Spoonforkknife

After lurking here for the past season, time to do my part and add to prospective applicants' anxieties. Sorry if my writing isn’t so organized, I’m on my phone and just typing whatever's on my mind. Program Applied To (MPA, MPP, IR, etc.): MPP Schools Applied To: Duke Sanford, HKS , UChicago Harris Schools Admitted To: All.. Duke Sanford ($$$), HKS (none) , UChicago Harris (technically none, because using GI bill) Schools Rejected From: none Still Waiting: n/a Undergraduate Institution: Top 140 USNWR.. lol Undergraduate GPA: 2.26 first bachelors, 3.98 second bachelors Undergraduate Major: International Relations GRE Quantitative/Verbal/AW Scores: 161V / 158 Q / 4.0 AW Years Out of Undergrad (if applicable): 1 year Years of Work Experience: 9 years Describe Relevant Work Experience: Five years in military, 4 years as a defense contractor Strength of SOP (be honest, describe the process, etc): The essays were where I spent most of my time during the application. As should you. Don’t underestimate how much time you can spend. I started one year before the deadline and went through dozens of revisions, word per word. Cut out unnecessary fluff, be straight to the point so that the readers will easily recall you. You will have blind spots, so have people familiar with the process review your essay. Rummage through subreddits and youtube videos for concrete advice on succinct SOP writing. Spend a ton of time thinking about your goal, do research on your topic, which people you want to impact, and what you will do to make that change. Search people on linkedin with a similar trajectory related to your goal and see what steps they took to get there. The plan has to be realistic. In my HKS essay, since I was an MPP applicant with over 9 years WE, I had to make a clear justification why I am making this shift in my career. My career plan was totally unrelated to my work experience. Strength of LOR's (be honest, describe the process, etc): I had strong relations with all of them, my professor, my current supervisor, and my former supervisor in the military. I made sure that each recommender wrote qualities that the other recommender haven’t mentioned—so no overlap. This gives room for adcom to know you front and back. Approach this systematically. Spend time helping them understand your career goal and what you want written. This will take time. I made a spreadsheet of all the qualities I want them to address to keep track of whether the letters met the criteria, and gave them a comprehensive do’s and don’ts guideline. I gave them bullet points of specific things I wanted them to mention that give them a good clue of who I would be in the classroom. I also provided some great examples of LORs and my essay drafts. Each LOR mentioned my career goal and what I plan to do with the MPP program. Don’t have them just state a certain quality (e.g. he was hardworking), ask them to give specific anecdotes to back it up. Most importantly, I asked them to speak from the heart. Because I was worried about my GRE quant, I made sure that two of my LORs made comments about my analytical/quant skills academically and professionally. Other: Was going to apply to Columbia SIPA, UVA Batten, and Georgetown McCourt, but only applied to three after I found out that I got into Harris early decision. I was an enlisted military and also a more—senior applicant with 9 years WE..I thought this was a disadvantage to HKS—it is absolutely not. Don’t spend so much time working an unimpressive GRE score unless your scores are awfully low or have no analytical background. I tried four times improving my quant score and failed. But I now believe that this is the least of my concern. Good luck all!

I acknowledge that USNWR rankings for public public analysis schools aren't as well formulated as law, business and college rankings. But it's very interesting to note the sharp drop in HKS's rank--down to sixth place . I might have my suspicions on why it dropped but I wonder what could have led to this drop. I'm very glad UChicago Harris is in #3 and Duke is in #5. They have been nothing but amazing during the admissions process. What do you all think?

For posterity. Will try to archive discord group later: HKS DECISION DATE HISTORY 2022 Season - Thursday 24 Mar 2022, 3:40 pm. app due: 1 Dec 2021 2021 Season - Thursday 18 Mar 2021, app due: 8 Dec 2020 2020 Season - Thursday 19 Mar 2020, app due: 3 Dec 2019 (possibly delayed due to COVID-19) 2019 Season - Thursday 14 Mar, 2019 app due: est. 3 Dec 2018 2018 Season - Thursday 15 Mar 2018, app due: 4 Dec 2017 2017 Season - Wednesday 8 Mar 2017, app due: 1 Dec 2016 2016 Season - Wednesday 9 Mar 2016, app due: 1 Dec 2015 2015 Season - Wednesday 11 Mar 2015, app due: 2 Dec 2014 2014 Season - Thursday 13 Mar 2014, app due: 4 Dec 2013 2013 Season - Wednesday 13 Mar 2013, app due: 30 Nov 2012 2012 Season - Wednesday 13 Mar 2012, app due: 2 Dec 2011 Decision time can come around 3 to 5pm.

Just reminding other hks applicants the discord group is very much alive, with 23 of us. join in link below. https://discord.com/invite/zfRpRJSDcZ

Hey everyone, just re-uploading a new invite link to the discord server for us while we wait. Come join, there's 12 of us. Let me know if you have trouble accessing the invite. https://discord.com/invite/zfRpRJSDcZ

I'm still in the middle of my sanford essays right now. I personally wasn't too impressed some of theirs. Too much bragging about resume items and nothing about their personality. You could talk about the bowl of macaroni and cheese you had for dinner and how it relates to your love of community. And as long as that shows your emotions and personality (and answers the prompt), it would be scores more effective than their format. Good luck to you too.

In my essay, I'm just going to quickly introduce myself for five seconds then share a quick anecdote and the value that I want to bring to Sanford. I'm using my phone's camera and its just me sitting in my living room. You don't have to make some fancy edited video like some I've seen, just share something that's not in your resume and personal statement. Their biggest suggestion is that you do not act mechanical, and that you don't read off a script. Look at videos examples of past applicants on youtube to see what mistakes you want to avoid. In one example, I can obviously tell one applicant is just trying to read off something. Imagine yourself trying to squeeze in a script you wrote about your elevator pitch and laundry list of accomplishments in your resume, vs what you would sound like if you were talking to a couple recruiters at some mixer about a neat story. The latter would sound much better. Sound as natural as possible.

Try this server I made and see if it works. https://discord.gg/2WA4xxea

I'd be down to also join a discord group or whatever with you guys to share our anxieties together

I totally missed this, but they also left me a voicemail about my MPP application on friday near end of COB to talk about my application. I assume they don't call to reject you right? I'm so stoked.

Has your acceptance been reflected in your application portal already? or just a phone call? congrats!