. A lot of Army officers take courses and pursue degrees at KSU, including Security Studies, in addition to the Command and General Staff College curriculum. So many senior military officers will at least be familiar with the program. Something to consider if you hope to work in DOD. As for George Mason, I think that program is doing a lot of build its prestige to attract strong applicants and faculty members. Also, the DC community will be familiar with GMU. That could be of help to you beyond federal hiring. I recommend looking at faculty profiles and getting a sense of the student population. GMU will be a lot of part-time DC types with a great deal of professional experience while KSU might be very different. Determing how you want to learn, who you want to learn with, and who you want to learn from are important pieces to the equation that often play second fiddle to University brand, prestige, and cost. Hope that helps.

I'd also recommend you look at Columbia SIPA for it's MPA program. It has an international security concentration. Also look at Duke Sanford. There is a new National Security concentration there. It's in the third year maybe but not really sure if it's been added to the website. Finally, GW Trachtenberg has a National Security concentration for the MPP program. I'm interested in the same things and wanted a policy degree with an international / security concentration available. So I've done all the research on these programs and their offerings. I ultimately chose the LBJ School at UT for personal fit and family reasons. Hope that helps!