mickun88

postponed

It depends on which programme. Oxford latin american studies asks for 2 while the MPP needs only one. I will spend my own xmas on them. btw.... it is now 37 C in Buenos Aires..... I am melting.....plus the anxiety that I have..... it could reach 50C inside me.

Thanks so much for your kind words. I just cant focus on my work and on my thesis. at the moment just IHEID I am preparing personal statements for Cambridge and Oxford. The 2000-word essay is done.

Thanks for your encouragement.... but the logic can function in either way. They could send out acceptances first, then postponements and rejections.... Or postponements then rejections then acceptacnes.... I dunno One more day of ordeal. Or Maybe one more hour....

Shit....... it could also mean a rejection !!!!!!

Angie : Congratulations for SciencePo

Angie : Do you work there? Virtually, you know everything about the Institute. I am refreshing my email every 10 secs. alchyna : Where are you? Did you have any news?

Until what time will they work today?? It is now 4pm in Geneva. Maybe I have to wait for one more day

They have forgotten me. Still under consideration

Is there any way to know if the Institute has started sending out results???

.................. i am tired of this waiting game.... any news ?

In a few more days, admitted candidates can give you more advice. Hopefully, the admitted candidates will be all of us who applied at the early round.

May I add one more reason? I love Europe because of EasyJet and Ryanair. I can travel easily at very low cost.

Angie correct me if I am mistaken please . From my stalking from the IHEID Facebook, it seems that some people got their decision postponed to the second round and (again from the Facebook posts) no one got rejected at the first round. The last year´s official notification date was 7th which was a Friday. People started to get notified on 10th, the following Monday.

Why ?? ???????

One more day !!!!!

Given the Swiss technological might, they might have developed a system that sends out notification automatically on Sunday.

I am not sure if they really favor fresh graduate students. For the MDev, I think this phenomenon would be because of the fact that those with exp in the field applied for other schools instead of IHEID. They may apply for MPP and some executive masters. To be very honest, if you have some years of exp working in the field in developingncountries (not internships at office or very short term stay in developing countries), you will find the MDev courses kind of not very practical or not that useful for upgrading your knowledge and skills. You can learn way more in 1 year by talking to the people in the slums, NGOs workers and govermemt officials and carrying out your own development projects in the field than taking the 2 year MDev. Sometimes I just wonder if a candidate from a developed country going straight to this MDev after his BA, does he/she really understand what poverty is and the real situation of those living in slums, being marginalized and excluded? I think because of this, Uni of Sussex requires a minimum of 1 year exp in development countries as an admission condition. By the way, no one has mentioned Sussex here. As a uni itself, it is not very prestigious. But when it comes to Development programmes, according to some practitioners, it is comparable to Oxford. They say Oxford is good at thoeries and Sussex is very practical. Sussex development masters have the longest history in the UK.

True. There is no doubt that presitge of the uni plays a crucial role. Luckily, there are not many applicants from these prestigious schools with outrageously high GPA. Also, IHEID wants diversity. They won´t just accept students from prestigious English speaking universities. I dunno if I am the only person who does this. If you go to IHEID Facebook page, you can easily find the facebook of their students. If you google their name + IHEID+Linkedin, they usually appear in Linkedin. So you can know the background of their students. I would say more than 70% of their students go straight to grad school after their BA. They usually had some internship exp during their undergrad studies. Also they usually had very high GPA, dean list, Summa Cum Laude etc. The rest usually had 1 or 2 years of exp in relevant fields either in institutions or in the field in developing countries. It seems that this group of students was not as academically excellent as their fresh grad counterparts. A number of students already had a master degree. About which schools they come from, many were unknown to me. I am not saying they are not good. It is just because it is impossiblt to know all unis in the world. I needed the help of Wiki. Usually those are very good regional and national schools. There were students from Oxbridge, harvard or Yale. But they accounted for a very small percentage. i have once seen a CV. Harvard with very high GPA, several languages and exp in the field. But i believe that it was an exceptional case.

It is true that on their website, it says clearly that good academics, statement of motivation and LORs are the most important. Others are complimentary not as such compulsory. But my humble opinion is that it is very impressive to achieve a first class honors or Summa Cum Laude. But most of the applicants have it. So even if you have such excellent academic results, you do not really stand out from the group. Everyone has equal amount of time for preparing the personal statement. Everyone writes more or less the same thing with more or less the same career goal, like working for the UN, IOs, NGOs, Foreign service ,changing the world etc. LORS are usuallly written by the professors with whom you have a good relation. They write the same thing basically. excellent student, intelligent outgoing contribution to the society etc. Unless you can think of an extremely imaginative way to write your personal statement and you have a president or Nobel Prize winner or someone prestigious in the field to write the LORS for you, otherwise, the application files of most candidates are more or less the same. Therefore, the only way to differentiate stronger candidates and the relatively weaker ones will lay on languages, professional exp and internaitonal exposure. How do you guys think? It is open for debate.

Thanks Angie for clarifying the notification date ! I share with alchyna´s view on the things that IHEID is looking for. I once sent my CV to an admission staff for a pre-assessment. He told me that the Institute looked for : knowledge of a series of languages, good international exposure and experience abroad, solid extra curricular activities and degrees from excellent universities (in his wordings). Also the Personal Statement should : In any case you should stress in your application letter your specific motivation to join this programme and how it fits into your overall career plan/what is the aim you seek to achieve by pursuing this degree (in his wordings). About the language thing, it might be not that common for native English speakers to speak various languages. But for non-native English speakers, it is sth very normal. Say Spanish speakers (in Argentina particularly) in South America can normally speak Portuguese and of course English. People from China can speak Mandarin, their own dialect and English (very often Japanese or Korean as well). Due to similarity, Europeans can usually speak various european languages. My italian and french classmates can speak Spanish, Portuguese, English and or course their own mother languages which are Italian and French respectively. Malaysians and Singaporeans can also speak huge amount of languages at ease.

I stalked the IHEID facebook and some online forums concering the notification dates (mainly the second round). Some people were notified even before the set notification date. I do not know if this is also applicable to this year. From my observation, stronger candidates tend to be notified earlier. (it is just my wild guess. It could be wrong. Cuz normally only accepted candidates posted good news on facebook and forums. Some rejected applicants might not have posted it.) I dunno. But I think there is possibility that we are notified as earlier as this Friday. But I am optimistic that they will notify us before 20th. Hahaha not even the hardworking Asians work on Sundays. I dont think there will be any news coming out on 15th. Dont worry !! we will be fine. We will have the most blissful Xmas ever.

hey all. Alchyna : Thank you very much for your advice and encouragement. To be honest, I am literally broke. Basically, without a full scholarship, I cannot afford to do the master, be it in London or Paris or wheresoever. I cannot produce any financial proof which says i have enough money to sustain my study so i cant apply for a student visa. According to the IHEID schalorship allocation criteria, they say that if the admitted student cannot attend the master due to financial difficulty, the Institute will provide scholarships (Given that the academic results are above average). So my only hope is IHEID and their scholarships. Regarding the renewal of scholarships, I have the concern as well. But from previous experience, those who did not have the scholarships at second year somehow managed to get other fundings like working at the Institute or external scholarships. Again, if someone maintains a good academic result, I think it is highly likely that the scholarships be renewed. Another reason for not applying for London schools is that, well it might sound a bit radical, I do not really want to study in English speaking countries. I am a language nerd (or geek maybe?) I will get bored speaking the same language for more than a year. i need to learn a new language constantly. I can learn German at Hertie and French at IHEID. Also, the courses at LSE and UCL are too short to really benefit a lot from the professors, interaction with fellow schoolmates and internship opportunities (Networking). K_angie : Yes. I am applying for 3 courses. i am particularly interested in the MPP cuz a rich HK businessman has donated a large sum of money to the MPP and every year 2 HK candidates can enjoy a full scholarship with stipends. If I am lucky enough to be admiitted, I do not have to worry about the money issue. But admission is highly competitive. 5 more days to go. I sincerely hope that all of us will be accepted and offered a full scholarship. And in less than one year time, we will be chatting in Geneva, having picnic next to the Lake of Geneva, rather than on this FORUM. GOOD LUCK

Cool Basically we are at the same situation. I have only applied for MDev, IHEID. I will also apply for Oxrbidge's Latin American Studies, Development Studies and MPP. I have started the application file for SciencePo but the point is the application fee is too expensive and even if am lucky enough to be granted a scholarship, it does not cover everything. I am not sure if I will have enough money for that. Concerning Hertie, I will finish the application next week. I will not apply for UCL and LSE due to the fact that they hardly give out any scholarships for master students. A bit background. I did a BA in English in Hong Kong (2.1 , more or less equivalent to a US GPA 3.5). After my graduation, I did some volunteer work in Peru for almost a year. Since then, I had become very interested in development work. As my English degree is not eligible for any development or politics related master and my grades were quite mediocre, I knew that I would not be accepted by any prestigious universities. So I decided to do a Master in South America so that I could "rewrite" my academic record and at the same time gain more experience and knowledge in the poverty situation and antipoverty policies through internship and volunteering. These two years have been a very fruitful experience. I will soon graduate from my current Master. K_angie : Latin America is a great place. I am sure you will love it if you really come to work here.

Finally, mine has also been changed to Under Consideration. Two more weeks of waiting !! i keep checking the status every day. Ha I can´t focus on my thesis !