Namash

Hello everyone. I need advise regarding mobile connection. I have an unlocked Iphone 5 that I want to bring along to USA and continue using. I think that leaves T mobile as my only option for service provider but i have heard that its quality is really bad around Columbia university campus. Anybody have any experience regarding that? Is it worth bringing my phone or should i just get rid of it here and buy a contract deal with verizon?

Hello everyone. I need advise regarding mobile connection. I have an unlocked Iphone 5 that I want to bring along to USA and continue using. I think that leaves T mobile as my only option for service provider but i have heard that its quality is really bad around Columbia university campus. Anybody have any experience regarding that? Is it worth bringing my phone or should i just get rid of it here and buy a contract deal with verizon?

Hello everyone. I need advise regarding mobile connection. I have an unlocked Iphone 5 that I want to bring along to USA and continue using. I think that leaves T mobile as my only option for service provider but i have heard that its quality is really bad around Columbia university campus. Anybody have any experience regarding that? Is it worth bringing my phone or should i just get rid of it here and buy a contract deal with verizon?

No i didnt hire anyone. My brother and my sister helped me. They are both working in the IT industry . so not much of a background in public policy profession. But what i did get from them was feedback on effectively expressing my ideas. You have limited space to make your case to the admission committee. Limited words and limited time of the readers attention. Every word on the essay must earn its place there. My first couple of drafts seemed perfectly fine to me until my brother cut out the fluff leaving my essay just half the length without removing any of the real useful content i had originally written . We tend to use too many words to say simple things. The admission committee will be swamped with essays, make their job easier for them and just tell them clearly what they need to hear which is simply: What do you want to do in the future, how do you plan to do it, how will this program contribute towards helping you achieve your goal, what have you done so far that has prepared you for the program i..e. how are you a fit. So once you have made a draft challenge every sentence to see if it is helping make your application stronger or not. If it isnt there no point wasting space on that. You could use that part of the readers attention making your case stronger.

Hey, You should check out this blog http://hksadmissionblog.tumblr.com/post/35323114042/personal-statement-notes-post-9 I found it very useful in understanding what the adcom is looking for... Your undergrad GPA is fine. You cant change that now anyway and its nothing that cannot be compensated for by an outstanding personal statement. besides its history, you have already done a graduate program after that with a pretty good gpa so the undergrad gpa should not carry much weight anymore. Same goes for your GRE in my opinion. you have about 4 months. If you are really concerned about your GRE you have time to retake it. But i think the time you will spend on retaking the test you might as well spend on perfecting your essay and recommendations. If you emphasize the quality of your experience enough that should dilute the weight of your GRE, which i think is not bad anyway. In terms of recommendations if these are the people you have worked closest with and they know you well enough to give a detailed recommendation then dont trade it for diversification. But if someone at say your volunteer work place has worked closely with you and can highlight the strengths that are valued by the particular program you are looking for then i would give up one of the ministry contacts for that one. you will mention the volunteer work in your personal statement anyway. It will be good if a recommendation reinforces that. But not at the cost of the quality of the recommendation ofcourse.

in my UAH application i had said that i wont be applying for i house because back then i wasnt sure about my monthly income. Now that I feel more confident i can afford one of the cheaper rooms i want to apply... do i have better chances applying directly or through changing my UAH application as well? I have to apply to i house directly anyway but i hope changing the UAH application wont get my application stuck on columbia's side before i house can respond. What do you think?

Soaps has raised some really important points.... the perspective gained through experience will really help you define what you want out of the program or atleast what you dont want which atleast for me would have been harder fresh out of college... that being said i dont think the lack of post qualification experience makes you uncompetitive... i got in all the colleges i applied to with less than a year of experience...you can always highlight your volunteer or internship experience while doing your undergrad.... thats what i did since i had taken some leadership roles at college so i combined that with the work i had done in my current job to beef up my overall experience... unlike theoretical masters programs mpa is a professional degree so i think it is understandable that they expect some work either during your undergrad or after it so they have something to build on....best of luck with the application

hey yhkak You are from Columbia!! Generally gradcafe seem really biased against columbia. It was freaking me out till i talked to some people who had actually been there or knew people who had been there ... i am really looking forward to going there! In Pakistan Competition ordinance became an act in 2010 only. Before that we had a monopoly control act which was pretty much useless because of its insignificant penalties. Basically it was very outdated so competition ordinance was made in 2007 and was made an act in 2010. It even got suspended for a while completely during this process . So atleast in Pakistan the application or even recognition of competition law and competition policy is in its infancy. We have to struggle for its application not only in the industries but also with the government when they endorse anti-competitive practices even though they are clear violations of our law. Other industry regulators see competition commission’s work in handling cartels in their industries as an intrusion in their mandate. With these challenges we also have the constraint of people who specialize in competition policy. We have mostly lawyers here applying the law but very few policy analysts or economists which is a serious problem since we do not only have to catch anti-competitive behaviors that exist but also regulate trends that may cause such issues to come up in the future through mergers for example, or policies that create barriers to entry. That is what I emphasized on. Not just my need to develop my skills but identifying a capacity constraint that exists in this market to show that Harvard can invest in an area that is currently under-served by people trained in evidence based policy analysis. So basically I built my application on the assumption that they would rather invest in an area under-served currently because that is the best time for trained people to come in and make real changes that impact in the long-run, which is pretty much what they say they want from their graduates. But again the entire batch would not necessarily all be from new areas. They must be looking for a combination of people excelling in different areas so different things will work for different people. But I think it would help if you guys identify a currently unmet need that you are planning to fulfill through the skills you gain at HKS. For me it was easy because the area I was working in was entirely new so there was plenty of need. But for those who are working in established areas there are always problems that you can identify while working in the industry that you feel you would want to improve from their current state. If you can build a case on how you will do it that should really help in convincing the admission committee that investing in you will give them the result that they want in the form of positive change in society.

I asked SIPA and they say that decision are going out since 1st may and will continue till june... a person from fb group says that he applied beginning may and got the decision within two weeks :s... but you are right. nothing for august is available now... will need to wait and see...

Have you guys heard from columbia housing. I havent. I was hoping to live on campus... maybe I should start looking off campus more seriously now!

Hey guys... Good luck for your application process! I was one of the lucky ones to get accepted to the MPP program at HKS this year. Although I am not attended the program, no funding offered , I would be happy to share my experience. Here is some info about my background I am a business graduate from Pakistan. I completed my BBA in 2011 with a 3.62 GPA from IBA, it is the oldest and one of the top business schools in Pakistan. 2012 I joined Competition Commission of Pakistan so at the time of my application to HKS I had barely been here one year. GRE 159 verbal, 162 math and 5 AW I had volunteer teaching and other leadership experiences in a student NGO to show I had letter of recommendations from current bosses, previous boss (part time work) and teachers Now the things that I feel helped me get in HKS clearly says they want to see commitment to public service. I was working in the public sector and the major I was applying for was in line with the work that I was involved in so that made my case for coming back and pursuing a career in public service pretty strong HKS also says that the look for extensive or unique experience. My experience was no where near extensive but it was unique. Competition policy and its enforcement is a relatively new area and a lot of universities are exploring this topic through their research and all. I used this to my advantage. I think universities are not only looking for exceptional individuals but also a combination of skills in the entire batch that they admit. So what you will bring to the program is as important as what you will get out of it. By bringing people that could represent unique areas of policy they can enhance the collective learning of the class. Knowing that competition enforcement, especially in a developing country, is a unique strength that I have I used it that way. I am not sure if this helped my chances in any way but I was a fulbright scholarship program candidate. While we compete with student on open merit but the fact that our applications are sent by IIE to universities as candidates that have been pre-screened through interviews and tests by the fulbright management may help the candidates. Again this is just a background on my application and an opinion that floats around in fulbright candidates. It may mean nothing to the admission committee when they are reviewing application. Recommendations to future applicants Your essay is the key! Use it as an argument to make your case to be admitted. Make sure you address each question that may come in the readers mind: What do you want to do in the future, how do you plan to do it, how will this program contribute towards helping you achieve your goal, what have you done so far that has prepared you for the program i.e. how are you a fit. Basically a balance of before the program, during the program and after the program. I know these are pretty obvious points but since my acceptance a lot of people have asked me to read their essays and it seems they always miss one or the other point or don’t say it clearly enough I can’t say much for those with significant experience, but those who are applying with less experience should try to bring out the role that the particular experience has played to make you committed to the public sector. Work experiences teach you a number of things but focus on its role in preparing you for your future goals. The goal should be clear throughout the essay and the different experiences that you share should reinforce it. Some essays I read mentioned a goal in the beginning then moved on to the life story and restated the goal in the end. Your life story is important, of course, but combine it with your career goals to make a compelling case. There is only so much you can talk about in your essay and by adding too much you may run the risk of confusing the whole message. Try to choose references who would reinforce the main points you are building in the essay and also mention other fact about you that you may not have added in your essays. Focus on 'key selling points' and let your recommenders cover other points while reinforcing the key points. You can do that by maybe having a conversation with your reference. I sent my reference contact my CV, transcript along with major highlights of my work with them. So that way i knew that even if a leave some parts of my work from the essays they will cover that. Your entire application package becomes stronger of different parts boost the impact of others as well. Get feedback but I feel too much feedback gets you more confused than no feedback. I got my first draft read by friends and family and I got so many conflicting feedback that the second draft I sent to only two people who then worked with me till the end of the application. I was lucky to get the detailed feedback that I did on the essays. I guess these points are no news to most of you guys. If you are applying you have probably done enough research to know all of these . This was just my experience and there is no single formula to getting accepted. Different things would work for different people. All you can do it give it your best shot.

https://www.coursera.org/courses?search=microeconomics this website is a pretty convenient way to learn. Not sure if it would count towards your credit though.

hmmm thanks for letting me know guys!!... i changed my preference... What are your views about the I house??... i think the north building is a better bet then the south building but it is expensive so i guess it will only fall in budget if you have room mates splitting the bill... someone i know is sharing a studio apartment in i house and ends up paying total 1050 per month which sounds ok... the challenge will be to find someone you can share the place with :s... so currently all hopes for geting a university housing apartment room!!

dont they separate dorms for graduate and undergraduate students.... i read on the website for engineering part of columbia atleast that the even if the building is the same the floors are separate.... :s maybe i should change my priority list!

Thanks creamtea.... i applied for their housing keeping dorm with private room the highest priority, then apartment room n then dorm with shared room.... i got the sense of people prefering apartment over dorm from columbia website. I wonder why? it seems dorm is cheaper and safer and utilities are included in rent....Can anyone give me the name and link to SIPA admitted students FB page if they have any??