kbui

50% tuition is huge. May I ask why you decided to go to SIPA over Sanford?

The interview is coming up!

One question: Did folks also apply for the internal and external scholarships and fellowships on the HKS website? If so, have you heard back yet? It is a large financial burden to take out loans, though there are so many resources out there for students of color and for marginalized folks, and for passionate people who want to serve our nation and the world. If HKS is something you want to do, I highly recommend applying for scholarships with the same spirit as you place into your application. It will shine through and it would be a great way to fund an education and to help an organization work towards its mission.

To respond to the diversity aspect of New Admit Day, I personally cover a number of "diversity" and I found HKS to be quite intentional in welcoming me. I was able to meet Natara, the Coordinator for Student Diversity and Inclusion Office, and she made the extra effort to reach out to me during the application process and to have candid conversations with me about HKS. The student population at HKS isn't as diverse in terms of all the ethnicities that are present in America, but this also very much the case at my private Catholic undergrad back in Minnesota, so this issue didn't bother me too much because I'm so used to it. I also have conversations around race, ethnicity, gender identity, and immigration stories quite often with my close group of friends, and so I don't feel a "need" to go to a school that also cultivates the same type of conversations--at least not at this moment. If anything, we can start those conversations ourselves and purposefully weave it into our work. As for academic rigor, I also believe that the HKS core curriculum can be more intensive. Because of this, I'm planning to take at least one elective course and cross-registering at another graduate school every semester to expand on the generalist skills that the core courses will prepare us for. The curriculum really also is what we make of it. I studied biology in undergrad, and all the professors did in the first and second year was to push us beyond our limits (in a semi-good/semi-negative way) and a lot of students were weeded out, and I ended up not absorbing as much material while trying to survive since it was like drinking water from a fire hose. In the upper-level courses it became less intense and "out to get you," and that was when I was able to process the information and where I was able to better retain what I learned. If we want to make the experience intensive, I'm sure there are multitudes of ways to do so. Loans are scary, for sure. I was talking to the fellow admits, and some definitely did not want to think about it. $140K is a lot. One of the best advice given to me by the graduate school admissions director at Yale was that, "Graduate school will always be there. It's not going anywhere, so you should really be sure that you want it before going."

You are grossly uninformed, judgmental, and ignorant of your privileges and where they came from. Affirmative Action has helped white women more than men and women of color, and you being against it is ironic [1]. I am a great supporter of Affirmative Action because not everyone can grow up in an educated, middle/high income, non-criminalized, and [insert white privileges here] household and then expect to catch up to their white counterparts at the age of 17 when applying for college. After having read your other comments in the other threads, I suggest that you reevaluate your values and to realign it with modern America because eventually you're going to harm no one but yourself.

It seemed like you were worried about student loans from the original post, but now it very much looks like you've justified the possibility of loans for your masters program. I wish you the best of luck with your future endeavors.

The New Admit Day was fun. It was somewhat typical of any other school's admit day, but there were some things that stood out for me: We were able to eat some good food for breakfast and lunch, and at the table there were a good number of people with a wide variety of interests so we were able to make small talk rather easily. There was a bingo activity where the boxes had descriptions in them like, "Can speak four or more languages" and then you would have to find someone to sign off on it. You have to fill up the entire sheet, and I don't think anybody was able to do so because there was one box that said, "Has held elected office," that nobody could sign. Some people were just not having it and were not excited to be there--some students were also like, "I'm not going here next year." I was going to follow-up with a question like, "Then why did you come all the way from [insert state]?" But then they probably have their reasons and it's not my job to really ask. The student panel was very impressive. They were doing great things in the school, and a couple of them were doing MBA joint programs. The Black Policy Conference's opening was on the same day, so the Mayor of Flint came to talk in the Forum. I was able to meet an old friend from my university back at home, so that was especially memorable for me. There were a couple receptions afterwards with food and drinks, so that was also fun. The best one was the Diversity reception where students who were editors for the various journals and leaders of the many caucuses came to speak. The HKS buildings seemed cramped to me, but it surrounds some great restaurants and shops. They are also doing construction for a new building that will open in 2018, so that hinders the overall feeling of the setting being really polished. Overall I really enjoyed my experience there, and will definitely attend this fall.

@rack_attack124 Your situation right now will not be solved with a masters program (in health informatics). If you want to get out of debt, there are other ways to do it besides getting into more debt. I'm not sure which types of programs have deadlines this late into the year, but if it's a for-profit school, an online college, or if the school has low admissions standards, that may actually even work against you [1][2]. If you are looking to "be a millionaire," working in a job will not get you there. You have to ask yourself what value you can give people--may that be entertainment, advice, products, skills, services, anything else that you think people will spend their hard-earned money to receive. Before taking on a mountain of debt and thinking that you can "pay the debt off pretty fast," I would highly recommend reading the posts on the Student Debt Crisis website. They really opened my eyes to the world of student debt and how many, many people regret it. We too often hear the side of admissions and their job placement rates and their student ambassadors, but we rarely see the truth and reality for a great number of people.

These scholarship and fellowship committees must take some joy in seeing applicants have mini heart attacks.

You're getting a chance to win an incredible fellowship. I wouldn't exactly count emailing requests of enrollment notification extensions exactly... "annoying."

When is the interview, by the way?

@Letsgoooooo Thank you for the congratulations! I have been very blessed, for sure. I've learned that with a lot of plain old hard work and some luck, we can achieve things that are beyond our own expectations of ourselves. Which country are you applying for with Boren? Also, if you're in Taiwan for an ETA (a big retro congratulations to the Fulbright family!) I assume you've already graduated--does this mean that you're applying for a fellowship? If so, which schools are you looking to matriculate in next year?

Maybe this will be the week!

Thank you @ZebraFinch for leading it!

Okay good, things are happening. Thank you @ZebraFinch!

Sorry guys. I left my laptop at a friend's place and may have to delay the hangout until 2pm CST. Unless @ZebraFinch want to lead it.

Tomorrow I'll create the link and post it. Be back in this thread and be on a computer with a stable internet connection and with audio and webcam capabilities. Can't wait!

I can do one on April 3rd at 11AM, 2PM, or 4PM CST. I prefer 11AM if that works for people.

Yes, I would love to do a Google Hangout on Sunday afternoon if people are interested. @ZebraFinch might be very interested in helping also.

To folks who are considering taking on almost $100K in debt for a Master in Public Policy, I ask for you to first do a cost-benefit analysis that we (hopefully) will learn how to do in depth at HKS. Is the name worth it? And if it is, I would recommend going to the Harvard Extension School where after spending only $28,800, at the end, you'll even get a degree that says Harvard on it! You can put it on your resume and proudly show it to everyone who wants to see it. If you're in it to gain skills, then there are plenty of quality programs out there at public schools that will teach you those skills (e.g. econometrics, statistics, research, policy analysis). If you're in it for the network, try to really think about if that network is worth an upwards of $100K. I want all of us to make decisions free from passion because this is a critical time for all of us. One bad decision and it can haunt us for life.

What did you end up choosing?

@ennkay Yeah, I can imagine. It's a big financial commitment, for sure. But if people have already registered for a Skype interview, it doesn't seem all that disadvantaged for people who aren't showing up in person. For me, my personality shows much better when people can feel my positive energy and I have not had much luck over Skype interviews in that regard. And meeting other fellows were also a very big positive for me, and that wouldn't've been possible with a Skype interview. You get to go eat dinner, or debrief, or hang out with them throughout the day and you get to make some really interesting friends and hear a lot of fun stories. Either way, I think that if you prepared correctly, you will be a stellar finalist no matter the interview format.

There are so many great finalists this year! As for the Skype interviews, for the Rangel and Payne I think you have to be there in person. But if I had the option to do Skype and I was abroad, I would still fly (take out a credit card) because this is such a high stakes interview and like @ZebraFinch said, they will definitely look at the way you interact with other finalists and that would play into consideration. For the Payne there were people flying from parts of Africa, Thailand, Indonesia, and they spent a week in the U.S. with some days to rest before the interview and then to relax afterwards. I would highly recommend that. If you truly can't afford it and can't take out a credit card (this would count as an investment in yourself), then I would look at alternatives like crowd sourcing like a GoFundMe. I did one a couple years ago and it was highly successful if you know how to market it right.

The anticipation is killing me.

Congratulations to the people who made the interview! And @ZebraFinch... AGAIN lol. You are a superstar and they couldn't resist selecting you again for an interview. This is when you know you're meant to be a Pickering Fellow.