francophile_1

I believe so! I was accepted for my first year in Bologna and this is what my email said: "With our admission letters expected to be released on 5 March, admitted candidates will be informed in a separate communication on the day if they have also been awarded financial aid."

Thanks for the intel... oh well, now back from whince I came. See you folks the week of March 15th

last year it was on wednesday and the year before on a saturday. hope today is the day! but I have a feeling it will be in the back half of the week

omg yeah, someone just posted a result saying they got into Government, Masters....?? Maybe results are coming out now?

I applied to MSFS. Based on the past few years threads, I anticipate hearing next week.

lol I wish you could ask for a citation source for this information. Cue panic every time I check my (personal) email now.

Personally I'm leaning towards d) defer for a year and see how the job goes. I'm not too certain how grad schools look at deferring for a year, but it might be good to get more hands on experience and see if you actually like it before making a decision for or against going to grad school. If it turns out you love it, amazing - you're already in field of choice and can work quickly from there. If you hate it, you can always use that experience to apply to different schools and/or get more funding?

any word on funding?

the decisions are out! I'm in! (conditional offer pending taking micro and macro) but in no less!

Will today be the day?

Applied for an MAIR in Bologna. Just checked my portal and the decision letter was there. No word on funding tho.

Portal just updated! I'm in!

I feel like law school is also an exception here. NYU Law is T14 (the "ivy league" of law school as it were) vs. NYU undergrad, amazing but not quite in the same league as the Harvards of the world. Same deal with Michigan (also T14). If you look at law schools in the 15-30 range (which are all generally "regional" powerhouses) there are some surprising names like Fordham (#27), UT-Austin (#16), BU (#20), ASU (#24) etc. etc. TL;DR: I know entirely way too much about law school.

Not yet. TBH tho, they haven't received my GRE scores so I'm a little nervous. Need to re-send them I guess.

Mine was "What are your hobbies?". I applied for the MIA program.

1. Close - This may dox me but I went to Villanova. This was a very helpful assessment. 2. I applied to JHU Bologna, and had a very positive interview (no idea if that's the norm). Not sure if going the Bologna route might help me out, but that's helpful to know and something I am concerned about. HKS being hyper-quant heavy is a reason I'm shying against applying there. Also I've seen they're not the most generous with funding and I don't want to take out any more student loans than I already have. 3. Truly a lame reason, but I've always wanted to go to grad school. In my SOP, I leaned into going to grad school to further skills in policy analysis/quant to help me as a Political Foreign Service Officer. Academically speaking, I'm interested in understanding the impact of gender/religion on development/economic outcomes (which ultimately helps Political Officers better understand on the ground political situations/attitudes toward governance). I also am really interested in studying more about Islam in SE Asia. Writing this now this makes my SOP seem incredibly disjointed, lord help me. Other challenge is that you do NOT need to go to graduate school to join the foreign service, but a lot of the FSOTs I've spoken with have told me it helps. We'll see if any admission offices buy it. 5. For grad schools in Europe, a lot of it is financially motivated plus if I don't join the FS, I'd love to move abroad long term. Hertie's technocracy stuff is really cool, tbh and Science Po is more about moving to France than anything else. To your point tho, I've read the forms here about it and IDK if it's a wise choice. I've discounted an MBA for the time being but increasingly people have told me I should look into one so maybe. For Columbia, I actually live in NYC so I probably wouldn't be too bugged about the lack of community. (But, I'd definitely be annoyed by the fact I'm broke when all of my friends are working their high paying financial services jobs.)

Long time lurker, first time poster Applying to: Columbia SIPA MIA, Georgetown SFS MSFS, Tufts Fletcher MALD, Science Po Masters in International Diplomacy, Hertie School MPP, JHU SAIS MAIR, and maybe HKS MPP Undergrad institution: Mid-Sized Private University in the US (considered a really great school in the Northeast but I think it's top 50 in the rankings now) Undergrad Major: Political Science with minors in Business Administration and Marketing Undergrad GPA: 3.60/4.0 (Major GPA: 4.0) Years out of undergrad: 3.5 Quant Background: This is absolutely where I feel I am weakest. In college, I undertook a business minor at my college which has a very well known business school. I took Intro to Finance and Accounting (which was a joint course) and received a C+ and Intro to Applied Econ and received a B. I also took Stat and got an A. Post-grad, a lot of my work has had analytical components like budget analysis and data analysis. Relevant Work Experience: Outside of internships/a job in undergrad, I have around 3.5 years of experiences. Post-grad, I worked at a large worldwide and very well known healthcare INGO in marketing for around 8 months before leaving to do a Fulbright ETA grant. Post-grant, I worked at a really tiny healthcare INGO for eight months in development. Ultimately, that organization wasn't a good fit so I left pretty quickly. I've been working at a tech company in sales for the past 1.5 years but worked with my former boss to expand into the Singaporean market. International experience: I studied abroad in France for a year in college and did a Fulbright ETA grant in Souteast Asia. GRE: V: 162 Q: 153 AW: 5.5 Strength of LOR: Strong. One is from a professor I took three classes with in undergrad and got an A in each of them. He loves me and he's the chair of the graduate school department at my undergrad institution. I have a good feeling his will be great and hopefully speak to my ability to preform at a graduate school level. One is from my former supervisor at my tech startup. I think she spoke pretty well to me meeting challenging demands (my tech startup is in an industry that has been really impacted by Covid) and being motivated/handling pressure. I'm not sure how good her letter of rec is since she's never written one for policy school but I feel confident it's decent. Last one for Sciences Po/SFS is a prof I took my research sem with my senior year in college. I got an A in her course/on the paper which she said she'll write positively about. However, she said she can't speak to my motivation/abilities as a student because she forgets how I did in the class (haha.) Luckily, her letter feels low stakes. Strength of SOP: Meh, I think it's fine. I spoke about my Fubright and being in my host country during their election, how that experience cemented my desire to join the Foreign Service/explore the impact of increasing religiosity on attitudes towards democracy, etc. I customized to each school and cited specific courses I wanted to take/relevant clubs. But, we will see. Extracurriculars/Leadership: Pretty lackluster to be honest. This is where I feel second weakest. I was a part of a lot of different clubs in college, but nothing to write home about. Because I studied abroad for my entire junior year, I lost a lot of the momentum of being in the clubs I was involved in so by my senior year, I wasn't really doing much outside of being in a sorority. I'm super involved and active now in adulthood at my job (hi sub-committees) and volunteer as a mentor in the city I live in. I volunteered a lot in college.