harrista

For what it's worth, these are the things I thought about when choosing schools to apply to and when making a final decision: 1. Which school will best help you achieve your dream and realistic career goals? Curriculum - how closely does the school match your interests? Is the curriculum broad / focused / flexible / international / quantitative enough for your needs? Faculty - are there professors whose classes you're dying to take? How is faculty accessibility and how important is this to you? Prestige - how important is a brand name university or school to your intended field of work or in the countries where you would like to work? Networking - what kinds of opportunities will there be to create a strong network? eg careers office, alumni, student body, recruiting trips, internship opportunities. proximity to networking opportunities For me, my dream job would be something like the OECD but there are also a ton of great policy jobs in Australia so it was really important for me to have a curriculum that would give me transferrable skills that complement my undergrad degree and work experience, rather than specialising in one area. University name recognition was also a factor and I didn't apply to some otherwise great programs because the university names just aren't well known here and no one pays attention to the US News rankings for policy schools. 2. Practicalities Funding - what is the dollar difference (incl cost of living, TA/RA positions, potential second year funding, instate tuition waivers) between your choices? Location - will you (and partner, children, pet capybaras) be happy there for two years? Vibe - what's your gut feeling from all your interactions with the school, current students, faculty, alumni? In the end my choice was between Goldman ($) and Harris ($$$$). All the wonderful things about Berkeley weren't three dollar signs more wonderful than Chicago which also has a very strong reputation and program which would definitely make me develop econ skills which opens up a huge amount of possibility even if I just came back to my current position. I also got a really great impression of Harris from the admissions office, current student reach out, Team Harris and Professor Professorson who lectures in my area of interest. Like @nickel said above, it's nice to feel wanted. Best of luck with your decision!

Thanks biscuits and emdave. I am female from a country where pepper spray is illegal, so that will be a change!

@biscuits how do you feel about east Hyde Park? Also would you feel safe running/cycling along the lakefront early in the morning?

Thanks everyone for your input. Let the paperwork begin!

If I'm eligible for both F-1 and J-1 visas and not subject to the home residency requirement, which should I choose? My friends studying different programs in the US at the moment said the F-1 is more flexible but to me it seems like the J-1 has some benefits over the F-1: 18 months vs 12 months work spouse can get study/work rights job offers go through the university's office of international affairs rather than through Dept of Immigration The main downside seems to be that you have to have a job offer lined up before graduation whereas on an F-1 visa you can be unemployed for 60 days before having to leave the country or change status. Can anyone tell me if I have this completely wrong? Which visa have other people chosen or are thinking of choosing?

Previous Schools : one of the top Australian universities Previous Degrees and GPAs: Combined Bachelor of Arts and Law, 3.72 overall GRE Scores : V 170, Q 164, AW 5.5 Previous Work Experience : 6 years public service Math/Econ Background: no math since high school, no econ ever Foreign Language Background : fluent French (C2), advanced Spanish (C1) Intended Field of Study in Grad School: political economy Long Term Professional Goals: dream job would be at the OECD but open to suggestion Schools Applied to & Results: Carnegie Mellon Heinz ($32k), Berkeley Goldman ($10k), Chicago Harris (tuition + stipend), NYU Wagner ($0), Washington Evans ($0). Princeton WWS - rejected Ultimate Decision & Why: Chicago. I still have undergraduate loans so the chance to graduate debt free is one I absolutely can't pass up. The quant focus at Harris makes it a very portable degree, the brand recognition is so strong for economics and business and the city has a good job market for my partner, low living costs and tons of exciting things going on, like two Ironman 70.3s within a 90 minute radius. If money was equal for all the offers, I would have gone with Goldman because the course looks awesome, the prestige factor high and the location sunny and beautiful. Advice for Future Applicants: If attending grad school is dependent on funding, it's worth applying to a few more schools because you never know what will turn up. I applied to WWS because of their funding policy even though it wasn't a good fit - in hindsight I should have applied to a different reach school with a better fit. Use gradcafe wisely: pre-application, I got super intimidated reading all the amazing profiles when trying to figure out which schools I would have a shot at, when all I've done is invent the piano key neck tie. The best advice I found trawling the forum before applying was that it's an equation, so if you're slightly weaker in certain areas you just better damn well make sure that everything else that you have control over is solid. In my case, I had zero math/econ so I studied like mad for the GRE and made sure I emphasised any math I've done through work in my SOP. As an international applicant I also had to make sure that I answered the question of why study in the US when I've been working in domestic policy here. Everyone recommended that you assemble an army of people to review your SOP but I didn't get any feedback because I wanted it to be purely my voice without help from my gifted wordsmithing friends and it turned out ok. I did however start writing them in early September so I had months to revise a multitude of drafts. When writing my SOP I aimed to make it a narrative of why I would be great at that particular school and I tried to make it as interesting as possible for admissions instead of it reading like a wordy resume. Not start-with-a-knock-knock-joke interesting but highlighting things that I think would contribute to a public policy learning environment. As everyone says - get started early! I started getting my recommenders onboard even before some of the applications opened because being 6 years out of undergrad, it could have taken some time to find an academic referee which luckily it didn't. Two schools required a degree equivalence report which took about two months.

For the international students, make sure you check out which schools require a credit equivalence report for your transcript. This cost ~$140 and more for extra copies to be sent directly to schools, plus it can take a long time - I spent weeks arguing with the company so even though I sent off all my documentation in mid-September, it was late November by the time I got the final report. Studying for the GRE was an intense couple of months - I hadn't done maths since high school so I knew it was important to get a decent quant score. I definitely recommend getting study books and doing practice questions online. The complete pool of analytical writing topics is on the GRE website so there's plenty of practice available.

@state_school, has Goldman or Berkeley been struggling given California's financial woes?

I know that when I was researching programs a year ago, threads like this were really useful so I thought we should do one for next year's aspiring MPA/MPP/ID grad students. You know the drill - Previous Schools (Name, type, or tier): Previous Degrees and GPAs: GRE Scores (Verbal/Quantitative/Analytical Writing): Previous Work Experience (Years, Type): Math/Econ Background: Foreign Language Background (if applicable to your program): Intended Field of Study in Grad School: Long Term Professional Goals: Schools Applied to & Results: Ultimate Decision & Why: Advice for Future Applicants:

If it helps, I know Columbia law is pretty good at negotiating matched funding...

Have any internationals heard aye or nay from Evans? Seems strange that no internationals have gotten in according to the results page. Obviously I'm not getting an offer if I still haven't heard, but I'd like to know for sure so I can debrief and and thank my referees. I emailed admissions last week but they haven't replied.

Some of the things Team Harris said: - Students and student life : highly motivated student body but not super competitive, good dynamic with lots of group study, general helpfulness, quite a big class with around 150 students - Quant: the core courses (7 out of 18 courses over 2 years) are quant-focused which is good for building skills in that area. There's two levels available to these core courses. The pre-semester maths camp helps get everyone to the necessary level and after two quarters everyone is handling the coursework. People who don't enjoy maths would probably have to put in some extra work. - Professors: some excellent professors, lots of economists and political scientists with different focuses, plenty of interesting talks to go to all the time I also asked a bunch of stuff about U of Chicago's reputation and about the city in general, like living costs and outdoorsy-ness factor. For what it's worth, I think some of the negatives that people have raised aren't necessarily a bad thing for me - I don't expect professors to be my best friends as long as they're moderately accessible and having done puppet shows for credit and analysed romantic comedies for a law exam in undergrad, conservative course content could be good! @Nutmeg704 would you mind sharing some of the feedback you've gotten about Harris from alums? @Hopefully_MPP it'd be great if you could share your impressions after the skype conference! Also if anyone has other insights please PM me if you don't want to post it publicly, I'd love to get as much information as possible from loads of different sources. Kind of like talking to people at open day but without the plane trip.

I won't be able to attend any admitted students days but my experience of communicating with Harris has been very positive, particularly being emailed by someone from Team Harris. I bombarded her with questions and each time she replied quickly, thoroughly and with minimal hyperbole - in comparison, students from other schools that contacted me after admissions came out haven't responded to my emails which doesn't make a great impression. I've also spent some time looking at the Team Harris facebook page which has up to date photos of what's going on at Chicago and is probably as close to the action as I'll be able to get before making a decision. Reputation wise, where I am Chicago has an excellent reputation for research, economics and business but overall the Berkeley name is more prestigious.

Hi everyone, I'm pretty much certain that I'll be starting at the University of Chicago this fall and am looking at apartments in the Hyde Park area for the first year at least. Can anyone tell me about the high rise apartment blocks in eastern Hyde Park near the lakefront? It's hard to get a sense of what that area is like just from the rentals pages, eg if it's just a few isolated buildings or if there's a bit more buzz around there. Also does anyone have some more recent feedback about the university's graduate housing? Some of the older posts said they were a bit dank but easy to organise, others said definitely go find your own apartment because it'll be cheaper and nicer. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Have any internationals heard back from Evans? on the results form it looks like it's only Americans this week

I'm out! Not surprised, I wasn't a good fit for the program and chose a bit of a wacky topic for my memo since I figured it was a long shot anyway. Congrats to everyone who got accepted and waitlisted!

From NYU's Financial Aid Resources page: "NYU Wagner will not consider merit funding appeal requests or requests to match financial aid awards from other graduate institutions." That's the only school I've seen though that pre-emptively shuts down funding negotiations.

Tomorrow it is I guess. Can't wait to know what my options are, I've been waking up multiple times every night this week to check my email - thanks 15 hour time difference.

Thanks for the heads up skemp, I've been wondering when Evans would release their offers. Congrats on the admit!

@MollyB it sounds like you have some really good insights into the Harris MPP - can I PM you with some questions about it? I've been put in touch with a current MPP student through Team Harris but I'd be interested to see what you think from your friends' experiences.

Same, no merit aid for me. Will decline my spot so hopefully someone on the wait list gets good news soon!

yep - i'm an international and got funding

congrats everyone! got accepted with way more funding than the other schools I was more keen to go to. this will be a tough choice!

Log in to check your application... mine has been updated with an aid agreement which looks very promising!