Turn down big funding for Stanford IPS?

[compost&recycle]

Hi grad cafe friends,

I am still in the decision process (as most of you) and am struggling with the thought of accepting a school (Stanford IPS) that offered no funding and turning down other schools (Fletcher, SAIS, GSPP, Georgetown) who offered decent to very generous funding. I would love your insight on whether going for a school's reputation justifies denying a great financial package of a school of less prestige. While Stanford's IPS program seems like a good fit, the other schools are probably just as good. How much does the school's name matter? Is it worth $35K+ more debt to go to a prestigious institution or would an almost free ride at GSPP, Georgetown or Fletcher make more sense and provide me with an equally good education/network/academic & social experience?

Any thoughts regarding IPS as well as the other programs are welcome. Who else is deciding between these schools? Would love to establish a dialogue.

Thanks!

[Nimesis]

Well... if you really want to go to a school and you were prepared to take out the full loan amount beforehand, then I don't see why not. Its your decision ultimately. I got really nice, flattering full funding offers from USC and LBJ, but my heart was set on Berkeley from the beginning of this process, and even without funding I am prepared to go there. I am still planning on visiting USC before deciding, but the main thing is that if your career goals are aligned with a certain school, why not go there?

[compost&recycle]

Thanks for your post Nimesis. Good point.

Are you going to the GSPP open house on April 11? I am unable to go so I'd love to hear your impressions.

[foodlover28]

I'm also wondering how important the school's brand name/reputation is compared to the actual quality of the program.

I would be going to GSPP or Duke Sanford almost for free, but I received no funding from SIPA / Stanford IPS. I like GSPP + Sanford's curriculum, class sizes, and communities, but I feel like SIPA/IPS might have been networks for post-graduation career....

Compost&recycle, in the Stanford IPS forum topic, Globalsun did say that it's not difficult to get funding since there is less competition than larger programs. So, you probably will be able to reduce some of the debt. I get the feeling that you really want to go to IPS, and so if financial obligation is not going to be a huge burden (ie--you can pay for part of it, get loans for the rest, but it won't cause you/your family to undergo extreme financial difficulty), then I say go for it

At the same time, the other programs are all great in what you want to do. Another question--what industry where you in before and do you currently live in CA?

I posted all my other schools and considerations here:

please help!!

[foodlover28]

Nimesis-- I think you're also from the Bay Area?

I went to Berkeley for undergrad, so I have a soft spot for the school. Prior to getting all the other admissions and offers, I was determined to go to Berkeley upon acceptance. However, in the past few weeks many people (and all my former professors) have been telling me that I should leave the Bay Area for a change of perspective, which would be valuable in preparing me for my future career. I was wondering if you ever thought about that? Also, what are your policy interests, if you're willing to share?

Well... if you really want to go to a school and you were prepared to take out the full loan amount beforehand, then I don't see why not. Its your decision ultimately. I got really nice, flattering full funding offers from USC and LBJ, but my heart was set on Berkeley from the beginning of this process, and even without funding I am prepared to go there. I am still planning on visiting USC before deciding, but the main thing is that if your career goals are aligned with a certain school, why not go there?

[compost&recycle]

foodlover28: Thank you for your reply. I talked to Globalsun and it did alleviate my concern about tuition to a certain extent. Yet, first year's tuition of $35 still needs to be paid for + living costs in SF (which are not cheap as you probably know well as a UCB alum). I am acquainting myself with the thought of taking on a large loan, although I am from Germany and have an innate aversion to accruing such considerable debt (I am the saver kind of person). Running the risk of sounding like a complete rookie, I honestly don't even know how to go about the loan. Even the Stanford coordinator was unable to provide me with information loans and financing and the Stanford website is not the most conclusive whereas other programs, such as Fletcher have sent me a comprehensive document with various subsidized and unsubsidized loans, federal work/study, etc. in addition to the large scholarship, which made it seem much more manageable. I will call Stanford's FinAid but if you have advice on how to tackle the financing issue, I'd be happy to hear suggestions.

Regarding your question: I live in San Francisco and my previous industries were international corporate marketing (in Germany and here) and most recently energy policy.

In response to your school choices, I just want to throw my little bias your way concerning SIPA. I honestly do not have a high opinion of their program (in particular in comparison to the other options you have). I believe that their program is too big, hence professors are not very accessible (students wait in line at the prof's offices and get maybe 5 minutes of face time) and getting into classes is not a given due to the large cohort. Also, I feel as if SIPA is less selective and I personally don't think that NY is the best environment for those who want to experience a campus feel since many commute, spread out, and are exposed to distraction of the city's big hussle. Obviously that is my personal bias, but considering the other choices you have, SIPA would get my lowest vote. Re: Sanford. Good school but somehow I have the feeling that it is not very strong in international policy, which is one of my priority and also makes me a bit hesitant about GSPP. Even though they have the International Affairs concentration, I heard in a recent conversation that the IA "department" is pretty much non-existent and you'd have to make a big effort to make your degree more international. Once again, GSPP is a top school and I still strongly consider it but the domestic focus is a big deterrent for me. Let me know what you find out. Since GSPP and IPS have their open house on the same day, I am curious to hear which one you will be attending.

On 3/24/2011 at 10:27 PM, foodlover28 said:

I'm also wondering how important the school's brand name/reputation is compared to the actual quality of the program.

I would be going to GSPP or Duke Sanford almost for free, but I received no funding from SIPA / Stanford IPS. I like GSPP + Sanford's curriculum, class sizes, and communities, but I feel like SIPA/IPS might have been networks for post-graduation career....

Compost&recycle, in the Stanford IPS forum topic, Globalsun did say that it's not difficult to get funding since there is less competition than larger programs. So, you probably will be able to reduce some of the debt. I get the feeling that you really want to go to IPS, and so if financial obligation is not going to be a huge burden (ie--you can pay for part of it, get loans for the rest, but it won't cause you/your family to undergo extreme financial difficulty), then I say go for it

At the same time, the other programs are all great in what you want to do. Another question--what industry where you in before and do you currently live in CA?

I posted all my other schools and considerations here:

please help!!

[Nimesis]

compost, I'm definitely going to the open house on the 11th, and I will let you know my impressions after I get back. I might post it on the main GSPP thread for everyone's benefit, otherwise I can just PM you.

foodlover, I agree that moving out of the Bay Area might give you a good, fresh, perspective, but for me personally I am interested in working/living in the Bay Area after graduating, so that's why I'm leaning heavily towards GSPP. I'm not sure any of the other schools I applied to will be able to give me that opportunity the way Berkeley can. I didn't bother applying to any East Coast schools, because I wanted to stay on the West Coast (if not the Bay Area), so that's why all my schools were on the West Coast. I also have some health issues that would be better served staying with my same hospital/doctor, so that plays a heavy role in my decision as well.

[foodlover28]

nimesis -- I'm so excited for you reading your post made me happy for some reason. You know exactly what you want to do, where you want to be, and you got into the perfect program to get you there. Big congrats!!

I will be going to the Berkeley open house as well--i'm happy to share my impressions and notes, if you're interested. Compost&recycle, are you going to the Stanford open house?

I'm not too sure about loans/funding for stanford in particular, but i'll look into it and let you know if I find anything. I have some friends at stanford too so I can ask around.

As for the "nonexistent international affairs concentration", are you referring to Sanford or GSPP? GSPP's domestic focus is definitely one of my major concerns, but I was under the impression that Sanford had a much stronger int'l policy track. And SIPA... I definitely agree with everything you said. I just find it hard to turn down b/c of its reputation and wide range of networks in terms of career options.

[hippieva]

for me i'd not just consider the school's "name" when looking at stanford, but the aspects of student life that substantiate it that you can't find at any of the other schools you're considering:

a) the well rounded education you'll receive there (being able to cross register on the same campus, which will enable you to build relationships with people from other schools). this is particularly true as you've expressed an interest in energy, and energy is pretty interdisciplinary.

the world-class students, professors, and facilities you'll be working with. you'll find those at all the schools you're looking at, but probably in greater concentration at a place like stanford. the opportunity to contribute to and learn from these resources is pretty exceptional.

to me, getting all of this this all for only 35k more is a once-in-a-lifetime deal.

[compost&recycle]

hippieva,

thank you for your response. i appreciate your insight and agree that stanford is "worth the price". it sounds like you have decided for IPS already or are you still in the process as well?

while i don't doubt stanford's quality, the small size of the program is a bit of a concern. as it is so interdisciplinary, i wonder how strongly connected the IPS students are or whether they are spread out most of the time due to their very individual schedules. i don't mind getting to know new people in different departments (i actually like that diversity a lot) but I wonder how close of a cohort and feeling of community there is among the IPS students (from a social perspective as well as for networking purposes). I would love to hear your thoughts if/why you decide for Stanford compared to your other choices.

thanks!

for me i'd not just consider the school's "name" when looking at stanford, but the aspects of student life that substantiate it that you can't find at any of the other schools you're considering:

a) the well rounded education you'll receive there (being able to cross register on the same campus, which will enable you to build relationships with people from other schools). this is particularly true as you've expressed an interest in energy, and energy is pretty interdisciplinary.

the world-class students, professors, and facilities you'll be working with. you'll find those at all the schools you're looking at, but probably in greater concentration at a place like stanford. the opportunity to contribute to and learn from these resources is pretty exceptional.

to me, getting all of this this all for only 35k more is a once-in-a-lifetime deal.

[ca010]

Re: Sanford. Good school but somehow I have the feeling that it is not very strong in international policy, which is one of my priority and also makes me a bit hesitant about GSPP. Even though they have the International Affairs concentration, I heard in a recent conversation that the IA "department" is pretty much non-existent and you'd have to make a big effort to make your degree more international. Once again, GSPP is a top school and I still strongly consider it but the domestic focus is a big deterrent for me. Let me know what you find out. Since GSPP and IPS have their open house on the same day, I am curious to hear which one you will be attending.

This is an interesting thread. It sounds like you have a difficult choice, but you're deciding between excellent schools.

I went to Berkeley as an undergrad (I also considered GSPP) and I took quite a few international-oriented classes as a History major. It seemed like GSPP had very few classes for international policy and since there is no International Affairs department at Berkeley you would piece together classes primarily from the Political Science, IAS (International and Area Studies), some ERG, and other departments. My sense of the IAS department when I was there was that it had some amazing professors but was somewhat disorganized as an interdisciplinary department. The political science and ERG departments are exceptional though, and at an info session that GSPP held in November they said they would be introducing an ERG/MPP dual degree soon if you're interested in energy. I don't think it would require a big effort to make your degree more international. I got the sense that it was the norm to take classes in departments around campus. That probably means visiting a professor at office hours to ask if you can join a graduate level seminar.

Berkeley and Stanford are different in a lot of ways, but their graduate departments are top 5 in most areas and to have full access to these classes is really an advantage. Best of luck in your decision.

[carpecc]

Compost&Recycle,

My thoughts are:

1. 
   
   
2. Name doesn't matter as much in this field as it does in law or business. Look at the salary statistics for various schools, SIPA and SAIS grads are making about the same as American and GW grads.
   
3. What do you want to do after school? If you are going into policy, you might not be looking at a spectacular salary out of school, in which case the less debt is the better. This will give you more flexibility in picking jobs, and less stress from paying off loans.
   
4. Unless there's something about Stanford's program you really like, I'd go to Georgetown or one of the other schools with a dedicated International affairs program (and a nice scholarship). This will put you with more people in your field and a more specialized program. Your other choices are all very high regarded in the field.
   
5. Look closely at the curriculum for each school, as the requirements and classes offered are quite different from Stanford, Fletcher, to SAIS to Georgetown. This isn't like an MBA where they all offer basically the same thing. One will probably suit you better than others.
   
6. In regards to Stanford, a small program could be a strength as opposed to a weakness. I think it's better to have a really strong small network then a big network of strangers. Besides, you'll be on campus and taking classes with people all across Stanford, you won't be limited to just being friends with the people in your program. Plus more prof guidance. I'm willing to bet there's enough events and core classes to bring you guys together, that community won't be a concern.
   
7. Make an excel sheet and calculate how much the loans will cut into your expected salary after school, and then 5 or 10 years from now. It might be more or less than you think.
   

fo0odlover28

In defense of SIPA: I'm pretty impressed by their program and it suits my interest (environment and poverty reduction) very well. There's some negative stuff on this board about SIPA, but if you look closely it's all from people who have never attended there. Based on my visit, research and contact with graduates, the program is quite big and a little too crowded, but has a whole lot to offer. The opinions of grads I know ranges from lukewarm (one who graduated after the financial crisis, NYC job market was hit bad) to ecstatically enthusiastic. They say the accessibility of professors is mixed, with some being MIA while some being very easy to get to know. One of the draws of SIPA for me is that classes are taught more by actual practitioners and less by academics.

I think one of the biggest differences with SIPA is how much flexibility there is in the program. There's about 8 semesters worth of required classes, and assuming you take 4-5 classes a term, that leaves 12 classes available for specializations, which cover a very wide range of issues. This is a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it. In my opinion SIPA covers careers in development better than it does policy or business.

After my acceptance in '10 I knew I wouldn't be able to attend fall 2010. I thought about reapplying to other programs and taking the econ courses that kept me from acceptance at SAIS. But I opted to defer since, even if I reapplied (ugh) and was choosing between Fletcher, SAIS and SIPA, I'd still choose SIPA in the end (unless there was some wicked funding from another school). But that's just me, these programs are all so different.

[foodlover28]

Carpecc ~ Thank you for your advice and insights. It was truly helpful and cleared up many things for me.

I do think that SIPA will open many doors in careers in development and international orgs, and I really like the structure of the MPA program (which I applied for) and the curriculum. The larger class size and (related) claimed inaccessibility of professors are my major concerns. I have heard that SIPA offers a lot of opportunities, but you have to be extremely proactive to take advantage of them. Another major thing is the expensive cost of the program. As you mentioned, post-MPP careers are not likely to be extremely high paying, so less debt is always better. I didn't get any funding from SIPA and several people and current students have advised against interning/working during the first semester--- I feel like that makes it impossible to decrease the amt of loan that I have to get.

You said in another post:

"The salaries and positions of SIPA and SAIS graduates are very similar, with SIPA grads appearing to receive bigger salaries for the private sector based on their published statistics."

Do you know if that's true for other schools? Or does it just apply to these two?

In terms of curriculum, I am most attracted to GSPP and Sanford, but those two have less favorable locations and job placements.

[hippieva]

hippieva,

thank you for your response. i appreciate your insight and agree that stanford is "worth the price". it sounds like you have decided for IPS already or are you still in the process as well?

while i don't doubt stanford's quality, the small size of the program is a bit of a concern. as it is so interdisciplinary, i wonder how strongly connected the IPS students are or whether they are spread out most of the time due to their very individual schedules. i don't mind getting to know new people in different departments (i actually like that diversity a lot) but I wonder how close of a cohort and feeling of community there is among the IPS students (from a social perspective as well as for networking purposes). I would love to hear your thoughts if/why you decide for Stanford compared to your other choices.

thanks!

good question -- i don't think you should worry about class size. the fact that the program has a pretty robust core means that there's probably plenty of opportunities to get to know your fellow classmates and establish camaraderie.

for sake of anonymity i'd rather not say which i'm leaning towards, but i am in a somewhat similar position of weighing ips vs. $$ at the usual east coast suspects. however, i have a few personal factors that make my own decision making process a little bit more complex.

Edited March 27, 2011 by hippieva

[carpecc]

You said in another post:

"The salaries and positions of SIPA and SAIS graduates are very similar, with SIPA grads appearing to receive bigger salaries for the private sector based on their published statistics."

Do you know if that's true for other schools? Or does it just apply to these two?

In terms of curriculum, I am most attracted to GSPP and Sanford, but those two have less favorable locations and job placements.

foodlover28

All of the schools I looked at have employment statistics, and I think the difference in salary for immediate graduates was about the same (Govt 55k year, non profit 45-60k/yr and private at 80k/yr). I think if you want to do private stuff, there's a lot of compelling reasons to think about an MBA instead. But, the MBA isn't what it used to be and at the top tier it's more competitive than IR programs. Not to mention the MBA students and curriculum are much less interesting for people like us. I've met MBA recent grads from UVA and Michigan who've been hard on luck, desperately seeking cool jobs. They're overqualified for entry level positions that they need just to get by for the time being, and definitely not getting swapped up by enthusiastic job recruiters like they were a few years ago.

Regardless, I think people go the IR MA route because they live to work and not work to live. These degrees give you the skills to do some really cool stuff, but are less lucrative which isn't as important for me. But this means that the debt hits harder. If you're choosing between a school that offers you a full ride, and one that will require to pay entirely on loans but has a better name, assuming you're getting 10% better pay from going to the debt school, you probably won't see that ROI for 10 years! That's a long time to stress about debt! But then again 10 years isn't the rest of your life, I wonder how the degrees from top programs translate to hire salaries 10 years out of school?

I did a bunch of searches to see what people from these programs were doing (linkedin is a good source for this), particularly comparing SIPA, SAIS and Fletcher. They were all doing about the same things, but SAIS grads definitely have an alumni edge up in China, where it's a really hot degree. SAIS's regional studies for East Asia and China is way better than the others IMHO. So at SIPA I'm going to forgo any regional concentration and work on skill building type classes.

As for the "DC is king" bit, I think this gets a little exaggerated, but I've never lived in DC. All the programs in DC promote the location so heavily, it's pretty easy to obsess about it. Some programs (American SIS, GW) really encourage working during the semester and can even accommodate people working full time while pursuing degrees. That's awesome, but if you're just planning on concentrating on studies, then you'll be so busy that the region doesn't matter that much. You lose on the networking side by being out of DC, but you'll also be building a fine network with colleagues and profs. So you can't intern while in school, then spend that time taking an extra class an getting the most out of the program, it's only 2 years. From any of the schools you're looking at you'll land something hot after graduation.

I lived in Durham before. You won't find a whole lot of interesting IR internships there. But Duke's Sanford program looks really cool. I didn't examine it very closely (I'm not that interested in policy, which is it's strength) but I get the impression they attract a lot of awesome students and give away a lot of funding to attract applicants. Like I said, I didn't examine this program closely, just impressions.

I'm most concerned about finding a job after SIPA, since the 09' grads I talked to were having a really tough time in the recession. NYC was a bad place to look for work in 09. I hope it's just a recession/NYC issue and not a SIPA issue. I also get the impression that, because SIPA is so big, their alumni network isn't as strong (less close-nit). I read stuff about Fletcher and SAIS alumni bending over backwards to help out other alumni, I don't get this impression from SIPA, but then again, the areas I live aren't in contact with these types of grads so I may be wrong. The SAIS alumni network is definitely stronger in China.

If you like GSPP and Sanford, then go to school for free man! You'll have some great bragging rights after graduation and will feel a lot better. Plus you can always put your scholarship on your CV, which will be an impressive credential. If we pretend you're weighing jobs instead of schools, I would totally pick the slightly less exciting job that's offering me 30k more a year. *absolutely* Remember, we're not talking about Law school where name is everything, in the end it comes down to *you* more than it does the school name.