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sassywalrus

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  • Application Season
    2014 Fall
  • Program
    Penn GSE

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  1. First of all, I have nothing but positive things to say about the OP, that's awesome!! But I think it's important to know that for those entering HGSE (or any other school), you are not guaranteed a six figure job when you get out. Sure we all hope for it, but please be realistic and definitely don't bank on it happening. My opinion (with numbers!): I paid for my grad degree with my entire salary for two years, but I have ~$90k debt from undergrad. I think it's important to have some concrete numbers for others to see, especially after reading the comment about making $50k and thinking you'll have $50k. From my experience, you take home about 70% of your salary after taxes, insurance, retirement, etc are all taken out. I make $44k/year, which I think is on par with a lot of education jobs. My paychecks are $1,250 and I get 24 of them a year (take home pay = $30k/yr). So each month you have $2,500. Student loan payments tend to be 1% of the total per month, so $100k in loans = $1k payment per month. You're down to $1,500. If you live in any city in the northeast your rent will most likely be anywhere from $700-$1200. Now you have $800 or $300 left. On average, you'll spend $50/week on food ($200/month). Now you're down to $600 or $100. Do you have a cell phone? That's another ~$50/month. Do you like heat and hot water and other utilities? Another $100/month. Down to $500 and $0. Uh oh. It's doable if everything you pick is at the low end of the spectrum, but don't think "oh $1k a month is easy to give up" when you make ~$50k/yr. Also keep in mind this goes on for 15 years, unless you get a big pay bump. Everyone's situation is a little bit different but I think it's important to put a real budget out there for people to see just to get a feel for what your life might look like post graduation. Basically with that amount of debt, it's like paying another rent payment on top of your normal rent payment per month. Also I deferred by loans while I was in school for 2 years and it added $10k in interest, so keep that in mind if you ever need to defer. Also to the person with the working in Asia comment, I laughed at that because I assumed you were referring to the barrage of emails we Ivy students get every week that say "come work in Asia!!!".
  2. I don't know if this helps but I pretty much had the same train of thought you did. I went from looking at stat programs, to applied statistics, to statistics programs within schools of education (TC in your case). I'll be attending Penn GSE for the MS SMART degree in the fall. While I work in education (kind of stumbled into it), my undergrad degree is in economics and my broad interest is survey design & analysis / data analysis in general. I don't think employers will really care if your degree is from a school of education, the coursework is pretty much the same.
  3. You already made your decision but I'll chime in anyway. I went to Maryland for undergrad and it really is an amazing school and it gets better every year. If your concern is that you won't be in DC like you would at Georgetown, don't worry, Maryland has it's own Metro station and buses and you can be there really quickly. College Park is a fun town, good luck and congratulations!
  4. MS in Statistics, Measurement, Assessment and Research Technology. How am I going to put that on a resume?
  5. I work in IR, basically state reporting for a college (aka no student interaction). I have no experience or direct interest in K-12. I'm going to Penn in the fall for Statistics, Measurement, Assessment and Research Technology.
  6. From my experience as someone who works at a college, a PhD in English would be fine to work in administration. Most of the time when a PhD is required for a job in administration, they seem to mean a PhD in nearly anything. I don't think a PhD in Education would really be beneficial in terms of cost, time, etc. Especially if it's just for something that might not even happen.
  7. I'm actually working full time and will do the program part time and take 2 years to finish (2 classes for 4 semesters instead of 4 classes for 2 semesters).
  8. Well it's been 2 months since I was accepted but I've definitely read it a few times haha. I wish they mailed us an actual letter, I'd probably frame it. Finances are tough, I didn't get any scholarships and I don't want to take out loans so I'm just paying full price. Our day is just one day on the 28th.
  9. Hooray for someone else in SMART!
  10. I applied to a different program (M.S. SMART) but since it's in the GSE and also has rolling admissions I'll add my two cents: I applied a little before Thanksgiving, got an email on December 4 that said my application was being sent for faculty review, and I received an email January 8 saying a decision had been made (had to log in, acceptance letter link on the bottom). The acceptance letter was actually dated January 7, I spent a whole day not knowing I had gotten in!
  11. I was recently accepted (a miracle!) to the SMART program at UPenn for the fall. I've already accepted since it was my top choice but I was wondering if anyone has come across any external information about this degree/program. While the Penn website has a lot of information, I can't seem to find anything else about it. I can't even seem to find anyone who has graduated from the program. It seems as though the entire Quantitative Methods department is pretty small. I was just curious what students of the program thought about it and what most of them go on to do after they graduate (PhD, work, consulting, etc)?
  12. Blazer - HAHA at that Mia Hamm comment Patient - Thanks so much for your input, someone else who understands insane amounts of undergrad debt! I was thinking about this finance-wise and I don't know if I should wait to apply for fall 2014 (seems so far away!). I work nearly full time and live at home so by then I will have significantly paid down my outstanding student debt and have a ton of work/conference experience, so maybe that will equal scholarship money? I just don't know!
  13. I already did that. They both were really nice and said "I look forward to receiving your application and having you join us in the fall!" So who knows if it really is that easy to get into these programs due to little interest from applicants. I'll try to pester some students in the fall to see what their GPAs, GRE scores, etc were.
  14. Yup! Well good luck to you and thanks for the info!! Now if only any of the 20 people in these programs would weigh in on their experience anywhere on the internet...
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