Hello everyone,
Before I visited the LBJ School in Austin, I was pretty certain that I was going to attend. They are offering me in-state tuition + $14000 which covers tuition and gives me $4000 extra spending money. The LBJ School has a good reputation and Austin is a wonderful city. When I visited, everything was going well until we met with the Career Services Coordinator. When someone asked her what percentage of graduates have secured jobs upon graduation, she answered "around 50-60%." Isn't this number remarkably low? I heard from other attendees that even Maryland, which is ranked lower (but closer to DC), had much higher job placement numbers (more than 80%). Needless to say, my visit shook me a little.
I also attended a class and it seems to me that many of the policy courses will be Texas-centric. This makes sense, but I don't want to live in Texas in the future and have little stake in Texas policy. If I want to be in a place where I have more stake in the policy issues discussed in courses, it would probably make more sense for me to attend school in California (UCLA) or DC (American, GWU, Georgetown, Maryland). If I want to follow my dreams, I should go to Chicago (Harris) or New York (NYU). Initially I ruled out UCLA because its career services department is only a year old, but now I find myself considering the school again. I would get in-state tuition at UCLA. I don't want to take out loans to go to Harris, NYU, GWU, American, and Georgetown, so the one option I have in the East Coast/DC area is Maryland. Maryland is offering me in-state + all but $1000 of the tuition paid. Maryland, however, is the lowest ranked program I applied to.
Should I be worried about the low job placement rate at LBJ? Should I just go to LBJ like I originally planned or should I reassess everything? If you were in my situation, where would you go--LBJ, UCLA, or Maryland? Would you pick one of these programs or would you take out loans to go to a more prestigious East Coast school? PLEASE HELP ME!
ANY advice/thoughts will be GREATLY appreciated