2012IRgrad

Happily secured funding as of this afternoon. Have informed them of my acceptance. Off to Fordham in the fall! Who's with me?

@understatement7000 Sorry about the confusion, I meant that I personally have a strong Europe connection, as I did my undergrad there, and a mild DC one, hence my concern about going to SD and not being able to properly establish a NY/DC network. I apologize for the fogginess of my initial statement. @ everyone else After visiting the campus today, I have to say I was very impressed. Not only by all of the staff/interns in the admissions office, the very kind and personable students who I met during the lecture and around campus, or the teaching staff I spoke to, but (this may sound odd) by the legitimacy of it all. It is a solid, solid program. Everyone who I spoke with today was very informative, very driven, and very passionate about attending/working at IR/PS. I was able to sit in on the Political Institutions in Latin America session, though it was the first class of the quarter so was mostly a overview of the syllabus & expectations rather than a traditional lecture. This, however, I really appreciated as I got a sense of how the class was structured, how the professor prioritized weekly topics, assessments, delivery of material. I enjoyed seeing a projected view of what a typical quarter at UCSD would be like. The current students I was able to speak to were all very passionate about their chosen concentrations and were all, well, big fans of all of their professors. Every student I spoke too also agreed on one thing: the heavy focus on quant is intimidating. They were all very vocal about how intense the quant/finance/econ aspect of IR/PS was. They were also equally vocal about how grateful they were for it and how competitive it made them in the job market. It's something most of the typical big name schools on here lack, so it's seen as an asset despite its demanding course load. Other notable impressions include: veryyy diverse student body (many internationals, lots from South America), well informed and direct financial office, helpful and supportive career folk, engaging professors, small but well resourced campus, obviously beautiful surroundings, parking is a bitch (leave the car at home). Overall, I can see this as a great place to be headed. I am still undecided whether I will attend as I am waiting on financial packages from a few other schools, but I would definitely be happy here. I would say that it's a strong contender, but it a significant shift from the exact trajectory I've been on in regards to regional focus/language/quant, so I remain in limbo. Hope this helped! Let me know if there are any questions I could answer about the campus itself.

I was also accepted to the MPIA program at UCSD with full funding and a modest monthly stipend. As I am also not able to attend the admit day in SD on the 20th (despite currently living in southern California) I was happy to hear what you mentioned in your post, OregonGal! Despite having a strong network in Europe and a decent but limited network in DC, I was also mildly nervous in regards to the 'West Coast-ness' of IR/PS. Though, as they seem eager to please in regards to the careers department, it's definitely reassuring. I'm actually heading down to San Diego for a campus visit and a lecture sit-in tomorrow, so I should be getting a better idea of whether it is the right fit for me this fall. Good luck making your decisions!

It took nearly 10 weeks to receive my acceptance, but I submitted my application the day after it was released back in October so... Guess they just needed time to compare to at least a couple other applications.

In at Fordham as of last week, but waitlisted on financial aid as well. Keeping my fingers crossed. Applied for PC Fellowship and Public Service Assistantship.