Gov2School

If you're having a problem envisioning your exact career, or if you're asking some basic questions about what kinds of jobs exist/don't exist in your field and where, you're probably not quite ready to go back to school for a Master's yet, and you could very possibly end up wasting your time. Even if you had gotten a great scholarship, if you've got those kinds of concerns, you'd still be better off waiting until you have a little more experience. You might find after working in your field that what you think you want isn't what you want. Or you may find some other great policy issue that you like more and haven't yet explored yet.

What do you plan to do after you get your degree? How do you think your Master's Degree will help you achieve those goals?

My strong advice would be to wait, try to get a job either in the field or in something related, and figure out what it is you really want to do with your degree before you apply. What I thought I wanted to do when I graduated from college (join the Foreign Service) ended up being 100% not what I wanted to do even just a few years later. Having some time to work in Washington, meet people, and really get a sense for what a job in the foreign relations/national security field would actually mean and look like, has made all the difference. Unless you know 100% you want to do a PhD program now or you have some very compelling reason to know what you want to do after you graduate, you should take some time to explore the field before committing to a graduate program. For me, there were interests and goals that I've developed over the past few years that I couldn't even see on the horizon when I graduated from college. There are so many different options when it comes to jobs with an international aspect (categories like government, NGO, nonprofit, and private sector only scratch the surface), and in my experience most college seniors only have a very vague notion of what the possibilities are and which possibility is best for them. So it's hard for them to make informed choices about the best grad program for them because they don't have specific goals in mind yet. Because I waited, and worked, I was able to develop a very specific understanding of what I wanted to do and how specifically a grad program would help me accomplish that. I think that specificity was immensely helpful when it came to not just getting accepted to schools (I got in to all 5 I applied to), but being awarded several prestigious scholarships, even though my GRE scores were not the highest. If you can clearly and specifically answer right now what your goals are, and how the grad program will help you, then maybe it's worth applying. But if you're still vague, my true advice would be to wait.

That's Harvard for you, they're doing all things in their own time.

Has anyone tried contacting the SIPA admissions office? I have a question about my scholarship and I left a message and sent an email, but nothing yet (I only just reached out today, so maybe just a factor of being patient).

CityofSand, if you really want to try to attend, you might think about emailing the admissions offices. They sometimes provide funding to help people attend admitted students days. I've heard of people being flown in from other countries before.

So far it may just be the MIA candidates who have heard, so MPA-DP could be later. If anything, you should take heart from the fact that some people have already gotten rejections. That means that they're not waiting until the end to send out all the "no" letters, which means that they may still have "Yes" letters to send too.

For me it's in the third paragraph of the acceptance letter. They may just be doing that for merit scholarships though, and putting need-based funding in the mail package.

Never mind I figured it out. I'm in as well!

How are you guys checking your status?

I tried to log in but it says that the status check page has been disabled by the administrators, so I'm guessing they're in the process of updating all the applications tonight.

Employers are probably not even aware that APSIA exists, to be honest, much less what different schools' statuses are within them. They're generally aware of a school's "prestige", but even that can be vague and it's obviously subjective (someone who graduated from BU is probably going to think it's a better school than American and vice versa).

For what it's worth, the Fletcher School is known for having a very very strong alumnae network in DC, the "Fletcher Mafia" as it's known. And bunsen is right in saying that, if you have no other relevant experience, no one is going to pay you more because you went to SAIS rather than Fletcher.

Hi All, Just thought I'd put up a Public Service Announcement. I didn't see anything on the HKS info pages about reimbursing for travel, so I emailed the admissions office and was told that yes, they do allow students to request travel reimbursement for travel to Admitted Students Day. They sent me a Google form to fill out and said the deadline to request Thursday. So if you're concerned about travel costs and would like to attend Admitted Students Day, you should email the admissions staff and ask about making a request. Of course, they don't guarantee they'll give you anything, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

Can anyone comment on the best way to get to Princeton from Boston? I'm going to try to do both the Kennedy School and Woodrow Wilson visit days, and just trying to figure out the best way to travel in between. I could take the train from Boston to New York Penn (about 4 hours) and then transfer at Penn Station for the NJ Transit train to Princeton Junction (about 1 hour), probably about six hours total travel once you factor everything in. I'd probably take a taxi from Princeton Junction rather than take the Dinky. Or I could fly from Boston to Newark and get to Princeton from there (probably also by train, but potentially by car). The flight is only 1 hour, but I have to factor in getting to the airport early, security, etc; and then the 40 mile trip from Newark to Princeton. I might save one or two hours, but it seems like more hassle for not that much time savings.

I'M IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, I am at the end of the alphabet. Or the Director of Admissions is crafting beautiful hand written notes to each of us, and he's taking his time to do a haiku for me.....or they're just waiting until 5 to send out the rejections so we can't all call the office and cry about it :-)

Well, the good news is that if we are rejected, we'll be in good company!

Yeah, but they only take 80 people, how long does it take to send out 80 emails? :-) Oh well, worrying about it won't make things come in any faster.

Still waiting, but feeling increasingly less optimistic if others found out over 30 minutes ago.

You can also write the admissions team at Harvard and request feedback on your application. I know the Fletcher school will do this, as will Princeton, though the feedback may not come for a couple more months, once the acceptance/waitlist season has wrapped up, but it may be helpful.

WWS has a smaller class size than HKS, so just in terms of pure numbers, it's harder to get into (more people competing for fewer slots). But all schools are trying to create a particular class with their admission choices, with a mix of backgrounds and experiences, and that mix may not be the same for every school. That's what makes these things hard to evaluate, because it's not purely about your stats, it's also about what the school feels like they need in the class that year and how you stack up relative to the other applicants in the pool with the same characteristics and background as you. So just because you got rejected by HKS isn't 100% you're going to be rejected by WWS. And vice versa, if you look at the results search page you can see that there are plenty of people from last year who were accepted at HKS but rejected by WWS.

I'm in at Fletcher as well!

I'm also in at Fletcher. I appreciate that they provided the financial aid information online so you can see right away.

Accepted! First of my schools to get back to me, so am now very relieved and happy.