fadeindreams

Well hell...why don't I work there then?!? Lame. All the same, Spring Break shouldn't impact the process for a professional program at a world class university.

I don't think that Spring Break has any impact on when they'll do their admissions decisions. The admissions office at a major public university will not close for the entirety of Spring Break. No way. I work in such an office and we are only getting the Friday off of Spring Break.

If they weren't lying to their current students in that email you received that would make admissions decisions available today. It's not 5:00 EST yet so I'll keep believing this is true. Lucky me that I am so busy today! *Not too busy to post this, obviously. It is nearly lunch after all.

Received a decision at 2:42 est. Denied. Good luck to everyone else. I'm actually neither upset or offended. I would have been an excellent student there and an even better alumnus. Their loss, really. I wonder if it's because the third word in my essay was missing one out of two letters? Nah, it's probably my undergraduate GPA. That's rather myopic considering how much relevant professional experience I have.

What sort of job prospects do you have after obtaining the degree? Seems that the two would lead to very different careers... I would take the debt. Really $45k is manageable and not really that significant if you get a good job out of it, academia or otherwise.

You can check your credit for free at www.creditkarma.com. It's reputable.

Honestly, I have a very low opinion of online programs. As for programs with low residency requirements, I didn't run into any that seemed to offer the level of academic rigor I was looking for. For low cost programs you might check out some of the major publics that have offerings which are ranked in the top 50 of USNWR. Position on the list doesn't seem as important as simply having a presence on the list. A highly ranked program with a low relative cost would be University of Washington's Evans School. Call up programs you are interested in and see if you can speak with a recruiter.

Could you tell me more about this? This is the first time I've heard of it. I went into the application process with Evans being my absolute top choice. I ended up applying there, Ford at Michigan, SIPA and Korbel. I am very anxiously awaiting their decision because at this point I've gotten accepted to Korbel and have yet to hear back from SIPA or Ford. Evans, from researching as much as I could and speaking with a recruiter or two from there, seemed like the best fit for me academically. The results search shows that last year the decisions went out in the 4th week of March (around the 25th). We probably have at least another two weeks of waiting. I would be pleasantly surprised if they sped it up a bit this year and got the decisions out in the next week.

@ Kawa'a - I was recently admitted into DU's Korbel school with a 2.97 overall GPA (>3.6 on the last 60). Some schools, even tier 1 schools such as DU, are willing to look at a complete candidate. You should also consider yourself more competitive due to your years of professional experience. Be able to articulate your goals and how the school you are applying to can help you reach those goals. Be specific. You should be aware, however, that funding is very difficult to come by for a student without high GPA stats. Programs may be willing to admit you but I've found that funding is another story entirely. DU, for example, has automatic scholarships that require a minimum GPA. They don't seem to have any discretionary funding that can be given to qualified candidates that did poorly in their undergraduate course. Nor do they have any opportunities for securing funding for your second year based on the performance of the first. It's a shame because honestly, despite my excitement of being admitted, I am having a hard time considering DU as an option when I will not be able to secure funding no matter how much I prove myself.

Actually if you read their admissions FAQ it says that if you submit your app for the MDP and are not accepted that you will automatically be considered for the MA. Congrats on getting into Korbel. Maybe I'll see you there in the Fall. Has anyone received a REJECTION yet from Korbel? I doubt that they've sent any out since they are rolling admissions. More likely that you would get a rejection in late March/early April. I'm wondering how competitive Korbel admissions actually are. At this point, it doesn't seem that they are very competitive. Good luck on SIPA. I am still waiting to hear from them too.

My wife and I applied to 4 programs. They are Columbia University - SIPA, University of Denver - Korbel, University of Washington - Evans and University of Michigan - Ford. Geography didn't affect our choices, really. We whittled down our lists from about 15 to the 4 we applied to. I am seeking more of a quant/econ heavy program; she is seeking more of an administration/management program. We've both been accepted into Korbel. SIPA put her on the wait-list and has not issued a decision to me yet. Obviously we're both waiting for Evans and Ford. I can't say we had a consensus top choice but rather that we are excited about the prospect of attending any of the four we applied to. For some reason I really dread this Ford decision. I was, well still am, excited when we heard back from Denver that we both were accepted. Still, I would like to have a choice when it comes down to April.

Grad recruitment and admissions isn't as mythical or magical as you guys might like to think. Often the recruitment of students is pretty disjointed and disorganized at best. Even more often, particularly at public institutions, recruitment is so removed from admissions that you'd think that they had paid an outside firm to solicit prospective students. It just seems that many posters on this forum think that these universities have their whole process down to some sort of refined art. Very few, if any, do. I have seen potential purchase agreements (name buys) for ETS tests (GRE, TOEFL, etc). It costs more money to buy names with specific or multiple associated traits. The school that sent you a Chemistry mailer probably just bought the names of students with a quant score above a certain threshold. It would have cost them substantially more to also request that the students names that they bought were strictly interested in a given subject area (i.e. Chemistry). Hopefully the mailer you received at least addressed Chemistry as a profession so as that to drum up interest from students who had never before considered the field.

If you are wait-listed it essentially means that they liked you as a candidate but not more than the people they outright offered admission to and that you would be admitted if someone who was initially accepted into the program declined the offer. You may be ranked on the wait-list or they may reevaluate every time a new space opens up. You are not rejected, at least, though you might be in for a wait as long as July or August. You will likely be left out of any discussion for funding. I don't think being wait-listed is much consolation unless you only applied to only one school or the school that has wait-listed you is your absolute first choice. Either way, be prepared to wait...as the name implies. In my case, if I were to be wait-listed I'd immediately tell them "thanks, but no thanks" as I have a favorable offer already. I would love to go to Ford, don't get me wrong, I am just not in the position to wait. I need to start settling things sooner than I'd like since my wife and I are both looking for a program together. It'd also be an easy decision for me if they only accepted one of us. I digress, wait-listing isn't fun for anyone. It's like purgatory. Seriously.

@Dagger - How is Ford? I mean, do you feel you've gotten a great experience there (both academically and otherwise)? How are you funded? Do you know of TA/RA opportunities and how common they are? Also, do you take advantage of the free language classes? How does that work? Do they just let you audit for free?

Thanks Dagger. Good information! @Sushitooth - Ford has a wait list. So, no, it won't necessairly be a clearcut answer.

According to whom? The last two years, according to the results search, they went out around the middle of the second week of March. For some reason I'm scared about the impending results from Ford when I would never imagined I would be when I applied. I guess it's because I've only received one acceptance out of 4 so far. SIPA didn't tell me anything last week regarding my status. Hopefully, they'll give me a clear 'yes' or 'no'. The last thing I want is a longer wait.

They posted pretty much the same exact thing today, March 8th: http://rtl.lamp.columbia.edu/sites/sipa/. Maybe you can find some key differences in the two posts to glean more information. I am still in absolute SIPA purgatory. I haven't received any sort of decision yet. My wife, however, was put on the waitlist on Friday. *sigh*

Day 2 seems to be going out right now (~4:00 CST). Nothing for me yet. Yay?

When you get a decision, please say which program the decision was for (MIA, MPA - PEPM, et al.)

Take the job. If you are admitted and receive what you feel is a better offer from a college then don't feel bad taking it. It's all speculative at this point. If you're unemployed clearly you have to take the job.

Last year it looks to have started around the 11th in earnest. I guess it's SIPA this Friday (rumor; assumed) and then Ford next week for me. Then all I'll be waiting on is Evans but last year they didn't get theirs out until late, late March.

India? Really? Interesting...Thailand is also cheap but it's not so darn stressful to travel around. India is a mind-opening place but if you want somewhere to relax for a couple of months I'd suggest south Thailand (not Phuket, try further south like Krabi). South America is also cheap and fun. Chile is wonderful! You could even get some volunteer hours in helping them with earthquake clean-up. Valparaiso, Concepción, Santiago and the Patagonia. You could even go to other countries in the region but base yourself in Chile.

I agree with those of you above who said they are just hedging. Reading that admissions blog post yesterday made me think that the decisions would be the end of this week. Good luck. I am expecting my first rejection but I'm okay with that.

It's funny. Until I read your post, I would have thought I was in a pretty unique situation. I am in almost the exact same situation you are in. I work for a major public university. They have already implemented a hiring freeze that is scheduled to expire on July 1st. I am having an awful time deciding when I should tell my boss. I've already received one acceptance, to a school that I would love to go to (let's call it my second choice), and I really see the probability of me staying in this job as effectively zero. I don't, however, want to be a "lame duck" and I do like my job. I think about this situation daily for what seems like hours at a time... Adding to my difficulties in choosing when to give my notice are that my wife also works for the same university and under the same reporting structure that I do and she has also gotten the same acceptance that I have, her boss and my boss are great friends that have worked together for 20+ years and she has already told her boss that she is leaving. I figure it's only a matter of time that my boss finds out from a secondary source. That would be way less than ideal. Also, I work in a non-classified position and I am only the second person in this position. I fear that if I leave they will not be able to fill the position; that they might lose the support for the position due to funding and a new dean coming in right when the hiring freeze will expire. Compounded with the fact that my job requires significant pre-planning for travel, I am completely at a loss as to when to tell my boss. Travel season for my job starts in September. Even if they hired a new person, that person would have to be trained before traveling. They'd lose out on Fall travel, the most important part of the cycle. *sigh* I figure I have two options, one very thoughtful but risky and one incredibly tactless. 1) I could tell my boss in the next few weeks that they will need to replace me in August. My boss could then plan ahead and maybe work something out where I stay on part-time to train or the new hire can come in concurrently. I do not see leaving earlier than August as an option for personal financial reasons (I am expecting my first child in June!! ). 2) I could give the typical 2 week notice in mid-August. I figure this is not the way to go because my boss will find out by then from another source and because that would make it impossible for them to hire before the travel season. I feel bad about leaving but I know that due to my personal situation that this is the best time for me to do so. I would not like to screw over my office. I guess #1 is pretty obvious.

When applying to Columbia of all places, I found that when I converted my SOP to PDF it had lost a letter in the third or fourth word of my first sentence. I'm a crappy writer to begin with but losing the letter 'y' out of 'my' is pretty embarrassing. That and I didn't notice until two weeks after I had submitted it. My GPA is a 2.97. I missed automatic funding to one of my universities by a mere 0.03 GPA. Automatic funding of $10k a year...That's gonna sting for awhile. My verbal GRE was in the 720 range on practice tests. I was super sick the week of my GRE so I went in EXHAUSTED for the test. The first section they gave me was a verbal section. Too bad it was the FAKE/normalization/experimental section. I hate you ETS. When I came to the last question and realized it was an experimental question type I almost cried. Surely I had at least a single tear. The realization that I had just performed so valiantly, exhaustion and all, on a non-scored section was super demoralizing. I figure I would have a 700+ on the FAKE section. I ended up with a 560 because when the second one came around as the last section I just didn't want to be there anymore. Did I mention that I hate ETS? Thanks for changing the test to something more practical after I took your dumb test. *ETS should be required to disclose the score on that section, I want to know so that I can hate them at an appropriate level...