anxiouslywaiting

Can you describe where on the website you saw this? I can't find it anywhere. However, if they are doing it alphabetically they may not have gotten to me yet as I have a last name with a Z. Also, they did mention that only half of the decisions would be posted this week.

Well there are a number of SIPA posts which said they found out by checking the website. There was nothing there when I checked...Not sure what that means for me.

completely unrelated to the thread, but rhymenoceros = best username ever. i loooooooooooove that show.

And a tidbit from the SIPA website.... "Yes, admission decisions will start to be made available on the application Web site later this week. An email is sent to an applicant when their decision is ready to be viewed. Thus you will know a decision has been made when you receive an email from us. However, not all decisions go out at one time. A file may go through several steps of review but we do not wait until 100% of the decisions are made to start posting notifications to the application site. This means some decisions will not be posted this week. If I had to guess I would say that we will have just over half of our decisions will be posted by the end of this week."

I saw a Georgetown MSFS Acceptance posted this morning. Now I'm nervous as hell.......

Sigh...another day with no decisions...Although I had a false alarm when I saw a hefty envelope in my mailbox today. Turned out to be some follow-up information from one of the programs which already accepted me. Why can't they just get back to us?????????

Which USC program? I applied to Public Diplomacy and found out on Friday via a phone call that I was accepted, then received official package today.

Georgetown Public Policy was weeks ago, not SFS. With respect to SIPA, I base my assertion on last year when people started posting acceptances March 4 and continued to post that they were receiving acceptances well into Mid-March. Also, the blog has referred to "early March" several times.

yes that would be a pretty amazing position to be in! i have some money from an employer for school so that's a little bit less of an issue, although princeton would still be a significantly better set-up financially speaking. oh and as for my reasons for my top choices, i am going into government (contract is signed sealed and delivered) and it seems to me these two programs have the clearest pattern of developing leaders in government, just in terms of the number of graduates who end up in high level gov't positions, number of faculty who come from gov't or go back and forth (e.g. Dean of WWS is leaving to be head of policy at State Dept). I just feel like these programs would put me on the fast track careerwise and just have the most resources in general.

Dream: Princeton or Harvard, slight advantage to Harvard because I have personal reasons for wanting to be in Boston

You may be right about GSPP, not only because of rise in apps (By the way, does anyone have any idea what the extent of the rise was at GSPP or others? I know KSG reported 35% jump for MPP), but also because of the CA budget crisis which may affect their funding and other aspects of the decision-making process.

My money is on.... Georgetown MSFS, SIPA MPA, and GSPP. However, SIPA and GSPP will only begin to notify. In past years, their acceptance/rejection/waitlist notification process took several weeks. Which will be miserable for those who see posts here on Grad Cafe but haven't heard anything themselves. If that is the case, you shouldn't despair, these schools just take a few weeks to get to everyone, for whatever reason... GOOD LUCK TO EVERYONE!!!!!!!

Although I agree that a nice glass of your favorite alcoholic beverage can be excellent for nerves, I think the great thing about the IR/Public Policy grad school process is that there are so many good programs. As long as you were wise in terms of diversifying your applications and you have decent qualifications, you should be able to get into (at the very least) a few solid programs. Beyond that, you should feel very good about realizing what you want to do in life, because now you're on a track to being much more fulfilled by what you're doing. Best of luck to you!

So it seems like the deluge of decisions may be about to begin this coming week! The irony for me is that I have been checking my email and Grad Cafe zillions of times a day even though I knew there was pretty much no chance I would hear anything before March. Now, when I probably will start hearing back, I am going to Mexico for 10 days so probably won't be able to check email often and certainly won't be able to check the post. I am holding out hope that GSPP might notify on Thursday (before I leave) since last year they sent some emails out on the first Thursday in March. However, they seem to send some decisions over email and some via postal services over the course of about two weeks, which is just strange. I'm guessing that GSPP and SIPA will be this upcoming week and then WWS and KSG the week after (at least for those lucky enough to be accepted!) I'm really looking forward to just hearing from all these places. I feel like I've been waiting forever!!!!!!

Tell me about it. Last fall I was applying for a summer internship at the State Dept which I knew would be read by the transition team for whoever ended up winning the presidency. I really wanted to talk about my work on the Obama campaign because it was very relevant to the position, but worried that my political affiliation could hurt me, so I ended up referring to my experience with "a presidential campaign". As it turns out, it wouldn't have been a problem, but I got the job anyway so its all good. I wonder if they take a more nuanced look at candidates rather than categorizing them as democrats or repubs. My interests aren't among the traditional liberal issues like development and human rights, so perhaps that's a mitigating circumstance...

Well does that mean people with experience working on the Democratic side are at a disadvantage, since we're a dime a dozen in the public policy applicant pools?

I think what we have to realize, with Harvard and with other programs, the problem is two-fold. On the one hand, applications are way up. On the other hand, the budget is decreasing. Harvard's endowment took a 30% hit over the past year and it's no secret that they are looking to cut costs wherever possible. Bottom line is that its going to be harder to get in and less likely that you'll get much in the way of funding. However, if you have some source of funding coming in, a fellowship or something, you are going to be extra attractive.

Yes, you're probably right. In any case, the decision is supposed to come up on the website (with an email to check the site) and I don't see anything when I check the site. Also, they were still asking me for additional information last Friday, so it would seem they are still at work on the apps.

There is a SIPA acceptance on the Results page today. For the MIA. It says it was received by email. However the very first line on the SIPA Admissions Blog for today is : "The Admissions Committee still has a lot of work to do and decisions have not started to go out yet (early March has always been our goal)" Can anyone here confirm that they have heard from SIPA?

After perusing posts from previous years, I have gathered that that is the case at Berkeley (in-state tuition remission for TAs or rather GSIs). What does that mean for your first year though if you were not a resident previously? That it only pays part of your tuition or that you are not eligible at all as an out of stater?

policy_applicant mentioned that they do not give any 2nd year funding. is this always true, without exception? also, any ideas as to the extent of 1st year funding typically offered? lastly, for the research jobs and other employment opportunities, do you think someone could earn enough money from those things to cover costs with some minimal loans?

I received an email when I was accepted, but that was in December for Early Notification. It is really not the place for domestic policy issues. Just look at the possible concentrations. All are internationally-focused. Of course some econ classes and such are applicable in all policy applications, domestic or international, but it really would not make sense to go there if you did not plan to have a somewhat internationally-oriented career.

If these acceptance rates are correct, then our estimate for 30% for Berkeley would seem very low, given that it is also an MPP program. Also, do they give a serious preference to CA residents?

wow, that 35% for US women sure does sound pretty nice right now! it's really interesting that they do a top half bottom half ranking of their own as well. that is probably for internal purposes to track how well they were doing among the top candidates. and i'd say if people are turning down WWS its either because of the location (Princeton is cute, but not really a happening place for a young professional, take it from me) or because they applied to jobs at the same time and received a good offer. i know several people who are doing that now, although this year it isn't too likely that they will be getting any job offers.

I worked in philly as well. intern on the scheduling staff at the pa HQ. which field office were you in? i may have helped to send some of the surrogates out to you!