kooyah

Congrats to fellow admits! I received the Dean's Merit half-tuition scholarship, but I'm wondering when our federal financial aid will be considered (for those who filled out the FAFSA). Has anybody heard back from the school? On USConnect in the finaid portal it reads (in review) and has been that way for a couple weeks now. I'm hoping for additional aid to complement the scholarship! Otherwise, USC would incur a lot of debt I'm worried about as previous posters have mentioned.

I'm pretty torn myself. However, I personally found this career resource guide EXTREMELY helpful in guiding my thoughts and reasoning for internships/types of jobs I want to pursue/focus my classes on at which ever school I ultimately end up going. HKS's career services put together this list of splendid PDF's detailing what it means to work at places such as Capitol Hill or NGO's and industries like Consulting. It also details WHO comes to career days and how many HKS students they take in each year along with additional resources for further research/prep. Definitely worth a look in my opinion. Not sure why I didn't come across it sooner! It's far from exhaustive, but provides a great overview into fields a majority of people seem to enter post MPP. The link goes to HKS's website where they have the different pdf's listed with a brief description. http://www.hks.harvard.edu/degrees/office-of-career-advancement/alumni/explore-what-s-next-in-your-career/professional-areas-of-interest

It looks like Goldman releases admissions on the first Friday of March according to the last few years. So, I will be checking my email compulsively Friday and TRY to be calm until then (easier said than done!). I consider both HKS and Goldman to be my dream schools. I'll be ecstatic if either accept me! As far as stats go, my GRE scores were in the top quarter for reading and writing and pretty average for math. I was an Economics major and PPIA Fellow that excelled in quant so I hope my track record offsets my GRE math. I have demonstrated leadership in a number of diverse capacities, have interned for a big think tank in DC, and have been working in the public sector domestically and internationally for 3 years. I'm looking to enter a multilateral organization or global consulting firm (public division) with interest in education, economic policy, and developing economies. My ideal work environment features being able to work on education/economic/developing economies policy projects and being able to get involved with site implementation (travel). If anyone has any ideas for this rough criteria, please chime in on possible organizations to look into! Greatly appreciated. Funding aside, the community feel, small cohort, fast response time and availability of faculty and alumni, weather, diversity, music venues/cultural festivals, flexibility of coursework, the 48 hours policy project, mandatory internship, and the APA real-world client project during the final MPP term are all huge draws for me to UC Berkeley since I feel like I'd enjoy both Goldman and my life outside of it. I'm also a fan of Berkeley athletics and the greater Bay Area sports teams. Plus, the proximity to family in SoCal and Valley are great having been away for awhile. The opportunity to GSI to greatly reduce/eliminate tuition costs and make some pocket change is also a huge draw since, from what I gather, GSI's (Teaching assistant positions) are plentiful relative to many other schools. However, the main drawback for me is Berkeley's international presence since I'm considering working for multilateral organizations or global consulting firms in their public divisions. However, I'm thinking Berkeley has a strong enough alumni base to leverage such opportunities, but that'll be a question for Goldman's employment office and personal networking! On the other hand, HKS has an unmatched employment resources, network, excellent internship/work placement, greater density of international classmates that can make for a great global network, a constant stream of big names coming in for talks, and the opportunity to take classes at HBS (I'm also interested in social entrepreneurship). The main drawbacks for me would be the relative lack of diversity compared to Berkeley and the freezing cold snow (temperatures less than Mars?). I'm a California native and having experienced two Far Eastern winters, I now know that I do NOT thrive extended periods of time in cold weather. And personally, I am in no way a fan of the Boston Celtics and New England Patriots (fair weather about the Red Sox) and I KNOW Boston folk love to talk sports. But in a way, it would be fun arguing. Last, funding is a make or break issue in and of itself and doesn't offer the same generous fee remissions Berkeley does. With all that said, I'm ever so slightly tilted towards Berkeley. But alas, gotta see what admissions says! Good luck everyone!