WhoaThereWombat
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Everything posted by WhoaThereWombat
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Decision time: share your dilemma
WhoaThereWombat replied to bac's topic in Government Affairs Forum
UCLA's a quarter system school, so there's more academic terms and more classes to take relative to a semester system school. It's still a 2-year MPP, so I wouldn't judge a program purely based on its unit count. I did quarter system for undergrad and I'm now in a semester MPP program. I miss the breadth of the quarter system and the chance to take lots of different classes with different faculty, personally. -
I got in with no funding last year, and tried negotiating with a full-tuition scholarship from USC's Price School. No dice. Last year was a weird year and this year is also abnormal, so who knows. Hope you have better luck than me!
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Assuming you're on a desktop browser: View your post. Click the ellipsis in the top right corner. Click "Edit."
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One $ is generally equivalent to 25% of tuition.
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What exactly are you referring to...?
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Yup. I asked to be taken off the waitlist. I’m from CA and will be doing an MPP at USC with a full tuition scholarship, so it was pretty much a no brainer at this point.
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2020 ||||| Decision time: share your dilemma
WhoaThereWombat replied to Karam2022's topic in Government Affairs Forum
Goldman announced yesterday that they were delaying their commitment deadline to 4/30, pushed back from 4/15. Interesting to see how different schools are coping with the uncertainty. -
I don’t know much about SIPA or SAIS but maybe because they have a more explicit international focus?
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Some more discussion here on Reddit's law school admission subreddit re: this HKS MPP waitlist movement and what it could mean for law schools/waitlists generally. The 28% international student statistic is a really interesting one.
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The waitlist online form says: "...a place may become available for you later this spring or in early summer. We will have a better idea of your prospects for admission in late April or May, after admitted candidates have responded to our offer. We will notify you of any action on your application as soon as it is taken." Not the firmest of timelines, but understandably so.
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I got a full tuition scholarship for the USC Price MPP and... I find myself skeptical that an HKS MPP would be worth the debt/opportunity cost. But I haven't yet done the HKS research/drank the Kool-Aid yet. There's lots of debt discussions on Gradcafe from the last few years and I feel like consensus is generally that an MPP is not worth 100k+ in debt, no matter where it's from. That sounds pretty reasonable to me, having not done a ton of further research.
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Same. Would love to know how their enrollment/yield numbers are looking right now. It's probably causing a lot of deferrals, too. Or it's making students who got into HKS without much money choose another option with more funding. How much is the HKS brand worth if a chunk of your degree was over Zoom?
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My impression when speaking with GSPP students/alumni is that they're all open to connecting you with other people. So you're not only limited to who the school has made available. But sure, they have a vested interest in giving a platform to those with positive things to say. I'm a CA resident, so relative to getting an MPP at a private university with no scholarships on the table, Goldman would be an easy choice. The only problem is that private schools are (generally) more generous with aid, so I don't think that many people choose between a no-scholarship-Goldman option and a no-scholarship-private option. I'll echo your surprise that it seemed like no one was very stressed about their loans/finances, though. I guess I'm interested to hear if your average Goldman student feels like the degree is worth 30-50k more in loans compared to a fully-scholarshipped private program (like Duke or USC), but it seems like everyone is pretty satisfied with their education and would still pick Goldman. Hard to know unless someone's done the degree at both places, lol.
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I'll chime in and say that I was really impressed by the online Admitted Student Event -- lots of content, and lots of questions answered/bases covered. Did it change or influence anyone's thinking so far?
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Thanks for your detailed answers, @darkroastgopher! Knowing that the ASE job hunt is a bit of a wild west helps set my expectations. Guess everyone needs to cast a wide net and hope that they get lucky. And I didn't know about the pedagogy class, so that helps me feel like I wouldn't be thrown to the wolves right off the bat. I tried to ninja-edit a third question before you started responding, but I think you were too fast What was one big takeaway that you got from the on-campus admitted student event last year, that you'd want to communicate to this year's prospective class? And maybe one more question, if you'll indulge me... are you planning to stay in California/the Bay Area after graduating? I can see from the employment data that a solid majority stay in CA, and a majority of those people stay in the Bay Area specifically. Just wondering what your plans are, or maybe if they've changed since starting at GSPP.
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Really appreciate your availability and willingness to answer questions! Thank you for sharing your experience. I have a few follow-up questions, if you wouldn't mind illuminating a bit. - How difficult was it for you to obtain the TAship for your first semester? - In your experience, do you prefer being a GSR or GSI? Is one relatively more accessible than the other? (I'm hesitant to assume that I would be a good TA... teaching undergrads seems like a big responsibility!) - What was one big takeaway that you got from the on-campus admitted student event last year, that you'd want to communicate to this year's prospective class? Sounds like you're already embracing the Bay Area life and lingo.
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MPP folks might be more interested in the Public Policy Analysis rankings. But yeah, this is a bit of a crapshoot.
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Well, that cancellation email came today. Hope there aren't any technical difficulties with the virtual event...
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You're quite kind to offer, but I didn't apply to Duke! I think you meant to tag @woodscommaelle
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Happy to see this post, almost purely for commiseration purposes. I feel this post on a near-spiritual level, lol. This was advice given to me by an undergrad professor when I was figuring out which programs I wanted to apply to, and it might be helpful here: go faculty shopping, and see if you can track down 1-3 faculty whose research aligns with what you're interested in. (Apologies if this is old/repeated advice for you.) I think that can go a long way toward figuring out if there's already a space carved out for your interests on campus, instead of needing to battle to create that focus/specialization yourself. It can be a lot to research, since it seems many MPP programs allow and encourage students to take classes outside of the school's policy school. But that's maybe a good place to start, and you could fire off some emails to see if they'd allow you to barnacle-attach yourself to their research endeavors. Or at least take a class or two from them. I didn't apply to Duke/Georgetown so I'm not sure how they're handling things, but it seems there's some online webinar events that are being held in replacement of a traditional admitted student day. (Berkeley GSSP and USC Price so far for me, out of the schools I've applied to.) I... honestly can't even fathom how that'll impact making such an important decision. So, in lieu of answers at the moment, I just wanna say that this definitely sucks and I'm stressed with you.
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You can try negotiating or asking for aid reconsideration, but you'll likely need a scholarship offer from another school or two to give you the most leverage. That's my understanding from reading. You might want to search for Gradcafe posts about negotiating. Here's a thread from a few years ago:
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Admitted, but no funding. I got a full tuition scholarship from USC Price, so I think that'll be hard to beat. I'll need to think about if I want to even try negotiating, especially since I'm an LA native and would like to be in LA long term.
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Same!! Ahhhh!!!!
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Whoa, thanks for the peek behind the curtain. (I didn't know that any admits got calls, thought it was exclusively email/portal change.) I also wouldn't be surprised if COVID-19 has impacted the admissions process, but I hope we don't have to wait much longer!
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Based on previous years, I'm expecting to hear back this week. The waiting is driving me crazy!!
