ridofme

Revolution - your posts are getting tiresome. You are on a subforum entited "government affairs", and seem shocked/outraged/dismayed that a degree in public policy is not going to set you up to make a 6-figure salary at a private consulting firm a few months after graduation. Dramtically increased earning potential in the private sector was not, is not, and never will be the point of a public policy degree. I'm not sure where you got that idea, or why you need to make dozens of posts debunking an illusion that very few people share. Nobody here thinks we're going to make 100k at Boston Consulting Group after graduating from HKS. Perhaps some people interested in public finance or economic development might consider the advantages of an MBA vs. an MPP/MAIR, but most of us are looking for careers in government, NGOs, think tanks, etc. It is certainly worthwhile to contemplate whether the astronomical HKS price tag is worth it considering that the Harvard brand name may not confer significant career advantages in this field, the way it might in business or law. But I, for one, would appreciate if these threads were no longer hijacked by puerile debates re: which Harvard programs are considered more elite, or whether HKS students can compete socially with the ubermensches at HBS.

Yes, considering that some people posting on this forum were not even born when this article was published, I'm not sure we can assume 100% relevance to present-day HKS!

This pretty much sums up my feelings on taking out 100k loans for a public policy degree.

OK MollyB, now you're the one giving me a tiny heart attack.

My first question is, how would you cover two years of a master's program with 50k? Based on the programs listed in your signature, you're probably looking at +/- 85k in tuition and fees, plus living expenses. I assume you have significant savings or some outside source of funding? In general, I think it's hard to make a firm declaration on how much debt is reasonable, because it greatly depends on (a) what do you want to do with the master's, and ( what kind of lifestyle you are aiming for in the long-term. (a) If you want to go on to a PhD, then you have to consider the fact that interest will accrue on those loans while you're back in school. Then, the job market in academe is brutal, and salaries are crappy even for those lucky enough to get tenure-track positions. I don't know much about your field, but if you're pursuing a master's to prepare you for a career, and can expect a decent salary coming out (55k+ at an absolute minimum), then 50k debt could be manageable. ( Assuming you get Stafford loans (are you Canadian? - if so, I'm not sure if you would qualify) and your interest rate is only 6.8%, if you end your program with 50k in loans (including accumulated interest), this would mean a repayment of about $540/month for ten years.* That is a reasonable amount if you're earning $70k and expect your salary to go up over time. Less so if you're hobbling together adjunct positions and earning $35k while driving all over town. Other questions you want to consider: do you have or plan to have a family? Do you own or want to own a home? Will you become embittered as you see your friends from high school/college accumulate material wealth while you're still shopping at TJ Max and renting an apartment? Etc. Most of what I just said has been discussed on these boards ad nauseum, so I apologize if you've already considered all of it. But I think a lot of it bears repeating. Also, as a master's applicant who is about to have to make potentially life-altering choices about debt, it felt good to talk (type?) it out! *This is the debt calculator I used: http://www.finaid.org/calculators/loanpayments.phtml

You can check with the school to see if the scholarship committee will have access to your original application. You may get some advice about what to focus on in your essay from whoever answers the phone in the grad office.

Oh God! Does that mean 5-7 business days, or regular days? because if it's the latter, we could be hearing today!

Thanks, this is great information. You should be selling it instead of giving it away for free!

If it was personalized to you (i.e. saying that they were interested in your application), that sounds like a great sign.

Your email was not rude at all. In fact, if it were me, I might have gotten to the part about the money a little sooner!

If you want a humorous read about wait list faux-pas, check this out: http://blogs.law.yale.edu/blogs/admissions/archive/2009/04/27/bad-idea-jeans-don-t-be-a-waitlist-stalker.aspx

Yes, I do think it is a problem across the entire field. Just look at the tuitions at GPPI, Harris, SAIS, etc. Similar criticisms could be directed towards a lot of 'social good'-oriented master's degrees, however: social work, clinical counseling, education, etc.

...you address an admissions director as "Mr." in an email after doing some diligent googling of [what turns out to be] her gender-ambiguous, non-Anglo/European first name, only to later call the graduate department after receiving no response and be asked by the receptionist if you want to leave "her" a message. Doh. Seriously though - every single person on the Internet with her first name is a man! Multiple Wikipedia entries. Countless LinkedIn profiles. How was I supposed to know?! Also, that being CC'd story is incredible!

I see your point, but I think that most schools operate this way. If you get funding from lower-ranked schools, it probably means that you were one of their top applicants - it's just that the bar to be a top applicant is lower. I actually appreciate that HKS is super upfront about it. They have it written all over their financial aid website that it's an expensive degree, that the debt might limit your future career options, that you will probably have to live a more frugal lifestyle, and that you should take this financial decision seriously. They even tell you how much your monthly payments would be over 10 years if you take out the max amount in loans. Pretty much every other school just lists their tuition/fees and estimated living costs and leaves it to you to do the math. Some even list fees separately from tuition, likely so that the numbers don't seem so high. Perhaps Harvard's financial aid philosophy comes off as arrogant, but it's probably just because they can get away with being 100% honest because the prestige of the Harvard brand makes people ignore those sobering financial figures regardless of how many warnings the school posts. But at least they put it out there for those who want the truth.

Assuming that you can indeed submit more than 500 words, 600 is still way too high, in my opinion. The rule I used was 10% max on each side. In this case you would have 450-550 words to work with.

Maybe contact the department, explain the situation, and see if you can submit updated transcripts or if your explanation will be sufficient.

I would wait and reapply. You already know that you are competitive for unfunded programs, so worst case scenario you would probably be readmitted to those programs, but with a year's extra savings and more experience and perspective that one can only gain outside of academia. It's one thing to go into an unfunded master's with your eyes wide open, but an unfunded PhD is ludicrous. There's going to be so much uncertainty, so much pressure to secure funding, wheras that could potentially all be avoided if you wait a year. Plus, even if you do secure funding, interest will accumulate during the rest of your PhD, and you might end up paying back 3x the original principal balance.

Try the FAFSA live chat help: http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/contact.htmhttp://www.fafsa.ed.gov/contact.htm I had a different question when filling out my FAFSA, and they responded within 3 or 4 minutes. Best part was that I then had the answer in writing, to keep for my records/future reference. With something as important as this, you want to get responses directly from the source, not the anonymous Internet masses. Good luck.

Oh my God - please, please, whatever you do - do not put a quotation in your email signature, especially if it's some kind of inspirational BS that's butchered, misinterpreted, or misattributed (i.e. "Be the change..."). The only thing worse would be putting said quotation in a cursive font type, italicized, in pink or purple. Shudder. That kind of email behavior would make me think you're a) a tween who probably still has braces or a corny old person who doesn't know how to use the Internet. As for "'Til Niagara falls", I would say that would only ever be appropriate if you know the person really well, as in you have an established rapport, and you know that person appreciates cutesy, corny humor. This is not outside the realm of possibility with someone you know in a professional context, but probably impossible if you have never met the email recipient in person. I would second everyone who suggested Best Regards, Best, Sincerely, Thank You, etc. I understand not wanting your emails to sound cold or impersonal, but I think there are ways to warm up the language in the body of the email that won't veer off into the unprofessional or juvenile.

This thread has been an entertaining read, to say the least. I think it is advisable to consider a school's overall culture when deciding whether to attend. Undergrad and grad student culture can vary wildly within an institution, however, not to mention differences between individual departments. This is even truer at a massive institution that has the population of a mid-size city. And as to Penn State's ranking, I would recommend this article about the college ranking process in general: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/14/110214fa_fact_gladwell Gladwell actually atually discusses Penn State's position as #47 in some detail. Finally, sr0304: you are aware that we can see that you are upvoting your own posts, correct?

I agree that this rejection seems bizarre (though I can't claim to know much about Indian-Bangladeshi relations), but I also agree with the other posters that you might regret your response. Regardless of how absurd their rejection may seem to you (or may, in fact, be), if there's a chance that this same issue could affect other applications, it would behoove you to figure out exactly why they think you wouldn't be able to travel freely through India (visa procurement issues? cultural tension? religious differences?) so that you can address these concerns in future applications. It might be too late, but do you think there's any chance you could try to salvage the relationship with the prof, maybe admit that you responded while upset, and get more details on the nature of their concerns? It could be worth it for you. At this point you have nothing to lose. Please forgive me for being patronizing, but for better or worse, this grad school game (like the rest of life) involves a certain amount of eating shit from people who are in positions of power over you. If you want to win, you cannot react so emotionally to everything that is done and said to you. You have to be willing to sacrifice your pride on occassion, while being mindful not to sacrifice your integrity.

Kcald716: I don't think the OP is talking about teaching a subject in an American school, but rather going the TESOL route. I'm not sure how adcomms view this sort of work, but I think that the perception of competitiveness that The Mark speaks to is, well, right on the mark. (Sorry, I had to). I personally know four people who taught in South Korea right after college, and it essentially seems more like signing up than applying. I think only one of them stayed for longer than a year. But that doesn't mean that the adcomms won't look favorably at your time spent abroad, and the experience itself seems like it could be eye-opening and highly valuable. And besides, it's probably no less competitive than the various unpaid internships at random non-profits abroad (sometimes procured by for-profit third party companies and almost exclusively subsidized by mommy and daddy) that fill up the resumes of many IR applicants. OP, I imagine it would really depend on your previous experiences, and whether or not you could make a year spent in South Korea tie into your future goals. Are you at least interested in Asian issues as pertaining to political risk? Would it benefit you to learn Korean? Do you lack experience abroad, or formal work experience in general? If you do end up getting dinged across the board, perhaps you could ask for some feedback on how to strengthen future applications, and see if a year spent in South Korea might fit in nicely.

If your concerns are financial, take the job offers. At the tier of law schools you are applying to, most graduates will not be making much more than the salaries you quoted as being available to you right now. Personal anecdote: I dated a guy who went to a T25 law school and got at job immediately after graduation (2010) at a successful mid-size firm (it was actually exapanding into the recession) in a more expensive city than Atlanta. He said that maybe a quarter of the lawyers there were from T25 schools, and the rest came from two of our city's two top 100 "regional" law schools. Starting pay was 55k. A lot of his former classmates couldn't even find jobs, or had to take jobs as glorified paralegals working for hourly pay! The New York Times has published at least half a dozen articles about this phenomenon: the highly indebted, un- or underemployed law school grad. Unless you can get into a top program, or cannot see yourself doing anything else besides being a lawyer, don't go. ETA: He didn't have crazy hours like the "Big Law" people do, but he complained a lot about being bored, even though the job was in a field that sounded interesting from the outside.

I would publish more specific statistics about successful applicants. While I imagine some schools truly do evaluate each application 'holistically', I'm sure most have cut-offs that send some applicants straight to the slush pile. I'd like to see something like: "most successfull applicants have GPAs above 3.3 and GREs in the 70th percentile or above. If you are weaker in one of these areas, your strength in the other becomes more important to the success of your application." I bet that many don't do this because they can decrease their acceptance rate by having a lot of unqualified applicants apply whom they can reject without spending a lot of time reviewing the file, thereby increasing their perceived competitiveness without much effort. But maybe all this waiting is just making me cynical.

I think the second one is better, especially if you're trying to prove your quant abilities.