pushpin

March 31st

I found this article in the UW Daily from a few days ago: Students organize to prevent consolidation of Evans School

Letters are in the mail! I just got my acceptance and funding information packet in the mail today (I'm in southern California.) Good luck!

Mushroom's location does say Asia-Pacific.

I found the same thing on my status. I checked again a few hours later and the letter was available and it was an acceptance. So it doesn't necessarily mean you've been rejected. I think the delay is just due to scanning the letter in the system.

sausage links

It was pretty much the same information you'd find in a good SOP writing guide/book but it was nice to hear anyway. She gave us 4 examples of SOPs submitted to UCLA ranging from pretty bad to decent and we discussed the strong and weak points of each. Some advice Nancy gave: keep interesting points in the beginning where readers tend to not lose focus address WHY you want to study public and WHY UCLA highlight career aspirations A huge focus for UCLA is on diversity and equality, so she mentioned to try to cater to this in your SOP. Hope this helps and good luck!

Hi I attended the MPP SoP Workshop at UCLA SPA back in October 2010, conducted by Nancy Huynh. According to the notes I took at the session, the length is 2 -3 pages double-spaced which is consistent with last year's prompt. I hope this helps. SPA's website is pretty confusing and unclear; I don't blame you

Hi, I can review your SoP. I'm a MPP/MPA applicant

I took the GRE last week and got a second identified quantitative experimental section. It was the last section of my test and was very different from the usual quantitative questions and included an onboard calculator for some questions. They looked like questions that would be on the upcoming Revised GRE test in 2011.

I also used this method. Another thing I recommend is taking a look at these "Advanced" GRE Math questions: http://readyforgre.c...Version%203.pdf While these questions, i felt, were a lot more difficult than the actual test, it forces you to think about math in terms of standardized testing.

I've read previously that the program seeks diversity but I'm also interested to find out if there's something the program is NOT looking for as well as what they are looking for.

Seeing how there's a strong interest among these organizations' members in MPP/MPA/IR I'm interested in how adcoms really view RPCVs and AmeriCorps/TFA alum. I'd appreciate any insight from alumni, non-alumni and people who've sat on committees. Do alumni have a distinct advantage in the admission process and in graduate studies in general?

Congrats to all of you who have completed the application process! I know there are tons of info out there regarding applying to grad school and several threads on admissions results, etc. I would still like to ask advice and insight specifically for MPP programs for those of us will apply for 2011. I think this is a good time especially since many of you have just completed the process (it's still fresh in your mind), have your results/made decisions and will soon probably disappear from these forums to pursue your endeavors. What was the application process like for you? (i.e. how long did it take you? what kind of road-bumps did you run into?) Was there anything that surprised you about the process? Anything would have done differently? What advice can you give regarding SOPs, GREs, gaining work experience, etc?