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You'll never pay those loans back at $100/month, which is not a large sum. Better hope forgiveness is still around in 20 years. As for "it was worth it," why is that, besides you have a degree?

2015 SAIS grad here. Yes, 100k in debt IS insane.
I have about half that and still feel very stressed by my loan payment every month, even though I'm making just at the median private sector salary that SAIS publishes and got a job shortly after graduation, which I happen to enjoy greatly (i.e. I'm not itching to get out but feeling trapped b/c of my debt). I'm also a single 20-something with no kids and have a good family safety net. Alter any of those factors and the situation could be unmanageable. As it is, there's almost nothing left each month after I pay my rent (I live with roommates in a non-luxury apartment, btw), my loan payment, my basic bills, make a 401k contribution, and occasionally pay for a plane ticket to go to a friend's wedding or visit family during the holidays. 
I remember reading this thread and other similar ones when I was applying for the fall 2013 cycle. The warnings of other posters about the burdens of debt made a big impact on me and I'm so glad that they did,  because I have many friends who took on 6-figure loans without thinking too carefully and I don't envy any of their positions right now. DC is a very pricey city if you're not already aware of that (it's a feat to pay less than $1000/month rent even with roommates), and while a lot of these IBR/deferral/forbearance/PSLF/whatever schemes can make the short-term situation bearable, when a massive tax bill comes due 10-25 years down the road it might not seem like such a brilliant idea after all. 
I really, really would advise you not to take out massive debts based on any of the following:
1) Getting your dream job right after graduation 
2) Getting that rare, super hard-to-get consulting/MBA-lite job
3) Somehow not caring about living with roommates until you're 35 because IR is your PASSION (caveat being that I know there are a few people who really don't care, but you're probably not one of them)
4) Having all your debt forgiven by the government
 

2015 SAIS grad here. Yes, 100k in debt IS insane.
I have about half that and still feel very stressed by my loan payment every month, even though I'm making just at the median private sector salary that SAIS publishes and got a job shortly after graduation, which I happen to enjoy greatly (i.e. I'm not itching to get out but feeling trapped b/c of my debt). I'm also a single 20-something with no kids and have a good family safety net. Alter any of those factors and the situation could be unmanageable. As it is, there's almost nothing left each month after I pay my rent (I live with roommates in a non-luxury apartment, btw), my loan payment, my basic bills, make a 401k contribution, and occasionally pay for a plane ticket to go to a friend's wedding or visit family during the holidays. 
I remember reading this thread and other similar ones when I was applying for the fall 2013 cycle. The warnings of other posters about the burdens of debt made a big impact on me and I'm so glad that they did,  because I have many friends who took on 6-figure loans without thinking too carefully and I don't envy any of their positions right now. DC is a very pricey city if you're not already aware of that (it's a feat to pay less than $1000/month rent even with roommates), and while a lot of these IBR/deferral/forbearance/PSLF/whatever schemes can make the short-term situation bearable, when a massive tax bill comes due 10-25 years down the road it might not seem like such a brilliant idea after all. 
I really, really would advise you not to take out massive debts based on any of the following:
1) Getting your dream job right after graduation 
2) Getting that rare, super hard-to-get consulting/MBA-lite job
3) Somehow not caring about living with roommates until you're 35 because IR is your PASSION (caveat being that I know there are a few people who really don't care, but you're probably not one of them)
4) Having all your debt forgiven by the government
 

Hi! 
I'll start with Bologna vs. DC.
 
Bologna vs. DC/DC vibe
Bologna pros: more academic (b/c fewer "practioner" professors and few people are doing internships/working); much more tight-knit student body (because everyone lives close to each other and typically knows no one in Bologna upon arrival, whereas in DC people live throughout the city/suburbs and many have their own pre-established social lives); European perspective on international affairs; better language instruction; opportunity to travel in Europe for both academic purposes and pleasure, as well as career trips; cost-of-living significantly lower than DC so even including extra traveling you might want to do/flights to and from the US, I easily spent 10-20% less money during my year in BO
Bologna cons: less class selection, especially in areas like finance/quant and Asia-focused courses, etc.; fewer internship opportunities (which again can be viewed as a positive if you want to focus on academics for a year); a slightly more "immature" feel to it (younger student body, a lot of partying on weekends)
DC pros: more class selection, especially in terms of quant; more internship opportunities; more "big name" faculty (although I find this better for bragging purposes rather than actual quality of instruction - I actually typically found "practioners" to run the WORST classes by far for so many reasons...); more speakers/conferences; more opportunities to network in field; more "mature" feel to it (student body is a bit older)
DC cons: I found non-quant DC courses to be less academically rigorous than Bologna; if you don't go to Bologna first and aren't super social/involved on campus it's quite a bit harder to make friends in DC; very expensive to live in DC which can be demoralizing; American-style language instruction (read: low standards)
In terms of the DC vibe, I think it's overall quite collegial and people can make friends if that's what they want, but much less of a bubble than Bologna was as people often have their own lives in the District and some students just come in for class and then leave. But it's definitely not a commuter vibe like GW or AU where most students are working full-time and then cramming in night classes. And if you want to be involved, however, there are a million student groups, publications, clubs, etc. and some departments are very tight-knit
SAIS community/job prospects
The SAIS community is second-to-none in that the school fosters a lot of SAIS pride/community spirit on a level I never experienced in my somewhat larger undergrad institution. The SAIS network is real and helped me to get a pretty prestigious internship while in DC, which was very useful when applying for jobs (where I also work with a few SAISers, although they weren't hiring managers).
Job prospects are good overall, but your mileage may vary depending on your background and what you're looking for. I found my full-time job in late summer, and it's a position that I truly love and that pays slightly above the average salary that SAIS published in its career outcomes, so I'm certainly happy and feel it was 100% worth it!
The vast majority of my friends had full-time gigs by early fall. The ones who have struggled a bit more typically fall into one or more of the following categories: non-Americans who had trouble finding employers to sponsor them (although many of these people end up going for jobs at World Bank/IMF/IDB etc. where they can get diplomatic visas); people with little-to-no work experience (some of them have to take slightly lower-level or lower-paid gigs than they had envisioned); people with unrealistic expectations of what they can reasonably get based on their academic backgrounds/previous work experience (numbers 2 and 3 overlap a lot). 
I think it's also important to think about the kind of job you want, the potential salary, and what kind of loan burden you may have. For example, I have some friends who work in development and haven't cracked 50k, which is extremely hard to live on in DC if you have any kind of debt and don't want to live with 5 roommates into your 30s. But I have friends who've gone into consulting or done more quant-y jobs making in the 80s and 90s, which obviously is more than comfortable. So I guess what I'm saying is that average outcomes/salaries can be misleading.
 
I'm working from home today so I'll save my response for loveglove for a little bit later!
 
 

I just scanned through that thread and a few thoughts come to mind.
1) If you know you want to go into a high-paying field like management consulting, why are you getting an IR master's in international development? I don't pose that question in an accusatory way, but I think it's an important one to ask yourself. If you get an MBA, you will have on-campus recruiting by those firms and easily earn 6-figures when you arrive. I have friends who have gone from SAIS to a big consulting firms (including from the IDEV program), but they all start at considerably lower salaries - sometimes on-par with people with no master's. 
2) I definitely have a few friends who have done IDEV and have found high-paying jobs -- but typically their positions have nothing to do with international development. The ones with IDEV-y jobs are typically making around 50k/year (and in some cases, 10-15% less than that). You can go on IBR, but you might not even be covering your interest payments at that salary level, and your debt will continue to grow. And honestly, at that salary, it could be hard to live in DC as a single person even if you had no debt whatsoever. 
3) For those thinking that they are going to do loan forgiveness: 
A LOT of IDEV jobs are with private-sector contractors. Yes, PRIVATE companies will pay people less than 50k/yr in a city where it apparently takes 108k/yr to live "comfortably" (LINK) while expecting them to have a master's degree and multiple years of experience working abroad. You can do IBR, but your loans will NOT be forgiven at the end of 10 years You think you want to work for the government to get PSLF? Well the majority of my SAIS friends involved with the federal gov are working for contractors. This means that while they are getting paid similarly to feds, work in the same building alongside of feds, have fancy badges that get them access to fed buildings, etc., they are NOT eligible for loan forgiveness.  
 
 
 

I just scanned through that thread and a few thoughts come to mind.
1) If you know you want to go into a high-paying field like management consulting, why are you getting an IR master's in international development? I don't pose that question in an accusatory way, but I think it's an important one to ask yourself. If you get an MBA, you will have on-campus recruiting by those firms and easily earn 6-figures when you arrive. I have friends who have gone from SAIS to a big consulting firms (including from the IDEV program), but they all start at considerably lower salaries - sometimes on-par with people with no master's. 
2) I definitely have a few friends who have done IDEV and have found high-paying jobs -- but typically their positions have nothing to do with international development. The ones with IDEV-y jobs are typically making around 50k/year (and in some cases, 10-15% less than that). You can go on IBR, but you might not even be covering your interest payments at that salary level, and your debt will continue to grow. And honestly, at that salary, it could be hard to live in DC as a single person even if you had no debt whatsoever. 
3) For those thinking that they are going to do loan forgiveness: 
A LOT of IDEV jobs are with private-sector contractors. Yes, PRIVATE companies will pay people less than 50k/yr in a city where it apparently takes 108k/yr to live "comfortably" (LINK) while expecting them to have a master's degree and multiple years of experience working abroad. You can do IBR, but your loans will NOT be forgiven at the end of 10 years You think you want to work for the government to get PSLF? Well the majority of my SAIS friends involved with the federal gov are working for contractors. This means that while they are getting paid similarly to feds, work in the same building alongside of feds, have fancy badges that get them access to fed buildings, etc., they are NOT eligible for loan forgiveness.  
 
 
 

This is all a personal decision, and only you will know what's best for you in the end. But there are a few things I want to point out (that others have raised as well).
 
1) Assuming that you'll get a job with the federal government for the loan forgiveness program is a dicey proposition at best. Unless you're a veteran or have special preference for noncompetitive eligibility such as being a former Peace Corps Volunteer, it can be very difficult to land a job through the public application process, especially if you don't have 2 years of work experience. A large number of jobs on USAJobs.gov are there as a legal formality; an agency often knows who they'll hire before the job is even posted, but they legally have to post it anyway. Pro tip: anything with oddly specific skills/experience listed is probably one of these, i.e. "Minimum 5 years of experience with research into Belarussian bilateral trade agreement policy." So, don't assume that getting a federal job will be easy as pie with a master's.
 
2) Similarly, assuming that the job market will be much easier to navigate once you have a master's is a very optimistic hope, to say the least. Real-world experience is worth much more to most employers than more academia. And it's a false dichotomy to assume you have to jump into the job market and settle for whatever you find if you don't stay in school. There are loads of opportunities out there--Fulbright, Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, Teach for America (and the various state/city spinoffs), teaching English in Korea, etc.--that will do nothing but bolster your resume, and many will give you the opportunity to save.
 
3) In D.C., master's degrees are like college degrees in other cities. They don't really distinguish you that much. My girlfriend formerly worked for a prestigious foreign policy think tank here. They would get literally hundreds of applications for entry-level positions in the communications department (not even one of the policy programs) paying $35,000/year from master's candidates, people with experience in the field or in other settings, etc. I interviewed for a part-time paid internship/research assistant position last fall, but took myself out of the process after I accepted another offer. The person who took that part-time, $13/hour job has a master's from one of the popular schools on this forum, according to LinkedIn. I'm not trying to scare anyone (OK, maybe a little), but just know that a master's degree isn't a guaranteed ticket to your dream job.
 
That being said--no one knows you like you. If you know you won't ever be better prepared than now, then go for it. But think of applications to schools like a job offer. What do you have to bring to the program? Obviously, the main things they're looking for are intelligence, academic inclination, and work ethic (mostly assessed on GPA and GRE), but having demonstrated work experience in this or a related field makes you a more attractive candidate for both admission and funding.

I am very hesitant to head into a program under the assumption that I will use the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. At this point, I don't want to rule out finding a great job in the private sector. Honestly, I'm surprised so many of you feel confident enough you will find and keep a public service position for 10 years after graduating that you will take out over $75,000 in loans. I just don't feel comfortable restricting my prospects like that. Nor do I want to do Income-Based Repayment and let the interest kill me from the very beginning. I am going into this with the attitude that after graduation I will land a private sector job and aggressively begin paying off my loans.
 
Yesterday I went through the math to determine how much grad school is going to cost me for the first year only. In-state tuition minus a small scholarship is going to cost me $17,000. That's not so bad, but I need $21,000 to cover 12 months of living expenses. At the moment I have $10,000 saved up. If I take out the maximum in federal loans ($20,500, not counting the PLUS loans because the interest is higher and I want to avoid that) and continue to pay my undergrad loans, then after a full 12 months I will be at -$10,500. The math looks like this:
 
$10,000 (Savings)
+20,500 (Federal Loan)
- 17,000 (Tuition)
-   3,000 (Minimum Undergraduate Loan Payments for 12 Months)
- 21,000 (Cost of Living for 12 Months)
- 10,500
 
This means I will have to find a part-time job or paid internship to support me while in school, hold out hope for an assistantship (which I don't get the feeling is offered to many first-year students), or, the choice I really would like to avoid, take out additional loans. I have been aggressively paying off undergraduate loans, but volunteering for 2 years has really cost me financially (so far).
 
It's scary taking out so much money and digging a deeper hole of debt, but I feel like the network opportunities in the city I want to remain will make my decision worthwhile. At this point, I'm not doing what I love, and I want to take my career in a new direction. Without going back to school and gaining new skills, I'm not sure I would be able to achieve my goals for a long time.
 
For anyone trying to figure everything out, this is a good calculator to figure out what your interest will be each month. If you take out $50,000 in loans at 6.2% (the federal interest rate), your interest payment (not counting principal, of course) will be $254.63, which means in a year you will pay over $3,000 in interest alone. Though not great, that's doable, and I hate the idea of going higher than that.
 
In the end, I agree with what DCB said above:
   
Not only is this forum cost and risk averse (not necessarily a bad thing, of course, as this certainly applies to me), but I think those roaming these boards are probably getting better funding offers than your average applicant. In my opinion, it makes it a little tougher to decide if the debt is worth the investment when you're looking around and people have been offered $40,000 a year or a full-ride plus a generous stipend. I don't think those are even close to indicative of what the majority of the schools offer. It's really a shame MPA and MPP programs aren't better funded.

Interesting, not sure why that discrepancy exists. There are a fair number of non-American students who have done some kind of master's before SAIS (a lot of European undergrad programs are 5-year master's degrees), so it's possible that has skewed the numbers somewhat. Also, a lot of SAISers did Fubrights, Peace Corps, or military service before enrolling, so I don't know how those would be considered in terms of counting years of "work experience." But overall I think with 4 years of work experience, you'll fit right in. There are definitely some 23-year-olds who worked for one year before enrolling or came straight from undergrad, but there are also a lot of 30-somethings who have very impressive backgrounds --- and most people fall in between these two extremes.
In terms of housing location, a lot of SAISers live in Dupont Circle, but they often tend to be non-American or quite wealthy. A lot of students live in Columbia Heights, Adams Morgan, and Mt. Pleasant, and to a lesser degree, Shaw, Bloomingdale/Eckington, and Woodley Park. All of these neighborhoods are bikeable/transit-able to SAIS, and you can generally get there by foot in 30-40 minutes. Some people lived a bit further up the red line as well, like in Cleveland Park or Tenleytown, or further out in Eastern Market or Petworth. And of course there are those who commute from suburbs (Arlington, Alexandria, Chevy Chase, and Bethesda primarily).  
 
 

I only knew one person who did general IR, but she was very focused on finance (and may have done a specialization or two in that arena), so I think she wanted more flexibility in her courses in order to be able to really go deep on fin classes. To most people, I would strongly recommend a concentration, because as you suggest, I do think it helps with access to resources (even just in terms of faculty support, not to mention funding/research opportunities/study trips).
Strat is definitely one of SAIS's strongest concentrations, and has a LOT of funding and trips. One potential downside is that you could get lost in the crowd as you'll have so many other people in your cohort. 
AFP is up there as well in terms of SAIS concentrations, but a little smaller and my friends who did that seemed to form pretty close bonds with the professors, some of whom are quite impressive.
Of my friends who did strat, many are now doing jobs in defense-related fields (contractors, consulting, federal agencies, etc.), whereas my AFP classmates are doing more broader federal policy and diplomacy jobs. 
 
 

Yeah, I think the open house was really what pushed it over the edge for me. Last year the different concentrations had break-out lunch sessions, which I highly recommend attending if they happen again this year. Your experience at SAIS can vary greatly based on which concentration you choose, so getting a sense of how strong yours is (do they have a formal internship program, do they provide funding, do they maintain an active alumni network, do the department heads seem engaged with students...) might help you decide if going to SAIS is worth the cost. 

People who do their entire degrees in Bologna receive a Master of Arts in International Affairs (MAIA), which involves writing a thesis. I think their requirements might be slightly different (maybe slightly less econ), but they take all their classes with the regular MA students (who form the bulk of the cohort in Bologna). All of the MAIA student I can think of off the top of my head were European, and many of them actually did a joint program where they spent one year at SAIS Bologna and other year at the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna or somewhere similar. Most found jobs in Europe, but one I know got a job in DC and another went to central Africa. The MAIA group is much smaller - maybe 8-12 students. Socially speaking, there is no distinction between MAIA and MA students in Bologna.
I'm not as familiar with Nanjing, but I think there are a number of programs there including a one-year certificate program, in addition to a 2.5 year program split between Nanjing and DC. 
Everyone has access to SAISWorks!
Let me know if that doesn't answer your question.

Hi! 
I'll start with Bologna vs. DC.
 
Bologna vs. DC/DC vibe
Bologna pros: more academic (b/c fewer "practioner" professors and few people are doing internships/working); much more tight-knit student body (because everyone lives close to each other and typically knows no one in Bologna upon arrival, whereas in DC people live throughout the city/suburbs and many have their own pre-established social lives); European perspective on international affairs; better language instruction; opportunity to travel in Europe for both academic purposes and pleasure, as well as career trips; cost-of-living significantly lower than DC so even including extra traveling you might want to do/flights to and from the US, I easily spent 10-20% less money during my year in BO
Bologna cons: less class selection, especially in areas like finance/quant and Asia-focused courses, etc.; fewer internship opportunities (which again can be viewed as a positive if you want to focus on academics for a year); a slightly more "immature" feel to it (younger student body, a lot of partying on weekends)
DC pros: more class selection, especially in terms of quant; more internship opportunities; more "big name" faculty (although I find this better for bragging purposes rather than actual quality of instruction - I actually typically found "practioners" to run the WORST classes by far for so many reasons...); more speakers/conferences; more opportunities to network in field; more "mature" feel to it (student body is a bit older)
DC cons: I found non-quant DC courses to be less academically rigorous than Bologna; if you don't go to Bologna first and aren't super social/involved on campus it's quite a bit harder to make friends in DC; very expensive to live in DC which can be demoralizing; American-style language instruction (read: low standards)
In terms of the DC vibe, I think it's overall quite collegial and people can make friends if that's what they want, but much less of a bubble than Bologna was as people often have their own lives in the District and some students just come in for class and then leave. But it's definitely not a commuter vibe like GW or AU where most students are working full-time and then cramming in night classes. And if you want to be involved, however, there are a million student groups, publications, clubs, etc. and some departments are very tight-knit
SAIS community/job prospects
The SAIS community is second-to-none in that the school fosters a lot of SAIS pride/community spirit on a level I never experienced in my somewhat larger undergrad institution. The SAIS network is real and helped me to get a pretty prestigious internship while in DC, which was very useful when applying for jobs (where I also work with a few SAISers, although they weren't hiring managers).
Job prospects are good overall, but your mileage may vary depending on your background and what you're looking for. I found my full-time job in late summer, and it's a position that I truly love and that pays slightly above the average salary that SAIS published in its career outcomes, so I'm certainly happy and feel it was 100% worth it!
The vast majority of my friends had full-time gigs by early fall. The ones who have struggled a bit more typically fall into one or more of the following categories: non-Americans who had trouble finding employers to sponsor them (although many of these people end up going for jobs at World Bank/IMF/IDB etc. where they can get diplomatic visas); people with little-to-no work experience (some of them have to take slightly lower-level or lower-paid gigs than they had envisioned); people with unrealistic expectations of what they can reasonably get based on their academic backgrounds/previous work experience (numbers 2 and 3 overlap a lot). 
I think it's also important to think about the kind of job you want, the potential salary, and what kind of loan burden you may have. For example, I have some friends who work in development and haven't cracked 50k, which is extremely hard to live on in DC if you have any kind of debt and don't want to live with 5 roommates into your 30s. But I have friends who've gone into consulting or done more quant-y jobs making in the 80s and 90s, which obviously is more than comfortable. So I guess what I'm saying is that average outcomes/salaries can be misleading.
 
I'm working from home today so I'll save my response for loveglove for a little bit later!
 
 

On career services - I think they were accessible and decently helpful at both campuses overall (certainly miles better than at my undergrad, where i was handed a one-sheet primer on resumes and told to check monster.com), but this is not a business school situation where large companies are going to come and do seasonal recruiting and you have a job all tied up 6 months before you graduate. You're going to have to do some legwork, with the help of career services and staff members from your concentration.
I ended up finding my full-time job through the SAIS job listings site ("SAISWorks"), which career services collate, as did most of my friends. Before I got that position, career services helped connect me to a few alumni in fields that interested me, reviewed my resume, helped me brainstorm some potential target employers, etc. They bring in recruiters and representatives from different companies/organizations to give talks - I went to a few and some are definitely more helpful than others. I also think they run workshops on things like salary negotiation, but I never attended one. There was a career fair, but I found that pretty "meh." Personally, I found it was pretty easy to get an internship from Bologna, but I was connected to the position through my DC-based concentration. 
I have found SAIS alumni to be shockingly responsive. I don't think I've ever had one email or LinkedIn message go unanswered. You just need to know how to make use of the community. Even though I'm less than a year out, I have already had a few requests for coffee/requests to review applications to my company, etc. from current students and more than once I have been a little surprised at how maladroit some people can be when trying to network. Don't be that person who attaches his/her cover letter to a first contact email, asking a complete stranger to review it within 24 hrs! 
For your second question, I got to Bologna in my mid-20s, which felt pretty in the middle of the cohort there (I think the average starting age is 26 or 27). There were definitely some straight-out-of-undergrad types, some of whom were a lot more mature than others. It's hard to say how this affected class discussions, b/c there were also plenty of more experienced/knowledgeable people in all of my classes (and some very bright 22-year-olds!), but I do think Bologna skews younger on the whole just b/c there are fewer 33-year-olds who are willing to relocate across an ocean for 9 months. In a certain way, Bologna felt more academic (and European), whereas DC felt a lot more "practical"/career-oriented. So in Bologna there were lots of people who could go deep into analyzing Leviathan or The Wretched Earth, but fewer people who could be like "when I was serving outside of Fallujah in 2004..." Does that make sense? 
ETA: I think typical work experience in Bologna would be things like "3 years at non-profit," a LOT of peace corps, "4 years at random soul-sucking business or consulting job," "3 years at NGO in Africa or Asia," "5 years in random office job in home city and now want to get back to my true passion, IR," "2 years working for congressman," a few military, etc. Close to everyone, if not everyone, had lived abroad. 
 
 

On career services - I think they were accessible and decently helpful at both campuses overall (certainly miles better than at my undergrad, where i was handed a one-sheet primer on resumes and told to check monster.com), but this is not a business school situation where large companies are going to come and do seasonal recruiting and you have a job all tied up 6 months before you graduate. You're going to have to do some legwork, with the help of career services and staff members from your concentration.
I ended up finding my full-time job through the SAIS job listings site ("SAISWorks"), which career services collate, as did most of my friends. Before I got that position, career services helped connect me to a few alumni in fields that interested me, reviewed my resume, helped me brainstorm some potential target employers, etc. They bring in recruiters and representatives from different companies/organizations to give talks - I went to a few and some are definitely more helpful than others. I also think they run workshops on things like salary negotiation, but I never attended one. There was a career fair, but I found that pretty "meh." Personally, I found it was pretty easy to get an internship from Bologna, but I was connected to the position through my DC-based concentration. 
I have found SAIS alumni to be shockingly responsive. I don't think I've ever had one email or LinkedIn message go unanswered. You just need to know how to make use of the community. Even though I'm less than a year out, I have already had a few requests for coffee/requests to review applications to my company, etc. from current students and more than once I have been a little surprised at how maladroit some people can be when trying to network. Don't be that person who attaches his/her cover letter to a first contact email, asking a complete stranger to review it within 24 hrs! 
For your second question, I got to Bologna in my mid-20s, which felt pretty in the middle of the cohort there (I think the average starting age is 26 or 27). There were definitely some straight-out-of-undergrad types, some of whom were a lot more mature than others. It's hard to say how this affected class discussions, b/c there were also plenty of more experienced/knowledgeable people in all of my classes (and some very bright 22-year-olds!), but I do think Bologna skews younger on the whole just b/c there are fewer 33-year-olds who are willing to relocate across an ocean for 9 months. In a certain way, Bologna felt more academic (and European), whereas DC felt a lot more "practical"/career-oriented. So in Bologna there were lots of people who could go deep into analyzing Leviathan or The Wretched Earth, but fewer people who could be like "when I was serving outside of Fallujah in 2004..." Does that make sense? 
ETA: I think typical work experience in Bologna would be things like "3 years at non-profit," a LOT of peace corps, "4 years at random soul-sucking business or consulting job," "3 years at NGO in Africa or Asia," "5 years in random office job in home city and now want to get back to my true passion, IR," "2 years working for congressman," a few military, etc. Close to everyone, if not everyone, had lived abroad. 
 
 

To be honest, this isn't something i thought about too terribly much. Since I went to Bologna, by the time I got to DC I had a whole posse of friends, and still managed to meet "DC people" through classes, events for my concentration, study trips, extra-curriculars, part-time campus job, the weekly SAIS happy hour, etc. SAIS is a very collegiate environment, and if you want to have a big group of SAIS friends you can probably make that happen without too much trouble. There are definitely some people who have their lives outside of SAIS and come to campus for class and leave. But that's the minority, and I imagine that could happen at Georgetown as well since it's located in DC and people may already be established in the city. It's probably a bit different at a school like Fletcher where I would imagine almost everyone moves there for school, but I couldn't tell you about that first-hand.
 

Hi! Apologies for the delay. So I partially answered your first question in the last AMA, I'll copy some of that here and make a few edits now that it's almost 2 years later - wow!
I was deciding between SIPA, Fletcher, SFS, and a regional school which shall remain nameless lest I be too easily identified.  The regional school offered me a lot of money, but after visiting it, consulting mentors in the field, and putting in a lot of thought, I decided that the lesser debt wouldn't be worth the dimmed career prospects. SIPA was out b/c I just didn't get a good vibe when I was there (although I have a good friend at SIPA and he loves it), plus they offered me 0 dollaz. Fletcher just never intrigued me (although I never visited), and they offered me the same amount of $ as SAIS, so it was easy to cut. SFS offered me a token amount of money, but the program felt too small when I visited...Ultimately it came down to a question of money and fit.
I would say that whether SAIS can really help you depends on what direction you want to go in afterwards. For example, if you're really interested in defense or more economic analysis type stuff, SAIS really distinguishes you and is very connected in those fields. If you want to work for a non-profit, or in a non-quanty fed government role, there's less of a "SAIS advantage."
What do I wish I knew when applying to grad school...
I wish I had known not to stress so much, because I think most of us on this board are overachievers compared to the general population, and that one B- we got sophomore year is not going to sink us. 
But in terms of advice you might actually take  ...I wish I knew going into grad school what kind of coursework would help me get and then excel at jobs I might want upon graduation.  For example, I have ended up in a field where SAIS's famous corporate finance class has come in handy, but I didn't take that course until my second year, which meant I didn't have the opportunity to take follow-up classes that built on corporate finance as a pre-req. I think the take-away from this is that it's useful to have some concrete ideas of potential job targets going in, and then you can seek out the advice of professors and counselors about how to structure your coursework upon arrival. It's hard because your interests will probably change as you go through the program (mine certainly did!), but I think doing some legwork before you start will give you a good foundation to take advantage of all the resources at your disposal. 

Hi! Apologies for the delay. So I partially answered your first question in the last AMA, I'll copy some of that here and make a few edits now that it's almost 2 years later - wow!
I was deciding between SIPA, Fletcher, SFS, and a regional school which shall remain nameless lest I be too easily identified.  The regional school offered me a lot of money, but after visiting it, consulting mentors in the field, and putting in a lot of thought, I decided that the lesser debt wouldn't be worth the dimmed career prospects. SIPA was out b/c I just didn't get a good vibe when I was there (although I have a good friend at SIPA and he loves it), plus they offered me 0 dollaz. Fletcher just never intrigued me (although I never visited), and they offered me the same amount of $ as SAIS, so it was easy to cut. SFS offered me a token amount of money, but the program felt too small when I visited...Ultimately it came down to a question of money and fit.
I would say that whether SAIS can really help you depends on what direction you want to go in afterwards. For example, if you're really interested in defense or more economic analysis type stuff, SAIS really distinguishes you and is very connected in those fields. If you want to work for a non-profit, or in a non-quanty fed government role, there's less of a "SAIS advantage."
What do I wish I knew when applying to grad school...
I wish I had known not to stress so much, because I think most of us on this board are overachievers compared to the general population, and that one B- we got sophomore year is not going to sink us. 
But in terms of advice you might actually take  ...I wish I knew going into grad school what kind of coursework would help me get and then excel at jobs I might want upon graduation.  For example, I have ended up in a field where SAIS's famous corporate finance class has come in handy, but I didn't take that course until my second year, which meant I didn't have the opportunity to take follow-up classes that built on corporate finance as a pre-req. I think the take-away from this is that it's useful to have some concrete ideas of potential job targets going in, and then you can seek out the advice of professors and counselors about how to structure your coursework upon arrival. It's hard because your interests will probably change as you go through the program (mine certainly did!), but I think doing some legwork before you start will give you a good foundation to take advantage of all the resources at your disposal. 

Hi! 
I'll start with Bologna vs. DC.
 
Bologna vs. DC/DC vibe
Bologna pros: more academic (b/c fewer "practioner" professors and few people are doing internships/working); much more tight-knit student body (because everyone lives close to each other and typically knows no one in Bologna upon arrival, whereas in DC people live throughout the city/suburbs and many have their own pre-established social lives); European perspective on international affairs; better language instruction; opportunity to travel in Europe for both academic purposes and pleasure, as well as career trips; cost-of-living significantly lower than DC so even including extra traveling you might want to do/flights to and from the US, I easily spent 10-20% less money during my year in BO
Bologna cons: less class selection, especially in areas like finance/quant and Asia-focused courses, etc.; fewer internship opportunities (which again can be viewed as a positive if you want to focus on academics for a year); a slightly more "immature" feel to it (younger student body, a lot of partying on weekends)
DC pros: more class selection, especially in terms of quant; more internship opportunities; more "big name" faculty (although I find this better for bragging purposes rather than actual quality of instruction - I actually typically found "practioners" to run the WORST classes by far for so many reasons...); more speakers/conferences; more opportunities to network in field; more "mature" feel to it (student body is a bit older)
DC cons: I found non-quant DC courses to be less academically rigorous than Bologna; if you don't go to Bologna first and aren't super social/involved on campus it's quite a bit harder to make friends in DC; very expensive to live in DC which can be demoralizing; American-style language instruction (read: low standards)
In terms of the DC vibe, I think it's overall quite collegial and people can make friends if that's what they want, but much less of a bubble than Bologna was as people often have their own lives in the District and some students just come in for class and then leave. But it's definitely not a commuter vibe like GW or AU where most students are working full-time and then cramming in night classes. And if you want to be involved, however, there are a million student groups, publications, clubs, etc. and some departments are very tight-knit
SAIS community/job prospects
The SAIS community is second-to-none in that the school fosters a lot of SAIS pride/community spirit on a level I never experienced in my somewhat larger undergrad institution. The SAIS network is real and helped me to get a pretty prestigious internship while in DC, which was very useful when applying for jobs (where I also work with a few SAISers, although they weren't hiring managers).
Job prospects are good overall, but your mileage may vary depending on your background and what you're looking for. I found my full-time job in late summer, and it's a position that I truly love and that pays slightly above the average salary that SAIS published in its career outcomes, so I'm certainly happy and feel it was 100% worth it!
The vast majority of my friends had full-time gigs by early fall. The ones who have struggled a bit more typically fall into one or more of the following categories: non-Americans who had trouble finding employers to sponsor them (although many of these people end up going for jobs at World Bank/IMF/IDB etc. where they can get diplomatic visas); people with little-to-no work experience (some of them have to take slightly lower-level or lower-paid gigs than they had envisioned); people with unrealistic expectations of what they can reasonably get based on their academic backgrounds/previous work experience (numbers 2 and 3 overlap a lot). 
I think it's also important to think about the kind of job you want, the potential salary, and what kind of loan burden you may have. For example, I have some friends who work in development and haven't cracked 50k, which is extremely hard to live on in DC if you have any kind of debt and don't want to live with 5 roommates into your 30s. But I have friends who've gone into consulting or done more quant-y jobs making in the 80s and 90s, which obviously is more than comfortable. So I guess what I'm saying is that average outcomes/salaries can be misleading.
 
I'm working from home today so I'll save my response for loveglove for a little bit later!
 
 

People here are very, very social on the whole. It's one of the defining characteristics of the Bologna campus, for better or worse. A lot of friendship forming happens during preterm, when there are lots of parties, during weekend trips, via the many happy hours and events we have around campus, and of course via classes/concentrations. The fact that we are somewhat socially isolated here in Bologna (few of us speak much Italian) only increases the social cohesion. 
 
Here at SAIS, security studies is called Strategic Studies (or "strat"), and it's one of the strongest concentrations at the school. The Bologna strat professor is kind of a legend around campus, and the course offerings are quite solid. I know of a number of strat people doing internships with the Defense Dept., State, various security contractors, etc. all obtained from Bologna. The advantage with federal jobs is that they expect to be hiring from all over the country, so it doesn't make much of a difference to them if you're in Italy or Arizona. Overall, people seem to love it - I know a number of people who have switched into strat from various other concentrations here because it is considered so solid. 

I didn't have to take the online econ courses, but I did take micro during preterm along with survival Italian (which is the most common pre-term choice). The thing that makes preterm difficult is how fast it goes, but it is also pass/fail, graded on a curve, so you have to screw up pretty badly not to get through it. There were TAs during preterm - one was a PhD econ student at the University of Bologna, and the other was a young Stats professor at SAIS who I believe has a PhD in math or is working on one...There are also TAs during the regular year, although they are often fellow master's students who did well in the course the previous semester (or who waved out of the course). The TAs have weekly review sessions and office hours. The professors have weekly office hours, and occasional review sessions. Like any university, some professors are known as being better teachers than others, but all (in my experience) have been very accessible. While the econ courses are challenging, I personally think they're worth it because they really help you understand the rationale behind so much policy-making at the international level.