Baryon

Hello, I was wondering if anyone else was considering attending Stanford Management Science and Engineering for an MS degree? I'm currently in the position of deciding between Duke University's Master of Environmental Management (MEM) degree with a energy and environment focus and the Stanford MS&E program with an energy and environment focus. Duke's very generous and offers a lot of aid and their staff is enthusiastic about the students, while the MS&E department seems a bit mysterious and has no info sessions or a whole lot of information regarding careers and such things on its website, so it'd be nice to see if/who else is considering that program to try to find out more about it; and to see what anyone thinks of the Duke MEM? Cheers.

I just chekced the website and found an acceptance to the Masters in International Science and Tech. policy; however there was no mention or reference to any funding or financial aid. Does this mean that they'd send that info separately or that I simply didn't get a scholarship? It seems that the latter is true because everyone in the results page show financial info along with the acceptance....but I'm not sure. I had thought that colleges mentioned something on scholarships (even if it were a no). Anybody else in a similar situation?

Just got rejected by SIPA today; they said that my academics were great, but that I was competing with avg. age of 27 and more experienced candidates, and that I fell in the "less than 5%" of applicants whom then encouraged to re-apply after some more relevant work experience. Granted, I've only been out of undergrad for a year and a half but I really thought I had a shot because I have great quant background, numbers and international exposure (spent first half my life overseas, and study abroad). If I'm not overestimating myself, then if I had to venture a guess, maybe the competition is much stiffer this year as many have feared? I still saw an undergrad or two on the results forum who got in, so I suppose I am a bit confused and disappointed. The only consolation is that I guess now I won't have to worry about how to pay for the most expensive program on my list, heh.

Yes, I agree that perfect numbers aren't the typical student that SIPA looks for, BUT I do think that for someone who is younger and is recently out of undergrad, numbers would probably weigh higher than for someone, say, three to five yrs. out of undergrad and with obviously more professional experience. For the latter group, numbers probably weigh less, and the admissions people may be more holistic. This is my quandary: I feel my numbers are solid but I just finished undergrad two years ago and fear that for an MIA my work exp. is certainly my weakness compared to, say, the avg. SIPA or MIA student. That said, I always thought I had a decent shot at getting in cause I have strong quantitative (economics major with plenty of science and mathematics) and intl. living and travel to balance things out. But competition is precisely what it is because there are tons of people who would be similarly qualified, and who knows what exactly the admissions people weigh and consider? I just wish I'd get some sort of timeline on when the 2nd rnd. would go out.

I quite feel an very odd anxiety since getting into two of my top choices over the past few weeks (Duke and Stanford) and am still waiting for my third top choice, Columbia. Now my father and half my family is so caught up with Stanford that they pretty much have assumed in their minds that I'll obviously go there, but I'm not sure it's a foregone conclusion as I think the Duke and Columbia (if I get in) programs are very compelling and are rightfully great universities too. MOreover, Duke gave me a whole bunch of scholarship money and my Stanford program doesn't give aid to Masters students like me. They'll probably think I'm an idiot to turn Stanford down no matter what, so it'll be murky trying to explain and justify anything I do to my father/family. Though happy and thankful, I had sort of a muted reaction to my admission a few days ago and still can't figure out properly why I'm not super excited because I never thought I'd be in such a (in some ways) lucky position, and yet being weighed down by pressures of expectation and finances (esp. in this economic climate). There's also the slight worry about performance at these universities after admissions, like many people here have mentioned....yikes. In any case, I didn't expect my admissions to be so anti-climactic, or maybe I'm just being a bit too morose, who knows?

I still haven't heard back; looks like there are a fair amount who haven't but despite that, it's still unnerving certainly. It doesn't seem to indicate on the SIPA admissions blog when-ish they'd begin notifying the second round, it's pretty open ended and asks for patience; ah, more waiting I suppose.

This thread is mystifying.

1. Have a long nap. 2. Worry about funding. 3. Go to Machu Picchu.

None did; I was a little surprised that 0 of 3 even offered or even had any hints of what they had written; I would very much liked to have seen what they'd written, especially one professor (who I'd worked with when I was pre-med, had been out of touch for two years and by then had changed my studies to energy science/economics), to see what he'd said. In any case, I think that they all were decent because I managed to get into one of my better preferred programs (am waiting on most of my applications still). I had the impression a good percentage of letter writers showed or indicated what they'd written, but it was not so in my case.