younglions

Last night was the first night the no-sleep bug hit me. It didn't help that construction on the street mere feet away started before the sun came up.

Given your criteria and schools, I would say: 1. Princeton WWS (great funding, great economics and public policy track, great everything) Tied 2. Harvard HKS (name recognition, strength of economics faculty and availability of more rigorous quant courses.) Tied 2. Chicago Harris (name, strong economics focus, availability of rigorous quant courses, stronger funding than harvard but less brand name in development community) 4-7. Difficult to rank, so I won't try. In my opinion there is a large jump between 1-2-3 and 4-5-6-7. Based on the criteria you provided, I'm somewhat surprised you didn't apply to Michigan, Berkeley, or Duke. Good luck!

Reading the princeton 3/13 announcement again, I'm less convinced that Wednesday is the day for the lucky admits. The message says "...available until on or around Friday, March 13th, 2009. You will receive an email after that time." I think this language is enough to prevent a tidal-wave of applicants e-mailing WWS on Monday asking for their decisions, but maybe not.

Yep I did my time in the corps. Hopefully I'll get some comparable offers to yours. Congratulations again.

Wow, that's an amazing offer for IR slothrop. You must have put together quite the application... congratulations!

According to gradcafe results from last year, positive decisions came over the course of SIX days. I guess if we see some positive results pop up in the next couple days, and don't hear anything ourselves, we shouldn't lose hope. Good luck to all!

I'm going to add more fuel to the fire. Last year WWS notified admits on the Wednesday the 12th and rejects on Friday the 14th. If the same pattern holds for this year, we will hear on Wednesday the 11th if we're in and Friday the 13th if we're out. I also think the message on the website hints at this. The overwhelming majority of candidates will be rejected, so it doesn't make too much sense to announce a date that applies to only 10-15% of those interested.

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linden - Based on experience, I think it may be true, but I'm not sure. One school that I was accepted into requested a response by the end of next week. However, all I had to do (and another poster here too) was send a polite e-mail requesting a month extension so I could make a informed choice. They extended the deadline to 4/15.

I've always considered GSPP to be the third most selective of the policy schools behind Harvard and Princeton. Considering the acceptance rate, which is probably somewhere around 30-35% in a regular year, I guess I'm not too surprised to see so many rejections. Of course, some of the people being rejected are a bit surprising. I'd also like to second Linden's hypothesis that some of these rejections have come out of a desire for a more heterogeneous class. The very definition of education, when viewed according to its latin root of "ex ducure" is "to lead one forth" or "to lead oneself out of." These schools are in the business of educating, and it's almost impossible to educate if the class makeup doesn't allow for debate from a variety of perspectives.

policy_applicant - Well, that's a surprise. I'm guessing you'll get some good news over the next couple weeks that will make you forget about Berkeley. Have you got any idea on how much that UCLA fellowship is worth?

Also, it's now past 5pm in DC and it doesn't look like anybody heard from MSFS. Seems like gradcafe results from last year proved predictive for Yale, but not Georgetown. Next week is going to be big. (I HOPE!)

Congratulations Cornell... looks like an auspicious start to the admissions season for you. The Yale program might be particularly well-suited to your interests due to its more academic approach to the subject. Good luck with the funding letter.... now the difficult wait truly begins.

It's officially Friday. According to gradcafe, the first acceptances for Georgetown MSFS came out the first Friday of March last year. Good luck to those awaiting a decision.

Three years ago I was also accepted into LSEs MPA program (Public and Economic Policy). I love the program's curriculum and the idea of living two years in London. Ultimately, I decided not to go because the offer was without financial support, London's high cost of living, and LSE's lack of an active and strong stateside alumni network. In short, it was just too risky. I also got accepted into a nice Peace Corps assignment at the same time and decided it was the better alternative. Anyways, congratulations on the acceptance! It's a great program, and if you're not too risk averse, it's something that you should seriously consider. Have you been to LSE before? I checked out the "campus" a few years back, and it's nice, but very urban. Literally just buildings and some benches in the middle of some of the most expensive real estate in the world.

policy_applicant - That's great news. I don't have much knowledge of USC, but I have noticed that most (not all) programs have fairly flexible curricula. Although most of your peers might be focused on different career paths, there will undoubtedly be a few others in your boat, and you'll probably be able to take classes you want to take. Also, to me, 60+K from USC sounds A LOT better than 24K from Georgetown. That said, my opinion of the DC public policy schools seems to be lower than that of most others.

Informative article there, but a bit depressing. Looks like we might not hear at the end of next week like many of us predicted: "Kennedy School Director of Admissions and Enrollment Management Alexandra Martinez emphasized the role of the economy.

Academically and financially, my top choice is Princeton.

March has come! March has come! Let the madness of graduate admissions commence! To celebrate, I'm taking the five hour bus ride down to Acapulco tomorrow for a couple days of relaxation on the beach. At least I hope there will be relaxation; I'm not sure if the college spring breakers are breaking yet.

My debt ceiling is somewhere around 40K-50K, but only for a place like Harvard. The daunting aspect is that even for that, I would have to get about $60,000 over two years in scholarships from the program.

LInden - congratulations on your offer to "unnamed school". It seems like a great opportunity! I can't wait to figure out where it is!

policy_applicant - I posted the 31.5k, but it's actually 31K. It's a great offer and makes the program even more enticing. I exchanged some e-mails with a current student, and it seems like the D.C. program is even better than I was expecting. Current students are doing apprenticeships with World Bank, State Department, USAID, etc. and often at very high levels. All except one are receiving financial compensation. The scholarships add up to 29K for the Pittsburgh year and 33k for the Washington year. With the paid apprenticeship during the second year, I can essentially get my masters with only about 20k-30k in debt. I think this means I'll definitely be a graduate student next year.

I'm excited for the decisions tonight and I didn't even apply to Georgetown!

I've thought about this and I think it's got to be a typo. According to the notification letter, the admitted students weekend is April 3-4 in Pittsburgh and visitation day for D.C. is March 21. Do they expect us to make a decision before the visit weekends? That would be highly unusual.

I think it's a matter of the differences between undergraduate and graduate admissions. For both, once a student is accepted the university essentially turns into a recruiter. For undergraduates, you're recruiting a large group of 17 year olds into a large university. Most of the those prospective students don't have concrete career/research plans, so it's harder to target your marketing. For graduate school, most know exactly what they're doing. If there's a current student that has similar interests to an applicant, s/he can be a great recruitment tool. I don't think it is at all uncommon to involve students in the application decision and recruitment processes for these schools. For example, Fletcher has students review every application and Harvard has a call-a-thon where current students call admits to inform them of the good news and answer questions.