hlove

Grad school is a HUGE decision that isn't to be taken lightly. And the school you choose has a huge impact on your future for multiple reasons. Personally I think you need to take as much time as you need until you are absolutely certain that the school you choose is the one you can commit to wholeheartedly.Clearly Dani hadn't reached that stage if she changed her mind. It was the reason she paid both deposits. Though I agree that now that she has realized she can't give up SIPA she should notify Fletcher as soon as possible. But seriously what is up with all the attacks that go on in these forums? Is the anonymity going to peoples heads? Or is your life so sad that you like to stir up drama?

If you know what you want then definitely put it down but it's not set in stone. Like rudy said, IDEV is the only program that you have to apply to when you apply to SAIS. Obviously it's better to know what area you want to concentrate because then you can look at which campus gives you the best range of courses and background. As some have said on the board, SAIS BC is great for European Studies but not so much for African studies. And you can start taking classes in your specific concentrate (barring pre-reqs) right away. I think on one of the other topics a current SAIS student was thinking of switching her concentrate this late in the year so it doesn't seem uncommon to change your mind.

Thanks for all the great advice flyingjellyfish! I think going to definitely take it and see if I can speak to anyone in my specific program/s. I'm actually hoping to double, well I guess triple concentrate with Econ, so hopefully I'll be able to benefit from all programs. I speak (rusty) german so with some luck I can test out of that and then I'll be taking Italian during pre-term...either microecon with survival or just intensive to help me during the year, and then do Spanish has my main language of study after pre-term. Haha if you hadn't guessed I'll be in Bologna for my first year then on to D.C. Excited to meet you and all my other class mates! Still a lot of things I need to decide but I'm getting there. I heard the exact same thing about all those concentrations from a current student I pm'd on this board, so either we talked to the same person (not unlikely) or that might actually be the general consensus. In any case, I don't really think any of us are going to get a "bad" education no matter what we choose so I'm not going to stress to much about it.

So I've officially accepted my admissions offer and was wondering what everyone is going to concentrate in. I've heard about so really well backed programs (Idev, Security studies) and some not so well developed concentrations (ilaw and conflict management). This makes me slightly worried as I'm seriously leaning towards conflict management but haven't settled on a concentration. So what are you guys concentrating in, why and what have you heard about the program?

Thanks I did the same. Will see what happens.

Did you email admissions or finaid when asking for additional aid?

When is Korbel decision deadline. I tried looking it up on my admission's letter but it wasn't there.

Does anyone know how I go about this? I still haven't received a financial aid decision from SAIS yet, because I worked abroad part of 2012 but not enough to need to file taxes so it's been a headache and a half to get them acceptable proof of income seeing as Korea doesn't hand out w-2 forms. BUT it should be solve as off yesterday and they said they should let me know by Friday. However not knowing how much financial aid (if any) I'm getting is obviously impacting my other decisions. So how do I request extensions on decisions from my other schools includ. SAIS? Do I just send a request to the admissions board or is there another way? Is this even possible this late in the game?

Depends which branch of the government you want to work in. If you go the DOD route, jobs are pretty much everywhere, well at least everywhere the American military is, which is pretty much every state and numerous countries.

I got much more out of the post from reading the comments below which turned into a discussion about tuition cost, student satisfaction at BC and a real look at some of the negative and positives. I actually feel a little relived at hearing the not so good about SAIS Bologna and it hasn't changed my decision applying for the BC program over DC.

I think it depends on the field of study you are talking about, MA in IR this typically a professional degree, meant to prepare you for going out in the working world not an academic career. It focuses on practical applications over looking at issues from purely academic standpoint. Granted the ratio between academics and applied depends on the school, so you will always get a mixture of both. What are you looking at getting a masters in and what do you want to get a Ph.d in? I know for anthropology (my undergrad major), a masters in anything, including anthropology is pretty much worthless and at times discouraged (Archaeology is a different, with my BA I could go into Archaeology and a masters in it would make me more marketable). Most Ph.d programs in anthropology award a masters degree in the course of your Ph.d studies. I'm not sure how typical or atypical this is, so you would have to look at what you want to master. I think in general though, a professional degree in global affairs isn't going to help very much in increasing your marketability towards a Neuroscience Ph.d program. It will help you immensely in working in the field of global affairs.

Riverguide, Were there any cons to your trip, the school, or the program that you saw or another student mentioned?

Cool, I look forward to hearing about your visit!

Dinged. Probably would have been more upset two weeks ago, but now I'm just relieved to have all the information so I can start making a decision. Congrats to all that got in. I'm more than likely off to SAIS (my top choice!)

*eye roll* Seriously? If you feel his opinions are so bad that you need to pick up the phone and call the school about an unknown poster on a grad school forum board, that's up to you. But I question your scope of what's really important and your tactics for achieving "results" are questionable. Just for clarification, I never actually quoted anything revolution said and referenced more what I thought was the gist of almost every single one of his posts i.e. business school is amaze balls, all the hot girls go there, you won't have the kind of life style worth having if you don't go. SAIS isn't worth it, it's sucks and while it's reknowned in the IR field it's basically a no named brand else where yadayadayada. The last post you said set you off, was basically all about how his oh so important friends didn't even know what school he'd gotten into and they made fun of him. And that they student profiles he looked at weren't up to his standards. I mean I read his posts and think how pathetic. To bring this topic back to the, well topic at hand. Riverguide, what are you impressions of SAIS so far? Good and bad? I'm going to try to make it out for the open house but it's still up in the air,so I'd appreciate the insight. *I get really into debates, over topics large and small but hope no ones taking this personally because it's certainly not meant that way *