pea-jay

That seems to be a pretty rational explanation. The economy has increased the number of recent UG students in a number of fields in applying for grad programs as the job market sucks for recent grads. Also, other prospective grad students with a number of years of job experience are going back to school because of unemployment or the need for advancement. At the same time funding for many programs have been curtailed. This all means greater competition for a limited number of seats. Of course every field is different but the bottom line is that it *is* tougher than it has been in past years.

no case

Jail Bait

recalled car

Mind Bending

At least 2010 is not a Leap Year. That extra day in February would be unbearable.

Throttle Down

Baruch (CUNY) has a Masters of Public Affairs program...

I planned to apply to four in two cities, then dropped the one in Chicago and focused on the three in NYC. Dropped one of the three after visiting, leaving me with two. I dont have time interest or funds to apply to more programs and pretty much have my heart set on NYC anyway.

I didn't use the Personal statement, but one of the schools had an essay-style question section to determine TA/RA and other funding opportunities where I was able to mention that my scoring in the 25% percentile (NOT a typo!) on the math portion of my GRE is NOT indicative of my abilities. I noted that I had successfully taken grad level math, scoring A's. My verbals were fine, was in the 90% percentile there. Hope that works for me...

Dressed Up

Wonder Bread

I don't mind the cold or winter weather in general, but I DETEST, HATE, ABHOR being cold. It's awful. I take appropriate precautions.

I like your way of thinking

My mom is a HS grad and while she definitely understands the value of an MPA degree (as opposed to my earlier interests in pursuing a Geography MA/PHD), she's still negative on it especially the need to move part. It's more subtle, outwardly encouraging "I hope you get in" but consistently backed up with negative qualifiers like "but you're going to pay $5K for a shoe box apartment and have tens of thousands in debt." Yes, I've thought about things like that but in some cases she's got her facts wrong or doesnt quite get how it all will work. Now the "I don't believe it until I see it" comment got me more peeved. Blah.

I'm hoping to escape from Grad School with no more than 20-25K in debt. That should be manageable given the average salaries for MPP/MPA grads. The remaining portion of grad school I hope to fund with a combination of small scholarships, RA/TA opportunities and or paid internships (also available). We'll see. An underfunded NYU admit may test my resolve to keep the debt load down.

Some of my math teachers put the fear of math into me. I'm not inept at the subject but usually never get math concepts the first time or even the second time. With enough explanation and practice I would, but those teachers and even one college prof had moved on to the next subject and left me in the dust. It would be nice to fix our approach to teaching the subject.

Saddam Hussein

Make sure you have good foot wear and watch where you step. Dress in layers. Public transit in cold winter climates in the north generally do better than those systems in the near south.

finger licking

Managerial / administration work in the public sector, hopefully. My master's is for career enhancement and increased pay. Eventually, I would like to get a PHd and teach urban planning / public policy students, but that would be more than 15 years from now.

*How many and what statistics courses do you have to take? Just one (with my old Urban Planning program) *Is/Was your stats professor a sadist? No, just aloof *How much emphasis does your department put on quantitative methods? Not too much *Did your cohort work together, or was it every grad for himself/herself? 100% independent study *How many hours per week do/did you spend on stats work? At least 20, if not more. I can do math but it takes me 4X the time to really "get it" *What emotions did you experience while taking statistics? Happiness and joy. Im not kidding. I got what was being taught, got all A's on everything and caught a statistical trend on a raw dataset assignment that even the prof missed. *Did you want to use quantitative methods before the course? Do you want to after the course? No. Yes. *Any advice from those who survived to those who are going through it? Dont fear it but if you do, just over do it (on practice work) (Missing questions means I have no comment or dont know)

I dropped out of a Masters program in Urban Planning over 10 years ago, also due family and funding issues after completing 1/3 of the program. I'm actually hoping that the graduate work (3.7GPA overall GPA with A's in the math component) outweigh my lower UG GPA and abysmal math GRE score. But I also addressed this in my SOP so hopefully that will be sufficient. We'll see in one month

Kevin Spacey as the professor in "21" which is about a team of MIT students that Spacey mentors to count cards in Black Jack which they used to rip off vegas casinos. Kinda based on a true story.

I've been told to view Craigslist more cautiously when trying to rent apartments (not sublets or sharing) as there are brokers that troll through there with their listings. That said, I have had some success with CL in the Chicago area (apartment rental) and San Francisco area (merchandise).