GAPeachyKeen

I just submitted my enrollment deposit. It's official! 

I just submitted my enrollment deposit. It's official! 

I've had an opportunity to chat with several current students at Harvard U who are parents. I've included some of their recommendations below:
Cities near Cambridge that are cheaper and have good schools Arlington, MA (<20 mins away) Somerville, MA (<15 mins away) Watertown, MA ( <20 mins away) Affordable Childcare options Daycare cooperatives like Bigelow Cooperative Daycare Center Playgroup coops  Best campus-affiliated apartments for families Peabody Terrace Botanic Gardens  Sorry that this list is so short. I'll continue to send updates as I learn more. 

I am not a parent, but work in Cambridge and have many colleagues who have young families. Can confirm all those cities are great.  I also live in North Cambridge, which is cheaper than Harvard Square Cambridge, bikeable, quiet, and has some great parks and open spaces.  
I have known several folks who do the commute from Jamaica Plain, a neighborhood quite popular for young families -- it's about a 45-minute ride on the train with a transfer at Downtown Crossing.  I have also heard many folks highly praise Peabody Terrace for their great daycare.
I would add Shaler Lane, Holden Green, and Soldiers Field Park to the list of family-friendly Harvard apartments. I wouldn't say any of the Harvard apartments are NOT family friendly -- just that these spaces are known to have lots of families in them.

I was watching this video touring the HGSE library, and just thought it was cool that there are "parent rooms" in the library where you can bring your child and there is a little bean bag/kid library area next to a study space in a private room for parents!
 
 

Feel better!
And my notes are definitely biased based on my own attitude and feeling there, but I'm glad they were inspirational!

I've had an opportunity to chat with several current students at Harvard U who are parents. I've included some of their recommendations below:
Cities near Cambridge that are cheaper and have good schools Arlington, MA (<20 mins away) Somerville, MA (<15 mins away) Watertown, MA ( <20 mins away) Affordable Childcare options Daycare cooperatives like Bigelow Cooperative Daycare Center Playgroup coops  Best campus-affiliated apartments for families Peabody Terrace Botanic Gardens  Sorry that this list is so short. I'll continue to send updates as I learn more. 

One friend had a teenage son, another had a daughter an elementary, and the other a toddler. I will ask them about childcare and schooling.

Thank you for starting this thread. I'm still waiting for the financial aid package before making my decision. But if I do come, I'll be coming with my family. I'm sure this thread will be very useful.
 

Thanks for starting this thread.  I was accepted to the EPM program as well and I am anxiously awaiting financial aid information (but, I intend to attend regardless).  I will be heading to MA with my boyfriend and son.  Looking forward to connecting with other student-parents.

Hi All! I've started a new thread for those who've been accepted and will be parents while completing a program at HGSE. Feel free to forward this thread to others who might be interested. 
 

Me too! We are about 25 mins away from the time it seemed to have been sent out last year (according to some admitted students on other forums) - 4:20PM.
This is turning into a freak out forum. Haha. 

You are strong, my friend. I still have my heart set on today - I'm just hoping it's not too late into the evening. My body is already exhausted from the anxiety and it's only 3:30PM.

Posted as a link. There was a highlighted note that said "A change has been updated on the status of your application" and then you clicked it and it linked to the acceptance page. 

This is the emotional roller coaster that I just went through while/after reading your message.lol

Haha, sorry for that guys! I just thought a little humor might help you relax...  I don't think calls will go out today, but that really depends on the program. Each program organizes how they reach out to admitted students (after they get the acceptance email) individually. Some programs don't even do phoneathons and the program director calls you instead.

This is the emotional roller coaster that I just went through while/after reading your message.lol

Just a few hours left! Can't believe it's already been two full months since we submitted our applications. Now, the worst thing would be if acceptances and rejections didn't get sent out today. Or even if they didn't get sent at 3PM and we're all on our e-mails like: 

Absolutely. Time will go by much faster than you think though; we'll know our application status before you know it. Can you believe that it's already March 4th? 

I went through the last two years of HGSE threads and compiled profiles of people who were admitted. Enjoy!

Now for PhD applicants, I've noticed most of their scores are very very high, particularly for quant, which makes sense if you're going to be analyzing a lot of data. I was happy to see the my scores are right where the averages are for EdLD because I was afraid if I retook the GRE, my AWA would go down and I thought holding that was more important than raising the other two. I think per program they probably care as well. For example, Technology in Ed might care more about quant than Arts in Ed. 
As long as your GREs are about average, I wouldn't worry about it. It would have to be abysmal to keep you out. 

I think your experience and recs and undergrad will have to make up for the GRE in this case.  I was looking back at data of admitted students to HGSE and there were NONE admitted with an AW score below 4, but virtually everyone had a 4.5  While I don't think HGSE cares that much about the verbal/quant (yay in your case!), they did say in an info session that they take the AW score very seriously because it most accurately reflects the success of students in the program (due to it being writing intensive).  

I have some recruitment experience with an organization that receives 1000s of applications every year. We have lots of man power for application reviews, but still used an automated system to sift out apps that didn't meet the minimum requirement. I can definitely see this being the case for such a highly sought after grad school like Harvard's. 

Hi there! 
My stats are as follows (using the order of importance of app materials that you suggested):
SOP: succinct and decent, but could have been much better. (this may actually get me rejected)  LOR: 1 professor (department chair), 2 former managers (one of whom is a current student in the EPM program at HGSE) Undergrad Info: Spelman College; 3.64 GPA (magna cum laude); departmental honors for senior thesis Resume: completed competitive, 2-year service program; currently working for an education reform non-profit (nearly 5 years with ed reform non-profit in total) GRE: verbal: awful quantitative: embarrassing AW:4 (I'm a mother of two small children who weren't interested in my need for study time.) I'm not sure how to feel about my chances for admittance, but applying was definitely worth the try. 
 

I have some recruitment experience with an organization that receives 1000s of applications every year. We have lots of man power for application reviews, but still used an automated system to sift out apps that didn't meet the minimum requirement. I can definitely see this being the case for such a highly sought after grad school like Harvard's.