WhoaThereWombat
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Posts posted by WhoaThereWombat
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5 hours ago, r_policy96 said:
I did the same and haven’t heard anything. Going to speak with Lezley tonight. Curious if anyone has had any luck negotiating in past years too.
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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11 minutes ago, EC1225 said:
Gotcha! Thanks.
Can you also tell me how I can edit my post when I receive acceptances/rejections from these schools?
Assuming you're on a desktop browser:
- View your post.
- Click the ellipsis in the top right corner.
- Click "Edit."
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8 minutes ago, EC1225 said:
What do the different dollar signs mean when describing financial aid? What's the difference between $$ and $$$? Is it a percentage thing? I'm new to thegradcafe!
One $ is generally equivalent to 25% of tuition.
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19 hours ago, RealG said:
Does the 3 year degree actually create problem?
What exactly are you referring to...?
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On 6/15/2020 at 2:50 PM, iessat said:
Hello everyone. Did those of you on the waitlist recently receive an email from Matt, asking whether you wanted to remain on the waiting list? If so where are you from and what did you decide to do?
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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23 hours ago, Karam2022 said:
Hey everyone,
How does the current COVID-19 dilemma affect your decision making? I heard some school might be delaying their semester.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.
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9 hours ago, Yass said:
Why do you think is the international student % so low for the MPP program as compared to other schools like SIPA (50-70%) or SAIS (30-40%)? The other MPA programs at HKS also has a very high % of international students...
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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40 minutes ago, PP2020 said:
I just got put on the waitlist after a rejection. Any one know when we'll be hearing back? I had already mentally prepared for rejection, so this is a pleasantly surprising plot twist.
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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49 minutes ago, lisbonb said:
Hi All! I was also just put on the waitlist after being rejected. I know HKS mentions that they will review no supplemental materials for those put on the waitlist, but curious if others have communicated at all with admissions to provide any sort of update and/or simply thank them for the waitlist consideration?
I was also accepted to Michigan's Ford School MPP program w/ a full tuition scholarship and have to make a decision next week. So lots to consider. Any thoughts?
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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5 minutes ago, Bdaly96 said:
I just got put on the waitlist after being rejected. I think the coronavirus has caused tons of students to decline acceptance.
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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59 minutes ago, SketchesOfSpain said:
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
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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12 minutes ago, darkroastgopher said:
Hi everyone and congrats for those of you who've been admitted/waitlisted! As I mentioned earlier, I'm currently a first-year GSPP student. I'm circling back to this post because I'm in the middle of contacting new admits and wanted to extend an offer to this forum to answer any questions. Those of you who've already gotten their admission decisions will be hearing from my colleagues shortly, if you haven't already, but the proposition stands nevertheless.
I mostly want to let everyone know about my experience with financing my GSPP education. Scholarships from GSPP are very limited. I only know a handful of people in my cohort who are receiving any kind of merit aid, and it's typically only through the first year. I am not one of these recipients. However, the real cost reductions are in the ASE (Academic Student Employee) positions such as TAships, research positions, tutoring, and grading. Not only does this knock off 40-60% of your overall costs, but you're awarded a stipend, as well. These positions are almost all covered by our AMAZING graduate student union and come with free health insurance, assuming you're working at a minimum of 10 hours/week, potentially even less given recent negotiations. I cannot overstate how lucky we are to have such committed union reps and this was a major factor for me in choosing my program. In regards to availability of these positions, I'm not aware of anyone who was looking for one and didn't get an offer.
Graduate students at Berkeley are also entitled to receive in-state tuition after their first year, though I believe this only applies to U.S. citizens. I am an out-of-state student myself.
All of this being said, I'm going to be coming out of GSPP completely debt-free, which would not have been remotely possible at any of the other programs I had been considering (especially Harris). I was a GSI (Graduate Student Instructor aka what Berkeley calls their TAs) last semester and am a GSR (graduate student researcher) this semester. I am planning on having similar appointments for the remainder of my time here. With the stipends + tuition remission that these positions come with, I am essentially paying nothing to attend this program and the remission/stipends will actually be greater than what I'm paying overall. My colleagues who started out as CA residents are in even more advantageous positions.
The main source of your out-of-pocket costs will ultimately be cost of living. The key reason I am not taking out any loans at all is because of the savings I accrued during my gap years and that I'm fortunate enough to live with a partner to split expenses with. The majority of students here ARE taking out loans, and this is mostly to cover housing costs. Rent in East Bay is an absolute nightmare, yes, but zero tuition + cost of living in California was still a much better outlook for me than hella tuition/loans + moderate cost of living anywhere else.
Let me know if you have any Qs! The Bay Area is under official quarantine so I can't leave my apartment and have all the time in the world. Feel free to DM and/or reply here. Take care, all!
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?12 minutes ago, darkroastgopher said:Rent in East Bay is an absolute nightmare, yes, but zero tuition + cost of living in California was still a much better outlook for me than hella tuition/loans + moderate cost of living anywhere else.
Sounds like you're already embracing the Bay Area life and lingo.
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2 hours ago, GradSchoolGrad said:
FYI to all.
The US News rankings for grad programs just came out:
https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-public-affairs-schools
Yes... to a certain extent this is a beauty contest (not as rigorous as the undergrad ranking or med school rankings), but will people you engage in the real world check this out. You betcha.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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On 3/10/2020 at 4:15 AM, rec1use said:
I was going to their admitted student day, but I'm super afraid they're going to cancel it
Well, that cancellation email came today. Hope there aren't any technical difficulties with the virtual event...
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58 minutes ago, LazarusRises said:
Where have you heard that having a job while at SIPA is frowned upon? I was definitely planning on helping pay for the program with concurrent work. (I also applied for the MPA without the -ESP, does that make a difference?) Some cursory googling doesn't turn up anything warning against working your way through school, which I assumed was a common wait to finance a graduate degree.
@WhoaThereWombat I don't have any advice as far as choosing programs go, but I live in Durham right now. If there's anything that could be accomplished by somebody else visiting Duke for you, let me know and I might be able to make it happen.
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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4 hours ago, Mcdreamy said:
How do we negotiate ? I am an international student . No funding ? Any ideas please ?
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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Just now, ch442 said:
Is your result also on the website? Still haven’t received/found anything.
Same!! Ahhhh!!!!
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26 minutes ago, darkroastgopher said:
Hi all!
I'm a current Goldman MPP student as well as one of the volunteers to call new admits. We were told we'd be receiving the call lists "the week of March 7th" but haven't as of this time. If you weren't aware already, Berkeley's campus just shut down due to the COVID virus and all classes have been moved to 100% online instruction. I'm almost certain this is causing a bit of backlog with admissions notifications. That being said, I'd be surprised if the notifications weren't coming out this week.
Fingers crossed that good news will be coming to you all soon!
P.S. No worries if you don't get a call. When I was accepted (right away, not off the waitlist) I only got an email/change to my student portal. Same with other members of my cohort for no clear reason.
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!!
Decision time: share your dilemma
in Government Affairs Forum
Posted
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.