sisepuede

i have to confess that i haven't posted lately, but have been watching this board like a lunatic. i literally just woke up, reached for my laptop and checked my email for harvard.edu addresses. :roll: lame-o. the weird thing is, i don't even know when the admitted students day is. i figure that if by some chance i do get admitted, and choose to go to the kennedy school, it won't be because the people were nice, it will be for all of the things we know about the place without ever setting foot on campus (prestige, alumni networks, most u.s. supreme court justices and presidents went there, etc). lame-o again, i know. i did spend two days in cambridge visiting faculty, etc last fall.

we're planning on a little excel spreadsheet fest of our own when all of the decisions and aid stuff finally comes in, to try to figure out exactly the exact same things, dngo. one thing i was wondering is if anyone has come across any aid or repayment calculators online related to either paying for grad school in general or more specifically for loans under the new federal repayment program for public interest work? i know a couple of the law schools have them to help law students see what they would actually have to pay back under their specific public interest loan forgiveness programs. if you've seen something like that lemme know pls.

collective groan. ditto to dagger about wanting to figure out where you will live, little things like that. :wink:

got the acceptance email yesterday as well, big props to everyone else. 8) since this is the nyu strengths/weaknesses board, i have to say that one strength is that of all the faculty i met with, the wagner folks seemed to be the most genuinely interested in getting to know prospective students, being accessible for questions, etc. a few of the other schools had encouraging, positive professors too, but nyu stood out. if i were choosing just on faculty potential alone, it would be nyu. my two cents.

hey, sorry for the late congrats to others who got in and got waitlisted, it's huge! looks like most of the regulars on this board have some awesome offer to celebrate from a top tier school. i had to impose a moratorium on grad school obsessing for 48 hours, before i did serious damage to my retinas from staring at gradcafe.

i'm still kind of over the moon (yea, i cried when i saw that i got in), but agree that i need to actually see what the finaid is going to be. princeton's only major downsides would be that i would have to live between nyc and princeton, and i've been waiting a long time to go to berkeley. but hey, not complaining one bit. amazing to have this dilemma. i know jack about the town, i feel like its going to be important to head to admitted student day if i can afford it. i'd appreciate other people's impressions of princeton the town too. i did the "quaint small northeastern town" for undergrad and i almost went out of my mind. but apparently city life is just a dinky ride away, right?

OH MY GOD I'M IN!

about those adcom people sitting around...here's a bit from matt's march 5 entry on the SIPA admissions blog discussing applicant's confusion over rejections. if he admits to it, i would guess that means lots of others do it...and there aren't that many grad boards around. "I know discussion about this goes on, quite passionate discussion in fact, because occasionally I will visit discussion boards pertaining to graduate schools and graduate school admission. I visited a few yesterday and the discussion is quite . . . lively. I do not comment on the boards, the boards are for applicants and students, not administrators. The discussion on the boards provides a unique perspective on the graduate school admission process for sure - especially from the standpoint of an administrator. I often try to learn from the discussion and comments to develop more clear communication strategies."

i'm with linden. let's do this already! then i will start a thread so all of the really strong quant people can tell me what books to read so i can relearn how to use graph paper. :mrgreen:

oi, wish i could be more helpful fighter_2008, but i'm happy to post more details when this is all over for posterity. i'm sure the admissions folks are way too busy to troll these boards trying to match people, but alas... hope this gives you an idea, care to share yours despite my cowardice? GPA: its a long story, double major GRE: Q750, V790, AW 6 WE: 5+ years in policy/public sector leadership roles with national org

this thread is really starting to make me sweat!! argh. javajava, if its any consolation, i've got 5 years in politics/public sector WE and didn't get an email to switch to the MPA. i don't know why it would be a consolation, but i was just telling someone else that the complete lack of transparency in this process forces over-analytical drivers like us to cling to any modicum of information and examine it to death. and i was preparing to only worry about wws this week...

wow livinitup, you're a champ, congrats! if you're going, hope to bump into you at admit day at gspp...i'll look for the person walking around with the "awesome" sign floating above her/his head.

seriously younglions, your post has me all agitated too. i wasn't planning to obsessively check email until friday. I just started a new princeton thread so that we can concentrate our anxiety in one place. i'm guessing at least a couple of people on this board will get in, it's going to be crazy exciting to see who it is!

I'm starting this thread with little to no hope that I will get in, but I have been curious lately what other folks have heard about the program. These school specific threads have been the most useful to me on this board. And frankly, it will give us a clear place to go on friday to celebrate the superheroes who get in, if Princeton sticks to their "on or around March 13" notification estimate...Or freakout because we haven't gotten an email. Here's what I am thinking about the WWS MPA: Pro's 1. Access to great research centers and faculty who (i hear) move between practioner and academic roles frequently. 2. Name Recognition. 3. Strong emphasis on advising, both from faculty and 2nd year students. 4. Curriculum seems well-balanced between building solid foundation and freedom to define your policy track. 5. Funding funding funding. Cons 1. It's not in the beltway if making connections to dc during school is your aim (although I don't see why you couldn't do the summer internship in dc) 2. No formal master's thesis/capstone. Instead you do a Qualifying Exam, which, if you are contemplating a PHd someday (I might be) is not as helpful as an extensive reasearch project. 3. I can never decide if I heard or just have the impression that the resources for international research and study are stronger than domestic. I'm planning to do domestic policy, so that impression weighs heavily for me, but i'd be happy to hear someone correct it. Of my top 5 schools, Princeton is the one where I made the least opportunities to meet with faculty and students, etc. This list is just based on a conversation with the admissions director, and conversations with faculty at other mpp programs. Please add and correct, I feel like i know woefully little. and GOOD LUCK everyone....who knows, we may have WWS material in our midst!

MCNeelified, et al. I was also accepted to GSPP with no funding, and pretty grateful to have gotten in. Still, the lack of money stuff is a big problem, I haven't exactly been living it up in the private sector the last few years. At this point, I'm weighing Cal against Harvard and WWS (both HIGHLY unlikely), which are the only schools for me that would trump Berkeley. My logic of the moment goes something like this: 1. If by some miracle I get into Harvard, it will be without funding. Since I have no funding both places, and about the same level of "brand value" (though i will admit harvard probably has a slight edge), Cal is clearly cheaper and a winner. And i would much rather live through winter in the bay area than in new england. 2. If by some incredibly crazy alignment of the planets I get into WWS, and the full-funding thing isn't a fairy tale, I'd go there. It's an amazing education, good name recognition, without a lifetime of debt, what else do you need? I'd have to live in new brunswick or something, but that's life. The x-factor for me is that my husband will be entering law school at the same time....he's getting into a lot of places, but hasn't heard good news about funding yet. yikes.

you know what you guys, i'm starting to think that the more an admissions office grossly mishandles your paperwork, the better a sign that is. the three schools that a) refused to download my official gre scores in a timely manner or b)repeatedly told me my file was complete, then suddenly missing something vital like transcripts admitted me in the last 48 hours. this theory is my only hope for ksg, because my transcript had to be snail-mailed and it caused all sorts of chaos. who knows? for ksg, i believe it was a leadership essay, a statement of purpose, a policy memo and a course listing (?) and a resume, are you counting that?

policy applicant, i feel your pain, i have been rejected from berkeley no less than four times before today. as everyone else has said, at least you're such a baller that it doesn't matter.

All of these gspp notices are making me crazzy! I'm stuck watching "the watchmen" for the next three hours, the mailbox seems so far away! The previews are rolling and all I can see are envelopes!

geography is probably more the reason for me. my husband is applying for law school right now as well--he's in all over the west coast (usc included) so far, i'm in on the east. i wasn't really thinking about usc either until i saw that it was so highly ranked. i met with a couple of professors from other depts who were pretty cool, so i thought, why not? my one concern with usc might be that i've heard their health policy stuff is pretty oriented to toward future hmo managers and hospital ceos (same with columbia) and i definitely come at health policy from a different perspective.

dude, policy applicant, you kick ass. congratulations. i work near usc, so maybe if close proximity worked really well for you, (among other things i'm sure) i can have some hope too. :wink:

i got accepted today as well, and (not surprisingly) no money. i'm with rhymenocerous, gives me hope for other programs i am dying to get into.

Financially, I'd have to say Princeton. The only negative is that my husband is applying to law school as well, so we'll have to live in new brunswick or something else midway to nyc. All-around happiness: GSPP. I'm pretty sure I just jinxed it by saying so. :shock:

lol, therunaround, i'm sure you just caused a huge rush on the sipa site. i couldn't type in the url fast enough. nothing yet for me either, anxiouslywaiting.

DITTO. can't stop checking the boards for gspp notifications, but feel my stomach drop every time i see something that looks like it could be an acceptance post.

congrats policy applicant! I got a scholarship email today as well, $10,000, which definitely makes Georgetown just a bit more realistic financially. I was in the "sad on saturday" crew that didn't get any notification at all on friday. feeling a bit more chipper now... :wink: maybe good things do come to those who wait...