nerwen

Hey everyone, I'd appreciate some help in getting your insights as I decide between 2 schools who have given me some more time/have later deadlines. I am considering cost, class size, student experience and curriculum relevance. My interests are social policy and social entrepreneurship with a particular focus on labour, gender and technology. As someone with no prior background in policymaking, I hope to use the MPP degree to better understand the actors and processes involved and am open to a generalist approach. I wish to work in international non-profits or multilateral organisations after graduation but that's not yet set in stone, with a few years in the US then mostly in developing countries outside my home country. With Harris, I get a STEM degree which allows me 2 more years to work in the US and thus earn enough to pay off loans. The final tuition cost for both schools is the same (Harris recently reached out with what I'd call a sales pitch to convince me to join and increased funding by 18k each year) with living costs being slightly higher for Chicago than Durham. The class sizes are quite big too (can mean competitive access to services) and I felt that Harris had a very heavy focus on economics while I want a more holistic curriculum for policymaking since this is a career pivot for me. Additionally, both my professional and academic backgrounds have been calculus and data heavy already. On the other hand, Sanford gave me a very generous scholarship from the beginning (about 70%) and has small classes, easier access to other Duke schools and a better core. But, their MPP is not STEM (with no hopes of this changing in the near future) so I'll only have 1 year after my degree to stay and find work in the country which is tough since most orgs wouldn't want to train me just so that I leave after a year or less. I also have the option of attending Sciences Po which after scholarship costs me just 10k in tuition and gives me 2 years to stay and find work in France but not too sure about the job market and quality of education there.

Hey, I don't know how helpful this would be but I am in a similar dilemma albeit with duke vs Harris instead of Georgetown and ended up choosing duke. My areas of interest are social and tech policy, as well as social entrepreneurship. For me, the major reasons to choose Sanford are 1. I am not enthusiastic about Harris' curriculum and its econ-focus. As someone coming into policy, I found Duke's core better rounded and liked the ease of access to other schools' courses. 2. The class sizes and student experience - very important for me because I am introverted so a strong, collaborative community and easier access to professors were important. I couldn't imagine myself in an incoming class that could be 300-400 students! 3. I already have a quant-heavy background with about half a decade of experience in data, software and coding. (I must add though, what @GradSchoolGradsaid about the need for data analytics has made me feel better about my decision of choosing a non-STEM program, haha!) And from my conversations with duke students and staff, I felt they are quite decent in data and focus on data driven policies. 4. Cost!! Duke will cost me half of what Chicago is and being about 70-80k (not counting COL) in debt for an MPP didn't seem worthwhile to me personally. Even Duke's price isn't the most affordable for a 1 year OPT but slightly more doable. Plus Durham is cheap. I was also considering Michigan and Columbia but finally removed those from the list thanks to costs and the general student experiences, respectively!

Have they said there will be no funding? It could also be possible that they'll release funding decisions after some time. Not sure though

I got in! Just checked the portal directly and it showed the admission recommendation. No word on funding yet.

Rejection Gutted... This was my top choice especially in terms of the classes

Haha, no I think it was more of an update to calm us down and not keep us on our toes.

Yes I got one yesterday, as well

Will the next week be that week? Also wondering, do schools send out decisions on weekends?

I really really hope you get in with great scholarships, especially when you've already received one with the MSW. Me too! It was a complete shot in the dark for me, honestly. I am more optimistic about HKS and Jackson than I am about SPIA, haha! The portal is referring to all Princeton grad school decisions. For SPIA, in the last 2 years, they released on 11-12 March. So we might get both Ford and Princeton at the same time, which is both scary and exciting?!

Yes the cost is a big factor for me too as an international student, and with very few external scholarship options, it'll be difficult to attend without funding, if accepted. I checked for the last 2 years and it was somewhere around 11-12 March but I think the deadline was also 15 Jan in those years. And also, on their website, Ford had mentioned that they start reviewing applications from the beginning of January till the end of March. Ugh! I really hope they stick to the trend so far

Do you think the decisions will be released later than usual this year, since they had moved the application deadline back by 2 weeks?

Hey, thanks for starting the thread and congrats on the acceptance! Applied at the last moment, and then found out the deadline got extended, haha! Hopefully we'll get to hear something in early March itself.

Hey everyone! With results still a month or more away and a recurring anxiety, would like to share the space with fellow applicants to discuss all things MPP/MPA/MDP- your expectations, results, dilemma, interests and schools. All the best!

To those admitted, have you taken the next steps they've mentioned on their admitted students website? I recall that in one of their info sessions, they had mentioned a slack channel for all admitted students but I haven't received any such invitation yet. If anyone knows more about this, would love to learn more about it.

Hey, thanks for starting this thread! It may be early March but the wait is really unbearable...