Cornell07

Update: I sat in on a class that is spot on with my professional/academic interests -- what role should history have in relation to policy decisions. For me, I found the class in many ways more enlightening than the class on a similar subject that I sat in on at Yale because of the work experiences of the students. At Yale, the most popular prior experiences were peace corps, the army, and professional life (e.g. paralegal, business etc.). After going to SAIS, I noticed that most students had specifically government experience -- Pentagon, White House, The Hill -- and this definitely shaped the direction of class discussions. Many observations about historical analogies and precedents generated the same issue for the students: "if this paper or analogy plopped down on my desk, what am I supposed to do with it?" Read into this what you will about the nature of the two programs.

I have not totally given up on SAIS yet -- maybe administrators instead of faculty are not the best people to speak with -- so I am about to meet with the faculty in my admitted department. I promise to provide more insight. I'm presently sitting on a couch in a dept. office waiting for a prof to come back from a dissertation defense, so more details will be forthcoming.

I am currently in the SAIS building and just met with some people and I am fantastically underwhelmed. If you want to work at the World Bank or do finance, this is definitely your place. If you don't want to work in the private sector, do want to intern in DC during the school year, or don't really have any strong feelings for economics, this is not your place. After having a very good time at Yale yesterday, my initially thought is that Yale has moved up on my list and SAIS has dropped a notch in my book.

Wow. That definitely makes Yale much more appealing. I assume they'll talk about this in detail on Monday.

Ditto to you both of you (emforpeace & yuhoolio)! I really like Yale except it does seem like something of an unknown. I'll be in New Haven on Sunday walking around campus / attending that open course meeting that evening and then going to the Open House in the morning. I really want to keep a foothold in academia with the possibility of a PhD in the future, but be more than just someone who lives in the Ivory Tower.

I'm visiting Yale this weekend for the International Relations students open house, then it's a quick jaunt to DC to check out my other schools. Yale is high on my list because of its small size, apparently stellar employment rate, and ability to facilitate any future PhD dreams I have.

I agree very much with the sentiment. I hold not a drop of hard feeling towards Tufts for rejecting me because at least they have been exceedingly transparent in their admissions process. Heck, they even offer to review your application to tell you how to make it stronger in the future!

The thing I don't like about the savings argument is that, in theory, I might be penalized for being more frugal than other applicants. While I am not suggesting that you or anyone else on this board spent their money like drunken sailors after college, I would be annoyed if a school said that if I had not worked ungodly hours and not saved nearly all of my post-necessary expenses income,I might be entitled to more financial aid because I would "need" it more.

I wish it did. I went to Cornell, a school of some repute, (editor's note: I am really sick of the Ivy League fetishism out there. It's a sport's conference for Christ's sake) and got a 770Q, 5.5 W, and 630 V, a 3.61 GPA, plus 2 years work experience and quite a bit of public service volunteer work. I just cannot figure out why none of my schools offered me a cent of grant money when I felt that I offered a competitive applicant profile. Who knows, maybe it had something to do with my SOP? *shrug* :?:

I really wish I could figure out what the criteria for who gets financial aid at these schools. I always assumed that part of the financial aid calculus was trying to woo students whose scores would raise the average admissions scores. For example, at GWU, almost all of my stats are in the top 25% for the entering class, yet I was offered bupkis. Perhaps schools are penalizing me for having slaved away at a law firm for a while, doing insane hours for quite good pay, while living like an impoverished grad student and stowing away a decent portion of my grad school education?

Also, there is nothing inherently wrong with Neocon profs and this is coming from a dyed in the wool Democrat. In fact, one of my favorite professors from my undergrad years was Jeremy Rabkin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_A._Rabkin). His obvious opposition to most of my classmates and me, combined with his truly professorial attitude, always made for fabulous discussions.

Previous Schools (Name, type, or tier): Cornell University Previous Degrees and GPA's: History, 3.61 GRE Scores (Verbal/Quantitative/Analytical Writing): 630/770/5.5 Previous Work Experience (Years, Type): 1.5 years in int'l structured finance law, .5 years in unpaid field organizing on the Obama campaign, volunteer alumni adviser for my college's policy debate team during this time Math/Econ Background: Intro Stats, Statistical Research and Design, Microeconomics Foreign Language Background: 2 years of Italian, 5 years of Latin Intended Field of Study in Grad School: Security Studies \ Diplomacy Long Term Professional Goals: Mix of legislative affairs, foreign service, and teaching (that's in the very long term) Schools Applied to & Results: Accepted (zero funding): Yale - MA in International Relations Johns Hopkins SAIS - MA in International Relations George Washington Elliott School - MA in International Affairs American University - MA in International Affairs Rejected: Princeton WWS - MPA Harvard KSG - MPP Georgetown Walsh - MSFS Tufts Fletcher - MALD Ultimate Decision & Why: Yale. 1) Small, very closely knit program with tons of face time with professors and other students. 2) Flexible course schedule. 3) Solid academic and professional preparation, giving me the most long term flexibility. 4) Great pay for TF positions. 5) Cost of living is lower than in DC 6) While a school's name may not open doors, the name Yale certainly will never close doors. Advise for future applicants: Spreadsheets for tracking your documents/payments/LORs/logins/websites etc were key to keeping my sanity this year. Three years of experience seems to be the right point for both getting into a ton of schools AND getting funding. I may have gotten into some awesome schools, but not getting any funding was pushing me towards the cheapest (and not necessarily the best) option. Also, start everything as early as possible. Schools will lose your files, so make sure they are in sooner so you can iron out problems expeditiously. When it comes to your essays: rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. When I met students at Yale and SAIS, I was in awe of their prior experience. I must conclude that a stupendous personal statement can make up for a great deal. If you want to do an academically geared program, be reasonably specific about what you want to study - ie the question or set of questions you hope to explore in g-school.

I'm leaning on taking GW over SAIS, Yale, and American because it is so much cheaper than the first two and because it seems like a superior program to American.

Hot damn! GW got off its collective butt, admitted that my application has been complete for about a month and a half (contrary to what it's original decision letter had said), and admitted me! Come on funding...pretty please...

No unique assistance, just federal loans.

Did anyone find out about financial aid yet? Based upon the acceptance email, I'd guess that packages were mailed Monday afternoon, so people in DC might have received by now.

I can't say that the thought hadn't crossed my mind. Any idea what the tuition cost difference is? Also, classes are still in English, unlike the Nanking center, right? I can read and speak Italian, but not well enough to take all of my classes in Italian.

On campus graduate housing consists of a large condos complex on the absolute most northern part of North Campus (unless you were a law student, which means you could literally live in the law school at its residential college). I lived on campus all 4 years and none of my friends' apartments were furnished (save a beer pong table or couch deposited by the previous residents).

Bl

Hmm. I guess then if I did not get an email by this evening, I can safely say that I did not get in? (I did always feel it was the longest shot of all my schools)

I'll definitely be there.

GW continues to fumble my decision. Blerg. When is the admitted students day? I will be in DC for the SIS admitted students day (4/13) and the SAIS admitted students day (4/15) and I hope very much that Elliot's day is around that time.

Maybe you should call them. One of my recs arrived super late at American (I swear, this one professor was always either 100% on his game, sending out letters the same day I emailed him, or completely unreachable for weeks on end). The admissions counselor worked this out with me (March 4) and I received my decision about 2 weeks later.

The USPS failed today. My SFS decision should have arrived today (NYC) and (perhaps? I dunno when they went out) my SAIS admissions package. Boo. Just watch, I will post this, and, within the next 5 minutes, the mail will show up. ----- No news. When is the admitted students day? I will be in DC for the SIS admitted students day (4/13) and the SAIS admitted students day (4/15) and I hope very much that SFS's day is around that time.

Congratulations! This 3 to 6 month ordeal is coming to an end. By now, you've probably heard back from all or most of your schools, have weighed your choices, and might have even made your final decision. For the aid of future gradcafe applicants, please post as much of the following information as you feel comfortable sharing after you have made your FINAL decision. Please do not use this thread to ask other users to help weigh your choices. Previous Schools (Name, type, or tier): Previous Degrees and GPA's: GRE Scores (Verbal/Quantitative/Analytical Writing): Previous Work Experience (Years, Type): Math/Econ Background: Foreign Language Background: Intended Field of Study in Grad School: Long Term Professional Goals: Schools Applied to & Results: Ultimate Decision & Why: Feel free to add any more info that you feel would paint a better picture of your applicant profile.