charleyj

hey linden, i pm'd you with a couple of thoughts (re: gppi vs. hks). hope they help.

"This seems more like a not-very-helpful recommendation on how to pay for school more than an award." That, unfortunately, is exactly what it is. I got all excited when I read the tab "Accept Award," thinking that Award meant Award. But when I read the details, I learned that Award meant private loans. My bad.

just recently an "accept awards" tab popped up.

i'm struggling to interpret my financial aid. what exactly is meant by "supplemental loan eligibility"?

i also got a call last night from a current hks student. a couple of things i learned: 1. hks, despite what some might say, is a pretty close-knit community. it's not at all competitive--though if you like that sort of atmosphere, feel free to take some courses at HBS or the Sloan School. 2. while graduate research assistantships (either at a research center or for a professor) are competitive, they are not terribly difficult to obtain. the person i spoke with already completed one research assistantship, and will be a teaching fellow fall semester. 3. if you come from an economics background, try to test out of the core econ courses. and from what i hear, it doesn't sound too tricky to take economic courses from the graduate department/more quant intensive HKS courses as a supplement (should you want a quantitatively rigorous curriculum) by the by, anyone going to the DC reception tonight?

jmoney- again, thanks so much for the thoughtful reply. your note actually prompted one additional question i have. i double majored in international affairs and economics. and over the last couple of years i've been doing economic research for a think-tank. so i think i have the econ/quant background to take higher level econ courses or more technically rigorous HKS electives from the "Analysis of Policies and Institutions" track. but it's unclear to me how easy it is to do so. how can one become exempt from API-101 for example? would i need to take a test? or would someone simply take a look at my transcript and decide that i can handle a more quantitatively rigorous course load? thanks again for the help.

jmoney: thanks for your thoughts. they're really quite helpful. i had a couple of quick questions regarding your last two posts. first, do students work while attending HKS? Does it seem easy/difficult to get a graduate research assistant position either for a class or at one of the research centers? i was a bit surprised by the debt burden for the 2008 class. it's less than i would have imagined and wondered if that had to do at all with work opportunities. and second, are kennedy students able to take graduate-level courses from the department of economics? i know that often times economics courses will restrict enrollment to PhD students, and wondered whether this was the case at harvard. thanks again for all of your insights. cheers.

"Reality is more complicated; it depends on numerous other variables and none of them are as important as the variables you bring to table." very true--and this is something i've struggled with. i really wonder whether an employer (I want to work for the federal government after I graduate) would look at two job candidates with similar credentials, and pick the Harvard student over the Berkeley student or the Berkeley student over the Columbia Student or vice-versa? My guess is that the school name matters less than most think, but I question that assumption every once in awhile.

I live in DC and did not receive my financial package in the mail yesterday. perhaps today. will let folks know.

erichi, that's a great dilemma to have. i applied to both schools, and while i'm tearing my hair out deciding between gspp and hks at the moment, for awhile there (before hks got drunk and decided to accept me) i was considering the relative merits of gspp and sipa's mpa program. you seem to have a pretty good picture of both schools--your descriptions match closely what i've heard from students at GSPP. i'd add, regarding berkeley, that the program seems relatively unmatched (excluding WWS) in quantitative rigor/economic analysis. their core requirements + the opportunity to take courses from other graduate departments is a big plus for me--and i think shows their emphasis on building a quantitatively enriched skill-set rather than a knowledge base. with regard to columbia, i've heard similar complaints--the professors are top notch, but focus on their research first, second, and third, and on their students fourth. and while columbia does have a high job placement rate, from what i hear, that speaks more to the caliber of students than it does their career services department--a couple friends of mine who went through the program felt like they were on their own to find jobs/internships. but your right that the sure number of opportunities in nyc should balance that a bit. and i'd just add everyone i've spoken with seems to rank gspp ahead of SIPA by a considerable margin. but take that with a grain of salt--as i've spoken with a lot of GSPP students and disgruntled SIPA students--though a couple of my past professors have made the same point. hope these thoughts are helpful. best of luck with your decision.

anxiouslywaiting, i was wait-listed at WWS. for whatever it's worth, in their letter, they wrote "You will probably accept admission at another University while waiting to hear from us. If you are offered admission, you can decide whether to accept our offer and to decline the one you had previously accepted. All professional schools of public policy have alternate or waiting lists. It is not unethical to change schools, but you may be required to forfeit any enrollment deposit you have made." in short, it sucks that you have to wait even longer. but i wouldn't worry about blurring any ethical lines--there seems to be a recognition on the part of public policy/ir schools that it's natural to commit to a program and potentially back out if taken off the wait-list.

thanks for your thoughts. i really do appreciate it. i tend to side with sisepuede. from what i've heard (mostly via current students), berkeley tends to be more quantitatively intensive with a hardcore focus on policy analysis--which i appreciate. i'd like to leave graduate school with a skill-set, and not just a knowledge-base. i also appreciate that berkeley is a smaller, perhaps closer knit, program. and being from seattle, i'm partial to the west-coast. all that said, harvard is no doubt a fantastic program--the students, faculty, research centers etc., are all top notch. another question i keep thinking about is how much name recognition matters? when applying for post-grad jobs, do folks think that an employer (all other things about a job-candidate being equal) would pick an HKS grad over a GSPP grad? does the name really signal a higher quality applicant? i'd also be curious to hear (either from current students or prospective students) whether hks or gspp has a more expansive alumni network? i want to work for the federal government post grad school. and since i've lived in dc the last couple of years and had to make my own way, i certainly value alumni contacts/networks. any thoughts? anyway, i apologize for the stream-of-consciousness rambling. but if anyone has any insights, i'd really appreciate it. thanks much.

hi folks, so i'm deciding between HKS and GSPP. anyone else in a similar situation? i wanted to start this thread to discuss the relative merits of each program. all thoughts/comments welcome.

thanks for the clarification, invictus. much appreciated.

congratulations impatiens, that's great. i only asked because i applied for the IDEV track, yet the email made no reference to the IDEV track, so i was unsure as to whether i received my first/second choice