sparks1

@RCtheSS I think we actually met at UT Austin...we took a tour together and let's just say I was less than impressed with the campus diversity Congrats to you too!! I lived in Chicago for a couple of summers and that city is amazing.

Following the posting of the inimitable @RCtheSS in the hopes that my information brings help to future applicants! Previous Schools (Name, type, or tier): Grinnell College Previous Degrees and GPAs: B.A. History, B.A. French; 3.75 Cumulative GPAGRE Scores (Verbal/Quantitative/Analytical Writing): 163 V/154 Q/4.5 AWPrevious Work Experience (Years, Type): 3 years teaching high school English in a Title I school. I was a TFA'er who stayed in my placement school.Math/Econ Background: Literally zero. Took AP Stat senior year in High School but that was my last math class and I've taken 0 Econ classes.Foreign Language Background (if applicable to your program): I speak French and a little bit of Spanish. Intended Field of Study in Grad School: Public Policy Long Term Professional Goals: Interested in work that strengthens poor communities ideally through social policies involving children and families. Schools Applied to & Results: I applied to 11 schools. It was definitely too many, but I really doubted my lack of quant/econ background and just wasn't sure what would happen, even though I was accepted everywhere but Princeton. Princeton WWS / rejected UT-Austin / full ride UMichigan / 1/3 tuition NYU / no funding UChicago /no funding Johns Hopkins / 2/3 tuition Brandeis / 2/3 tuition GW / 10k/yr American / 10k/yr Maryland / 2/3 tuition UPenn / 1/2 tuition Ultimate Decision & Why: Michigan. In the end it came down to Michigan and Hopkins, two totally different programs. I went with Michigan ultimately because of the alumni network, the curriculum, and the professors, even though I was super impressed with the intimate nature of the Hopkins MPP and the faculty there as well. While my "gut" feeling was maybe towards Hopkins, I really felt like Michigan's program will be more beneficial to my future job prospects, and ultimately I'm going to grad school to change career paths. Advice for Future Applicants: As I said, I definitely did waay more applications than necessary (although the Americorps fee waiver made that possible). If I had to do it again I would have applied to max 6 schools and I would have done more research pre-applying on which programs actually supported my research interests. Biggest takeaway was that a strong overall application can and will make up for lack of quant experience. Also...don't stress too much. You're going to get a great education wherever you go.

@mfmpp glad to know I'm not the only one struggling with this! I was at the admit weekend before yours and as you said, I was just pleasantly surprised by the general small feeling of Hopkins and the options for working with professors there are certainly amazing. It is a little weird that the name Bloomberg doesn't carry as far in the Policy sector. I don't know if this will help you with your answer but I have seen that with the graduate statistics coming out of Berkeley like 75% stay in the Bay Area? I'm not sure if that's where you want to be or if that's where you're from but it does seem like graduating from Hopkins may give you more options for geographic viability. Just a thought.

Hi guys - Needing advice close to the deadline! Desperately trying to decide between Michigan and Hopkins for my MPP. All money issues aside (both offered ~2/3 tuition), I am having trouble distinguishing which program is the best fit. Seems to me that while the Hopkins MPP is a close-knit, friendly bunch due to the class sizes and size of the overall program (30 people TOTAL) I may have a harder time leveraging that degree seeing as it's such a small group. Personalized emails from the Dean make it hard to turn down, though. Undoubtedly the Bloomberg School is well known for Public Health, I'm just not sure how far that extends over Policy. On the other hand you have Michigan - the famous Wolverine network is EVERYWHERE and the graduate career services people realllyyy seem to know what they're doing. I guess I'm just curious about how far "name brand" extends and what that even means. What is the value added by future employers of "Michigan Ford" vs. "Hopkins Bloomberg"? Would greatly appreciate any and all thoughts!

Anyone get any info on $$? I'm assuming since there was no mention on my letter I didn't get any, but just curious.

What terrible mobile formatting for an acceptance letter! Gmail is blocked on my work computer so that video just BLARED incredibly loudly while my students were testing. Oops

Anyone heard from Fels? Still waiting on them!

Eek I'm excited I will see you all there!

@quietman I've gotta be honest you sound like an awesome applicant and if I were head of an admissions committee I would for sure admit you. I'm mostly just here to chime in that my quant score was 154 (oops) and while I got rejected from WWS I'm in at LBJ, Ford, GW, Hopkins, American, etc. and got money everywhere I applied. I think you happened to pick very quant-reliant programs and increasing that score (or taking a calc class online, etc) would really bolster your score for next year.

@mfmpp I'm really interested in viewing policy problems (specifically poverty and everything that comes with) as public health issues and I think Hopkins is the ideal place to do that. The ability to be so interdisciplinary seems awesome, not to mention the status of being in the Public Health school (although who knows if that carries over to the public policy people)...seems like most of the interest in this forum is on their IR school (SAIS?) and I just can't seem to like mentally "rank" them with the other programs I'm looking at. Wasn't all THAT keen on them though until they offered me like 2/3 tuition soooo needless to say my interest was piqued!

@mfmpp they are one of my top 5 but I just don't know all that much about them in terms of prestige and fit. Hoping someone on here can answer our questions!

I heard from American's funding people on Friday!

I heard about funding on Friday morning. I'd suggest contacting them by now if you haven't heard...hopefully that helps!