MPAallday

Did any schools offer funding? If not, do you think you'd be able to finance your education at either university?

Previous Schools (Name, type, or tier): UTSA Previous Degrees and GPAs: BA in Political Science (~3.2 GPA by the time I finish) GRE Scores (Verbal/Quantitative/Analytical Writing): 159/156/4.5 (highest) Previous Work Experience (Years, Type): Campaign internships throughout undergraduate career and teaching assistantship job for the political science department. Math/Econ Background: Took the required statistics courses for political science majors and performed well. Nothing serious. Foreign Language Background (if applicable to your program): N/A Intended Field of Study in Grad School: MPA focusing on education policy. Long Term Professional Goals: I would like to work in policy analysis, although I am contemplating a dual degree in law if offered it. Schools Applied to & Results: A&M Bush (accepted + scholarship), UTSA (accepted + funding), MPA@UNC (accepted + assistantship), Indiana SPEA (accepted w/o funding), UT LBJ (accepted from wait list), UVa Batten (accepted from wait list), Maryland (rejected) Ultimate Decision & Why: LBJ. Being from San Antonio -- and a sister UT school -- LBJ was my top choice from the beginning. They offer very inexpensive tuition rates for Texas residents (even without funding it's a little over 5k a semester). Their program is also well connected throughout the Texas political scene (and well beyond), where I hope to work one day. Advice for Future Applicants: Start your applications early. I waited until the last minute to submit a lot of mine, including Maryland (the only school I was rejected from). I honestly believe this affected the ultimate decision I received from them. Although I ended up getting into my top choice program anyways, there are innumerable advantages to being organized and starting your application process as soon as possible in the fall.

Hey alloy! I had a thread on this topic a while back -- deciding whether or not to enroll while waiting it out at another school. Basically, the consensus I got from the thread was that it's been done before (withdrawing from another university to attend your first choice), but it's generally frowned upon. Apparently schools do not want you there if you do not want to be there anyways, so I'm assuming they will understand that that's how the game works. Of course, it depends highly on the programs involved. Which one are you withdrawing from?

Accepted from the wait list today! So so so so excited.

Officially accepted! I'm so excited to be "in" at a prestigious university like UVa! Ahhh!

Awesome news! I'm still debating between A&M, Virginia, Indiana, and UT. Hopefully SPEA comes through with some funding for me, or else it looks like I might take another offer.

Congratulations! That's amazing! I hope you can contain the excitement as you head to Cal!

That's one way to look at it. You're paying it forward (or perhaps backward) to someone on the wait list, and quite possibly making their year.

What'd you get out of the message? I thought it looked pretty good.

That's very kind of you pavlik. Thanks for the update!

I just got an email saying that I was top of the wait list. It looked really promising. Now I'm just worried about tuition and fees, since it's around $62k for the whole degree without aid (according to this: https://sfs.virginia.edu/tuition/2013-2014#GCHN).

Thanks for the advice!

Take the offer from WWS, unless Harvard is offering a decent amount of funding. It's literally an Ivy League school that hands out full-rides (and more) to students. What more could you want?

When it comes to policy schools, six figure debt is ludicrous -- regardless of the name. If I was you I'd be leaning towards Luskin, since it seems like UCLA is going to come through with sizable funding for you. La Follete also seems like another solid option. Ask for extensions from your choices if at all possible.

Congrats on your decision awex! I'd definitely look at Craig's List for some good off-the-market prices.