Demetrios2011

There are a lot of RPCVs in most public affairs programs. Dominica 2006-2008 here. I in my first year of grad school (Cornell) so if you have any questions I would be happy to help you out.

I don't think NASPAA membership is particularly important. In New York alone Columbia and Cornell are not accredited by the NASPAA.

Tang116: What you really, really need to do right now is step back from your situation and evaluate it as objectively as possible. How much can you reasonably expect to earn when you graduate? How much of that salary do you think you will be able to devote to loan payments? I will tell you right now that going to graduate school when you already have that type of debt is not a smart financial move. Sometimes people think that because they already have a lot of debt, a little (or a lot) more will not matter. The exact opposite is true. Basically, you need to consider marginal cost (the cost of taking on every additional dollar of debt, as opposed to your overall debt load,) and the marginal cost for taking out more loans is much, much higher when you already have substantial debt. There are many financial aid calculators online, and with your level of undergrad debt (let alone whatever you take out for graduate school) you are looking at a minimum payment of $2,646.85 per month on your loans with a period of 10 years. Keep in mind that because you have private loans, this number will probably be much higher, you will need to do the math yourself. Then add in whatever you are borrowing for graduate school. According to finaid.org you would need a salary of about $317,000 per year to afford those payments, without even considering your graduate debt. You will not make that much money fresh out of grad school, and odds are you will never make that much money. In order to pay back even your undergrad loans you will need to lengthen the payment period to much more than 10 years. In short, you will be in debt the rest of your life. None of this means that you cannot enjoy life and have a rewarding career, but right this minute you need to step back and consider your options. Most likely this will mean taking the highest paying job you can get, right now, and dropping out of grad school.

Ari, I am about to give you some advice based on personal experience (and the personal experiences of many of my friends,) and I am sure you have solicited advice from professors and professionals, etc, but of course ultimately you are the one who needs to decide what to do with your life. I have heard a lot of people over the years (some of them close friends) make statements very similar to yours concerning their career aspirations. Often the question they are asking is "can I get into graduate school with [insert shortcoming, usually lack of work experience, here.] I think this is absolutely the wrong question to be asking. Instead you should ask yourself "should I be going to graduate school?" The essential point here is that a professional graduate level education is a tremendously expensive investment. Scholarships are few, and between tuition, living expenses, and the opportunity cost of not working for two years, you could very easily be six figures in the red. The truly tragic element to this is that many, many people who I know personally went into graduate school without a clear idea of what they wanted to do, and very often they left graduate school with no more of an idea, and with significantly fewer options due to massive debt. You will not emerge from graduate school a radically different person, and employers will see you more or less the same way as they do now. You will have an extra line in your resume, true. But jobs that require a master degree also require work experience. It is absolutely not a coincidence that graduate professional schools stress the importance of work experience. These schools have programs designed to supplement skills you have already aquired through working. My same friends who did not have a direction upon graduation, and did not have significant WE, are mostly now unemployed and deeply in debt. One has fled the country to escape this debt. Please, please consider working or volunteering for several years to try different things and explore yourself. Ask yourself if you are considering graduate school because the prospect of fending for yourself and entering the job market scares you. If the answer is yes, it will still be yes when you graduate. If I sound harsh it is only because I care very deeply.

You did not specify the type of loans in question. If the loan you are referring to is a federal Stafford loan, the money is given directly to your school, and applied first to tuition and other school fees. I believe that whatever is left over should then be given to you to use for qualified expenses, but the timing of that probably depends on the school. If you do not have sufficient savings to cover the interim, you will probably have to take out private loans. You should certainly go to the federal student aid website studentaid.ed.gov to inform yourself on how these things work, as taking out large sums of money should never be done uninformed.

I don't think we would meet our roommates until moving in, unless you happened to be visiting at the same time prior to that. I received my netid (via postal mail) within a week or so of accepting Cornell's offer back before April 15, if you are an international student it seems to take much longer. If there are any current/former students around- could any of you give us a rough estimate of your monthly living expenses in Ithaca?

Obviously relying on undergraduate prestige would be a mistake. However, I would argue that overall graduate prestige has at least some relevance, as many of these programs are interdisciplinary and the resources of the whole graduate school would theoretically be a component of your degree. That being said, after a brief glance an Petersons, I noticed that GW, UW, Columbia, Cornell, Fordham and NYU for example all have very similar MPA acceptance rates (61-68%.) Michigan is a little more selective at 56%. (many other programs do not list their acceptance rate) So right off the bat you can see that there is not a particularily strong correlation between USNWR ranking and acceptance rate (or almost anything else worth considering,) as those schools cover a wide range in the rankings. Penn's Fels program actually has a much lower acceptance rate (33%) than all of those schools, yet is ranked lower. Also, acceptance rate does not necessarily tell you much about the qualifications needed to gain acceptance. Schools like GW, Columbia, and NYU recieve applications from just about every prospective MPA. Smaller schools outside of DC or NYC might have a similar acceptance rate and still demand much higher minimum qualifications for acceptance, because they are merely recieving fewer applicants, and there may be a lot of self selection involved based on the specialities of these programs. The big programs probably recieve many of the all-star applicants, but also many of the marginal ones. (speculation, of course.) Finally, and most importantly, there is a huge difference between what I will call a selection effect and a production effect. Top ranked school tend to select (and attract) the best students, so their graduates tend to be the most successful. If you are a top candidate, you will be probably successful wherever you go. You will still have the same resume upon graduation, with only one new line. And I do notice that the OP refers to IR programs specifically, but the basic concepts are the same.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8 ... 855&ref=mf

Ruslan- I just started a facebook group called CIPA class of 2011.

As a fellow CIPAite, I would say that a primary reason I chose Cornell is that I will be able to take a broad range of courses across departments, which to me mostly eliminates the need for a dual degree. I doubt that dual degrees are often financially worthwhile, it mostly depends on whether you have a strong enough academic interest to pursue a concurrent degree. Take a look at job postings, and try and locate one that requires two masters degrees. Several people I have known who have pursued a second masters degree did so in part because they were unsure of what career path they wanted to take, which dilemma I would suggest is best resolved before attending an institute of higher learning.

THIS IS WHERE I'M GOING TO ATTEND: Cornell's CIPA, MPA OTHER SCHOOLS I CONSIDERED: Indiana SPEA, Washington Evans, Carnegie-Mellon Heinz WHY I CHOSE MY NEW SCHOOL: Cornell impressed me early on by responding promptly to my application and offering a substantial fellowship. They did an excellent job of communicating the strengths of their program. I actually prefer their interdisciplinary and academic approach, because I will be able to take graduate level classes in Cornell's world-renowned Economics, Planning, Africana Studies, and Natural Resources departments as a primary component of my degree (rather than the occasional elective.) I intend to concentrate on Environmental Policy, with a focus on international conservation, env economics, and natural resources management (particularly in issues pertaining to Africa and the Caribbean,) and Cornell's depth and breadth of offerings and faculty in these areas are nearly unparalleled. Being outside of DC is not a huge issue for me, as I already have some government and international experience (and am aware that the OPM's hiring practices are arcane and networking is not nearly as helpful as some people assume,) but nonetheless Cornell offers a semester in DC or one of several international locations. Incidentally, I liked a lot of what I saw about Indiana and CMU, but Washington could hardly have given me a worse impression. I won't go into all the details, but I would be very interested to see their yield numbers for this year, as I expect them to be quite low. The whole process has taught me that the USNEWS rankings are nearly meaningless (and if you take even a casual glance at their methodology, you may understand why this is.) I would much rather go to Cornell than every school on that list, with the possible exception of Duke and Yale, which schools I did not even apply to for whatever reason.

I will be attending CIPA in the fall as well. I have already received my netid, and I decided to accept my on-campus housing assignment- which is Maplewood. I have heard some disparaging remarks about the Wood, but it seems to be relatively close and reasonably priced, especially considering its rent includes all utilities. I will probably split a house with some other CIPA people next year instead of living on campus. I am excited to get to work, I intend to concentrate in Environmental Policy.

First of all, everyone on this thread seems to be tossing the MA in IR, MPA, and MPP degrees into the same category, which is not an accurate assesment. I don't really feel like going into the details, but I suggest you research on your own the differences between these degrees before applying to schools or considering a career in the public sector. There has been a gradual convergence, but they remain distinct degrees with different focuses. Of the three, I think the MA in IR is the most narrow and academic in scope (and in my opinion, the most oversaturated, but make your own assesment of that.)

I worked with a women who was a recently retired journalist (and Northwestern alum.) She told me that if one was interested in pursuing international journalism as a career, one would be best served by getting an advanced degree in Economics, Polisci, IR, Public Policy, or even area studies. According to her; news organizations don't value an MA in international journalism nearly as much as they would value one of the above listed degrees, or better yet international work experience. I think the same thing is true domestically, just to a lesser extent. I am sure some people about to pursue journalism degrees will disagree, and she did not say it was impossible to get a job with an MA in journalism, but why not get a degree that is broadly useful and would make you stand out in a pool of applicants? You are either a talented writer or you are not, an MA in journalism is not going to change that. Just my take.

Sorry, I don't know anything about the neuroscience dept, so I can't help you there. I do happen to know the chair of the chemistry department, and generally UVM is strong in the sciences (although USNWR doesn't seem to reflect this.)