SketchesOfSpain

That was part of my decision, I'm not interested in California state politics. For some reason UT seemed more flexible. It was one of those things where it was all logical to move to Austin, but it's so easy on this website to get caught up in brand names. I appreciate the help you offered me and everyone else, I gleaned a lot of insight, plus grads rarely come back and help the next wave of applicants.

I just need someone to tell me I'm not crazy for turning down Berkeley out of state with no scholarship ($135k COA) for UT LBJ in-state ($61k COA). I have about $70k socked away and a girlfriend coming with who will cut down the living expenses some.

Thank you for your help, but specifically, the candor. You bring up an excellent point with future funding at Cal and how much money public schools are going to have to spend next year and the year after. Another excellent point is trying to gain some more in-demand skills, fortunately or unfortunately I think that is another advantage of Cal. Getting that residency for year two is going to be vital, I really hope none of that gets tinkered with. The big hope is that I could be in school for the worst of a coming recession, even if that might impact internships etc. available while in school. As someone who works in local government, the help you're providing is the upmost importance, so thank you. And don't worry about the sports teams, I went to undergrad at a school that wins enough to get to big games, but always loses the final one, so I'm excited to root for someone for whom every win is found money.

I'm torn between Berkeley Goldman MPP and Wagner MPA, currently looking to go into local or state government after graduation. Case for NYU: 50% scholarship (none from Cal), girlfriend's family lives outside of NYC/have friends in NYC (vs. knowing no one in Berkeley), great local government focus, great name recognition as a university and in the field, worried about the quant at Cal. Case for Berkeley: Always has been a dream school, everyone seems to make the cost work, strong cohort community (it feels like Wagner is a lot of professionals with their own things going on), teaches more hard skills, lots of state and local gov placement outside of the immediate area (don't think we want to live in the Bay Area or NYC long term), elite name recognition in the field and as a whole. Any help would be greatly appreciated, obviously I'd like to keep cost down, but I've saved enough from working that cost doesn't have to be my main concern.

My big takeaway is that everyone seems to make the money work. You'll have to get a job, and yes, it is only people the school has made available. But for an expensive school, that doesn't give much scholarship, in one of the most expensive areas in the country, students don't seem to be sweating finances

I certainly think they should. It's a lot to ask people, especially the working professionals whom a lot of these programs look for, to leave their job/family/whatever then commit two years of time and incredible cost without being able to get a feel for the culture of the program, and other intangibles you can only get by physically being there. From a budgeting etc. standpoint, I understand why they would have difficulty making a group decision to push back acceptance to May or June, but right now we're all in an episode of Catfish where you have to get married before Nev flies you across country to see your s/o in person. The slideshows are great, the info online is great, but I couldn't imagine quitting my job to move in with an internet girlfriend.

Hahaha, those definitely change things. The cancelled admitted students days are an absolute killer. To get to the crux of your question, I don't know if there's a stronger alumni (especially non-Ivy) network in the country than USC and LA is the center of that, if there's a network advantage, it'll be realized in LA with USC. From a pure cost standpoint I would say that paying for two years of housing in Ithaca is going to significantly eat into in the $56k. Again, my qualification is being guy who consumes too much internet, but your best strategy (purely cost and future job opportunities, I know nothing of Price's culture or your desired career) is going to be leveraging the CIPA offer for some money from USC. Eat into that big tuition number however you can and take it from there.

Let me preface this with the usual, depends on where you want to live after school, specific interests etc. Now here's my answer, Cornell. I got a chance to tour Cornell last year and I absolutely loved it, was blown away by the faculty and the sense of community created by them and the students. Going in I was nervous about their low US News ranking, but if you see/hear about their employment outcomes, employers don't seem to care, plus being Ivy League means everyone is trying to recruit them. I would be in Ithaca if I was single. Now a negative I will say, Ithaca is remote, remote and expensive. Housing and food costs far more than it should in a town of 31,000 in upstate New York. USC (I've never visited the program), possibly the strongest alumni network in the country, LA, big time college feel, etc. etc. Are you ready to pay $78k in tuition alone out of pocket? Is your post-grad job going to pay enough to splurge on your tuition? Maybe you do have a good idea what your career path will pay, or you're an urbanite. I'm admittingly biased, but the way this internet stranger sees it, you're looking at two good schools, only one is saving you $56k on future loan paybacks

Program Applied To (MPA, MPP, IR, etc.): Cal Berkeley MPP, UPenn MPA, NYU Wagner MPA, Michigan Ford MPP, UT MPA, Wisconsin La Follette MPASchools Admitted To: All, with $$ from NYU and $ from UPennSchools Rejected From: NoneStill Waiting: NoneUndergraduate Institution: State schoolUndergraduate GPA: 3.4 (3.8 in major)Undergraduate Major: Public AffairsGRE Quantitative/Verbal/AW Scores: 159/164/5.0Years Out of Undergrad (if applicable): 5Years of Work Experience: 4+Describe Relevant Work Experience: Work for a local government as a department head after starting in a low grade positionStrength of SOP (be honest, describe the process, etc): They're good, I have a passion for serving others with a background that let me interact with people across economic and racial spectrums and pretty clear vision for where I'm trying to go. I started early and read all the "About Us" sections on the school websites and larger university sites then tried to tie my application to themes or keywords. I've been told my writing sounds too much like a speech, so I guess watch for that.Strength of LOR's (be honest, describe the process, etc): Great by average applicant standards, good by Gradcafe standards. I asked my City Manager, my HR Director and the VP of a regional economic development group. I knew the first two would write me good ones and I asked the last so I wouldn't look so insular.Other: I had volunteering experience with a rising GPA as well that helped. Having gone through the process last year gave me some good perspective and, as a former, I'll say this for the lurkers trying to gauge their chances. It's largely a crapshoot. Schools are looking for certain ranges of grades/scores/work experience sure but, there are so many variables from which reader gets your essays to funding available that you have no control over. I applied to Wisconsin because I truly believe in their mission and they gave lots of funding in the past, I got in with none. NYU apparently really loved my essays and background, you just don't know. Also, don't get too wrapped up in Gradcafe, this is not a representative sample of your average applicant.

Accepted, congrats to everyone who got in. My letter says, "Your scholarship decision letter will be available through your status page within 48 hours." I know it is very difficult to get any money your first year, so my hopes are not high

If your portal says still in review then I guess the Dean of the graduate school hasn't officially signed off on your admission, but that should be more of a formality than anything else unless you have some concerning criminal record or Title 9 issues. I got my "recommendation" email from LBJ yesterday in the mid afternoon, then my official admittance from the graduate school at around midnight this morning so there's probably just a backlog, I doubt the Dean of the graduate school was up after midnight reviewing my application and deciding whether or not to overrule the LBJ team. Being an in-state student, I didn't get any fellowship money (it's already so cheap) and my recommendation letter from the LBJ admissions team said that if I received any fellowships it would be attached to the recommendation email. If you didn't have any fellowship documents attached to the email from the LBJ admissions team then you're probably out of luck until some other admits start turning down their offers.

Congrats to you as well, being a one year program definitely makes it more affordable, but also doesn't offer much in terms of flexibility. Here is the list of courses if you haven't seen it, there is room for two electives, which I assume don't have to be at Fels https://www.fels.upenn.edu/academics/mpa/courses There should still be current students available to talk to as it was a two year program, they just won't be on campus by the time the incoming class gets there

Got my acceptance a week or so ago. It has a pretty strong local government bent, which gives it a strong regional network. Much like the Brown program, I think it gets much higher praise from people within the profession than US News. Based on what I've read the shakeup was because the school wants to make an effort to raise their US News type rankings. The website and info available definitely needs to be stepped up you're right

Here's a dirty little secret, unless you're talking about the Wilsons and Kennedys of the world, the GPA isn't a total killer. This isn't Wharton or the Stanford Business School where a B sophomore year of high school dooms you. But if you want to be considered for those better programs, we're going to need to shore up the stuff around the GPA. Schools are looking for: Work: MPAs/MPPs want relevant real world experience brought in the classroom for the most part. You might want to get some more work experience under your belt before seriously applying. Enough experience (5+ years relevant experience) would nearly wash out the GPA. Grades: Which are subpar for GWU and Northeastern GRE: Which you probably need to do, I used Magoosh which really helped my quant. This will alleviate the grade concern and cement the next part. Story: What's the arc you can build around your academic/work career? Based on noting family issues, and being a first gen student, you can probably knock this out of the park. You'll need a lot of spotlights on the upward trend. Purpose: Do you know what you want to do and why you want to do it? Being laser focused with an obvious why will help set you apart. I'm not an expert, I'm just someone who went through the cycle last year to decent success and wasn't able to attend. It's wrong that not enough schools list incoming student profiles, but that's how they up their application fee collection I guess, so I can't say that you're good at school X or school Y, but schools like Kansas, and the Humphrey school at Minnesota have average GPAs in the 3.2-3.3 range, which gets you in close. TL/DR: Get more professional experience, a great GRE score and maybe some online classes to bolster GPA, specifically in classes like Econ, and the GWU's of the world are definitely in reach. P.S. Don't go into crippling debt for an policy degree

I was hoping someone would start this thread. Carnegie Mellon impressions in a nut shell: The dangerously overworked reputation is just undergrads, students were honest in the difficulty of workload (especially the first semester) but there is collaboration among the cohort. I wasn't impressed with career services. Campus was beautiful but I would've liked to see more discussion about quality of life things i.e. sports clubs. Cornell impressions in a nut shell: Cohort camaraderie was incredible, and even camaraderie with staff and professors. Someone in my group said, "You can't all be lying" because the idea of a CIPA family was parroted so often, even without staff present. Career services was going to go the extra mile for you. Ithaca is really small, and very remote. I'll elaborate or answer specific questions if anyone is interested.

I applied to 10 (in my defense, I needed to have online options) and I would definitely apply to less next time. You need to be honest and ask yourself, "Will I really attend if I get in?" I could've applied to 5-6 and been in the exact spot I'm at right now. Plus 4-5 less essays to tweak means more time researching and throwing in tidbits for schools you actually care about. In short 1-2 reach, 2-3 middle and 1-2 safety you'll be fine.

I will be there, flying out Thursday afternoon

I say this as someone who got accepted to Brown but is hesitant considering the lack of information available and did not research Georgetown. 1. If you're trying to get rich, debt load should be at the forefront of your mind. 2. Brown might be more famous in China but the skills you would learn at Georgetown will probably serve you better, also note being in D.C. puts you in a better position for international organization internships and jobs. That's what I've got shooting from the hip

Unless your family is uber wealthy, there's no world where an Ivy League MPA is worth another $120,000 in debt over Syracuse (and that's before you factor in the living expenses of NYC vs. Syracuse). If name is that big of a deal to you (and I get that), look deeper into CMU but for whatever little it's worth Syracuse is the #1 ranked Public Affairs program and #1 specifically in Public Finance

@3dender has the correct take here. Overall, UDub is probably the highest thought of school in the NW by the average person and there's no public sector job up there that would look down on a UW degree. U Chicago is going to have much better name prestige nationwide. Now, if your career path is D.C. think tank or bust, Harris will probably help you out a bit more but you're not losing in either direction. You're in a great spot to be debating whether you want to go to UDub or Harris and no matter what you do, there'll be moments you regret the decision, but that's life and every decision we make.

I'm in at Heinz and it's on my short list vs some non-quant schools as well, so I feel your pain. If your goal is to get a Ph.D, and I'll admit, I have limited knowledge, both schools will help you. Heinz will teach you hard data analysis skill which I'd imagine will benefit your research. Syracuse will give you experience, and most importantly a reference when you apply next time. I think that is more important than the programming skills, so this non-Ph.D noob says Syracuse

Thanks so much for your help. You're right, I don't think I'll hopelessly regret any choice and it's about clicking with the people there. It sounds like you've got your mind made up. otherwise I'm sure a lot of people in this thread would be looking to help you out.

I probably wouldn't attach them in the first email broaching the subject, but they are going to ask for them in a follow up email

Coming from: A good local government job in Houston, TX Deciding between: CMU (Heinz), MSPPM (Pittsburgh) - 65% or $34,230 total tuition UT-Austin (LBJ School), MPAff - No $$ or $23,120 total tuition Cornell (CIPA), MPA - 50% or $35,736 total tuition Other factors: I want to get into local government or local government consulting. I feel like Cornell helps on the local government side, but CMU is better on the consulting side. I'm also afraid of losing my CMU scholarship if I can't handle the data analysis stuff, I took one SPSS class in undergrad and got an A, but I don't think it was half as challenging. How I'm leaning: It feels like a two horse race between CMU and Cornell. UT is a great option, but I think I'm ready to leave Texas, won't really need loans for any program and don't really have a desire to go to D.C. I went to Cornell's open house and was amazed by how great staff/faculty was and the camaraderie between the cohort, I'll be going to CMU on April 5th. I feel like it's going to come down to head vs. heart. Head being between CMU and UT, heart being with Cornell

I feel bad that you started a great thread and I didn't notice anyone dug into your question. Off top, congrats on your future child. It might be best for you to defer to next year, and even reapply if they don't let you, take advantage of great healthcare through the pregnancy and get the sleepless nights out of the way before starting grad school. I know nothing about the New School so I'll leave that be. If planning really appeals to you then you should lean USC, they have one of the best planning programs in the entire country. I'm biased being from Texas but, I'd rather live in Austin for the cost of living, lack of smog, etc. but if it's just for two years then neither is a bad decision. A lot of people on this board are pretty DC focused and I think UT goes a little farther there. Both schools have powerhouse alumni networks, USC's is maybe a bit stronger overall. TL/DR: Wait till next year. Next year decide how much you care about urban planning and where you want to work afterwards. If you really want to do planning, USC, if you want to live in the South, Midwest, or D.C., USC. Realistically you're not going to lose with either option