Yofi

To answer your question, I got my acceptance from Teachers College just now for the MA TESOL (K-12) program. I applied a little before the priority deadline I think. Time to mentally prepare myself for turning it down because it's too expensive... :'(

Thanks! It is hard to say for sure what I'll want to do after a few years of teaching. That's part of why this is such a difficult decision!

Thank you all for your responses. Damn, I just found out I got into Teachers College too. It's about $10k cheaper and higher ranked. Do you think that would be a bad idea still? Boy, it would be very hard to say no to Columbia...

Hi there! This is my first post on this site so I apologize if I did anything wrong. I am applying to TESOL master's programs, and my boyfriend and I are relocating to New York City so only applied to schools there. I had no idea where I would get in so I applied everywhere from Columbia to some of the smaller CUNY schools, thinking that Columbia and NYU would really be out of my league. Yesterday, though, I was astonished and overjoyed to find that I was accepted to NYU for my program. They say they will inform me of my financial aid package in late March, but from what I've seen on their site, I don't see how I would get anything but loans, though I'm not too familiar with the financial aid process. The tuition alone would be over $60k for the two years, so we are looking at some serious debt here. I know that people say you shouldn't take out more in loans than you expect to earn in your first year out of work, and looking at New York's salary scales for teaching it looks like I'd be starting at about $55k, so I guess I will definitely be over budget. NYU has always been one of my dream schools, so it's painful to imagine having to turn them down because of the cost. On the bright side, I am very fortunate to have had my undergraduate studies paid for, so that would be all the debt I'll have. I have yet to actually finish my applications for Fordham and for CUNY-City College, which would be about half the cost of NYU. So far I don't have any concrete ideas about moving up from teaching in a public school, and from what a few people have told me, your school doesn't matter a lot when it comes to hiring for those jobs. On the other hand, I can't help but wonder what kind of advantage an NYU degree might give me down the line if I decide to take my career further than that. The fact that NYU offers programs with teacher certification means someone must be taking them and they must be right for someone. Are the people who would pay that much doing so because they're sure they'll want to become school administrators after a few years? Or is it just super smart people who get tons of scholarships? Or is it possible that going this expensive but prestigious route might be okay for an average joe like me? I really hope that's the answer…