ayasofaya
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Posts posted by ayasofaya
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8 hours ago, Amanda Libby said:
are your recommendations complete?
My Personal Statement is now at 598 meaning my reccommendations (Both of them!) are the only thing left to complete. I'm dying here. Luckily one of them works in my office and we're close so I can complain to her face but the professor will take some emailing. He's notorious for being last minute which made me nervous to ask him in the first place but he really is the perfect guy for the job assuming he pulls it together.
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5 minutes ago, mrs12 said:
It's just so different having someone you trust is good at editing and who understands the topic and the process looking things over.
Right. This guy is the closest I will likely get to that without talking to the DIR. He was going to go the FS route before finding work he liked enough to put the FS on hold, so I at least can feel confident that he knows the 13 dimensions lol.
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Also: I got a Poli-Sci graduate who worked in copy editing to read my statement and we cut it down to 619! Yay! I'm very verbose (if you hadn't noticed) so this is huge lol. I'm trying to get those last 19 words out now, then I'll be done.
...until my reccommenders get their acts together anyway..... -
Because of my niche academic background I'm going International Affairs to get a generalist widespread education that touches on a variety of subjects. I'm deeeeeefinitely a Public Diplomacy as I have a background in public speaking and a bit of non-scripted television, and just from going to design school. Imagine if every time you drew a line on a piece of paper you had to explain to your professors and your peers why you drew it at that length, that weight, that color, on that type of paper, etc. Also in design when you deal with a lot of branding, you become hyper-aware of public perception and how to influence it to advance your interests. So it's a strong PD for me.
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How are y'all doing? I can't be the only one stressing out here.
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42 minutes ago, mrs12 said:
Also, out of curiosity, what's your username stand for if you don't mind me asking? It makes me think of Ayasofya in Turkey. :3
I try to use the same handle on all of my social media profiles for the #brand, and I actually didn't know that Hagia Sofia was also spelled Ayasofya until after I started using it. It's actually completely unrelated! Some people call me by my full first name, and some people call me by the shortened version, so I just smushed both of them together into one so that when I add people on social media, they know who it is regardless of what they normally call me.
To be honest, I don't know who I'm going to have read my SoP. I reached out to the writing center of my UG school with no response. My plan was to also reach out to the DIR but I know not to hold my breath for that either. My UG school has a huge Fulbright presence so I've had a lot of support for that this year from a designated faculty member whose actual job it is to polish Fulbright proposals, so now that I know what it's like, I'm really missing that support with the other Fellowship applications! -
I'm struggling with the word limit. I was hoping to get my SOP closer to 600 before I really start having people read it but I'm stuck at 722 and I'm thinking others may be able to give me guidance on what to cut.
My recommenders are making me nervously check my watch. My GRE official score report is making me nervously check my watch.
Financial statement is exactly 400 and I'm confident it's a good mix of what the numbers currently are, what they means to me currently, what they would be with and without (Yikes!) the fellowship, and what that would mean in each of those instances. A lot of numbers. That's good right? Numbers? -
1 hour ago, ExponentialDecay said:Why are you reporting your application concerns to people who, apparently, don't have a lot of experience with these programs?
Oh, well that's just the people in my life wanting to know what I'm up to and providing general words of encouragement because they care about me. I'm not necessarily going straight to them for specific advice, nor am I by any means ungrateful for their encouraging words. I was just pointing out that you've given me some great feedback and how valuable it is to come to forums like this and other resources to get some fresh unbiased eyes on it. Thanks again. You've given me a lot of good things o think about when pulling everything together.
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3 hours ago, ExponentialDecay said:
Tbh you don't come off as a serious applicant imo. Did you misunderstand what the "interests" section is for (it's for your career interests), or do you seriously think that you're getting an MPA to learn languages? I also have trouble deciphering all the "bruhs" and similar.
The QGRE is too low. You need to get it above 160. The verbal is lowish compared to the averages that people at top MPA programs will have, and since you have an untraditional undergrad background, I'd pull that up as well. But the QGRE is very, very important - especially if you have no math. (which I recommend you take at a CC - I don't remember about SIPA, but most programs require at least one of microeconomics/statistics for admission).
The work experience is also a problem. If you can swing the NGO thing as something other than "helping dad out at the office", that could be worthwhile. Just as a warning, folding clothes in your living room as a child can be a nice segue, but it will not carry your application - your parents being aid workers does not substitute for work experience in the field.
I actually wouldn't depend too much on the name of your undergrad school or the name of the school at which you took electives (more on that later). Not a lot of people with a design background switch over into this career, and not many people who haven't been to design school understand how rigorous and how much work it is. That's not to say it will be a negative (you'll be surprised at how much adcoms enjoy novelty applicants), but you do need to show that you can read, write, and count, basically - which is why I recommend knocking out a really good GRE. Seriously, getting a good enough GRE score is vital in your case.
You're also suffering from a strong case of iviness imo. SIPA isn't better because it's Columbia. Fletcher (Tufts) and the Georgetown schools are a bit better for Foreign Service, actually. Some Ivy MPAs (well, all of them outside WWS, HKS, and SIPA) are not prestigious at all. When it comes to the graduate level, Ivy doesn't mean better. Likewise, it's not significant that you took language courses at an Ivy. What matters is how good you are at the language. Taking them at an Ivy doesn't necessarily make you more proficient than taking them somewhere else, and adcoms do recognize that. I wouldn't get a letter from your MIT prof just because he's from MIT and a department head. Get letters from people who know you well and can speak to your abilities on a deep level. Only get a letter from that guy if he fits this bill. Your Goethe instructor isn't the right fit, no.
Overall, I get a lot of enthusiasm from you, but not a lot of direction or maturity (not of you as a person, but of your knowledge/experience with this career path). Why do you want to work in Foreign Service? Why SIPA? (this is an application question, and if you don't have a good answer beside it being Columbia, you've just killed your application). You like learning languages, you want to help people, you've seen your parents doing it - these are all good reasons to try a career in IR, but you lack a vision for how you will contribute as a seasoned professional. This can be a problem, because these aren't entry-level programs. Most successful applicants will already have some idea of where they stand in the field. I do think you'll get in somewhere, maybe even SIPA if you get the GRE up; as for money - eh, I'm not so sure.
This is a lot of really great feedback and it's a lot more helpful for determining the way I'm perceived on paper than all the people who know me personally and just keep saying "You'll do great!" This is why you have to talk to strangers on the internet sometimes.
Did you misunderstand what the "interests" section is for: Yes. Yes I did. I am aware I will not be learning languages for two years. I actually would like to get any requirements out of the way as soon as possible so I can use my courses for anything and everything else. Unless I learn Mandarin or another CNL, learning languages ahead of time barely helps my case, if at all, and anything the FS would want me to know (hypothetically of course, for now) they would teach me, so it would just be a waste to start something new.Everything you say about my GRE scores sums up all of my concerns regarding the exam. Everyone I know keeps telling me it's a perfectly good score and I'm running out of ways to tell them it's really not, and the score matters more for me than it does for everyone else. I keep hearing people say not to retake it "just for a couple points" but those couple points could be crucial for me.
I was folding clothes on the floor when I was six, but it's 27 doctors and nurses from all over the country now, tens of thousands of dollars of budget to manage, tons of inventory to move, sometimes across borders, not to mention the block flights for the 27 doctors and nurses (I work in travel so I'm in charge of moving everyone since I happen to know the intricate rules.) It's benefit dinners, speeches, event planning, plus the planning of the actual trips themselves. Plus I have a design background so the web design, branding, and video documentary and presentations are all me. You can't officially have any family member on the paperwork but I've learned so much about how much work it takes simply from having to be the one to do it. It's my mom, my dad, and me managing all of this for all of these people, and from the level of interest we're already getting, the team of volunteers (and the budget) is going to about double for next year, which means this is so much bigger than anyone thought it was ever going to be. Stressful, but super exciting!
Columbia is the only Ivy on my list because it's the only program that I like, and I'm not just picking it because it's an Ivy. Tufts has attractive courses of course, and Boston in particular has an interesting track that has a visual Marketing and PR angle to IR that could provide a smoother transition from my design background to Public Diplomacy, so it would be a good fit for me as an individual. Stating above that I took my language courses at an Ivy was more to iterate that I had to take those classes at a whole other university different from my degree-granting school, where I had to sit in a classroom, take exams, and be held accountable for my grades. The partnership between the schools was there so I had the opportunity to take advantage of it, but it required a little more initiative and focus than signing up for some online tutoring thing or buying a Rosetta Stone box set.
I took the equivalent of 4 classes (it was two doubles) with that professor before he 100% moved to MIT, half of which were 100% at my home institution, the other half physically at MIT with MIT students, although the credits came from that professor/the home school. No one knows me academically better than this guy, and I wouldn't dream of asking anyone else for a recommendation without coming to him for one first.Also, we'll take funding out of this equation for now, since in my case, consideration for the majority of funding won't come from my grad school applications themselves. That's on a different thread on this forum haha.
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Let's go!
Program: Masters of International Affairs/These schools' respective equivalents. Also applying for Pickering/Rangel Fellowships and a Fulbright ETA Germany
Schools Applying To: Columbia SIPA (go big or go home, guys), Tufts Fletcher School, NYU, Boston University Pardee School
Interests: I love learning languages to be honest. My father speaks 4, so I'm trying to learn at least 5 so I can beat him.
Undergrad Institution: #1 Design School in the U.S.A.
Undergraduate GPA: 3.445
Undergraduate Major: Industrial Design
GRE: 160V/154Q/AWA???? (Took it this past Wednesday)
Quantitative Courses: I went to art school y'all.
Age: 25
Languages: English (native), French (fluent), German (B Level for about a year.) Note my language courses in undergrad were taken at an Ivy League school, and I'm currently paying out of pocket for German classes at Goethe center.
Work Experience: 2.5 years out of undergrad and it's spotty. I hosted a PBS show that had me driving around the U.S. on an RV doing interviews for a summer, did a few short term jobs while I searched for a good full time fit, and have been doing data management at a corporate travel consulting firm for the past year and a half. My parents have a medical nonprofit for Haiti so I've had my hands in that since I was a kid. Over the past couple years the team has grown to about 30 members, so I've had more official managerial duties/creative direction and branding/logistics and inventory.
LORs: One from an MIT department head I've taken a couple of courses at my school with (in collaboration with MIT), one from my employer, deciding on the third. My German instructor at Goethe can be counted on but I'm not sure he's the right fit.
SOPs: Bruh. I'm working on the fellowship applications now, but I will emphasize the collaborative problem solving skills from my undergrad degree, the fact that my undergrad program forced me to go waaaay out of my way and put forth money and effort to satiate my International Relations interests. Also the fact that I didn't have to go out of my way for public service work, as it was being fully operated out of my house. (I open with a story about folding donation clothes on the living room floor as an elementary schooler).
Publications and Honors: A functional and interactive public mini-greenhouse that I designed with two other people was featured as the opener for a city-wide exhibition in Switzerland when I studied abroad there. That's the designer equivalent of a publication, right?
Concerns: Everything??? My unrelated undergrad major. My GRE scores not being good enough to make up for my unrelated undergrad major. My work experience not related to the program, OR my undergrad major. My GPA is average if even that. I'm afraid of not being seen as a serious applicant or being seen as having an interest that's just a phase. My profile is a bricolage of a million zillion things, and while my undergrad institution will undoubtedly be recognized and respected, I'm afraid I will be seen as too big of a risk and be perpetually passed up for a more "textbook candidate." You always want to stand out in applications, but perhaps not this much.
Also, a note on the Pickering and Rangel Fellowships: I am only going to graduate school if I get one of these fellowships. My end goal is 100% to join the Foreign Service, and to use a Master's to prepare for this. These two things will have to happen in tandem, as l cannot pay out of pocket for school (my undergrad was $$$$$.) I will find out about the Rangel fellowship by Thanksgiving, and should the stars align and I succeed, I will absolutely take the GRE again to try to get more competitive scores for these programs. I do not feel comfortable applying to Columbia with a 316, and that's just the bottom line of it. -
Hey Hey Hey,
I am in dire need of a support group. I guess I'm so used to there being so much anecdotal data available on the internet (especially with the FS in general) and have gotten so used to using that data to compile the best (and often successful) applications for my pursuits, that the relative radio silence on the internet re: Pickering/Rangel is leaving me in the middle of the ocean with half a life jacket. I have no idea where to start or how to know if I'm doing this right. There are very few successful applicants sharing their wealth of knowledge with us on the internet haha.I also come from a design background (from what most people consider the most elite design school in the USA but still), not an IR/PolSci/Econ/what have you that everyone else seems to have, so I feel this will be an uphill battle that may take me a few application cycles. I know they "welcome all majors" and they naturally generate a particular applicant pool, but the list of past and present fellows is publicly available for me to read through so I can be forgiven for thinking that there's an unofficial list of prerequisite undergraduate majors. My GRE scores are good, but I can't shake the feeling they need to be better to prove that I can learn anything in an academic setting, especially since I do want to apply to grad programs at top tier schools.
At any rate, I am here, I am applying, I am done venting out my insecurities for now, and I am not as pessimistic about this as I probably sound.
Rangel Fellowship 2018
in The Bank
Posted · Edited by ayasofaya
Hey guys,
After your reccommender submits their recommendation, should it say "Pending" under the status? I don't remember what it said before my professor let me know he completed it, so I don't know if it changed. Should I have gotten an email notification? I'm this close to calling to ask.