cheikogin

Congratulations and good luck! It was great finding so many people here..so thanks for that Angie

Angie thanks for all the inputs but I've made my choice! I hope we can all stay connected even post admissions and share our ideas and learnings in different fields. I can't wait to start in September even though it's going to be a tough thing to get back to books & papers & more papers..Good luck again!

Congratulations again!

Well the priority for me was to do a one year program and the IDS program suited well. Work and jobs in development depend on a number of factors and it takes time to shape your interests, capabilities and opportunities and land a dream-job (if that even exists!)..My focus now is to learn as much as I can from practitioners, policy makers and activists while developing my focus and strengths..IDS seems like a place with a good mix of these so that's about it..

Ok, good luck to all of us!..as for the top choice, are you referring to Universities? The only school I applied to was IDS so its a no brainer for me now.

Hi Angie, I'm looking at the Inlaks and Tata scholarships..what about you? @ Arbitist - if you're from Maharashtra then you can look at some state government scholarships as well..

Yes the IDS one and some other Indian scholarships as well...

Congratulations to you and everyone on the admissions! Good luck with the funding as well. My scholarship decisions would only come by June so have to sweat it out till then. btw arbitist, what are your top choices?

Hi Bonafide Though I haven't applied to Sciences Po, in my application to IDS I provided only one academic reference. As with you I graduated 5 years back and getting one academic reference was all I could manage. Additionally I provided 2 professional references as well. So I don't think not having 2 academic references would make your application incomplete. But yeah you need to get that one academic reference in place. Good luck and hope your professor wakes up soon!

Thanks for the offer arbitist and good luck for the results!!

Hi Angie! You do ask many soul searching questions . Well as I said I'm not sure of the exact role that I want in the future but I do want to keep my options open..As for the urban development masters, I again don't want to specialize at this point..Once I start studying on the issues I'm gonna try and get more focused. Thanks for the facebook tip although I have already been stalking few people and groups on it

Hi again! I completely agree with what you said about being pragmatic and no I don't have endless funding that's the reason I joined this post to get some more information on IDS. I was curious if the school was not good / sub standard (specifically in teaching) and that was the reason why it was not among the top choice for many in this post..Nonetheless I'm grateful for all the honest feedback and I agree IHEID does seem like an awesome place, especially considering the tuition fees and being based in Geneva! Wish you the best for IHEID! I cant imagine how hard it is to wait three months for a decision..I was loosing my head in one month!

Hey Arbitist!! Thanks and good to know that you're from Pune!. I applied in December end, they usually take around 4-5 weeks to confirm..Well I work with PwC (in a team called GRID) right now. I was based out of Mumbai but recently shifted back to Pune..Are you working as well? You raised some really important points with respect to IDS..I'm trying to get touch with a fellow student as well to get some more recent updates..had come across this thread and thought you guys would definitely have some information and views on IDS, so joined in. I think it makes sense to use your econ background while not getting burdened with it..in a sense that you don't necessarily have to pursue pure econ if you would like to study development..which courses are you applying for?

Hi Alchyna! Thanks for the inputs and yes I did look at a lot (I mean a lot) of the US schools and also the LSE MPA ID..As I said earlier I did go through a phase (of almost two years) of selecting between MPA and MA and although I was initially all set for an MPA, I wasn't too sure. When I came across IDS, as I mentioned, I really liked the research focus and felt that they truly questioned development issues in a way that I wanted to..Given that the professors as well as some students come with a lot of academic and practical development experience (which is the most important thing I feel) I finally decided to let go of the MPA. I know this must seem crazy to you guys but I didn't want to make a decision based on rankings / placements. Additionally I've always been in a highly stressed academic and work environment and I just wanted to be a little away from the rat race like situation, in applications as well as in studies..It's strange how development has also become a highly competitive field these days @Angie - I'm from Pune and well I have don't a very rigid focus on a specific sector though I am more interested in urban development and natural resource allocation issues (specifically how they are impacted by growth in energy use and consumption). I'm still figuring out if I want to keep a finance or policy focus in my roles..a mix of the two would be awesome!

hey angie! so glad to see your reply ..Congratulations on your offers!! Well up till now I've only applied at IDS for the MA in Globalisation and Development..I got their offer letter recently..Though I was planning to apply to SOAS / Sciences Po, I'm still figuring out whether I should..If I do decide to stick with IDS it would really save the application time which I can use for applying for scholarships..Handling applications with a job is tough! really appreciate your inputs..placements is also something I was skeptical about at IDS since there's no information available on it!..My basic reason for selecting the MA in Development over the MPA was that I could be closer to the issues I'm passionate about and I wanted to be in a place where I could learn about various challenges even though I may be studying only one..in that sense I feel IDS has a good mix of focus streams in their masters as well as research teams.. I read in the previous posts that most of the people have IHEID on top of their list..Unfortunately I hadn't heard of it (I came to know of IDS also pretty late)..My work circle has few people from MPP / MPA streams and hence my poor knowledge of development masters.. Do keep sharing..