yabanci

Received my acceptance letter today to the Political Science program. No funding, since the program doesn't offer any to master's students. I'll be receiving a letter from the College of Humanities and Social Sciences soon. I have 3 weeks to reply with my decision, which will give me enough time to check out American's graduate day and decide where I want to go.

According to their FAQ, you cannot change after you've applied. But you can apply to change after staying in your program for one semester. "As admission decisions are specific to each program, students cannot change their programs during the admission process. Once admitted to a program/field, a student must stay in that program for one semester, at which point he or she can request a field transfer. Field transfer applications are handled through the Graduate Advising Office."

I'm not attending/going to attend either of those schools, but am somewhat familiar with working with government agencies, so I'll chime in. Admittedly, I don't know much about either school's programs, and I think it depends on what you want to do with your degree. Are you getting the degree to get language skills in Mandarin? Or is this degree something that will get you a promotion with your current job, assuming you go to Georgetown? Basically, are you working in intelligence/national security already, and want to get a degree to make you more competitive for promotions, or are you trying to get into the national security arena after your degree? If you did go to SAIS, you'd have to go through the government's cumbersome hiring process again to get a job, although of course you'd be more marketable with your past work experience and new degree. If you're aiming for the private sector, I can't really comment on that, but the econ and language focus at SAIS sounds like it could help with that. Is there any way you can get your current employer to pay for attending Georgetown, at least partial tuition? That could certainly tip the decision in Georgetown's favor. Either way, good luck with your decision, and congrats on getting accepted to both schools!

I also turned my application in the day before the deadline; for some of my other applications, one of my recommenders didn't submit the letter until 10 days after the deadline, and I was still accepted. I got an e-mail shortly after the deadline from American too, saying that my file was incomplete. I called them and asked, and they called me about a week later saying everything was fine. I originally assumed it was because my study abroad credits didn't have grades on my undergrad transcript, but I didn't want to have to pay to have my study abroad transcripts translated. I wouldn't worry too much about the file being "incomplete," I think they're pretty lenient about some of this stuff.

I don't even think we get decisions online. My VIP page still says that I'll hear back in late March or early April. I received my acceptance via mail.

From what I understand (based on the SIS thread), American is sending out acceptances in waves, with no regards to funding (i.e. I was in the "first wave" I believe, but did not get funding), so there's still time to be accepted. This is the site to RSVP; there are events across the U.S., but the closest to you would've been in San Francisco anyway. Looks like a lot of people will be too far to attend these events regardless. As far as "first week of April" goes, I'm guessing it means next week. I know SIS gets the most applications out of all the IR schools, so it's likely they're just sorting through all the applications. Sorry if I've taken this thread off topic a bit, although it seems like we're all applying to American anyway, and sorry if I've caused you any anxiety. Looking at people's results from the past couple years, applicants were hearing back even up until April 10 or so. This may add to your waiting troubles, but it also means they're still sending out acceptances. American's deadline to accept/decline admission is April 20, so there is still plenty of time to hear back/accept, but I understand it's nice to hear back well before the deadline. Good luck on American, and I hope you get in! Now if only Mason would let me know . . .

Still waiting on Mason's decision. I'm hoping this week, but who knows at this point. I'm not sure if you guys have researched this at all, but Mason is part of the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area, which includes American, Georgetown, GWU, and UMD, among others. Basically, if Mason doesn't offer a class you want to take, you can sign up for that class at one of the other schools in the DC area. You pay Mason tuition, so it ends up being cheaper. The catch is, I think you can only take maybe 6-9 credits of your master's at other schools, plus you'll have to commute into DC to get to the classes, although there's a metro stop about 5 minutes from Mason's campus. Also, I'm not sure if you're guaranteed a spot in one of the DC school's classes if you try to sign up for it. I think the site says you have to e-mail the professor who teaches it and hope he/she lets you in. If I do end up going to Mason, I will likely try to take advantage of this to take a few extra classes that Mason doesn't offer (although taking classes at American may just make me feel bad for not going there ). Since I believe you guys are doing a separate program from mine (political science), you'll want to check your program's website to see what it offers. If I remember correctly, America's SIS and GWU's Elliott schools are included in the consortium. On a separate note, if you guys end up going to one of the DC schools and are worried about living costs, you could easily live in Virginia, or Maryland for that matter, and commute into DC via the metro. Places like Arlington or Alexandria in Virginia are going to be cheaper than DC, but still relatively expensive. I'm guessing they'd be a lot cheaper if you got a roommate though. They are expanding the metro westward into the suburbs of Northern Virginia, out where I live, but the earliest lines won't be done until next year I believe. And for those who got into American, the RSVP deadline for graduate day, in DC at least, is Friday. I'll likely go to it, even if I don't end up attending American.

Those of you who were accepted without funding, are you still planning on attending with loans? I've been trying to do some research into the Income-Based Repayment along with public service loan forgiveness program, since entering the public service is my ultimate goal. I guess it all depends on how much I make after I get my master's, but by some calculations it may result in ending up paying just the principal without any interest. I'm still deciding if I want to attend with loans. Also, are people planning on attending the admitted students day? I think the deadline to RSVP is this Friday, April 1.

I'm in the same boat as you. I've been accepted to American's program for U.S. Foreign Policy, but with no funding. Mason will be much cheaper for me, plus it's within commuting distance to my house, so I could save a lot of money by commuting from home. American is, I suppose, close enough for me to drive to (about 35 minutes), but tuition alone is $25k/year. Meanwhile, I could finish two years at Mason for less than that much in tuition. Mason's political science program is ranked 50th I think, although rankings haven't been updated in a couple years. Mason's political science program is also listed under the Department of Public and International Affairs, but I guess the rankings are separate for the political science program. Ultimately, I think for me it will come down to cost. For the American program, tuition will be about $50k over two years, and at Mason it'll be about $20k total for two years. I really like the program at American, and it has a much better reputation, but I think I'll have a hard time justifying taking out ~$50k in loans, particularly if I want to work in the public sector (although there is the loan forgiveness program that I'll have to take more of a look at). I hope to hear from Mason soon, since I have to let American know in a few weeks. Plus, I'll be able to work out finances a bit better I think. I wish this decision weren't so hard . . .

I was accepted into BU's IR program for an MA in International Affairs, and I really like what I've seen about it on the site. They have a ton of classes on intelligence, which is what I'm most interested in. However, their site says they only have 15, half-tuition assistantships (for all 7 or so programs within the larger IR program), and I didn't get funding. Even though I love the program, there's no way I can justify the $40k alone in tuition each year, plus another $10-12k per year for living in Boston, so I'll likely have to decline going there.

My acceptance letter was dated the 10th, so I'm guessing I was in the first batch. I didn't get funding though, so I'm not sure how closely related batches and funding are. Although it would probably make sense to offer funding to those who you admit earlier, since that could influence the best applicants to attend. Anyway, I applied to the US foreign policy program if that helps.

I got my acceptance packet on Friday, and I live in Northern Virginia, right outside DC. I think it took about a week from when the letter was dated to when I received it though. However, I didn't get any funding, just the $21k in loan support that others got. Is it even worth going if you have to take out tons of loans? It's the highest ranked, and has the best reputation, of the schools I got into, but is also the most expensive. I can go to public schools for 1/2 to 1/3 of the cost, but at a loss of reputation. Is anyone planning on financing the SIS program themselves?

Congrats on your acceptance! I suspect that other acceptances will be sent out before April. On other schools' websites that I've applied to they say late March to mid April for hearing back, but I've already heard back. I figure they do that because they don't want people calling them up and asking if decisions have been made already. Hopefully I'll be hearing from Mason soon as well for political science.

Does anyone know much about Virginia Tech's MPIA program? I've applied to and been accepted to the program and plan on specializing in Global Governance and Security. I've never seen the program ranked (I think the MPA program is ranked, but not the MPIA), and I've read quite a bit on their site, but the site is really hard to navigate and isn't very well put together. Anyone else applying there, or any current or former students that can comment on the program? Thanks.

Hmm, ok I see now. I'm actually applying to the master's in political science, not public policy like you guys are. In that case, I can only speak for the political science program, which had a March 15 deadline and does not provide funding for master's students. The political science program falls under the "Public and International Affairs" department, which includes master's in public administration.

I'm not surprised that Mason is sending out its letters later, considering their deadline has just passed within the last hour. I was a little surprised, however, that their deadline is 2 months later than everyone else's. I'm a little worried about Mason too because they don't have funding for master's students, only for PhD. Hopefully this will change soon, although I'll probably have to look at outside sources for funding anyway.

Tj, I got the same e-mail this morning. I wondered as well if it meant anything about acceptance, but I'm not sure it does. I also turned in my application a little over a month ago, but I got an e-mail about a week ago saying that my application is under review. I'm not sure if you saw this website (I only just found it today), but you can log in and view your application status. Everything was added when I submitted my application a month ago, except for my transcripts, which, for some reason, were only added to my file last week (the same day I received the e-mail about my application being complete). The weird part is, I submitted my transcripts at the end of December, so I'm not really sure what took so long. The site also says they send out acceptances via postal service, so that's what I'm expecting. However, the e-mail I received last week said " Please allow at least four to six weeks from the published deadline for a decision to be made." I'm a little worried, because since the deadline is March 15, 4-6 weeks would put the decisions around April 15-May 1, which is well after I will hear back/be responding to other schools. Of course, we may hear back sooner anyway. Some of the other schools I'm applying to are starting/will start to send out decisions within the next week to two weeks, but I haven't heard anything regarding financial aid from any of them. Under Award Information-->Award Aid by Year-->Award Overview, it lists the aid that I would receive. Under expected enrollment, it says Fall 2011/Spring 2012: Full Time for me as well. Then again, this could just be the financial aid office getting everything done ahead of time; I'm not really familiar with how the process works. Did you receive an e-mail last week about your application being under review? Or did you get the e-mail when you submitted your application? Hopefully other people will chime in with their experiences; it's good to find other people applying to GMU as well.