gradddygrad

Ah, gotcha. Sorry, I misunderstood the first time. And I was looking at McCourt because I'll probably end up wanting to work in DC (went there for an internship in undergrad and loved living there) and Georgetown seemed to be the best option in the area (ex. higher quality than American, more generous with funding than GW, more domestic focused than SAIS, etc). I figured the location would make up for weaknesses compared to other schools.

Thanks to both of you for the concern. I'm aware that funding is going to be rough, but I have a municipal public sector job that might be eliminated because of budget cutbacks, so I can't really afford to wait years. Plus, the economic ramifications of all this will probably take a long time to resolve, so I don't think waiting an extra cycle will help THAT much. I think I'm a pretty strong applicant, but I definitely don't expect to get close to the kinds of funding people have been posting about here in recent cycles. That's part of why I'm asking, I'm really trying to look for any way to make the programs I want to attend as affordable as possible.

Hi everyone, I tried looking for answers to this on the forum but couldn't find ay. I'm applying to a few MPP programs by their early action deadline (Harris, HKS, Sanford, and McCourt), and I'm wondering if it's worth applying to a couple of places that might be more likely to offer me merit aid (ex. American) in order to use them to negotiate for more money from the first round of schools. In a hypothetical situation where HKS rejects me/offers me nothing, Harris/McCourt/Sanford offer me 10k each, and American (or some equivalent school) offers me 25k, would I be able to use that offer to squeeze some money out of any of the others? Or would they refuse because of the perception that the school might be a less prestigious program? Thanks for any info anyone's able to provide!