Jordan+AirForce1

I do not know if there is any impact of the applicant's age on the PhD admission, but I do really think it's commendable for someone your age to want to go back to school for (I'm guessing) your desire to research. Can I ask you a question though? You obviously graduated from college a long time ago, and even got the MBA degree. May I ask what you have been doing since you obtained your MBA, and the reason why you seek to go for the PhD at this stage? If you would rather send me a PM, it's OK, and if you don't want to answer, that's fine too.

wow. Awesome reply. Thank you. Could you please share what you found when you were trying to get your car across the continent? Did you drive yourself? How much would it have been if you wanted to ship it? 2nd question: Other than the gasoline cost, how is the maintenance cost for having a car, while living on campus? I realize there must be a parking permit to have my car parked near my apartment, but how much would it be? Any info / light you can shed on me would be appreciated. Thank you!

how will it like to live without a car in the campus? i will be living in campus, and im not sure if i should pay that much (or drive that long) to bring my car over to the other side of the continent.

so i've picked a school out of a few that accepted me, and i sent an email declining the offer to other schools. One of the schools emailed me personally and asked me directly where i'm headed to. In my first reply, I've written a polite response explaining that I picked another school that I felt had a better fit for me, without specifically mentioning the name. Then the director e-mailed me back and again asked where I was headed to. Is this conventional? Should I just tell them? I just feel that it's not necessary to tell them, I dont feel I need to tell them, so I'm kinda hesitant.

by the way, my heart goes out to the fallen Nuggets, i thought they gave the Lakers a lot of headache, but they weren't quite good enough. Maybe next season !!

thats what i thought, but just making sure. thanks zooey !

i got Escondillo (sp?) 2 bedrooms - 2 occupants efficiency. Do i need to confirm the assignment? I don't see any action I can take. Somehow i feel i need to press a button that will finalize the housing assignment. Also, a question regarding loans. For those of you needing loans, when do we know how much of each type of loans we are getting?

In Philly, it's a very bad idea to buy a brand-new or an expensive car, especially if you'll be parking in the city often. You'll experience a handful of window-breaking thefts, disappeared side mirror, and lots of scratches and bumps in the front and back from parallel parking. Just get a car that runs. If you are close to South Philly, you have to experience the cheesesteaks in this region! Pat's and Geno's are of course the famous ones, but you'll find that any cheesesteak place neighborhood will be good, too!

if you'll be in New Brunswick this coming fall, try out a Chinese restaurant named "Noodle Gourmet" in downtown New Brunswick! i loved their food, and now i'm so far away, and i still miss their food Edit: by the way, i have no affiliations with the place whatsoever

i think the two responses above are excellent. Schools i've visited had either Aero and Mech combined into one department (MAE department) or very closely associated with each other. Not just aero, but i've noticed that many students do interdisciplinary work with other departments.

i want to live on campus, so i applied to many options in the housing application. Some options where the number of roommates is more than the number of rooms, are quite inexpensive.

i'm not going to read all the posts, or defend anybody, but i just want to straighten some things out, since i believe people are misunderstanding each other here. Here is the very basics of my understanding of what happened here. 1. Topic creator asks whether HKS is worth $130k in debt 2. Someone responded that for that much debt, you would need to make at least $242k per year, probably from some formula online 3. Vannik pointed out that it is possible to afford $130k in debt with far lower income, and that numbers are too conservative 4. Some people point out that the public service sector (assumed to be topic creator's field) has not nearly as high income as other fields, so they argue $130k debt to work in public sector is a very bad idea So, here is the conclusion: 1. It's a bad idea financially to get $130k in loans, even if it's for HKS, if you are going to work in the public service sector after graduating. 2. You do NOT need income as high as $242k in order to afford $130k in debt. People have different priorities and different willingness to devote different % of their income towards paying off debt and still living comfortably. I think both vannik and his critics will agree to the two conclusions above.

thank you for the valuable information, i'll definitely look into it!

thank you for your response.

so government loans maximum is around $20k per year?? wow, it will barely cover the rents and the cost of living. I need to get private loans for the tuition then? :x

I think it really depends on the school. Some schools have different paths for MS-only and MS-PhD, while others only have just one MS path, and some schools directly draft PhD students.

Right now your question is whether to go to school A (where you obviously like it better) or school B for the sake of the reasons you listed. I think the question should be revised to: "OK I have to go to school A, how can I reverse this situation and tell him I'm not going to school B without burning bridges and pissing him off?" You can make up a lot of reasons, some that he will have no rights to get pissed off at you.

What are you trying to incite here? I am extremely curious how you concluded he is an international student, because I have no idea. EDIT// alright, so he IS an international student.. Whatever. EDIT2// alright, after reading some of vannik's posts in other topics, i kinda take back what i said above..

just got a super late MS acceptance to Ann Arbor. No funding though. i'm thinking I was on the waitlist, and they accepted me because some people with offers have declined.

Hello, I've been working full-time since 2007, with some time off in the second half of last year. If I decide to go to an unfunded program this year full-time, I will have to take out loans. It will need to be something like $60k-$70k. My question is, with all these earnings, would I be eligible for fereral loans? (by the way, I completed my FAFSA already) I've worked for about a year and a half, but do not have any savings, as my salary wasn't THAT high to begin with, and I had college loans to pay for as well as some other family expenses. Would I be able to get enough loans to cover my expenses for at least 2 years in graduate school?

Is he in EE? Did he get just MS, or PhD?

i guess it'll depend on which part of the country you are in, but $50,000 is pretty normal for even BS graduates. WIth MS, especially from Columbia or UPenn (big names even though not highly ranked in engineering) your starting salary will most likely be higher than 50k. Those schools also might provide additional perks, such as eligibility to take business classes there.

what do you mean $50,000 or more per year in the beginning? Do you mean financial support?

hey bone, im almost in the same situation, and i plan to do what the poster above said...