Rose

I agree with all these approaches, and think it's specifically a good idea to get a sense of the program from women who have had children or just navigated a relationship while in school. Another thing to consider: The University of Chicago just adopted a policy that stops the "clock" on tenure preparation if you have a new child (I believe you can pause the "clock" for up to a year in this case). It might make for an interesting hypothetical to pose; you could also couch this in terms of the department's support for "personal" issues--maternity leave but also mourning or other life events--and then slowly get more specific about what you want to know as you gauge the support. The other thing I might do in your position is to see if this school/university has a Women's Center or diversity center that specifically supports or addresses women's issues on campus. They might have website or brochure materials that would explain procedure and could also offer a glimpse at things the school considers to be internally worth addressing--either because it's been a problem in the past or because they are VERY supportive of people in this situation.

Sroek-- What kind of gangs were you talking about? Do you mean street gangs in major cities or were you relating security issues more with international trafficking (in guns, humans, or drugs, etc.)? I'm just curious, since I know I had a ton of trouble with my policy memo and relating it and my SoP to the IGA (more because the classes in the concentration seemed very broad).

I cited the IGA concentration in my statement of purpose, but I wasn't aware there was any particular funding associated with just that concentration. Do you think that the IGA concentration at HKS compares with an IR program's focus on international issues, though? I got the impression the program was a big selling point for a lot of people considering IR and PubPol applications or who might not have had quite the right preparation for the MPA/ID.

Thank you SO MUCH for setting up this thread. I was not only confused but slightly irritated that the SFS threads keep/kept getting hijacked by people who applied to the Public Policy program (since the comments back and forth would eventually stop specifying what program they applied to and thus confuse the whole thing). Rant over. Now a question: I applied to a pretty big range of programs (from straight MPP to MPA to Int'l Aff) in terms of focus, and even though I thought I was very excited to do a practical degree with a career focus, I'm now on the fence. I'm realizing I may want to keep my options open to do a PhD (in policy or gov't or polisci or history, I don't know). My impression is that Fletcher/SIPA/Harvard/WWS send a handful of grads off to PhD programs each year, but that other programs tend to be academic career dead ends. Is the SFS a dead end, do you think?

I never got the email (still haven't, in fact). Several of my friends who applied checked their emails last night at ~7.30 CST and were accepted (the body of the letter indicated this in their email, beyond the "Congrats" subject line). I didn't receive the email but came home and checked the website at about 8 pm CST (it was still up at that point); my decision was available and it opens what looks like an html version of the acceptance letter. I got some funding, but I don't know if that has anything to do with how/when I was or was not able to access the information.

I received my acceptance notice yesterday afternoon (the email didn't come until 4 hours later, though). I actually applied the day before the deadline, because SIPA is one of my top choices and I wanted to focus extra long and hard on their app. My partner also applied and hasn't heard back yet (we finished applications around the same time). To ease her nerves (and mine), I've come up with the theories that it could be alphabetical automatic notifications from the "notify this week" pile, or that certain concentration areas might have had different readers. Who knows...