Helpplease123

Ah yeah, I misunderstood what was being talked about in terms of financial aid - thought it was the federal aid being discussed. Now i'm sad I didn't get that letter too!... I just want to get innnnn damnit and worry about how to pay later haha I applied on Dec 15th.

I got this one on 26th Jan: Thank you for submitting an application for the Master of Public Administration at the University of Southern California. Your application is lacking the following: Financial support information. Details about what is needed can be found here: http://www.usc.edu/a...ialsupport.html If the information requested has already been sent, we thank you in advance and you will receive a notification email when all the materials for your application have been received. If you have any questions, please contact the Office of Recruitment and Admissions at (213) 740-0550 or email Sarah Esquivel at sesquive@usc.edu. Please note: The USC Office of Graduate Admissions may contact you directly if additional information is required for the evaluation of your transcripts or application. Sincerely, USC Price Admissions ------------------------ No financial aid for me as foreign but I was kind of in my dream world thinking, oh they wouldn't need my financial support documents if I didn't get in BUT I get the impression they're one of the schools that want all the supplemental stuff before releasing decisions. It's so frustrating, I want to get in there so badly!!!

i know! Let me know if you hear anything from USC! It still says my application is in the first stage

1) USC!!! Then the rest are equal...

Just got a reject from UNC - not hugely surprised as they have a requirement of American politics classes at undergrad, which I don't have and none of their research matches my interests. To be perfectly honest, I only applied as i'd already asked people to submit references before checking the program out but still depressing to have my first response as a rejection!!! Also, had no email notification, just happened to check all application pages today.

Ahh thanks...kids and their crazy terms...I think I missed the introduction of this one

What's a facepalm? I haven't wanted to go check my SoP for this exact reason although I know I made mistakes for all schools by writing masters not master's...I only realised that was wrong when someone on here mentioned making that mistake! I would have thought that meant "master is" damn it!

Why would someone red arrow this question?

Where you not able to follow up with the school that they had received them? I would suggest your very quickly check this with your remaining school - your app will automatically get tossed if it isn't deemed complete.

Maybe... you've made me nervous... I dont even have twitter... should I be tweeting messages to my schools?!

Be careful with this though - I panicked a bit with my second verbal section as it seemed too easy but it turned out to the be an experimental section as the third was then very hard...or maybe the first was experimental, who knows. My point is, don't put too much stock in this as it can really through you off during the test. Just try your best on every single part, there's no way you can figure out which of the sections are scored.

Well they emailed me last week saying my application was incomplete due to the missing bank statement but I emailed straight way to the I20 processing and they got back to me the next day saying it was being added to my app...but they did previously say i'd get an email when app was complete... So, I emailed letting them know I had a new internship and asking them if they wanted any more info or an updated copy of my resume - hopefully not too pushy as leaves the option (most likely) of them saying, no, it's too late. Hopefully they mean...it's too late, we already accepted you!! I really never though i'd be quite this obsessive!!

I think the test is less vocab focused now than it was. You're only being tested on words for sentence completion questions, which means you can also use context to establish the correct answer - on the old test you really needed to know all the words perfectly and their synonyms etc. Now you just need to put them in context and you can quite often do that without even fully knowing the meaning of every word. I'm not sure what 90th percentile exactly is but i scored 165 which was 96th... so you're probably aiming for a score of at least 160.

Thanks so much for your advice. Deadlines were 15th Dec and 5th Jan but for the 15th Dec, I know it was only complete last week due to a missing bank statement (i'm international) - I have spoken to a really nice guy in admissions at my top choice about something else. Would it maybe be beneficial to just email him and say, I don't know if it's too late to consider this but I have recently started a new internship etc? Or if the app is complete, is it already too late? I never got a final your app is complete email but the email said I was missing financial statements and I know they now have them.

I have recently started a new internship that I didn't mention in my applications (as I didn't know if i'd get it) - it is for a nonprofit and I am applying to MPA programs...is this something I can/should update schools on? I am particularly keen to, as this is my first proper nonprofit internship and I was worried that my lack of nonprofit experience is what was going to let me down in the application process.... Also, I didn't really elaborate on my voluntary work in my application but focused more on my professional work experience which I now know was a big mistake...is there anyway I can elaborate on it somehow if I were also telling them about this new internship? I could send a new CV with the new internship on it but also expand on the voluntary work down the bottom - or will it annoy them that i'm changing too much at this stage and it'd just be better to focus on letting them know about the internship and cut my losses on the other stuff?

Private calls I normally get are from skype - anyone calling you from abroad? They would most likely leave a message , especially if it were a number you weren't able to call back - it's not like they'll take away your place because you didn't get to the phone in time.

Definitely promising. Sign up for the conference and ask to present a paper (if you have one)...the letter says it's optional but clearly you have the opportunity in that to put yourself ahead of all the others on this list...

Hmm...me too (didn't even know until now that it wasn't correct)...I can't see that being an issue...

I've got to be honest - I don't really agree with some of these comments. You need to look out for yourself in this process and if you don't tell the school you'd accept their place, they're less likely to accept you and is that something you want to risk? I know that this may be somewhat dishonest but it's not like you don't want to go there, you do, there just happens to be another place you want to go to more - that doesn't preclude you wanting to accept their offer. I don't think it's that fair to be asked the question but I was asked this for an MBA place I got last year and said yes - I didn't go - and the school has since sent me a personal email and asked me to reapply this year, so clearly I didn't mortally offend them. As it turns out, I won't reapply as I want to do an MPA instead but still, the point remains - unless you actively wouldn't go there if accepted (and I doubt you would've gone to the effort of applying if that was the case) then I think you should say yes if asked.

If the school is suggesting a program for you, I would go for it - you probably have a better shot at that program (especially considering the admission stats), which is why they've emailed you about it.

I think the longer you're left waiting, the less likely the outcome will be positive. Schools, jobs etc. my experiences have always been that you hear quickly if its a yes and it takes much longer to get the no. Of course if there is a specific date given when information is released, then that's when you'll hear.

There are no "safety" schools. People often get rejected from places they think are "safeties", precisely because as you mentioned, research interests don't match and the school is a) not interested in someone who has research interests outside their programs or can tell from you mismatched interests that they're a back up for you and you'll probably only attend if you don't get in somewhere else - they'd rather offer a place to someone they think will attend.

Message from (insert school name) Admissions Office - this was the same for a waitlist and an acceptance from last year. A denial came as "admissions decision now available".

Your post panicked me, so I suddenly thought...maybe the misplaced mine too but forgot to let me know! Emailed and got an answer that they're there back pretty quickly, as well as an email from the grad office that my scanned financial forms were ok and being added to my application. Hope it's not bad that our applications are only complete now - USC is my first choice!

Well NYU and Brown deadlines are not til the summer, having said that - I don't know if your chances of getting in diminish with time. Do you have any undergrad level maths or econ classes with a B or higher grade?