abay91

Ah, that sounds great! Maybe you can try dropping the school names in random conversations with professors. However, you should ask your letter writers frankly cause I did too when selecting Masters programs even though my professors in general do not advise students on which schools to opt for. Previously graduated students who had applied to similar courses from your current university could also be a good source!

You could (a) look at courses offered and their syllabus if available (b) talk to current or graduated students (c) talk to your professors about the academic quality of these programs, I'm sure they would have some idea. I'm not sure if this is helpful at all, good luck with your decision!

I thought Harvard was planning to be fully in-person in the Fall?

Great, good luck, hope it works out!

If 2 letters are sufficient and the referee is ghosting you, you might want to delete/drop them for the school to process your application. You should ask the grad admissions team if you haven't already about how they treat missing letters! If they need 3, then you would have to replace this person with another.

This is a really really tough situation to be in, and I'm not sure how much help what I'm about to day would be. I would be slightly cautious of student loans in your situation because if you aim to do a pubpol phd, your pay will not be significant in the 5-6 years you will be in the program. However, if you were to work more for a few years after your masters, you might be able to make up the loan amount (take this with a grain of salt, I haven't worked in the American market or done a policy masters). Is there any reason you didn't apply to policy phds directly? would another masters help in maybe getting letters, coursework, RA experience during the course? I am considering accepting a ppol phd program after a few years of econ RA-ship and an econ MA -- please feel free to message me about policy phd apps whenever you apply!

I use a Lenovo ThinkPad L13 -- which is something my work gave me -- but I'm considering buying something similar before grad school starts as well! It is really smooth, and can handle a lot of applications running at the same time (I code too, so it handles multiple coding applications at once). My company bought it with my local currency, so I can't say what it's going to cost you. One con though is it overheats like crazy when charging if it's not put on a hard surface. Would love to hear what others are using!

I opted for university housing during my first year, because I just wasn't super sure of going for an apartment w/o actually seeing it in-person. Also uni housing was cheaper in my case (it had wifi, utilities, a fully equipped kitchen) and was actually a really nice way to meet people not in my program. You'll also find future flatmates in dorms if you're coming in w/o knowing anyone else! However, in most schools, grad housing can be more expensive, doesn't have cooking areas and come with expensive meal plans that you might not want. Some things I considered were rates and utilities covered, security deposit, quiet hours, visitor policy, types of people who would be your dorm mates, kitchen availability, kitchen equipment, bathroom and shower areas, furniture provided, curfew or other restrictions on mobility (ideally none!), distance from department, activities in common areas, and so on. I also had access to pictures of the dorm before deciding. I loved my dorm but I understand not everyone likes the dorm experience.

It does sound crazy, good luck, I'm sure things will work out for the best!!

Good luck, finding housing is a top concern for me too no matter which school, hope you get great grad housing!

Have not negotiated for a higher summer stipend yet, because I think I'm leaning towards school #2 for other reasons than funding. But the fixed grad housing is apparently very common (literally brought up by 3 different students I spoke to)! School #1 (with the grad housing) is UCSD and the housing falls under their SHORE policy, if that helps!

Have they really given you just 6 days to get back to them? That sounds like a really short time to make an informed decision. I would write back for an extension, I have no idea if that works (applying for the first time this cycle). But whatever offer I have received that is not US-based (and hence not a 15th April deadline) has given me time till at least March 29th. I really hope you get an extension, because good news might come your way soon from other schools!

I think you can expect a revised and better offer. Obviously debatable, maybe they are negotiating similarly? However, it won't take away from their current offers in any way.

I've also been offered something similar by school #1 -- "let us know if you are leaning towards school #2 because they are offering a higher [summer stipend for example] and we can try to match it". They have also offered fixed cheap housing for 5 years instead of higher stipend.

Northwestern or UCSD for econ?