JBums1028

To answer your follow up question with anecdotes from my own personal experience, overlap between both degrees is definitely possible. I know a handful of people working in student affairs divisions who have counseling backgrounds. My former Hall Director from when I was an RA had an MA in Counseling and I also worked with a few people in admissions who came from traditional counseling backgrounds. Likewise, I know a handful people who did a HESA type program and then went into academic advising. With this said if you are trying to decide which of these programs is the best fit for you, I'd recommend contacting the departments and asking them to explain the differences in greater detail. Then I'd apply for the one that you think is the best fit for you both academically and professionally. You will also probably want to make sure that assistantship opportunities are available students in both programs, since that is usually a pretty big factor in the decision making process for people looking to go into student affairs.

Hello! I'm planning on attending Kent State University for their Master's in Higher Education Administration. I was offered a full tuition + stipend assistantship position. It was the only school I was offered a GA at, so not a difficult choice but luckily it was one of my top choice positions. Congratulations to everyone on your acceptances/offers!

Sure, I'll send you a message!

So most of the schools I have come across have limited the number you can select in some way, so I haven't really had the problem of trying to figure out what is a good number to apply for. My advice would be to limit the number you pick to positions that you are actually interested in having. This would include your top choices and ones that aren't top choices, but you wouldn't mind working in that position. I wouldn't apply to positions that you don't want just for the sake of applying for it.

Has anyone gotten any acceptances yet? Just found out I got into Western Michigan today. They called to let me know before the holidays. Wasn't expecting it this early, especially since I'm still working on my application for Kent State. Just wondering if anyone else has gotten good news

I'll message you the answers to your questions

I agree with this and this is actually a valuable skill to learn. You will encounter many situations where you have to work with/be friendly with people who you wouldn't choose to be friends with in other circumstances. No sense forcing a friendship with someone you'd rather not be friends with, but be amicable with one another in class, group projects, etc.

As a follow up question to this that is somewhat on topic: my undergrad institution recently renamed my undergraduate major, so it is now under a different name than what is printed on my transcript. When interviewing, updating my resume, etc. is this something I should be noting?

I had a professor in undergrad who earned his BA, MA, and PhD from the same University. Likewise one of the new directors who was hired where I work earned all her degrees and all of her previous work experience took place within one University system. I don't think it's unheard of and I feel like there are pros and cons in both scenarios. I think it's best to choose the program that is the best fit for you, even if it's where you attended for a previous degree.

Luckily my first one isn't due until Dec 15, so a little bit of extra time left! I went to the interview weekend for UConn last year. Wasn't selected for a GA and decided not to reapply this year. If you have specific questions about how the interview weekend went or anything let me know! I'll do my best to help

From your list I know UConn requires an in person interview (unless they've changed their policy from last year). The others might allow a skype or phone interview instead, but it will depend on the program. I personally think there are a lot of benefits to doing the in person interview, which is why I'm trying to avoid applying to programs with overlapping interview weekends. It gives you the opportunity to see the campus, interact with faculty and potential cohort mates. Seeing everything in person can also change your views on a program. What you thought was your top choice program might not be the best fit, where as a program that you weren't expecting to like ends up being a top contender.

I'm trying to keep the reapplication process pretty simple. I've deferred at Grand Valley, MSU, and Eastern Mich. I'm adding Kent State and Western Mich for a total of five schools. I feel like that's a pretty reasonable number to work with.

Hey mrsmithut! Which program did you end up picking?

I actually have more than three who can write for me. It's mainly just wanting to minimize the work for both myself and the writers and also spread out the work as much as possible amongst everyone. To give you some background on why, I actually applied this past cycle. I'm deferred at a few places (MSU is included in that group). Prior to that I applied to a job that required LORs. So for a few of them, this will be the third time I've requested LORs. I think they'd still do it for me, I just feel bad that I've asked so many times. Hence why I'm trying to make it as easy as possible for them for this time around.

I can imagine any "big name" program will see close to those numbers (i.e. Vanderbilt, Harvard, U of M, etc) as well. I don't have stats on these schools, it's mostly just a hunch.