tiaki

I can say Duke itself definitely doesn't have anything in the way of urban planning, but UNC has a department that NSOE students can get a certificate from or do a dual degree

I don’t know how many people were admitted this year but 1) from what I’ve heard, the average pre-pandemic class size was between 160-180. Idk how many initial acceptances that would correlate to, and 2) I personally don’t think the school could handle having 2 huge classes at the same time. It seems most people got at least some FA, a lot of people have assistantships ($3k/yr job, converts to pure scholarship 2nd yr). The big Nicholas Scholars scholarship selects 15 people per cohort and covers about 70% of tuition; that’s the only one I know for sure! Unfortunately, as professional programs none of the 4 big MEM programs have across the board phenomenal financial aid but I’ve definitely heard many people (including myself) say aid was a major part of choosing NSOE. Durham also had the cheapest cost of living of my options, and Duke tuition was somehow slightly cheaper too (not that it’s affordable).

Dates for primary emails from last year: Admissions decision 02/23 Scholarship award 03/16 Full financial aid package 03/31 I can’t remember if we received info prior to those dates but that’s when I got the relevant emails. I’d assume they won’t be waiting the same amount of time this year if admissions was early March (in part because my class is record size), but I have no idea Edit: and everyone I know in the energy concentration seems happy with it—or at least they’re satisfied they’re gaining useful skills and receiving a solid education.

Current Duke first year MEM here, was in your shoes this time last year so congrats to everyone on their acceptances!! Of the programs I was accepted to (NSOE, Bren, SEAS), NSOE awarded by far the most financial aid and this was true for most students I know. The highest scholarship you can get is if you’re selected as a Nicholas Scholar, and that’s about 3/5 of tuition. I got a generic scholarship and then work study + an assistantship, which is like work study but typically more professionally oriented (you apply to ones you want when school starts; mine is directly in the field I want to work in but some are more administrative). A looot of people have some amount of financial aid. Mine totaled is about 40% of tuition. SEAS gave funding info with the acceptance, same with Bren but only for merit scholarships; they had said need based would come later but this was beyond deadlines for deposits, so. NSOE had a record number of applications this year and I think accepted fewer people; last year every school at Duke including NSOE had their largest class ever due to more people than expected accepting the admissions offer.

The two of them as new faculty were 90% of why YSE was my top choice, haha. Congrats to everyone who will be taking classes with them, I'm really excited for you! ? Bren admit day is this Friday and I'll be attending, but I've gotten my full financial packages from SEAS and NSOE at this point and will make my final decision within the next week so waitlist spaces can be freed up! I'm almost definitely going to commit to Nicholas because of the funding, but the lack of a full EJ program really has been my major concern. (To the point where I briefly considered just reapplying to YSE this fall lol) I've spoken to current students and alumni over the past week, though, and it seems there genuinely is active work being done to build one, and even without that the student EJ groups are thankfully more radical than I had assumed. In the Dean's welcome session, she was surprisingly blunt about racial justice and environmental justice, so I have hope that they're actually dedicated to fully integrating EJ. If anyone else in EJ plans to attend Nicholas, we should connect! My EJ background is southwest USA nuclearism and Downwinders, as well as energy equity (which I hope to focus on in grad school in terms of policy).

Unfortunately the alumni panel was a little more open about funding difficulties- from what I remember, they mostly either had scholarships or were able to secure GSI positions, but were clear that they had classmates who graduated with a TON of debt. The major thing I remember and noted down from the funding session was how few GSI positions there are each semester, they said it differs from sem to sem but this fall it’s less than 30 for the entirety of SEAS. I guess that’s the crux of my issue- SEAS seems great but attending would essentially be a gamble that I would have some of my tuition offset, whereas at Nicholas I’m basically already guaranteed nearly an entire semester covered each year. For anyone else comparing SEAS and NSOE, I talked to an SEAS faculty member familiar with all of the major MEM type programs. His input was along the lines of: Bren is really California-centric and many of their graduates go into consulting in CA, but there isn’t a huge amount of overlap with other professional schools at UCSB. SEAS & NSOE are the most similar in terms of ease of taking courses at other professional schools (policy, business, etc), as well as the quality of their policy programs, but SEAS is more inherently interdisciplinary from the start since the concentrations are more loosely defined. SEAS is a bit more academic, with pathways to student research and PhD prep, while NSOE really focuses on the professional training. In terms of regional career advantages, Michigan is obviously super well positioned in the midwest and Duke in the south and southeast. I’m not sure which has more reach internationally or in places like the northeast (where I’m from) but both have strong alumni networks (though Michigan’s is 5x bigger lol). There’s obv also a massive difference in the presence of a robust EJ curriculum at SEAS while NSOE still lacks one.

Same exact thing in my breakout room! We were like well, here's the spreadsheet activity but actually let's talk about our stress. (We discussed making a group chat to talk about decisions outside of that but got cut off, if by some small miracle you were part of my group, hi!) SEAS admit day made my decision much harder, as they talked SO much about how many students are able to get GSI positions or assistantships that offset tuition, so I'm not really sure what the end cost may actually be? SEAS seems like an amazing fit because I highly value and would be happiest in a more academic, intellectual, interdisciplinary environment and it certainly checks those boxes. I'm almost definitely going to Nicholas at this point as they gave me funding that covers about 2/5 tuition, but I haven't gotten the same vibes. If anyone is more familiar with the environment of Nicholas, please share any input you have! I've mostly just heard about how professional it is, which is super important but I also want to feel intellectually challenged, haha.

I had to miss the morning sessions for SEAS today, so thank you for sharing!! Funding has been a huge stress for me, as I received only a few thousand a year in work study from SEAS and nothing from Bren. It will probably end up being the biggest factor in deciding where I attend. I'm in a WhatsApp group for Nicholas admitted students (if you're a Nicholas admit and want to join, link is in the FB group!) and we've all been stressed about funding, as they've been rolling that info out over the last 2ish weeks. I finally heard back a few days ago and it was nearly 20k in renewable merit funding, no need-based. Edit: in Feb, I talked to NSOE staff about need-based funding and was told that a huge number of applicants applied for need-based aid, so that is another reason why people are receiving less that they may have in previous years.

nope lol

First letter of mine is before M, but at that rate the end of the alphabet wouldn't hear back for weeks so hopefully it's not alphabetical!

That's so interesting. The Nicholas and SEAS FB groups have been really helpful for me so far, just in lurking and getting a feel of the cohorts, the cultures, and what I have in common with other admits. Most of the people in each group seem to be decided on that particular program, but there are plenty who aren't yet. Idk what's up with them releasing decisions so slowly, but I was admitted yesterday so it's definitely still rolling out.

Giving another perspective as someone who's lived in Albuquerque for a few years! For context, I am a woman in my 20s. I lived a mile from campus off of Central (the main road through ABQ, aka route 66) in Nob Hill for 2 years and walked to campus or took the bus. I felt genuinely unsafe once (though it was a false alarm), which in my experience living in different places is unfortunately pretty normal in American cities. I generally felt safe on campus at night, though if you have a car I would absolutely not recommend parking in Lot A at night (it's on campus off of Central) as I had numerous friends deal with break ins there. It's definitely a city with a significant amount of vehicle crime, but I don't own a car so I can't really speak more to it firsthand. Catcalling is more prevalent than anywhere else I've lived. The homeless population is extremely visible on Central and downtown but I haven't had issues, and there's been increased pushes for the local government to actually help them. The people here are overall among the friendliest I've encountered– as a northeast transplant used to strangers not talking to me, it was weird at first but you get used to it. ABQ has a really awesome art scene and an expanding food scene. It's an isolated city since NM is so rural (6+ hour drive to other major cities), but if you're into the outdoors, this is an amazing place for hiking, camping, and generally exploring. I've lived in a number of different US cities and Albuquerque has been one of my favorite places, even though I'm usually a big city person. There's also a really strong environmentalist presence here. Northeast Heights is typically considered the most residential and suburban-ish area. Southeast is unaffectionately called "the war zone." Nob Hill is one of the most walkable neighborhoods, with lots of restaurants and bars and events (...when there isn't a pandemic), and I loved living there. It's just east of campus along Central. Cost of living is REALLY cheap, though housing prices (buying, not renting) have been steadily increasing and many residents are slowly being priced out of home ownership. Fine Arts Library was my favorite place to study at UNM, it's quiet and has a beautiful view of the Sandias.

I got in this morning, so they're still rolling out acceptances. I can't speak to the GPA part personally, but looking at the shared results on Gradcafe, someone got into their PhD program last year with a 2.90. There's always a chance, especially since the rest of your application sounds great!

I agree about Duke’s application letting us really express who we are! The 15 Things was by far the most useful piece of any of my applications. I had a really complicated undergrad experience that was difficult to cover in a single essay. The SOPs were so short that I largely focused them on my academic success + environmental background + why the schools were a good fit. I also had internship work experiences that weren’t directly relevant to environmental work but were prestigious and showed my work ethic (and one of my LORs was from one!), so I mentioned those as well in the 15 Things. As for deferrals, idk how other schools handled it but I talked to a YSE admissions person in fall and they didn’t mostly allow COVID-related deferrals last year. If someone wanted to defer, they had to fully reapply this cycle- my guess is their applications did get slight priority (which is fair imo). To the question about where people applied, I applied to Duke Nicholas MEM, UMich SEAS MS, UCSB Bren MESM, and YSE MEM. All for policy specializations or environmental justice and policy. Those are the main four environmental management (/related to that) programs in the USA and they compare themselves to primarily the other three. There are other programs that are largely newer and still growing, but I focused on those four. Edit: oh, and if you want to do more research on how different programs compare, honestly, my best resource when researching programs was past Gradcafe threads. There’s been one for most application cycles in the past 3ish years. My undergrad advisors and mentors were totally unaware of MEM programs and I don’t know anyone irl who has gone to one or applied, so I attended a ton of info sessions and obsessively searched Gradcafe as well as Reddit for input from students and people in the environmental field.

Also haven't heard back from Bren for MESM, my application was submitted on Jan 5th! I also know a few other people not on here who haven't heard back.