tiaki

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

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.

I agree SEAS would be ideal if they offer some degree of guaranteed funding at the outset, but as it stands, it is a risky gamble to take on debt in the hopes that one of those GSI/GSRA positions becomes available after enrolling.

Just accepted my offer from SEAS and declined ones from Nicholas and Bren. Good luck everyone! 

Haha my breakout room also only talked about how stressed we were! 
But from what I can tell the GSI/GSRA positions come with full tuition wavers and a stipend, so that's definitely our best bet. However I don't know if you can even apply if you aren't a student yet. Has anyone asked or tried?
@tiakiFrom what you said, it seems like you think you'd be happier at Michigan. I think you should really think if saving 2/5 of tuition costs is worth it. Especially if Michigan has more or better GSI oppurtunities...?

I really wasn’t impressed with the SEAS virtual visit day. Maybe just because I was too stressed about funding to want to get too excited about it. But I felt they’re were a lot of other things they didn’t address too. But I’m really torn and I don’t have other options that I am really considering at the moment. So essentially my options are grad school or no grad school for this year. But I don’t want to go through the application process again either...
 
I actually ended up emailing a professor about one of the open GSI positions to see if I could even apply and she didn’t even know. I wish they would have talked more about GSRA positions as well. 

What did you all think of SEAS Admitted Students Day overall?  I thought it was "OK' at best; some of the presentations were good, but for the most part they did not address the funding issue very well.  Is anyone leaning toward SEAS in spite of the funding issue?  Glad I am not the only one in terms of the funding issue.

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.

Live updates from SEAS virtual visit day....
-1500 applications, class size around 250
-About half of the questions asked in the Zoom chat were about lack of funding...seems like everyones in the same boat. They didn't answer any funding/finaid questions, referring us to a workshop later in the day. 
Maybe it's normal, but I get the feeling a lot of this class (like this year's graduate applicants) is struggling to figure out funding and less willing to take out tens of thousands of dollars in debt. Maybe the pandemic? Or just this generation? I don't know but it's making me sad that grad school isn't more accessible. Especially in a field where most of us want to literally save this world.
Okay, sorry for the complaining/ranting...haha. Anyone else have thoughts?

btw - if anyone is curious, I heard from someone at YSE that they had over 1k applicants for 120 spots this year. crazy!

And some of us STILL have not heard back! I applied at SEAS for Sustainable Systems and haven't heard a peep in weeks. I've got no clue what is going on. 

Just declined my offer to YSE MEM program in favor of an Environmentally focused MPA degree with better funding elsewhere.  As someone who was admitted off a waitlist for undergrad, I feel everyone's pain and hope this offers some hope!  Best of luck to everyone this fall - everything will work out!

Got really impatient so I emailed them yesterday asking for an application status update. I just received a generic reply stating "Thank you for your interest in the Bren school! Applications are still currently under review. All decisions will be communicated by March 26." It seems insane that they're still reviewing apps over 2 months after the submission deadline, but maybe they're really that slow. For reference, I applied on 1/5 late in the evening

My first and last name letters are in the beginning of the alphabet but still no response from Bren. I doubt they do it this way lol Have no idea how they release admissions decisions, but they are definitely playing with my nerves.

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.

Congrats! I just heard back from Bren too and would to know if there's a Facebook group or anything as well!!

sorry for the million posts, but just found out (minutes ago) i got into bren. is there any facebook group or group chat out there with the Bren 2023 mesm admitted students?

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.

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.