kabutar

Oh good call! Checked it, it's a no for me. Long shot anyway since I didn't have any international experience

If you're getting the email now, you already know what it contains Don't worry, there is an upside to NOT going to Princeton, believe it or not...

Aha! Just got the reject email. I'm kind of glad, no limbo and saves me a tough choice between Princeton for the intellectual-ness and anywhere else for a more well rounded experience. Now I can go to somewhere I'll have a little more fun without regrets! I'm only truly sad I won't get to gloat a bit, I've had some family members that laughed at me for even trying to apply to US schools (I didn't tell them I was applying to Princeton) so it would have been nice to throw it at them. Oh well!

Quite alright, I'm an engineer myself! However, there is a small flaw in your logic: with such a small sample size on this board, we should expect to see many more rejects rather than admits so far. EDIT, apparently there's been a bomb threat in the new chem building at Princeton... delay inducing perhaps? Oi

I do... search 'Princeton'. There are 3...

I think their admit rate is around 9-10%, about the same as it is every year... maybe 9% instead of 10%, but not a huuuge difference... Minerva, hope you're right about the email thing... I'm assuming they've autoprogrammed them, but it's definitely weird having one batch at 12 and then apparently nothing...? and it's past 12 EST now, unless they're planning to release the rejects right at 4 EST so they can flee the office. I only see accepts on the results search though so... maybe only one batch of accepts went out? who knows... but I'm almost at the end of my rope lol, we need to be done with this already!

You would think SOME of us would have gotten rejects by now tho. I don't recall them doing accepts separately last year, but who knows. Just wish they'd put me out of my misery lol, I need more than 3 hrs sleep for my hockey game tonight!

congrats Lusaker! I guess we can expect the next batch at 3 AM EST... which is to say now... hmm. Curse being on the West Coast, means it's not too late so I'm not tired enough to knock myself out... bah! ... and this is the worst possible way of notifying people, wish they would just send everything at once and put us out of our misery. Mailbox!! Edit - 12:10 now, still nothing... bleaker and bleaker!

Sorry disregard last post. Last year I think they notified in waves, so maybe we still have a chance...

Wow congrats... that's such odd timing though! 12 AM on the east coast...?! Anybody else heard anything yet? Maybe they're set to go out Friday morning 12 AM automatically? Edit - I think they are. Just saw someone on Twitter post his email - apparently it said 12:01 AM. So if you haven't gotten anything yet, probably safe to assume you're out which includes me lol

I wonder... were decisions made by last week (hence the OP's friend got the news on Monday)? Or were they waiting till the end of this week because they're still making decisions?

Oh dear, this is sounding almost exactly like what I don't need... bah. I really want to go to WWS if I get in, but I don't want to be a hermit. And I'm 23... certainly going to want to be more social than the girl quoted, but I can see myself very easily getting stuck between two groups and ending up with nothing.

I was just reading last year's posts and it seems that emails actually went out Wed Mar 11 last year... I'm wondering if that may be the case this year too with Friday the 12th being the date that everyone should hear by, bar none. I guess we'll find out in two days, unless the OP definitely meant that emails are going out ON Friday (and not BY Friday) Actually, it does read that way, I'm just probably nitpicking now... Ugh. Good luck all!

Hah, no I haven't been to Princeton, but I have been asking around and am a little worried about what I hear! I really want to go there for the educational experience, but I'm not sure how I'd handle being in a small/dead town... I'm also right smack between undergrad and grad age groups, so I might be even worse off lol. I see from your signature you were accepted to Syracuse... if you get into WWS, would it be safe to assume you'd go there over Maxwell? (feel free not to answer lol!)

GAAAH... how will I sleep till Friday now?! I better go ski and knock myself out on a tree or something. *knock on wood* lol. thanks for the heads up. just out of curiosity, how does your friend like it? I know the quality of education is unmatched, but is the workload really as insane as I've heard? Is there any sort of nightlife?

Just got an email - waitlisted! I wasn't expecting to get into Duke at all so this is certainly better than I thought! Anybody know what the chances are of getting in off the waitlist? I'm an international student, if that makes any difference.

I'm wondering what the social life is like at Princeton in general? Brief history: I'm early 20s so I'm sort of stuck between grads and undergrads, though I've applied for grad school. I didn't really party AT ALL in undergrad, so though I'm obviously there (hopefully!) to get everything I can out of my degree (WWS, 2-year, if I'm accepted), I'd prefer to have SOME fun doing it. Obviously nightlife isn't going to make or break the deal and I sure as heck wouldn't turn down Princeton if I got in... but I'd still like to know. Basically I just don't want to end up spending my second degree without any nightlife too lol, and I'm a little worried my age may stick me between groups, or that it'll be totally dead. I love the intellectual capacity at Princeton, I just hope it isn't the ONLY thing to experience lol. Thanks!

I just got into Maxwell with a 2.4ish undergrad GPA in engineering. However, when I spoke to the admissions department they said that the GRE is weighted very heavily... I had a 1550 (800 V/750 Q/5 AWA) so I guess that made up some of it... looks like you had great GRE scores too so that's probably what made the difference for both of us. I've been taking policy courses at my local uni and have a 4.0 GPA there and had some circumstances causing the crappy GPA that I explained, so those probably helped too. I'm really happy - Maxwell's a great school but yeah, grades definitely aren't everything, especially if you can make up for it in other ways! Congrats! Maybe we'll see each other there in er... June o.O

Hmm, I tried to edit but it wouldn't let me. Let me rephrase this entire thing lol. The generic paragraph is not overly generic - it's a paragraph, it's hot air I suppose, but it's also more in-depth than other generic paragraphs might be. I feel like my SOP is really strong otherwise, but I'm counting on it to carry a lot of the weight in the app... has the generic para sunk my SOP/app?

I'm curious... I'm hoping I have a fairly strong SOP (my professors/people who read it really liked it). I'm applying for MPAs in environmental policy, so most likely no thesis. Suffice to say I talked a lot in my SOP about how I feel we need vision and progressive thinking etc for environmental issues and hence why I wanted to work in the field and study these topics. e.g. I might say such and such international environmental concern will be a big issue and needs fixing - which automatically answers the question of why I want to study say, international policies or IR. So when I got to 'why do I want to go to X school?' I tied it in directly also, because I only applied to a few schools which are known for being fairly visionary, forward-thinking, etc. now I'm doing Tufts' application and their questions are a lot more specific, and I'm wondering - is what I have enough, both for Tufts or for other less specific applications? I don't necessarily have profs or clubs that I want to work with, but what about listing interesting courses taught by profs? There are SO many courses, and I'm not doing a thesis, so I feel like it may either just be a generic statement anyway or look like name-dropping. On the other hand there may be think tanks such as the Princeton Environmental Institute - yes I know the WWS deadline has passed, but is that the sort of thing I'd want to mention in such an app, or again is that name-dropping?

Holy crap - did you apply for early admission?? Congrats

great, thanks!

Quick question: for HKS and WWS, they require a policy memo. (I know the deadline is past - I'm just curious). Do I need to provide sources for what I'm talking about - i.e. a bibliography, in footnotes or otherwise? (It's a slightly technical topic). Thanks!

Bah, I'm doing a career change. I don't have a whole lot of contacts in the field... and building them would mean starting at ground level and slowly working up, which would take FAR too long in terms of how long it'd take me to get anywhere lol.

Hi again, I've been reading through some more of the posts here and am in a bit of a bind... I want to apply to a top tier school for MPA/MPP (perhaps MIA at Yale/SIPA) in enviro concentration. I have an unfortunate GPA (below 3) for various reasons (incredibly tough engineering program and it didn't treat me well heh) but a 3.33 in my senior year, A+ on my thesis (also got a publication) and am taking a bunch of policy courses in which so far I have all As. I also have 800 V/750 Q GRE. I will be taking econ/stats courses to meet reqs BUT these marks will not go in with the application as the courses won't be taken in time. I have a quantitative background due to being in eng, but my math marks aren't good because the courses were incredibly abstract and I just couldn't get my head around them. (I should probably have transferred out, but I'm stubborn ) Work experience. I have 1 year at a nanotechnology company after my 3rd year of undergrad (obviously totally unrelated to MPP lol but still 'professional') and a short stint in Africa volunteering with a science ed program. Through Oct I'm going to be working with a bunch of activist groups here who are putting together a big event for the International Climate Day of Action and will also be working for an NGO doing enviro policy research. I feel however like I need some more experience to really be competitive but not just that - I need really good experience, something that stands out. If I don't get in for Fall 2010 I'm going to need to go all out on the courses to beef up that GPA, so disappearing for a year won't really be an option, but perhaps summer 2010 would be possible. Alternatively something that I could do part-time while still home (which is Vancouver) in addition to what I'm doing currently. Would anybody have any suggestions as to where to start? I would love to get international experience, or experience in a think tank, but how would I go about that? It's a bit of a catch-22 for me since I don't have the background per se. A lot of people seem to have great experience but it goes a bit over my head as to how they actually got it lol. Help? Thanks (p.s. sorry for multiple posts: my questions keep changing as I read more etc lol)