MYRNIST

Eh, I don't think analyzing rejections is very productive, since the whole process is so opaque. You have no idea why they didn't take you. I didn't take any econ or math classes past sophomore year of college either, and have good academic and professional experience in security issues. Yet, I got into SAIS with fin-aid, and straight up rejected from Georgetown Security Studies. Go figure...

Bump. Anyone else heading to Foggy Bottom in the fall? I can't make the open house, but would love to connect with some future classmates.

This was a big factor in deciding not to go there. I was accepted to the Strategic Studies program, and while it's quite an illustrious program, I also got the sense that within SAIS it's a bit of an ugly stepchild - as you said, finance and i-dev is SAIS' calling card. It makes me feel less confident that the career services, curriculum, etc. will be relevant to what I want to do. The SS professors are amazing, it's more the relation of SS to the larger SAIS institution that turned me off.

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.

I just heard back. 25k funding. Appreciative of their support, but I won't be attending.

I'm not sure why a simple question - "hey, I made a poor decision and am looking to get out of it" - necessitated lengthy exposes on the quality of your Mandarin, putting down the Nanjing program, etc. You could do perfect 相声, and it wouldn't change the fact that you didn't adequately research what the program entailed. I'd wager SAIS would feel the same, so I would lose the attitude and humbly beseech them for help. I'd say IRToni pretty much laid out your options.

I would go with GW. You have no work experience and need to get some. DC has lots of opportunities, whether unpaid internships or actual jobs, to gain professional experience while going to school. Especially since all GW's classes are at night, meaning you can easily do both.

I don't think it's crazy to factor in prestige into your decision-making process, as long as you have a sound reason for doing it. If it's vital to your career path, then by all means do it. But just to throw some cold water on this, consider that: - for many of the schools people are referencing, the difference in prestige is so minute as to be meaningless. Which is more prestigious, Fletcher or Elliott? SAIS or Georgetown? Depends on who you ask, and what field you're in, and even then you won't get a consensus. Prestige is a major factor only if the difference is very large (ex: TAMU Bush vs. Georgetown). If you're comparing two top programs, it's not worth worrying about. - Piquant already touched on this, but prestige in the average Joe's eyes =/= prestige in your field. For example, take security studies (my field), and compare Yale to Georgetown. For people who don't actually work in the field, they are going to be majorly impressed by the Ivy League name. Your mom will be way happier bragging to her friends about her child at Yale. But for actual security policy professionals, it's not even a comparison - Georgetown is clearly superior, more prestigious, whatever. So if you are going to make prestige a selection heuristic, make sure you have a good handle on a program's "actual" prestige in your desired community. - if you plan on working for the US government, prestige does not seem to matter much in hiring decisions (compared to the private sector). - think about what would make you feel better, landing a dream job or having a dream school name on your sweatshirt? Because for a lot of us, our dream jobs are just not that high-paying. How much would it suck to have to turn down an opportunity because you have to find a higher paying job to service student debt? Now, you could argue that going to a super prestigious school gives you a higher chance of even landing a job, and that's probably true. But how big is the difference, especially if we're talking about essentially peer schools? Is a 2% (just making that up) increase in degree marketability worth 60k to you?

Thanks for the back-up. I'm not too upset about it since going in GTown and GW were my 2 top schools (out of ones I thought I would actually get in to), and given GTown's rep for fin-aid and my offer from Elliott I still would have just gone to GW. But like godlessgael, I also got a little invested in SFS. Oh well, moving on!

I got straight up rejected. First negative surprise of the admissions season for me - I didn't think I would get into Yale (based on fit) or WWS (based on that it's WWS). But I thought Georgetown was in the bag. Oh well!

Will you sponsor me for Chilean citizenship?! Kidding... I think.

I vaguely remember from last admissions cycle results that some people actually did get fin-aid off the waiting list at several different universities. Pretty hard to predict, though. On the one hand, being waitlisted is a clear indication you are not one of their top choices, which implies you're not going to get merit fellowships. On the other hand, if their yield (% of admits who actually choose to attend) is too low and they need bodies to hit their target class size, they may sweeten the pot to those on the waitlist. Unfortunately you probably just have to wait and see.

For selfish reasons I hope this is true, since I still haven't heard from them and maybe it means I'm getting some aid. Not holding my breath, though - Georgetown doesn't have the reputation of being particularly generous with their aid.

As a fellow international security scholar, I strongly recommend you get some useful experience. You are correct that entry level jobs are extremely hard to come by - surprisingly JSOC is not so keen on hiring 22 year olds. But, there are a wealth of (unpaid) intern programs in DC that give you real, first-hand experience with how defense policy is made. You'd have to additionally work a paying job to support yourself, but it's worth a shot. Investment in your language skills is another good idea - maybe study/work abroad for a year? Don't think of work experience as restricted to direct involvement in the organizations you want to work for, since for recent undergrads and the defense community that's not realistic. Think more of the skills vital to long-term success in the field, and try to acquire them, whether it's in private industry, NGO, government, etc. Your worst-case scenario is going to grad school with no work experience, racking up debt, and then coming out to find no one wants to hire you because, surprise, you have no work experience, no recommendations, etc. Especially since Security Studies is not a broadly marketable degree - the range of institutions interested in hiring you is quite limited, compared to, say, International Economics. That specialization is one of its strengths, but it also means you need to be pretty sure you can gain employment in the national security community post-graduation.

I think it's relevant. It's saying if OP wants to, he/she might consider re-applying next cycle, and use the time in-between to really boost his/her profile. OP clearly is a good applicant, based on the list of accepted schools. With more work experience, higher GRE, more language, maybe some part-time classes with A's, I bet OP would get great funding. If it's so obvious that you can transform your candidate profile, why do so many people create a false dichotomy of big debt, top school vs. less debt, second-choice school? Why not do the work to get less debt, top choice? I am not the only poster in here saying that taking a year off to improve yourself is a highly viable option.

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.

Ditto.

There is no dilemma for me. George Washington is much better at what I want to do than Tufts, in DC, practitioner-oriented, and gave me more money. No-brainer.

Email.

21k here, not enough. I'll be declining my offer in the next few days.

No. For what I want to study, Elliott is just a flat-out better school. It's also way more marketable, with the DC + alumni network factors. I have a full-ride there, so even in some dream scenario where GSPIA fully funded me, I wouldn't go.

It means they are rolling out admissions gradually, rather than all at once. On their website it specifically says you should not interpret the order in which people receive offers as anything important.

I am a domestic student. I was accepted into the Security and Intelligence Studies program.

Congrats to all accepted! Anxiously waiting to hear back.

Yeah, I've been getting them as well. I find it quite poor form that they inform you about funding so late.