JWalters

Lots of questions here, and I'll respond to a few. Your first choice to me seems to be either A: Finding a perfect program that meets all of your specific interests or B: Finding a program that gives you the freedom to design your own thing. You know a program is a good fit if you visit and like the feel AND the kinds of things people do when they leave the program match your aspirations. Master's programs have a lot of variability, I'd say. Some schools are more theoretical, some are more practice-based. Within each school, different cohorts have different profiles, as well. There may be great schools that are generally a bad fit for your interests, but have a program or professor who'd be perfect. How many to apply to? Find your top 2-3 choices. Commit yourself writing those essays. If you can adapt that work to complete applications for 2-3 more programs that interest you, then do it. The only constraining factors are money for the applications, and time for completing them. There are regularly people who get in to one top program and not another. When you apply to a few extra programs, it just keeps your options more open. Maybe you'll be a " I'm going to this dream school.. or nothing!" kind of person, but I've seen how that can be very challenging. What you believe you want around app time and what you actually want when it's time to decide may not be as similar as you think.

Increasingly, the kind of information you're looking for is becoming hard to find. Stanford, for example, is releasing less of this information, because the numbers are so grim. It's not good for business (or equity) for students to get the feeling that almost no one gets in. I did the Master's program at HGSE, and I would say there were a ton of Ed. Policy students. I heard that during my year, many of the PhD applicants who were denied and pushed to a Master's elected for Ed. Policy. That would make things more competitive. I don't think you're going to find anything official, unfortunately. I don't know you, but the advice I've been given was just to put together the absolute best application package you can, and apply to 3-5 programs. Just my two cents. Best of luck.

My experience with HGSE is that it's a multiplier. I had about 7 years of work experience going in, and I've got a number of really great opportunities based on my track record combined with the HGSE learning and degree. That being said, some of my classmates who didn't have work experience are currently in teaching positions making limited income, and they probably could have gotten similar jobs without HGSE. I've been doing consulting work for a few different companies and I'll be starting a doctoral program at a Top-5 ivy-league program in the fall so it's opened a number of doors for me. If your field and career interests are highly-specialized, HGSE may be a bigger help to you with limited experience.

Decisions available now, how'd it go?

Doctoral Applicants, are you expecting to hear this coming week?

Anyone else on the waitlist? I saw one person on the results page.

decisions in the Portal, check it

Your chances are diminished if no professor has interviewed you up to this point, in most cases.

I've been in pretty consistent contact with a few professors who reached out to me about two weeks ago and can shed a little light on what's happening right now. One of them told me that the process is: from the initial hundreds of applications, about 30-45 (I can't remember the number precisely) get a full faculty review. In that full faculty review, each application gets read by a minimum of two faculty members. If they are interested in a person, they'll set up a phone call. If an applicant specifically mentioned a faculty member, that's brought to the faculty member's attention. One professor who called me was one of the two that I mentioned in my application. In other cases, faculty members call whoever's research interests they are drawn to. This was the case with the other professor who called me. One of the professors emailed me for a conversation the next day and told me that she was in a bit of a rush because she wanted to talk before some kind of... faculty meeting about candidates that week. We talked Monday the 28th, so I'm assuming whatever event she was talking about was Friday the 1st. The other professor reached out the next day, so I had two phone interviews that week. They've put me in contact with a few current students over the past week and have been quite thorough in answering my questions. That all feels positive, but one of them was very careful not to give me the impression that I was in, and made clear they were talking to a number of candidates. Any questions you have, let me know. Best of luck to all. * I should note that all my information is only relevant to CTE

To frame this response I'll note that I'm an HGSE master's graduate (L&L), and currently applying for doctoral programs. From the minute you arrive on the HGSE campus, professors and staff tell you how the year flies by. It's true. Looking back, I can't imagine completing meaningful research in the context of the master's program. I graduated having written approximately 12 papers of 3-5 pages, and about 8 papers from 10-15 pages. In the doctoral applications that required a writing sample, I used a few of the longer papers that I wrote, and they fit within the length requirement. At Harvard, in my experience, many of my classmates were involved in the full-fledged research projects of faculty members. These folks could begin doctoral study with a clear idea of what full-scale research projects require, and what their interests might be. The primary talking point in these doctoral finalist interviews has been, " What do you want to study?", and I don't think that answering that question well requires that you've written a thesis or done research in your Master's program.

This is an important post. Now as I'm thinking back to my time at HGSE, I can recall a few doctoral students explaining this, how they'd earned their master's degrees within the context of their doctoral work.

Curriculum design, language & literacy.. mostly things under the CTE banner.

A second Stanford Professor reached out to me for a Doctoral interview today.

My POI from Stanford GSE contacted me today, CTE/ LLE applicant.

Anything that is required for all applicants does not tell you much about how likely you are to be accepted. Your focus should be going to this event, and making a good impression. In my experience, it doesn't hurt to e-mail a few professors with whom you'd like to work or study and let them know you'll be around. Maybe try to meet with them for 15min or so.