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MartianQ

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Everything posted by MartianQ

  1. This may be a dumb question, but there is no hope for funding if you get off the wait list, correct?
  2. The 2008 rankings were a little off, but this year's rankings are just ridiculous. The fact that there is such a huge disparity between the two alone is evidence that these rankings shouldn't be taken seriously or used as any sort of a guide. I have respect for USN's undergrad rankings as well as their business and law school rankings for the most part, but public affairs is just a joke this year. Most of the top 10 I agree with, not necessarily the way they are ranked, but the fact most of them indeed deserve to be in the top 10 or top 15. But then you see Sanford ranked 16th, right under Arizona State... Okay, I disagree, but I accept it. Then you see GPPI ranked 23rd... umm okay... Harris ranked 23rd as well, at that point I just went oh okay, so this ranking is completely arbitrary. And seeing Columbia SIPA ranked 6 places below at 29 sealed the deal for me. Really?? SIPA is #29, after a whole bunch of no names. You gotta be kidding me. SIPA' placement is on par with HKS. I get that it's supposed to be based on reputation, but I just don't see how that can be the case, just look at employment statistics, admission rates, faculty who teach there, what current and past students are saying, none of it corresponds with those rankings.
  3. In at Chicago, but no funding Came as a bit of a surprise since I got very generous offers from other programs, but definitely not as a shock, after all it is one of the best policy schools in the nation and I didn't have a strong quantitative background. Congrats to all who got in! Just curious, did your admission email contain funding info? Just wanna make sure I didn't miss anything.
  4. Just received a letter from USC Price, I'm in with funding, but no email or any electronic indication really, my online status still says "received". Is that normal, do they not send emails or let you do anything electronically?
  5. Retook today, got the exact same score I got the first time LOL. 162V 160Q. (5.5 AW first time I took it, didn't retake AW). I was really hoping to improve on the quantitative, but I really messed up the first section and the second one was so ridiculously easy, I was done with it with 10 minutes to spare and was convinced it was the experimental one until I saw a third verbal section and facepalmed haha. I hate how the test is section adaptive, that just enhances the element of luck. I messed up one Q section pretty badly (I'm guessing 7 or so mistakes since I had none for sure on the second and got a 160) which I don't normally do, and as a result the second section was way below my ability, so even though I got every question right there it didn't count as much because of the low difficulty of the questions obviously, so in a way I got double screwed. The old test was more fair in that regard. But anyways, enough whining, I'm happy with what I got, at least I won't have to resend scores to all my schools. Hopefully that score is high enough to get me into a decent MPP program, but I can forget about HKS haha.
  6. I'm retaking it December 27th. Just wanna confirm this, when you take the test now you get to see the final scores for the Q and V at the end right? No more estimates?
  7. I see, thanks. Can I get people's opinion on listing other schools you are applying to in your application? I did it for HKS and now as I am completing applications for other schools, I am starting to question whether I should list them or not. I mean, it can do one of several things, it can motivate them to offer you funding if they think you are very competitive and want to win you over, but it can just as easily motivate them not to offer you funding if they see your schools (e.g. HKS) and decide well if he's applying there he must not be expecting a scholarship, which for HKS I am very unlikely to get one, so he can afford to pay the full cost, so we won't give him anything. And if I do list schools, should I list weaker or stronger programs or ones of about the same level or all of the above... If I don't list any, I'm not sure if that benefits me either. I can't decide... After weighing all the pros and cons I've decided that listing schools of about the same level of prestige as the one I'm applying to is probably the best approach. But I'm not sure. Thoughts?
  8. Hmm, has anyone been given access to SPARKS yet?
  9. Oops, my bad, I was looking at applied and enrolled figures and completely ignored the obvious fact that the number of people who chose to attend is lower than those who were admitted. This is why I got 160 on Q haha. But the information for Harris is here: http://harrisschool.uchicago.edu/students/prospective-students/admission/ It says they received over 900 applications and the entering class was 135-140, so that's 15.5% of all who applied ended up attending. Now I don't know what Harris's yield is but it's gotta be pretty low if they admit 60% and only 15% choose to attend... That or the admit rates have gone down a lot. If undergrad admission rates are any indication (not sure if they are), Chicago now has an 18% undergrad admission rate compared to 27% before the recession hit. For GPPI, I found this: https://gushare.georgetown.edu/PublicPolicyInstitute/Web%20Files/Admissions/Fall2010MPPClassProfile.pdf It says 1167 applications received, 152 enrolled. It is for 2010 though. It think you're right, but I also think admit rates have gone down significantly. HKS is probably at 17-18% this year. That figure of course is derived from a careful analysis of my gut feeling.
  10. Thanks! Darn, reading thru the last few pages of this thread, I realized my essays were all single-spaced. They didn't indicate anywhere if they required it different, so I think I'm fine... I mean it's not a college paper, single spaced just looks better to me generally. Although one of my schools does require double spacing. So I don't know. Hopefully it's not a big deal. Good luck to everyone. On to the other schools... Oh, by the way, does anyone know what HKS's admission rate is these days? It used to be 30%, but I'm pretty sure Chicago and GPPI currently stand at about 15%, so I can imagine HKS's is probably around 10 or even less. I hate how screwed our generation is haha.
  11. Hm, I just noticed that HKS requires you to list your salary on your resume. Did you guys do that?
  12. Can I ask an honest question? Do you guys generally use the same SoP with minor modifications (say a paragraph) for each school or do you write a separate one for each?
  13. Done! It is exactly 1000 words haha. I may change around a sentence or two just so it's not EXACTLY 1000 words but I did it! and without taking out anything essential. I'm sending out my application tomorrow, good luck to all the other HKS applicants!
  14. Thanks and I agree. There is no reason to take the risk of going over by more than 50 words I think. It's really hard to remove 200 words from an essay that I've been working on for so long where I consider each sentence pivotal, but I'll just have to do it somehow. I'm not sure if it's a better idea to try and say the same thing with less words, which might decrease the overall quality, but will make the whole thing fit or just get rid of 1 paragraph that I don't consider as essential... I'm also applying to schools where the limit is 800 words (Harris) and 500 words (GPPI), so I'm gonna have to cut it down even more for those schools. At Harris they are even asking a different question - Why are you seeking a public policy degree from the Harris School? What do you hope to experience and contribute? Be as specific as possible in describing how your course of study will enable you to attain your career objectives. I mean that's definitely different from HKS's tell us what you've done and what you plan to do, which is as standard as it gets. Harris wants me to focus exclusively on what I plan to do and specifically how a Harris degree will help me do it, there is almost no overlap there. I'm not sure if I should completely rewrite or base it on my HKS essay. Arghhh I hate SOPs.
  15. I have just completed my statement of purpose for HKS and it stands at 1,200 words. Their requirement is 1,000. Obviously I intend to cut it down, but I just wanted to get your opinion on how strict the word count policy is generally enforced. If it ends up being around 1,100, do you think that would hurt my chances? Did your essays fit the requirements?
  16. OMG! Thank you so much!! Haha, I'm the exact opposite, only 1 mistake on words, all the other ones on reading.
  17. You're welcome How'd you do?
  18. Darn, people who took the test in the beginning of Sept are just now gaining access to the diagnostic tool. I took it Oct 27th, so I'm expecting to find out how many questions I got wrong at about the same time as when the sun will be running out of hydrogen fuel.
  19. My experimental section was verbal and from what I've gathered people seem to get 3 verbal sections much more often than 3 quantitative. So I figured I would do a poll to test that.
  20. In my experience time goes by faster on the GRE. On my practice tests I was always finishing with 3-4 minutes of spare time to check my answers, on the GRE I didn't have time for 1 question on one math section and on all the other ones I finished with seconds left. Key is to be calm, composed and confident, the last one probably being the most important. If you've gotten to the point where you make 0-3 mistakes per section, you got the knowledge, you just gotta work on your concentration and anxiety control. Being anxious takes up your time, it takes time being worried, thinking about the implications of making errors or about past questions or about how much time you got left, you have trouble concentrating, which especially on the verbal section can cost you dearly. So, just be calm confident. It's just a test, you've done the work, you're gonna do great and it's not the end of the world if you don't, you can always retake. Good luck!
  21. Oh. Well now I am thinking about doing it. Honestly, I am a bit surprised, since it's not something you hear about often. If it's not frowned upon why isn't everyone doing it. Anyway, good luck on the retake!
  22. Yeah, I mean I would love to retake just one section, since I did very well on my AW and Q, but could use another 50 points on verbal. But I'm pretty sure schools won't like that. The test measures stamina and ability to work under pressure in addition to actual knowledge. I think that's the reason ETS reports all of your scores. I remember when I was taking the SAT you had the option to retake and your final reported score was a combination of your best V and best Q. Not anymore unfortunately. If you only studied math went to take the test and all you had to do was go thru 2 or 3 sections of math and skip everything else, that's significantly easier than taking the entire thing. I don't know though, maybe NS is acceptable. I personally wouldn't risk it, unless the school explicitly told me it was okay. I'd love to hear others' opinions on this.
  23. Sorry to veer a bit off-topic, but I was just wondering since we got to see our scores online much earlier than the official reporting schedule said we would (took the test on Oct 27th, my scores were supposed to be out Dec 1st, I got to see them online on the 11th), does that mean they were mailed to schools earlier as well? Or will schools get them the same time we get the paper report in the mail, which I am assuming will happen on Dec 1st. And a second question - I want to use the diagnostic tool to see how many answers I got wrong, etc. but it won't work even though my registration number is listed on my online report, it just says incorrect information. I'm assuming I have to wait for the paper copy? Anyone know? Also, my understanding is that the scores on the paper report are usually higher than those you got to see online? Just kidding. That was not funny at all.
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