Revolution

My apologies for the late response; I've been super busy. I ended up turning down SAIS and opted for b-school instead. Although the money was tempting, after talking to people at SAIS admissions and career services, I arrived at the conclusion that the school is not a good fit given my professional and personal goals. Best of luck.

Best of luck to everyone! I remember going through this process last year, and it was an exhausting nerve wrecking process. I ended up getting into SAIS with a half-tuition fellowship (M.A., DC campus) but turned it down for various reasons. It's a great program though.

Yes; I officially turned down SAIS.

Very well-said. What matters is a program's prestige, name brand, general network, and job placement. The fact that a famous alumni came to speak should have ZERO impact on one's decision to attend.

Did anyone go to the SAIS open house in D.C. yesterday? How was it? Your thoughts?

Tuition at U.S. schools, undergrad and grad, is simply out of control. Median salary has not kept up with tuition hikes, when adjusted for inflation. Of course, certain programs are worth the cost, so each person has to do a careful cost-benefit analysis to figure out whether a school is "worth it."

SAIS is awful when it comes to answering questions on career placement. My guess is they're embarrassed about the fact that most SAIS students don't get good jobs coming out. Don't even bother e-mailing Bahar at admissions. She's one of the least helpful people I have ever had contact with.

Got it. Thanks.

Wow. Thanks for your super informative write-up. When you say "top 5 consulting firms" i assume you meant firms in the defense/government consulting sector?

First, I'm not a troll, contrary to popular opinion on here. Second, I will be at the SAIS open house.

SAIS' acceptance rate is 42%? Wow, that's high. No wonder everyone on gradcafe got in. The caliber of the average admitted applicant at SAIS is quite low.

Yeah I mean I wish they had a specific gpa criteria for getting more funding. So if they said something like "if you get a 3.7+ gpa in your first year, we'll raise your funding by 20%." I think that would be helpful, but from the school's standpoint, perhaps revealing such information will lead to way too much academic competition amongst classmates, thereby ruining SAIS' collegial atomosphere. Either way, financial aid, career services, and admissions, have been very opaque when i asked them for specifics (the conversation with sidney jackson was the one exception).

If you're planning on taking out a lot of loans, $19k/year from a great program is nothing to scoff at, and i don't see any reason why you should take sais or sipa over fletcher. Tufts is a great IR program; it has different strengths than sais and sipa, but if you're aiming for policy/government jobs, going there will not at all be a liability. Boston is a lot cheaper than nyc (might be a bit cheaper than DC as well), and is a much better city for students. You can live in NYC or DC once you have a decent paying job, but as a student boston wins out easily. Tufts is the obvious right call here. Best of luck.

I actually asked SAIS financial aid about this as well, but they were very vague. They said that funding for second year could go up depending on "academic performance." But they didn't give me any criteria for what my gpa would need to be to get more money. And they didn't give any details on how much more i could get either. The fellowship i got was contingent upon getting at least a 3.25 gpa the first year, so i'm guessing that i would need to get 3.5+ for any chance of getting more money in the second year. But this is all speculation, and it seems like financial aid likes to keep quiet on the details of funding.

I was going to recommend ucla online extension but their econ courses for spring quarter are closed. Take a look at berkeley's extension courses. They're pretty flexible in terms of how long it takes for you to complete the courses.