yhakak

I'm there with ya'll, would love to hear your varied insights and about the admitted students day and hosting weekend. I've been admitted to HKS MPP and WWS MPA but because I'm currently stationed on another continent it'd be impossible to attend these events.

Those are some interesting numbers admm.noops!

If you had applied to only a few schools, I would be more concerned, but seeing as you are an international student (they have more realistic expectations for you on the verbal/writing since English is not your native language) and sent out a reasonably large number of applications I believe you will get at least 2 or 3 admissions offers.

Pros: Your GPA would be high even for a standard social sciences major, but mechanical engineering is probably one of the most rigorous things a public policy admissions officer will see. It certainly vouches for your academic ability. Your quant score is also obviously excellent.

I think it is really going to come down to your essays / writing samples / SOP. If these are well written they will prove the GRE wrong in regards to your low verbal/writing scores and demonstrate direction in terms of moving from oil to government/public sector work.  

I have found that most acceptances are sent between Jan 1st - Dec. 31st. Pavi, please don't bother to thank me with specific information.
 
Jeez, do your own work.

I have found that most acceptances are sent between Jan 1st - Dec. 31st. Pavi, please don't bother to thank me with specific information.
 
Jeez, do your own work.

I have found that most acceptances are sent between Jan 1st - Dec. 31st. Pavi, please don't bother to thank me with specific information.
 
Jeez, do your own work.

I have found that most acceptances are sent between Jan 1st - Dec. 31st. Pavi, please don't bother to thank me with specific information.
 
Jeez, do your own work.

I mean this in the nicest way possible and I say this as a non native English speaker myself, your English really needs polishing, make sure you get someone you trust a lot to read over your SOP because there are A LOT of mistakes in this paragraph and that could negatively affect you. Don´t worry total immersion helps a lot and once you are here your English will rapidly improve but for now you do need some extra help. Your first question well if it matters to you it matters, whether it is what makes you want to go into public policy and should be mentioned in your statement of purpose or not is up to you. Attending seminars and experiences all go in your resume and of course they help, don´t worry you will do fine, one thing though as an international student do make sure to get decent GREs (at least a 150 in verbal as it is not your first language and a 160 in quant) remember you are against a lot of other internationals and high GREs are the easiest ways to compare you and get them to look at your amazing application, it seems you hhave a lot of relevant experience so I think you can do well but for that you do need to sell yourself well and thus try to get a few native English speakers to look over your application.

"Kit" is British English for what Americans would call "gear", or more colloquially, "stuff". 
 

I don't think this is a good idea.
 
If, at some point, the professor had acknowledged your request and AGREED to write you a letter, I'd give you a green-light to step up your pestering game, but that's not the case here.
 
A lot of what the you, OP, describes above is a self-assessment presuming the prof's support: you say that there was good interaction and that you were memorably motivated in class. You mention a meeting pertaining to your grad school aspirations. Don't get me wrong, those are encouraging signs. However, not once do you say that the prof himself told you that he thought you were a good candidate, and that coupled with the fact that he was not responsive to your request does not bode well for you. This doesn't mean that you aren't a good student, or that the prof doesn't think that you have potential to be a good grad student, but there hasn't been any affirmation on the prof's part that they are able to support you in this pursuit by providing a letter.
 
Let me preface this by saying: he should have addressed the request and told you "no", it's bad form to leave you hanging and I appreciate that that sucks. That being said, profs do not "owe" you letters because you are a good and keen student. Most profs I know set aside a full day or two in the semester to write all of their letters and they try to only commit to the number that they can accomplish in those days. This is time that they are taking away from other tasks. The lack of response isn't necessarily about you. They could have over-committed to letters already. There could be other factors at work (when applying to grad school, I had a prof whom I thought would be PERFECT as a letter writer because her course was emblematic of the program I was applying for and I did quite well in it; but she initially dodged my request and then admitted that she had an ongoing professional dispute with someone who was probably going to be on the admissions committee for the program I was interested in, so it might be in my interests to pursue someone else). So think of it this way, even though you're feeling a little desperate becuase your research rec letter couldn't commit, you don't want someone to write for you who is not keen to do so. I would cease pursuing this prof as a prospective letter-writer. If you absolutely must try for some closure, you could contact his secretary just to see what she says; if (s)he mentions that the prof has already committed to a full stable of students for letters, or if (s)he says that he usually responds quickly in the affirmative for letter requests, then you might want to drop it. His secretary will know how he works, so it's possible that you may find out that he is TYPICALLY evasive about letter requests, in which case you can ask the secretary how (s)he thinks you should proceed (does the prof respond better to phone calls, for example? or does the secretary think that he will just find this irritating?).
 
Depending on your deadline, I would recommend touching base with your research prof who could not commit (if they are still in a space where they can respond to e-mails) and talk through some of your options with them. They know your work and they know their colleagues, so they should be able to help you identify some potential candidates. As well, I'm getting the impression that you're a bit keen, so I'm assuming that you may have some acquaintence with your departmental chair or coordinator. You might consider sending them an e-mail or making a phone call to ask what they might recommend.
 
Good luck.

wandering eyes

It's completely natural. This is my third-go around for grad school (did an MBA, then an MA in sociology, and now applying for public policy), so i speak with some experience here. It's completely natural to freak out a little bit after you've done everything you can and it's out of your hands, the loss of control is unnerving because you go from a situation in which you control everything and you can change, update, and improve all your application materials, to a situation in which you have nothing to do but sit around and think.
 
I know this is easy to say and hard to do (and i'm in the same situation, submitted my apps and now just waiting...) but try to find a big project that will take your mind off of this until notification season rolls around. I'm trying to write an article (and wasting time on gradcafe  )
 
And finally, keep telling yourself: I am DAMN good at what I do. 
 
good luck

this sounds very interesting...as for whether a phenomenon deserves researching, the answer is YES. The question is not whether the topic is good, it's what you do with it.

Ask an academic advisor at school and get some official answers. You might be wasting your mental energy and worrying for nothing if the universities aren't going to find out about this incident. If they are, you can ask your advisor at school about what might be the best way to handle it, as your advisor may have had other students in the past in the same situation.

thanks Namash, your points are good and very helpful and i hope to take them on board for my next application. I hope, as you say, that it's mainly a matter of "presenting" yourself correctly, i've recently been given management of an economic policy team, so i'm hoping to leverage that...   as for SIPA, i'm sure you'll love it. Columbia, like New York, is known for being a little bit "hard nosed", that is, it's not the kind of place that coddles the students or wraps them in cotton wool, you really have to speak up for yourself and figure things out, which is, as far as i'm concerned, an advantage because that's how the real world works. Since you've been working for a regulatory agency that has to fight for its jurisdiction, i'm sure you're used to this :-)      And, it's in NY, which is a distinct advantage in terms of networks, etc....and its also a fantastic place to live. Morningside Heights is a great neighborhood, it's gentrified a bit since i was an undergraduate (things were really rough for a while), it's not a university town...i really don't know why there's an anti-Columbia bias on gradcafe, but all i can say is, their loss.

That is certainly true. If you're looking to work anywhere in the Arab world, a degree from an Israeli university is a distinct liability. 
 

MollyB, Are you kidding me? Dressing modestly in Tel Aviv? The most liberal, gay-friendly city in the middle east? I am wondering whether you've actually ever been to Israel...
 
I am from Jerusalem and have a degree from Tel Aviv University, so i speak with a certain amount of bias, but much of what you say is just wrong. For example, the liberal bias in Israeli academia is, if anything, more pronounced than it is in the USA (see for example a group, which i think are a bunch of idiots, called "Im Tirzu" which harass professors for being too liberal and not supporting Israeli militarism, the constant debates in the knesset about the left-wing bent of the universities, etc.)...
 
One of the problems i think you will encounter if you're american (and I am one) is that Israeli university programs are much more structured and there's less independent work, which sometimes grates on my nerves, coming from a slightly different intellectual tradition.
 
Regarding the IDC: inside Israel the IDC is not so well-regarded as the universities, it has a reputation for being a place where privileged kids from North Tel Aviv go to buy a law or business degree. I'd go for one of the universities (Tel Aviv or the Hebrew University).
 
And as for " People might not look kindly on an American in their midst criticizing their country" we Israelis don't take kindly to anything, we're kind of an abrasive people. Don't take it personally 
 
PM me if i can help with any specific information about Tel Aviv university...
 

I like mendeley...however, if most of your sources are books, archive files, that sort of things (as distinct from PDF's where mendeley is at its most awesome) look at zotero (www.zotero.org). Also free, has a browser plugin so you can suck sources into your list of materials automatically, it has the same word integration as mendeley and cloud storage, etc.
 
I can't even think about going back to doing citations by hand, especially since i'm up to about 100 sources for my MA thesis and counting...
 
the other thing i would say is find an organizational scheme that works for you...i'm a planner, so i have an excel spreadsheet with my chapter headings and how i see the thesis coming together, and how long each chapter should be (just so things stay more or less balanced). Then, when i write i update the spreadsheet with the actual pages so i know where i stand in terms of not getting stuck on one chapter, etc., and I can always go back to a different chapter for a while as a break.
 
Obviously, working like this is not for everyone. I know it would drive some people batty, the point is find something that allows you to get an overview of the process and not just the pages you happen to be working on...
 
it also helps that i have an excellent advisor, i send him chapters and i get back detailed comments in my word files, he shares some of his research for an upcoming book with me, etc....