econister

If you actually believed this, wouldn't you still encourage others to share and pretend to cooperate, or at least stay quiet? If you're going to be selfish, you may as well be a freerider...

Does anyone know if SAIS is sending out acceptance packages by mail? Has anyone recieved this yet? I have some questions to ask them about $ (what else?), but don't want to bother if I'll be getting more info soon anyway.

Schools Applied To: SAIS (MA), SIPA (MIA), KSG (MPP), WWS (MPA) Schools Admitted To: SAIS, SIPA Schools Rejected From: KSG, WWS Undergraduate institution: UCLA Undergraduate GPA: 3.8, lots of research and involvement in professors' work, okay but not great math scores Undergraduate Major: Economics GRE Quantitative Score: 770 GRE Verbal Score: 720 GRE AW Score: 4.5 Years Out of Undergrad (if applicable): 1 Years of Work Experience: 2 Describe Relevant Work Experience: California government -- policy development work, but nothing particularly glamorous Strength of SOP (be honest, describe the process, etc): My WWS and KSG SOPs weren't very focused, but who knows how much that affected me, since both of these applications were long shots anyway. SAIS and SIPA were better -- both focused on topics I had spent my undergrad working on and am passionate about. Strength of LOR's (be honest, describe the process, etc): A mix of professional and academic references, all of whom I have worked closely with and I'm sure were very positive. Other: Intermediate Spanish (improving this will be my summer project), years of volunteering and community involvement

Technically speaking, an investment is worthwhile if it produces an income stream exceeding the interest rate. Of course, no one wants to spend the rest of their lives paying off a loan. ** Bonus points for calculating the opportunity cost of quitting your job and returning to school.

The email linked to the financial aid site.

Just got an email on funding -- an $8k fellowship. Glad to hear it, but I don't know if that will make much of a difference...

Come on, IR Dude, I just checked this thread because I thought you were announcing that you got your results

Thanks, I just realized this is good news... I really don't know much about SIPA, I applied as an afterthought and because it didn't need much extra effort. I guess I'll have to read up on it now, though! And I wouldn't be too worried if I were you -- I don't see how they could take so much longer just to reject an application.

Just got the email -- in without funding. A little anticlimactic.

Still waiting as well. Today's blog post also said the delay wasn't a reason to panic. While that almost certainly doesn't mean anything, I'm going to take it as a good sign.

In! Finally some good news. I have been second-guessing my concentration choice, though -- anyone know how flexible SAIS is on this?

Same. Congrats to all who got in!

Agreed, wb2un. It looks like their admit rate is much lower than usual (maybe a result of the Robertson lawsuit settlement?), so it may be time to start preparing for bad news.

Same here. I've just accepted that I won't get much done today and will probably have to stay late to make up for it...

Right, I'm sure applying directly out of undergrad without a big name scholarship is tough. I was just surprised that the aditted students with 2,3,4,5+ years of experience were roughly proportional to profiles in the applicant pool. Hopefully we won't have to stress over historical statistics for much longer, though.

A good way to kill some time if you haven't read through it yet: http://wws.princeton.edu/grad-viewbook/index.html It looks like WWS doesn't put as much emphasis on years of work experience as I had thought, but grades seem important -- applicants with GPAs above 3.7 have about a 20% chance of being accepted.

. . . of course, that's 10% of admitted students, so even double that would only leave the remaining 40% of us with a 1/5 shot or so

Glad to see I'm not the only one doing the math on SIPA's prolonged silence... On the one hand, there have to be more rejections and waitlistings to come. On the other hand, the admissions blog said that the school offers twice as much in funding as there is money available (in anticipation of turned-down offers), so maybe even more than 10% are in for an offer?