gelatinskeleton

PROGRAM A!!!! For sure. What scares you most about Program A is that it sounds like it will kick your butt a little. That's awesome, because while yes you may have longer night studying in the library, if your goal is to be as good as you possible can be in this field, getting your butt kicked a bit is exactly what you need. It doesn't sound like you are afraid of working hard, but of failing. That means there is something really great on the line. And they wouldn't have let you in if you weren't capable of succeeding. Start giving yourself pep talks, find out what kind of support you need to succeed (friends? family? a dog? ice cream? a few days off the grid after finals?), and build up that confidence!! The best way to get rid of imposter syndrome is to embrace your success, not shoot yourself in the foot by limiting your possibilities.

You have time, take it again. I think you’ll regret not doing it if your results or the funding associated doesn’t turn out the way you wanted it to. It is totally doable to bring it up even just 5 points. While there are always exceptions, that quant score is much lower than average, enough that it will be a red flag. You do not need just a strong application to make up for that score, you need an exceptional one (I’m thinking of the perspective of top 10ish ranked policy schools). Maybe you have that, in which case an improved GRE score can only make it better and make you more competitive for fundng. Time is on your side though!! Good luck.

Also turning down HkS for GSPP....or UT Austin. Agh financial decisions

Hey everyone, has anybody been talking to current students or alumni and have discovered any information about Berkeley that they think would be helpful to share? I have to say, the alumni and students I have talked to are very convincing. They clearly love the program and respect their classmates to the upmost. I have also been assured over and over again that as a US student there are many work-study opportunities I could take on that would reduce the tuition burden. I was even told that they had never heard about somebody who wanted a position not get one.If this is true it definitely changes my calculus, as it makes Berkeley much more affordable.

I am in the same boat regarding full ride at LBJ, which I like, and no funding at GSPP, which I love. Are you attending admitted students day for either?

In for the MPP! So happy and praying for some good funding. Similar to @Damis, I got a bunch of Cs in quantitative courses in the middle of college and was convinced it would be my downfall. It probably was for Princeton, but it all worked out anyway

I don't know too much about Maxwell or Evans, but the upside of American is that being in DC truly is a huge advantage. So many international development orgs are housed there that I am sure you can make it worth your $$$ by getting a relevant internship part-time or over the summer, or at least going out there and meeting a ton of people working in your field. LBJ is a good choice financially (I believe it is cheaper than the others you are mentioning) and while the international dev sphere there might not be huge, it is definitely there, and the faculty seem dedicated and are really generous to students with their time. All the folks I know who went/go to LBJ are focused on international development. From what I remember, Evans is more focused on domestic policy. Since Seattle is expensive and I imagine that Evans is as well without merit aid, I would lean towards crossing that off your list.

If you want more money from school X, you should email them that you love their program but that you got a better offer from school Y (for this to work you actually do need a better offer from school Y, they will ask for proof). Ask them if they are able to increase your scholarship/financial aid package to make your attendance at school X more affordable.

Unpopular opinion but.....I haven't received an email so I think I'm out. Can everyone who was accepted please reject all your other awesome scholarship offers at other schools ASAP so that some of that $$$$$ trickles down please?? But for real congrats folks!

Yay congrats!!!!! Haven't heard either way yet, but this is somehow a lot more bearable to wait for now that I'm currently drawing up flight plans to visit other admitted students days But will still be hitting that refresh button constantly....

I've talked to some current students and this is what they have said about LBJ: Pros Awesome faculty who go out of their way to help students. They are at the top of their field, have great connections, and are a good mix of academic and practitioner backgrounds Austin is interesting and provides a lot of relevant internship and working opportunities, especially at the state capitol. A strong majority of students work while in school full-time and find it manageable. This allows you to gain experience and/or money at the same time without being too overwhelming. Extremely affordable (relative to other schools) Cons Very poor management and administration. The career and alumni services are extremely lacking. These aren't pros or cons depending on what you're interested in: Strong focus on domestic, state, local issues. Social policy (my area of interest) is well represented and prominent on campus. International development and relations in general are also present but less prominent, so you'll have to try harder if this is your area of focus. There are a lot of great on-campus research and projects going on in international dev though. A majority of students have work experience, but maybe around 2-3 years, and it brings in a diverse crew of interest areas and backgrounds. LBJ is especially good for students who have worked a bit, but who want to "break in" to the next level of their career, such as those looking to move their career to DC. They said that even though their focus is international development, which requires a bit more of hustling to make the most of the LBJ connections, they would not have done it any differently considering that the faculty are wonderful, they've had meaningful work and internship experiences at the same time, and they attended with great financial aid offers and little to no debt Very liberal with a stray Republican or two, but not Trump republicans @sally88 @diyadeb hope this is helpful to you all.

This is very helpful! From my limited loan experience, I agree with the 50k assessment. My ideal (besides 0) is <$30,000. Now I just have to keep in mind that I have to budget in tuition plus all the random fees, food, rent, expensive as hell textbooks, flights, transportation, etc and maybe just a little bit of beer money

I’ve also worked closely with amazing Berkeley folks (and to be fair Duke as well), it definitely biased me. But I am also weirdly biased with the LBJ school, a lot of my former professors who I really respect have strong ties there. I guess if I’m biased towards everything it cancels out and just makes me indecisive one of my concerns for both Berkeley and LBJ is that a lot of their career results (I think a majority) seem to be in state. Im not sure where I want to end up but I definitely want flexibility!

If it evens out your experience, I worked in development and knew folks who went to LBJ. They now live abroad working for some really interesting NGOs. However I do think that U Chicago and Berkeley as institutions have more formal ties to India, if this is a priority to you. Also, yes, it seems like the LBJ front office is a bit disorganized.

Yes! I am deciding between LBJ vs Michigan/Sanford/Goldman. There's no way at this point that I can attend the other schools at the current tuition rates they're offering me, especially when I realize that on top of that I'm going to have to afford rent and food and books somehow. But if I successfully negotiate with them, then it will be a tough call! I would be really interested to hear about your thoughts going forward on all of this Are you attending any admitted students days? Just in my personal network of people, which is mostly DC based, I knew a lot of people who went to Duke Sanford. I knew a couple that went to Goldman and a larger handful that went to LBJ. I also have been perusing alumni from those schools on LinkedIn and have found very comprable results re: cool jobs in the East Coast. Actually, the LBJ School grads seemed to have the most interesting jobs to me, although I think they had less work experience going into school than I did. This is obviously very piecemeal and subjective to my experience/people I know/career goals, but it does make me more convinced that any of them would be a good choice.

I had a dream that the scholarship committee made me watch 3 short indie films and then asked me condescending questions about my take on them. Then they went into a room to read my high school SAT essay and poetry (???) and then came out and told me I was a cliche and couldn’t write. I got snarky with them so they rejected me :/ Glad im not the only one having stress dreams haha

Ughhhh 2 days feels like 2 million

I'm a pretty indecisive person, and I'm curious how everyone else is approaching their decisions on what to accept or decline. What questions are you asking? What factors are most important to you? How are you getting your information (talking to current students, website, admitted students day, etc)? Obviously funding is extremely important, but I know that not everyone always goes with the cheapest option. How are you gauging whether higher costs are worth it? I know that debt vs payoff is always important in all fields, but I think it is especially important in public policy, which no one gets into thinking they're going to make big money. Here are some questions that I've been asking: How many students go on to be PMFs? How well do students know their professors? Are research opportunities accessible to grad students? What sectors are students employed in after graduating? How easy is it to take interesting electives in other departments? What do most students spend time on outside of the classroom? Is heavy extracurricular involvement common? Do most work part time? What are the alumni or career center services like? (Are there more specific questions I can ask about this?) How many years of professional experience are most students coming in with? What questions, facts, etc have helped you get a good sense of what a particular grad school is actually like? I'd love to hear from people currently in these programs or recently graduated about what you wish you would have asked before enrolling. I don't think these are particularly nuanced so it would be great to hear what questions you have asked that led to enlightening answers.

That's awesome!!! Way to go!

25% funding! I may fill out the form and apply for more funding. Ford would be a great match for me but a full ride at LBJ is hard to pass up.

Not so much in my opinion. You know how they say that you should never lend money to anyone unless you are ok with never seeing that money again? I think it applies here as well. Public service loan forgiveness is an AWESOME reward if you do end up working in public service for 10 years and everything goes according to plan, but you should not count on it. Every federal government employee that I have talked to about it has not qualified, but full disclosure, I've only talked to like 4 people about it. You still have to make payments for 10 years, which are arguably the most financially unstable years of your life. If you do income based repayment it may be manageable. However, I think if you CAN pay more of your loans but are paying the bare minimum in hopes that you will have a large chunk forgiven after ten years, the interest you accumulate + uncertainty around actually getting paid out = bad idea. I'm not sure what field you want to go into, but a secret about working for the federal government is that a lot of people who "work for the government" actually work for private contractors. Government jobs are hard to get, and these contractor jobs are in my opinion really great ways to work in your field despite this limit on fed jobs. In some cases, they are more interesting than actual government positions, which come with a heap of legal and bureaucratic responsibilities that do not appeal to everyone. Contractor jobs are often through private companies and won't qualify for loan forgiveness. I'm not sure what it's like within state or local government, but I feel fairly confident in this assessment for the fed/IR/international development world. I think my biggest issue is that depending on PSLF limits your career decisions. 10 years is a long time and, as obvious as it may sound, your life is going to change. You may move somewhere and the only job you can find that pays the rent and that wont bore you to death is not in the public sphere. Your government job might get slashed and burned during budget cuts so you flee or get laid off and take the first job you can find, and it happens to be in the private sector. Even if you do that just temporarily, I believe that makes you unqualified for public service loan forgiveness (please correct me if I am wrong!!). You also may get a job offer doing something insanely awesome that will challenge you/expand your horizons/help you save 10 million starving children/allow you to live in your dream country -- but it might be in a private organization. Plus, policy change and bureaucracy. Programs can be canceled at any time and rules can change. I don't remember the details but my fed colleagues said that the process was tricky and they hadn't realized they were not qualifying for it. I'll see if I can find some more info on what exactly tripped them up. I would make sure you keep an eye out on all the rules and regulations on how to qualify, but don't plan your life around it.

Yay same!!! Ahhhhh

I think @MaxwellAlum's advice is spot on. Generally, yes, $100k in loans is a horrible idea. If you haven't done this yet, make sure you understand what paying off 100K loans looks like every month: https://www.bankrate.com/calculators/mortgages/loan-calculator.aspx 100K over 10 years at 5.7% interest (which i think is about average interest for Dep of Ed loans for grad students) is $1,095 a month. That is insane. That was the price of rent in my bare bones apartment in DC. It sounds like you have work experience, but for anyone reading this who has not been financially independent before, this is a TON of money. It is really hard to make this work with a public service income, and you will feel it. Even if you pay it off over a longer period of time at a lower monthly rate (~$600), it is still really expensive! Plus, I think it is important for people to have a financial safety net and start building it when they are young. Shit happens and you need to be able to pay for it. For example, dropping your phone in a pool, your computer crashing, wanting to visiting someone you love who is sick, your apartment flooding or getting broken into (get renters insurance PLEASE), medical issues of all shapes, severities and sizes, friends getting married and having babies in distant corners of the country/world. When I had just graduated from college I didn't realize how many things of this nature would happen, but unexpected expenses are a very predictable part of life. Plus, being able to travel for fun or engage in hobbies that bring you joy is pretty sweet. I would also encourage you to map out what you want to do and all possible paths to it. Talk to people who took untraditional paths to the career you want. And also, constantly ask yourself why you want it, because I think we can get caught in the sparkly exterior of our career dreams without prodding a bit to see what is actually behind it. Why do you want this career? What natural skills and strengths of yours does it engage? What about the day-to-day of this job appeals to you? What larger impact does it work towards? Think beyond the field but the actual position you want within that field or organization, because this significantly alters the type of path you should take to said career goal.

I also got a "too good to pass up" deal from LBJ, full ride plus monthly stipend. They're also one of the cheapest but still good schools around, which is really appealing to me, since I have undergrad loans I'm still on the hook for. I am being tempted by getting accepted into my dream school (Berkeley!) but I got no funding so I'm trying to remind myself how much it sucks to pay loans. I also thinking living in Austin would be awesome, and everyone I've talked to who went to LBJ loved it (it's sample size of like 3 people but whatever). I would have loved better statistics regarding how common funding is at various schools. Gradcafe certainly helped a bit but it's hard to get a full and accurate picture! It also doesn't help that some places that give many people funding (Duke?) are INSANELY expensive to begin with. The half-tuition scholarship I received at Duke made it about as expensive as Berkeley would be without any funding. As for other schools I got into, NYU is notoriously bad at giving out aid/scholarships. I knew I would probably not get any aid going into it, and in retrospect, I probably shouldn't have applied. It seems a lot of people work part-time, which is a great option for some people but not one that I want to take myself.

Thanks! I applied before the Dec 1 deadline and received an email around when you did saying I was accepted and being considered for a fellowship. Yesterday was the first word I received regarding the fellowship. Best of luck!