Julius_M

Hello everyone! My name is Julius (25) and I’m currently a Peace Corps Volunteer serving in Ukraine and have just recently accepted into the graduate program of my dreams. However, I was a bit disheartened to learn that the financial assistance I was eligible for can, as a blanket policy, only account for up to 40% of tuition and now I am facing some serious loans. In the best case scenario, I’m looking at about $60-65K for 2.5 years of school. However, when taking cost of living into account, those loans could bump up to $90-100K (worst case scenario). The program is great and from a well-revered school (Middlebury Institute of International Studies) and the upside is I would be getting 2 degrees for the price of 1.25 (MPA and MA in International Trade and Economic Diplomacy). I am quite confident I could get a relatively well-paying job out of the gate (though, who knows, anything could happen) and know that it would give me an opportunity to pursue my passions/build my skill set. However, it is a lot of money in loans to face (especially as the interest – averaging 7% - could accrue). I’ve just been doing my own CBA and seeing if it makes sense and how it could potentially help OR hurt my goals in life and career thereafter. So my general question is has anybody had any experience with student loans and what advice could you give in looking at weighing the pros and cons of financing higher education with those financial aims in mind? Thanks a lot and I wish you all a wonderful holiday season!

I was thinking about submitting the same applications for both. I mean, you are the same person after all. I was thinking about maybe submitting two different statements of purpose for each fellowship. Of course, I still have my reservations about doing this since they're both coming out of the same place. Still ruminating on it for the next couple weeks. What do you all think about submitting identical applications for both?

Hey everyone! My name’s Julius. I just had a question to those who have applied to the Rangel Fellowship (and also the Pickering, as I imagine there’s quite a bit of overlap). I’ve been working on getting everything in order for the last several months and have written several drafts for the Statement of Purpose. However, since the official applications haven’t opened yet, I wanted to ask exactly what is in the application versus what should be put into the Statement of Purpose. In your opinion what are some of the key elements that should be covered in the statement that don’t get addressed in the application in other places (since I still have yet to have an idea of what that consists of). Thanks a lot and I’m wishing you the best with all of your future endeavors.

Hello everyone! Congratulations to all of you for your hard work. My name's Julius and I'm starting rather early in beginning the process for the 2019 rounds of Rangel and Pickering (I'm in the Peace Corps right now, so I wouldn't be going into grad school until fall of 2019 anyway). But I'm really hoping to get a major jump on this whole process (I guess the applications for next year would open in September 2018 or so) and have already started writing the statement of purpose and whatnot. I just wanted to ask if any of you guys had any advice with writing the SOP and the other aspects of the application and some of the insights you have gained since you've already been through the gauntlet. Anyway, I'm so appreciative for you guys having this forum and I wish you well in all of your endeavors going forward.

Hello! My name is Julius. Hope that you are doing well. You know, it's funny, I was actually just about to start this exact thread when I saw that you had already done it. That's awesome! Well, we certainly are ahead in the process (I'm out working in Ukraine which is why I'm doing it early), but I'd love to discuss it if you'd care to bounce ideas off of each other.