higheredhopeful

This is what they post on the website: http://www.gse.harvard.edu/masters/life/who-studies

(just wrote this for another thread) I can talk a bit about Denton. I graduated from UNT with a BA in English in 2012. Denton, TX is a wonderful town. People characterize it as a "little Austin" since it's got an amazing music history/scene and is known for being kind of quirky/artsy/hipster. social: at UNT there's pretty much a scene for everybody. punks, activists, republicans, coffee shop lit nerds, fratbros, etc. lots of bars and music venues. local coffee shops and non-chain restaurants are right next to campus so you don't feel like you're just going to any other college. campus is lively even though most live off campus. it's not a "commuter school" where the campus is dead after 5 PM. professors grab lunch with students often. to escape the UNT bubble, you can walk downtown to the Square in fifteen minutes where you'll see really cute vintage-looking shops (ice cream store, record/book store, antique mall). transportation: most people have cars, but you can bike pretty much everywhere. the UNT shuttle is pretty reliable. you can get to Dallas in about 30-40 minutes, Austin in about 4 hours. food: huge variety of quality restaurants. lots of grocery stores. more authentic Asian places can be found closer to Dallas in suburbs like Carrollton or Arlington. my favorites: Taco Lady (CHEEEAP, authentic as hell), Rooster's Roadhouse (bbq, get the pulled pork nachos and truffle burger even if you're over truffle anything), TJ's Pizza and Wings (gives you a stomachache if you're lactose intolerant because they actually use real cheese. wings are smoked and TDF), Oak St. Drafthouse (craft beers on tap, huge outdoor patio area-the best thing that happened to Denton when I was there), Paschall's (fancier bar with craft cocktails that looks like a grandparent's library), Mr. Frosty Drive In (amazing floats/milkshakes), Yummy's (Greek, great takeout) rent: really cheap. like, I paid $675 for a two bedroom a ten minute walk from campus in 2010-2012. people often rent houses with roommates, but there are plenty of apartments near by. Sometimes I wonder why I even left. Sigh...

I can talk a bit about the social/lifestyle aspects of the University of North Texas. I graduated from there with a BA in English in 2012 and had friends in the Creative Writing grad programs. Denton, TX is a wonderful town. People characterize it as a "little Austin" since it's got an amazing music history/scene and is known for being kind of quirky/artsy/hipster. social: at UNT there's pretty much a scene for everybody. punks, activists, republicans, coffee shop lit nerds, fratbros, etc. lots of bars and music venues. local coffee shops and non-chain restaurants are right next to campus so you don't feel like you're just going to any other college. campus is lively even though most live off campus. it's not a "commuter school" where the campus is dead after 5 PM. professors grab lunch with students often. to escape the UNT bubble, you can walk downtown to the Square in fifteen minutes where you'll see really cute vintage-looking shops (ice cream store, record/book store, antique mall). transportation: most people have cars, but you can bike pretty much everywhere. the UNT shuttle is pretty reliable. you can get to Dallas in about 30-40 minutes, Austin in about 4 hours. food: huge variety of quality restaurants. lots of grocery stores. more authentic Asian places can be found closer to Dallas in suburbs like Carrollton or Arlington. my favorites: Taco Lady (CHEEEAP, authentic as hell), Rooster's Roadhouse (bbq, get the pulled pork nachos and truffle burger even if you're over truffle anything), TJ's Pizza and Wings (gives you a stomachache if you're lactose intolerant because they actually use real cheese. wings are smoked and TDF), Oak St. Drafthouse (craft beers on tap, huge outdoor patio area-the best thing that happened to Denton when I was there), Paschall's (fancier bar with craft cocktails that looks like a grandparent's library), Mr. Frosty Drive In (amazing floats/milkshakes), Yummy's (Greek, great takeout) rent: really cheap. like, I paid $675 for a two bedroom a ten minute walk from campus in 2010-2012. people often rent houses with roommates, but there are plenty of apartments near by. Sometimes I wonder why I even left. Sigh...

A few thoughts on someone who has never been to Nashville and just visited Vanderbilt for a day: This is the route I walked to check things out, if anybody cares: 1) there is a lot of new development going on... tons of construction, especially of new apartments and lofts. 2) a lot of the older houses with charm and Southern character are being torn down in place of said new construction 3) there are plenty of sidewalks so walking is nbd. biking isn't really too popular. 4) tons of good food. Nashville is becoming known as a food lover's hot spot. there just isn't a big ethnic Asian (authetntic Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, etc.) scene 5) housing is NOT as cheap as you'd think. 1 bedrooms close to Vanderbilt will run you around $1,000 and studios about $800. But parking passes at Vanderbilt cost $1500 a semester, soooooo... it's a trade-off. 6) there is a lot more to do now than there was 5 years ago 7) lots of people are moving here every day, but they don't usually stay long term 8) even if you don't like country music, it's not too in your face. Nashville is now much more than just like top 40 country or whatever. there's tons of indie country, rock and roll, bluegrass, etc. 9) arnold's is the shit These points were confirmed by my Uber driver, a native Nashvillian

If you guys get into HGSE, will you definitely go? Me: not sure yet...

I had a dream last night that I was admitted, which means that most likely I'll be rejected. It is torture that they wait until early March... they know other schools are having visit days and we are having assistantship interviews while keeping Harvard in the background. gahh.

Congrats on your admission. I would just call or email the admissions office to ask if there are any planned visit days for admitted students or just ask when would be a good time to visit and talk to faculty and students.

I did. I'm excited too, but a couple of things turn me off about the program: 1) they are weirdly non-transparent about compensation for their graduate assistantships. I asked someone in admissions about whether or not GA compensation includes tuition remission, and his answer was something like, "yes, they usually do, but we don't post how much they include because we want people to apply for them who actually are passionate about the position and not in it just for the tuition remission." ..... right, because we're paying the application fee and applying to the program and willing to take out thousands in loans because we're not passionate about student affairs. 2) just seems a bit disorganized. like setting the deadline to apply for GAs before we found out our acceptance/rejection to the program. kind of a waste of time for the applicants and the staff reviewing the applications. edit: I realize those qualms are a bit petty. I did talk to two wonderful people from the school at an Idealist Grad Fair earlier last year. Won't be able to go visit unfortunately since their visit days coincide with NYU's (which are required for admission to the program.)

I haven't even peeped at my SOP since I hit that submit button, and I feel like I'm happier for it haha.

Man, it's a bummer not getting selected for interviews for GAs, especially if it's one that you were very interested in. Anybody have tips for what the interview could be like? Is it basically like a job interview or will they ask about your research interests?

Since so many of us are anxiously refreshing the Results Search every five minutes, I thought it would be nice if we shared some of our favorite education-related podcasts/blogs/YouTube channels/whatever to help us spend our waiting time productively. I've found that listening to higher ed podcasts on my commute is giving me great ideas for future research papers and is a lot easier than trying to hold up the Chronicle of Higher Education in a packed subway. Here are some that I've been enjoying: This Week @ Inside Higher Ed (discussions of education policy, politics and education, economy and education) Higher Ed Live (every episode rotates around different teams- Marketing, Student Affairs--who just did a great episode on job searching/placement, Admissions, and Advancement) The Student Affairs Spectacular (entertaining podcast where the hosts interview a higher ed professional in a certain niche, like food insecurity or geek/nerd culture or orientation programs Higher Ed Social (very casual discussions, often talk about the various functions of social media in higher ed) I haven't really been following any education blogs, but after seeing NMB's post (quoted below) with a link to some Penn GSE student blogs, I was wondering if anybody else had some to share from other schools. Good luck with the wait, everyone.

Thanks! And yeah, I'm mostly just curious why they don't have a PhD/Ed.D option since all the other schools I looked at had one.

Hi there! Yay congrats on the acceptances you've gotten! I've also heard back from Boston College (accepted), Vanderbilt (accepted), and UCLA (denied). This is going to be a tough decision that will basically come down to cost, I'm thinking... The Preview Days at Northwestern seem like they'll be really worth it to attend. I'm really looking forward to seeing the Masters Projects. What do you think about the school not having a doctoral program for higher ed? Do you think that will influence your decision at all?

Reviving this thread since the other Northwestern thread is for PhD students... I saw that several people posted their acceptance results for the Masters program in Higher Ed Administration and Policy. Is anybody planning on going to the Preview Days this year?

Anybody else get into the Master's program in Higher Ed and is going to Interview Day on the 19th-20th? We should be hearing back this week about our interview schedules.

I'm going too! Can't wait to check out Nashville as well. Where are you guys planning on staying? I'm looking through AirBnB.

Ahh!! ACCEPTED!! No news about visit days. Just "Please mark your calendar for New Student Orientation, August 24, 2015. More details will be distributed about this event as the date gets closer." edit: congrats bpearce_ and and Happy91!

Ohhh, hmm. So did you have the interview already? How did it go?

Any Masters in Higher Ed applicants here? In the last few years it seems like results have gone out this day (last Friday in January.) I'm dying over here.

Anybody thinking about Boston College? Have any experiences (positive or negative) to share?

Nah, but I think we'll find out about those in the next couple of weeks. Fingers crossed for the both of us!

Probably won't hear from them until mid-February, early March.

Early-mid March, from my research.

Another USC annoyance here. Applying for graduate student employment before receiving notification of admittance/rejection. How does that make sense?! They'll have to go through applications not knowing who was admitted?

Hello, For anybody who has gone through the process or knows otherwise, can you tell me how the interviewing/application process works for graduate assistantships? If a school has a long list of potential assistantships/internships, are you supposed to only indicate interest in the ones you'd truly want to do or are you supposed to rank all of them (or as many as your school allows) and hope you get one? Of course you'd want to secure a GA, but would you be willing to do one that you're not really interested in? Thanks! Best of luck to all the Fall 2015 applicants!