planningfor2021

Planetizen's ranking criteria is kind of a joke. Any one have link to the departmental citation ranking?

Anyone going to create a USC Fall 2021 Prospective class thread?

Also, thinking to send an email. DM and we can brainstorm.

When did you hear back from USC?

If you applied by the December 15th deadline? In my conversations with admissions, I was told that we should hear by early March.

Yes. But some programs are experiencing a larger volume of applicants than other programs. At this point, this all seems so opaque, so any insight on applicant would be appreciated.

Did they have an increase in the number of applicants? If so, by what percentage?

Same boat.

We're all at that same place. Did you apply to USC?

Still waiting on USC. I am becoming increasingly anxious as this goes on.

Thank you for providing clarity during this particularly uncertain time. I know that admissions is super busy this time of year, so i'm weary of unnecessarily emailing questions. But i'm waiting on two schools, one of which has rolling admissions. With that, while many of my peers are receiving admissions notices, I am currently in admissions purgatory, so to speak. While this might rightfully be just be the nature of rolling cycle, earlier in the cycle, my transcripts had an error which was immediately corrected. As a result, should I reach out to admissions to inquire if my application is delayed and if there's any additional information they might need? I wouldn't think to ask, but an application for housing opens up soon and from what i've read, it's incumbent to apply as soon as possible because of the limited number of family housing units this academic year.

I am in a very similar situation. I graduated from UG (topic public) with a 3.8 or 3.89 (i'm not certain how they're calculating my GPA) and finished a history pre-doc, before attending law school. Now, I am applying to a masters program in urban planning and with the hopes of applying to a PhD. program While my UG GPA is outside the average 25-75% band, my aw school my gpa was extremely low (>3.0). I went to law school (t-14 at that) and in that time span, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. I unexpectedly became a dad to a daughter, while her mom had some personal issues that sprung up and eventually lead to a divorce, and a host of other off-setting events. But I think i've grown up since then (about five years), but i'm so worried that my law school school GPA ruined my chances of even being admitted to a masters program. I wrote about this in my statement of purpose. But right now they let in the first batch of students and I'm still waiting. They lost my transcripts and I had to resend, so i'm hoping that I haven't received information because of that administrative issue. But Idk if they're looking at my law school gpa and honing in on that. This purgatory is pretty terrible.

When was was the email dated?

Same place. I'm super psyched to see everyone getting into USC, but nothing yet on my end. I'm hoping for some good news soon.

Keep your chin up. USC should be coming up next and it places way better than most schools and your stats look really competitive for USC!

Btw, congratulations. USC is a great program, I really hope I get in.

This is nerve-wrecking. I haven't received anything from USC. How did you find out?

Does anyone want to guess on when USC will post?

How's everyone else doing through this process? Such a tense purgatory.

DM!

Good afternoon all! Super nervous because I can only apply to two schools and have a non-traditional background (high UG GPA/low Law School GPA). GPA suffered as I balanced law school, holding family together and parenting infant daughter. For personal reasons after law school I opted to be a stay-at-home dad to infant daughter. Since then, I want to think i've grown up and learned from that experience, which I conveyed in diversity statement. Age/Gender/Citizenship 32/M/US (first generation student) Undergraduate degree/School/Year graduated UG: Best public in CA/BA History/2009 Law School: Ivy league/JD 2014 GPA - GRE - TOEFL No GRE (worried that might ding application) UG: 3.8; Law School: >3.0 Work Experience: after college: Full-time senior research assistant at UG institution for 2 years; Ran federally funded summer program for migrant students Post Law school: ran home-based business that allowed me to focus on raising daughter. Recently (since daughter entered primary school): Policy & marketing research Intern w/ PBID since mid-2019 (created policy guidebooks, pro-forma, affordable housing work) early-member/national strategist for advocacy movement featured regularly in Washington Post /NYT/ Bloomberg/etc) that Achieved licensure reform through state-wide and national legislation & petitioning state supreme courts. Letter of recommendations: (from whom) - PBID President (very strong letter); highly-cited Supervising Professor (law school letter said one of 10 top students in 50 year career); Financial Economist at SEC who I am Collaborating with on forthcoming Urban Economics paper (very strong letter describing our research) - SOP and PS read strong, but I hope ad. com agrees Applying: USC/UCLA (can only apply to two schools) in: Out: Wait-list: Awaiting: Results: