GeoFemme

Accepted to Syracuse University and planning to attend.

The Maxwell School's MPA program offers a certificate of conflict resolution through PARCC (http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/parcc.aspx). I'm in the MPA program now and the certificate is quite popular among my classmates.

Hi Hgerri, You only need to submit one of each of the letters. Don't fret!

Anyone familiar with the queer scene in Syracuse? I actually grew up in upstate New York but haven't spent much time in Syracuse itself. I get the sense the lgbt community is fairly small, maybe a bit more present on campus than in the city as a whole.

I've been told that a lot of students live in the Westcott and downtown areas. Not sure if that means mostly undergrads, though... mostly I've been amazed at how much cheaper it will be to live in Syracuse than in San Francisco! There are several threaded discussions on City-data.com about living in Syracuse which are informative to varying degrees. Is anyone else planning on attending the prospective students' events next Thursday?

@Multiple Infusions, I'm in the same boat with the graduate assistantship - too good to turn down. As for the prospective student weekend, I know that the Maxwell School is holding events for visiting students' on March 25-27, including a Thursday day of events for MPA student admits and Friday/Saturday events for PhD admits, but I don't know about the other programs outside of Maxwell. I would recommend contacting your department to find out.

I was lurking in the shadows on this forum, but I guess I'll get it started. I'll be starting at Syracuse Maxwell in the summer, in the Geography and Public Administration programs (although I haven't officially notified them). Anyone else headed there this summer/fall? Anyone planning on going for the prospective students' weekend March 25-28? Looking forward to chatting with other future Syracuse students - feel free to PM me.

They went out via snail-mail, but I also got an email from Susan Millar, the grad admissions director, this afternoon to let me know that I'd been accepted. I had been in touch with her by email last week with questions about their timeline, though, so they may not be emailing everyone.

For anyone waiting to hear from Syracuse (and it seems like there are relatively few of us), the grad admissions director let me know that final decisions will be made this coming Friday and notifications will go out on Monday, Feb. 22.

Here's to switching to champagne! Has anyone heard from Syracuse yet, or know when they'll expect to notify?

This happened to me too. I'm applying to two programs at the same school, and luckily I received a call letting me know that one department hadn't received my GRE scores yet (I had sent them in early October). Finally got in touch with the grad enrollment center - turns out they were filed under "multiple applications" and never made it to either dept. I'm just glad it got resolved before the deadlines passed!

As for geography, I only applied to Syracuse - most of my other applications are in public policy, some with a focus on population studies. Haven't heard anything yet! My interests are mostly in human/cultural geography with a focus on feminist methodologies. What about you guys?

DrFaustus, I had the same situation this past fall - got a 570Q and wanted to break 700. I took a Kaplan class and my instructor told me it was "possible, but somewhat unlikely". I ended up getting a 710. A lot of it came down to taking endless practice tests, even just mini-tests, and making sure you time yourself and stick to your allotted time. This was frustrating as hell but did help me trim down my response time, which was ultimately what helped me improve my score so much. Also, try drills with the concepts that give you the most trouble, doing 10 or 15 problems in a row in the same subject area. Good luck! I hadn't taken a math course in 10 years and made it happen, so I'm sure you can. Don't let them tell you otherwise!

So great to see all you feminists on the board! I started out applying for MPP/MPA programs to focus on gender policy, but then discovered the Ph.D. program of my dreams, in feminist geography at Syracuse. It's the only Ph.D. program I'm applying to but I've had positive feedback from the dept. head and the professor I'd like to work with (who incidentally has some funding to go around next year). Anyone else looking at Geography programs? Anyone looking at Women's/Gender studies at either Harvard or Columbia? I just discovered the Boston consortium on gender studies, hosted at MIT. Do you guys know anything about this association? Looking forward to hearing what everyone else is applying to.

I'm interested in similar programs. I had started out this process thinking I was mostly interested in studying issues of migration and race through policy, and thus most of my applications are to MA programs in public policy and public affairs programs. However, along the way I came across a few cultural geography programs that sparked my interest, including the program at Maxwell Syracuse: http://www1.maxwell.syr.edu/geo.aspx?id=887. You might check out this and other political or cultural geography programs, as a lot of the Ph.D. students do their research in migration and asylum issues.

Congrats! Out of curiosity, when did you submit your application?

I'm trying to finish applications now too, for Fall 2010. Looking mostly at MPP/MPA programs, including: Maxwell Syracuse, HKS, WWS, Columbia SIPA, Johns Hopkins, NYU, Cornell, Georgetown and American. I'm going to apply to the joint MPA/PhD in Geography program at Maxwell, as I"m interested in cultural and political geography with a focus on gender. Anyone else applying for any of the certificate programs at Princeton? I submitted a statement of interest for the cert. program in demography. GPA: 3.82 from Smith, GRE: V 700/Q 710/4.5. Analytical writing score's lower than I expected, but I'm hoping it's not a big deal. Is anyone else interested in gender and/or migration in policy? I've love to hear what folks applying to the MPP/MPA programs are interested in focusing in.