TypeA

A personal and largely instinctual decision. If you're entertaining the prospect of re-applying, then that in and of itself indicates that you're acknowledging it was an unsatisfying outcome in one way or another. For some of us, it's not a reflection of a cycle gone poorly or without positive result, but rather a recalibration and full awareness of the financial implications. After all of the time, effort, money, and waiting, it's a disquieting stance to take.

However, if age isn't an issue at the moment (in my case it isn't, but I understand that the window of opportunity feels shorter for some of y'all), you should explore every option. If you identify a few things you can do within the next 9 months or so to improve your profile and convey more precision with regards to your career path, how would that be a bad thing?

The financial predicament many of you are facing is exactly why I didn't apply to HKS, despite really liking some of the faculty and courses. They are pretty open about stiffing people on fin-aid, which rules them out for me as my career is not that lucrative. I'm bored at work and made this to sum it up.

"but my debt... it's so fancy!"

LMAO!

EGS your post smacks of "academic entitlement". Sorry but graduate students are not going to be making any "top overworked profession" lists any time soon and as such aren't likely to be getting any tax sympathies. Yes, yes I'm sure the hours you spend pouring over ancient texts is grueling and seemingly Sisyphean in nature, but the great majority of the population isn't going to have much sympathy for you.

Would it be nice for the amount on your stipend to be what you're actually getting - heck yes. But it's income. And income is taxable. As it should be (if you're into civic responsibility and all that).

Why should I sign such a petition?

I want dignity and good working conditions for graduate students. Part of what that means is that I want them to be recognized legitimately as workers. Grad stipends should be taxed. And graduate assistants should be able to unionize (which might help with the whole higher stipends thing in some cases). And file complaints with the National Labor Relations Board. And be provided health insurance (I don't much like the employer-provides-health-insurance system, but as long as we have it, graduate assistants should benefit from it). And be eligible (if they otherwise meet the conditions) for the FMLA, and USERRA, and be eligible to receive workers' compensation. And all that other good stuff. And yes, I realize that some "normal" jobs are problematic with regards to some of this, which is one reason I'm an activist.

Editing this post to add: Just to be clear, I know that at some schools the grad students already have some or all of these benefits. But I want them to be more ubiquitous. And the canonical excuse that I've seen from university admins who want to deny grad students such benefits is that they are somehow not real workers. I don't want grad students to accept that view of their own work, and allow it to be used against them.

Basically, I want grad student employees to be treated as the grown-up working people they are and not special snowflake children.

It's not like other jobs don't ever require fees from your wages. What do you think a worker's share of health insurance premiums are? What do you think continuing ed or certification requirements are?

And I am currently both a grad student and a full-time non-academic worker, and no, grad students don't do double the work of the rest of the world. There are grad students who are expected to work an exceptional number of hours, and non-academic workers who are expected to work an exceptional number of hours, and many in both categories of workers who are not.

Not in social work, but for what it's worth, I'm another staunch Mac user, despite the price tags. However, I would agree that if you go with a Mac, it's imperative that you purchase the Applecare insurance. Mine paid for itself more than twice over during the three years I was covered under it (which I think is less of a reflection on the product quality, and more of a reflection of how clumsy I am). I had the hard drive replaced twice under Applecare and they fixed some issues to the tune of $800 that arose after I spilled a bit of tea into the machine (note: Applecare isn't supposed to cover liquid damage; there must not have been sufficient evidence of it).

In addition to the tea, my Macbook Pro survived a Mountain Dew spill (I had to pay $200 to replace the keyboard) and the general wear-and-tear of my life as an undergrad (I took my computer everywhere with me). It's about five years old, and while the battery is totally shot (and replacing it doesn't help), it's still totally functional.

To be fair, I did go through a number of expensive chargers, because the ends of the cords would start to pull away and wire would be exposed. But! Those are covered under your first year's warranty (and possibly under Applecare? I don't recall) and the new design seems to rectify the problem a bit. Also, I probably wouldn't have had the issue if I had wrapped the cord like you're supposed to, around the little "feet" that pop out of the power brick. A word of caution: if you do need to buy a new charger, do yourself a favor and spring for the real thing from Apple. I bought a knockoff from Amazon for about 1/3 the price, but then... it melted.

Oh, I want to claim it, but it's not mine!

A big part of my decision to attend LBJ was financial. I was accepted to a couple of DC schools, but with little financial aid. Between the higher tuition and higher cost of living in DC, I was looking at about $80,000 more over two years to go to school in DC. As much as I wanted to go to school in DC, I knew that I wanted to go in to government or NGO work and I just couldn't bring myself to spend $80k more to be in DC. On the other hand, between financial aid, working, my savings, and the lower cost of living in Austin, I graduated from LBJ debt-free which was a great feeling to have when I graduated since it meant that I had more options and didn't have to take the highest paying or first job that came along.

If you're interested in working for the federal government, where you go to school will have very little effect on your starting salary. The salary determination process is more or less an equation of education + work experience = GS level X, step Y. The brand name of a school might make a difference in opening doors at NGOs and make a small salary difference, but probably not a big enough difference to offset much extra debt since salaries are generally lower in the NGO/non-profit sector. If you've got your heart set on consulting, then the extra debt to attend a more prestigious program might be worth it, but if you change your mind partway through the program you could be stuck with consulting anyway to pay off the debt. If you come in to the masters as a mid-career student with a lot of work experience though, you could have a higher salary after graduation, so a larger debt payment might not be as big of a problem.

After graduation, I started working with the federal government at a little over 55K in DC, which is more or less average for someone with a master's and a couple of years of work experience. After taxes, social security, etc, I was left with a little less than 40k/year to live on. That's manageable in DC especially since I'm single, but if I had a large student loan payment like the $600-$900/mo payments you can incur if you take out $60K-$80K of loans or had a family, it would be really tough to live in the DC area on that. My salary has gone up a bit in the almost 3 years since I graduated, but it would still be tough if I had a huge loan payment every month. Without debt, I'm able to live comfortably, though not lavishly, save for future needs, and put away some money towards a down payment on a condo/house later on.

Also, being in DC can give you a leg up in networking, especially for the private sector and NGOs, but all of the big policy schools will have a decent alumni network in DC and the big employers of MPP/MPA/IR grads will hit the big policy schools. We had recruiters at LBJ from a lot of government agencies, several consulting firms, and many different international and DC-based NGO/Non-profits. So, while I was initially a little apprehensive about going to school outside of DC, I don't really think it hurt me in the long run. I got 2 great federal internships and then was eventually hired by one of them. Now, I'm in DC and have been able to take advantage of the LBJ alumni network here and build my own network through my current job and living in DC.

It's ultimately a personal decision, since everyone has a different tolerance for debt, but I generally don't think that a lot of debt is advisable or necessary for most MPP/MPA/IR grads since salaries are not usually that high. I also think that the name of the school, while not irrelevant, is not as important in the public and NGO/Non-profit sector as it is in the private sector. So, paying big bucks for a name brand is not as important as it might be for law schools or MBA programs. For example, a person that I met at an admitted student day for LBJ when I was trying to decide where to go ultimately turned down LBJ to go to HKS. We now work for the same employer, doing the same job with the same promotion potential, and my salary's actually a bit higher because I had a little more work experience before being hired. He has a ton of debt that he's trying to manage, but I don't.

I also think that, if you don't have a good match between program fit and financial aid, it is worth taking another year to work on your application package and/or research other schools. If you got in to top ranked program X with no funding, chances are good you'll get in there again or at least in to a similar program if you apply later. In the mean time, you can do things to improve your application package like trying to boost your GRE, improve your resume, improve your statements of purpose, etc. You can also consider casting a wider net when you apply to schools the second time around because maybe you can get in to slightly lower ranked school Y with decent funding and have similar career prospects after graduation.

People underestimate the degree to which they can avoid debt if they are willing to put in the work to improve their admission profile.

I would argue that many critical admission/fin-aid metrics, including GPA, GRE, obtaining internships/jobs (not necessarily your performance in them), and foreign language boil down to who cares more. Not inherent intelligence, not your financial resources, not where you were born. Effort, pure and simple. Put in the work, and you get paid for it (literally).

If you spend 4 hours a night studying in college, you're going to have a great GPA. If you spend 500+ hours studying for the GRE, you're going to have a sick score. If you are willing to troll online for hours to find relevant internships/jobs and send out 20+ applications, you're going to get one. If you take time every single day to study a foreign language, you will become proficient in it. Polishing your SOP, researching your schools to detail exactly how you are a fit for them - so much of apps (and life?) comes down to desire. There are trade-offs involved: time you spend doing those things means time not spent with friends, lovers, a good book, a sunny meadow on a spring day. It might not make you happier, or well-rounded. But if you put in the work, I guarantee someone will give you admission + serious funding.

I'll be attending one of my top schools on a full ride. It didn't just happen - I did all the things mentioned above, and more. Sometimes it sucked, GRE prep particularly so, as I ended up at about 750 hours prep time. But the thought that kept me going was that not being able to attend grad school, which I wouldn't be able to sans major funding, would suck infinitely more. So I put in the work, and now I get to go to school for free. Not because I'm smarter (guarantee that's not the case), not because I'm richer (my bank account laughs at this): because I cared more, and did the work other people weren't willing to do.

You can write this off as self-aggrandizement. Or get upset because you didn't get the financial aid you wanted and think I'm insinuating you're lazy. But fundamentally, grad school admissions and fin-aid are not mysteries. Everyone knows the things they look at to make decisions. It's your choice whether you invest the time and out-work competitors.

In at Ford as well! Ditto to the forthcoming funding info. Man, I've been a ball of neuroses all week, and deliberately avoiding the forum.

In at Ford too. I am convinced it is either very easy to get into policy programs, or everyone on this forum represents the most high-strung, impressive, on-steroids applicants for degree programs for the 2012 school year. I'm rooting for the latter.

"Wait, what? I thought you were going to medical school."

I'm waiting on one more decision, and there's an untouched box of Thin Mints sitting on my dresser. I figure that'll work whether I'm accepted or rejected.

No, it makes sense. You're essentially arguing :

1. since non-elite schools cost so much less, their scholarships give more "bang for the buck"
2. non-elite schools have more money reserved for scholarships
3. public schools = in-state tuition
4. non-coastal locations = lower coast of living (obviously not applicable for a lot of programs).

A lot of really important factors left out though (not your fault, schools are awful at giving detailed info on financial aid). A big factor to consider is class size, since it obviously affects how dispersed the scholarships are. TAMU has well over 500 students - Yale has like 30. Distribution between MA and PHD students, if applicable. TA positions available. etc. etc.

Now if you'll excuse me I have some goats to sacrifice to Adcomminus, the dark god of graduate admissions - once He grants me a ticket to WWS in exchange for my eternal soul, all this fin-aid talk will be irrelevant. Yeah, my financial plan is a bit unorthodox.

1) University of Phoenix
2) Walden University
3) Princeton

So you've resorted to lying then, I refer to your post from February:

"Posted 14 February 2011 - 05:39 AM
Hey guys,

I was wondering what would be my chances of getting into either of these programs? I have a 770 Quant/ 740 Verbal with a 3.8 GPA with a degree in accounting. I am definitely sure that I will have a very diverse and interesting application due to my personal background. However, I have zero years of full-time work experience since I am an international student studying in the U.S. I am also applying for a law degree in the top ten schools since I received an LSAT of 172. Any advice or comments would be appreciated. "

So you have "zero years of full-time work experience" yet also "worked at one of MBB for a few years out of undergraduate"?

Perhaps you should be a little more consistent in your lies. Pathetic.

"Wait, what? I thought you were going to medical school."

The lack of self-awareness in this post is both hilarious and infuriating.

If you were an international student in the U.S., and went to a half decent school for undergrad, your parents almost certainly dropped over $100k on your tuition, room, and board. Closer to $200k for good schools.

They are providing you with a free house likely worth several hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Let's not forget the electricity, heat, water, insurance and other associated bills that are far from insignificant.

On top of that, they are paying for all your food.

The single mother with a non-skilled job who probably is struggling to stay afloat has the "gall" to suggest you are living off your parents because, newsflash, you are. Think she would mind someone writing her a check for about $500k of aggregate support? And then you castigate her, when your biggest financial worries are "going out" and buying new clothes?!

People shouldn't be embarrassed or try to hide that they have significant parental financial support - it doesn't invalidate or cheapen your academic accomplishments, whatever they may be. But for gods sakes, have the decency to at least acknowledge that you are extremely fortunate in the opportunities afforded (literally) to you!

"Wait, what? I thought you were going to medical school."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0MLfytSssE

"Wait, what? I thought you were going to medical school."

"Wait, what? I thought you were going to medical school."

"Wait, what? I thought you were going to medical school."

Not even gonna lie, this is when I usually call my mom in tears. Lately she's switched tactics from the "You can't quit, you love what you're doing" to "OK, quit and come home then" to which I start yelling that I can't quit, I've come too far and accomplished too much to stop now.

She's a sneaky, sneaky, smart lady.

How is it snarky? Almost all reputable business schools don't accept students right out of undergrad for the exact reason Fenderpete mentioned: most 22 year olds have little experience in the professional "real world." Both their field/career choice and dedication to it are suspect. Without experience, how do they know that what they think they want to do is, in fact, the right choice? How can they claim their "dedication" to a particular discipline without having worked in it? MPA schools are slightly more lenient, but still massively prefer candidates with actual professional experience. Keep in mind, both b-school and MPP/MPA programs are NOT academically oriented. Their goal is to put alumni in careers, not on tenure track.

If there is one piece of wisdom this forum should staple onto the foreheads of every new poster, it is "get professional experience before grad school."