pol_mil_junkie

Well Hawaii weather can't be beat but it's a bit of an island. What made you decide to go to Hawaii instead of Georgetown?

Just my personal take based on alumni I have met irl from both programs. Either way you can't do wrong.

If you're short on cash or just want good value go with a refurbished Dell laptop. If you have time, search around for a coupon and you can get a flagship current gen laptop for almost half off. You will get more ram, CPU, and SSD hard drive space for much cheaper than comparable macbook.

Like HBLB said, since you already have an MA and work experience I think you should make this decision based on personal preference factors for where you want to live and what kind of social interaction and campus experience you want. Georgetown is great but I find its cramped location, lack of parking, no metro access, and expensive housing to be major pain in the ass. I have never visited Tufts but I'm assuming it's more of the usual sub/ex-urban idyllic college campus.

Congrats on acceptance to SSP. I also got accepted and look forward to matriculating. Here are some questions to help you think about the best course of action: What is your ultimate career goal? Do you see yourself only working in Biohaz? Or do you think you will want to explore other opportunities within the broad security studies later in life? SSP will give you a much better foundation and network for more career options. Do you think you will get tired of saying "Georgetown Biohazardous Threat Agents and Emerging Infectious Diseases" every time you explain to someone what you did for grad school? It's definitely a mouth full and people will never know what that really means. Time and money... what is your pain tolerance for personal finance? Do you already have savings and/or financial support lined up? An additional year of grad school is not only lost wages but also another $30k+ in tuition and living expenses. I assume you're young so the additional year is not a big deal, it's more about the money and whether you can stomach that debt or not.

Go to Oxford young scholar! This is a no brainer. The brand name will pay dividends in your life beyond the research topic.

One more try is worth it but beyond that the probability of improving your score significantly is extremely low. For your second attempt you need to focus on your weakest sections the most.

Which schools rejected you?

That's great to hear as I've decided I will be doing SSP full time. I don't want to be too narrow in security studies. I will have to do the required SSP courses but also want to focus on Indo Asia Pacific much like you Also planning to take foreign language classes which are apparently "free" if you are a full time student. I'm happy to go with SSP over SAIS because SSP is more geared for getting a job whereas SAIS is a bit more academic. Both are great, just different flavors. Good luck Kienzle.

Same, got an acceptance via portal. And yes, bracing for the debtening.

Yeah I got the same student ambassador letter that said the following at the end of the usual newletter. "Please check your email inboxes tomorrow afternoon because there may be some important information that is sent out *wink*." 10:27AM... I guess they have a comms strategy to increase hype before releasing results but it's a bit frustrating. GWU ESIA already released without fluff last week. Come on SSP!

Just a heads up, most of the SSP courses are in the evening to support their large cohort of part time working students. Their language classes are during the day. I personally don't like evening classes but having a large cohort of part time students who work on the Hill, State, DOD, World Bank, K street firms, and whatever DC offers is an amazing benefit. I previously worked at a major DOD research firm and currently work on key staff in government. All jobs I got were through connections and warm intro email/phonecall. So if you plan on working in DC then the networking is almost more important than school and (unfortunately) sometimes your real academic ability. It's a town where sounding confident and looking the part are sometimes more valuable than being able to do the writing or the analysis. Just remember that no matter how smart you are in any organization, only few people get to make the real decisions. Most jobs you are there to support the boss's agenda.

From what my friend who is finishing up at GT SSP tells me GT is the place for security studies. As far as language, I'm not sure.

That's a good reason but just know that unless you are in a Quant job you won't be doing much Quant stuff.

It's not that they are reluctant to give funding, it's just that they are willing to extend admission to lots of people in order to bolster their numbers. In the end some who received funding offer will decline for other schools and some without funding will accept regardless. Georgetown knows exactly what they are doing.