giants24601

And tiltedlight - I only got an email with funding about a week ago. So a bit more than two weeks after the letter of acceptance. Pitt had told me to be on the lookout for funding information in the coming weeks in their original letter. I don't know why they took their sweet time haha, I had joked to my family that at this point I would only consider Pitt if they went crazy and gave me a full ride, and then the aid information came in the next morning. I almost fell out of my chair!

I DO right now possess a great internship at one of those places where the sequestration most directly has hit - I have a top security clearance, have been there for almost a year now, they're keeping me on and love me, and any other year I would be hired coming straight out. Alas! It's not any other year. Which is why I applied to grad school in the first place. My gut is telling me Georgetown. Staying in Washington will help me after graduation, and I have the feeling I'll land a DC job SOMEWHERE at some point soon. But you know, there's never any guarantees. And it's just so much money...gah. The advice is helpful, I feel like I'll be in a good situation whichever way I go, but it never hurts to poll some peers.

Hey guys, I'm a current undergraduate with a DC university who is graduating in May. I have been accepted to a few schools for Security Studies (I have a load of ongoing internship experience in the area), and I'm picking between two in particular. One is Georgetown's SSP - they are offering me a half-tuition scholarship, which means it will cost me $60,000 over two years on top of extensive undergraduate debts. Obviously the benefits are the name, the program's quality, and the location. The other is the University of Pittsburgh's GSPIA, which is ranked lower and is in a less optimal location but which is offering me a full ride plus a $12,670 yearly stipend. I'm extremely torn, and I have to make a decision soon. What's the advice on this forum? Thanks!

Hey guys! I posted yesterday and nobody answered haha, but hopefully someone will help me out now. I found out about 12 hours ago that Pitt's GSPIA, where I applied for a Security/Intel MA, wants to give me a full ride, and also wants to give me $12,000 in research stipends per year. This is obviously a lot of money. However, I also got into Georgetown's SSP, which is significantly more highly ranked than GSPIA, and SSP gave me a half-tuition scholarship. Additionally, I'm already situated in DC, I already have my living arrangements sorted out, I have a great internship with an alphabet-soup agency in DC that I've had for a year now...on the other hand, that agency has an office in Pittsburgh, and that's a LOT of money to leave on the table. Anyone here have some advice for me? This is a super-tough decision to make. Thanks!

I'm a little confused about what decaf says up there about rankings. American University on the whole is ranked 77th in the world. But the last time I checked, AU's School of Public Affairs is 6th in the country, and its School for International Service is top 10 on every list you can find. AU pours it resources into its government/international/public policy departments and is an absolutely elite school in those departments - just as much so, judging from the people I've spoken to, as LSE. So be careful when just going by general "rankings" when not qualified by program. AU has a stellar reputation in IR and public policy circles, don't be fooled.

Hey guys. I'm a senior at a private DC university, interning with a security/intelligence agency which seems favorably inclined to employee me once the sequestration budget debacle gets sorted out, and I applied to graduate schools straight out of undergrad. I got into three of the four schools I applied to (SIS, Elliott, and Walsh - rejected from SAIS, but c'est la vie). I am going for security studies. Neither American nor GWU gave me a shred of funding, but Georgetown is giving me a merit scholarship worth 50% of tuition. This means that SIS, GWU's SPS, and Gtown's SSP will all cost about $30,000 a year - just about the same exact for each. I'm currently fighting a spirited campaign against AU and GW and asking them for more money, but I don't know how likely that will be in the end. So, my question is: All three schools will cost me the same finance-wise as it stands now. SSP obviously has the biggest name and reputation. But I want to know: does anybody have good reasons why I should go to SPS or SIS ABOVE SSP? Somebody play devil's advocate/tell me your sincere feelings about Ellliott's and SIS's quality in security vis-a-vis Gtown. I would really appreciate hearing some things to think about. Thanks, y'all!

Hi everyone, I'm a current undergrad at American University in DC, and I'm applying to a bunch of schools for "security studies." I have decent stats - 3.9 GPA, perfect GRE verbal and analytic scores, 75th percentile GRE quant score - and my reccs/SOPs/work and internship experience are all solid, but there's one problem. Many of the top programs either flat-out require that applicants have taken macro and microeconomics in undergraduate school in order to be accepted (SAIS, the Elliot School) or state that having macro/micro is "highly recommended" (Fletcher). Now, I love AU and it has some great professors and classes, but for some godforsaken reason, American University does not require political science majors (like myself) to take ANY econ to graduate, and as I am graduating a full year early with a major and minor, I never had room to squeeze econ into my schedule without totally derailing my early graduation train. However, all of the schools which either explicitly or implicitly demand undergraduate econ (even SAIS and Elliot) state that sometimes, applicants who do not have the prerequisite econ course experience will be accepted anyway, on the condition that they take econ at the graduate school in question (or some other college, they don't really care) before starting in at the graduate program. Also, I HAVE in fact taken classes in economics - two classes with AU's economist-in-residence, for crying out loud, with an A (in a graduate-level class) and an A minus - but they were not called "macro/micro," in the course name or on the transcript, even though that is pretty much what they were. SO: Do any of you know if my lack of formal macro/micro undergraduate coursework will totally torpedo my chances to get into some of these schools? Or will they sometimes take a flyer on applicants who otherwise meet or exceed their stat barometers and have good work experience behind them as well, and just don't have the econ? I mean, at this point there's not much I can do to CHANGE anything, but as I wrap up my applications, I figured it'd be a good idea to check in and see where I might stand. Thanks y'all!