SAIS decisions are out, apparently:

[rose1]

I have to say I was leaning toward declining SAIS, but I talked to a current student yesterday and she REALLY sold me...now I'm reconsidering. She raved about the classes, the community, the location, etc. She said SAIS also has lots of funding to help students do what they want to do, like a fund to pay students who want to take unpaid internships over the summer, and fully funded trips abroad. I was iffy because I didn't get IDEV, and she told me that she DID get it and she DROPPED it because it was too restrictive. The internships she's been able to get during the semester sound great, and it sounded like being in DC has really opened a lot of doors (complete strangers hearing she's a SAIS student and offering career/networking help, etc.) She got me on everything from the accessibility of professors to the great running trails in DC to the way she walks her dog on the national mall every morning.

[charlotte_asia]

rose1, that's awesome to hear. All the SAIS alums I have spoken with over the past few months/even year or so come away with really really positive experiences. I really do like the fact that you mentioned the funded opportunities, such as trips and internships. Did you get a sense those were tied to a particular program? Several folks I have talked to have encouraged me to, if I attend, switch a regional program instead of thematic, as they are stronger (according to them) and have more resources (aside from IDEV).

Regarding living in DC, for those of you who haven't before, I just want to say I absolutely LOVE living in DC. Walking past the Capitol in the morning, going to neighborhood fairs and festivals, farmers markets at Eastern Market and Dupont and Foggy Bottom, dropping in on Congressional hearings and lectures at Carnegie and Brookings, jogging along the Mall, downtown Alexandria, biking to Mount Vernon, the cherry blossoms.... I'm such a sucker for that city! Yes, New York is New York and one of the most incredible places in the world, but I think there's something very special about DC.

[IRToni]

Are any of you thinking of going into substantial debt for SAIS? If yes, what's your plan for repayment?

I'm an international and am thinking of deferring for a year so I can apply to external fellowships and don't have to go into debt. However, I'm afraid that I won't be able to defer (since I don't have a job lined up yet) and I'd also really like to get back to a classroom setting (even though I also like working). I'm just really unsure about taking out that kind of money for grad school...

[dcenergygirl]

Are any of you thinking of going into substantial debt for SAIS? If yes, what's your plan for repayment?

I'm an international and am thinking of deferring for a year so I can apply to external fellowships and don't have to go into debt. However, I'm afraid that I won't be able to defer (since I don't have a job lined up yet) and I'd also really like to get back to a classroom setting (even though I also like working). I'm just really unsure about taking out that kind of money for grad school...

If there is one thing to invest in, its your education.

Given that, I had a panic attack last night seriously considering going into about 100k debt for SAIS. My plan to make this decision is to make a massive spread sheet with loan information and repayment options to help me fathom how long I will have the debt and what restrictions its going to place on me. I'd be more than willing to share once its completed. I currently make about 60k a year, so I figure hopefully when I get out I'll be able to leverage at least 20K extra onto that salary once I've got my MA in hand, and basically put the bulk of that toward my debt for the next half a decade. If I take on that much, my career will be very driven by who can give me the most money, which might mean going to work for an oil company...(I'm energy focused). There is also always the chance for second year fellowships...

The hard thing for me is Fletcher will be about $45k less expensive than SAIS, but still about $60k in debt. So all that said, is a $40k difference in debt worth it over the long run?

[nouveau.ukiyo]

Are any of you thinking of going into substantial debt for SAIS? If yes, what's your plan for repayment?

I'm an international and am thinking of deferring for a year so I can apply to external fellowships and don't have to go into debt. However, I'm afraid that I won't be able to defer (since I don't have a job lined up yet) and I'd also really like to get back to a classroom setting (even though I also like working). I'm just really unsure about taking out that kind of money for grad school...

Would it be acceptable to defer based on finances? Or would SAIS, etc. ask us to reapply?

[rose1]

The hard thing for me is Fletcher will be about $45k less expensive than SAIS, but still about $60k in debt. So all that said, is a $40k difference in debt worth it over the long run?

Wondering the same thing.

[dcenergygirl]

So for anyone wondering, I just got off the phone with Fin Aid as SAIS.

Here is the deal- all 1st year awards have been made (except the Philip Merill, which will come out in about 2 weeks *****fingers crossed!!!!*****), and they do not do reconsiderations. So the fact that competing schools have offered you substantial fellowship doesn't matter, they aren't willing to fight for you. If you didn't get anything, tough luck for first year.

About 50-60% of students, read about 20% more than did first year, get fellowships for their second year between 8 - 18k. Check with your department, I'm sure IDEV has more $$, but energy had $0 for first years this year. Also most departmental awards go to second years.

There are some jobs in various departments, and there are a lot of TAs in international econ (but for non econ majors like me, dont' bet on getting one of those). There are also very small fellowship available through the career office for summer travel and stipends for unpaid internships, probably only about cost of an airticket and 1-2k.

Hope this is helpful to anyone trying to swallow a tough pill of possibly 120k in debt. My sympathy is with you.

[grtheman]

Would it be acceptable to defer based on finances? Or would SAIS, etc. ask us to reapply?

I'm wondering the same myself. I have literally 0 savings after volunteering abroad for 2 years. SAIS is offering me 20k a year, so naturally I'm wondering about how the deferral process impacts my fellowship. Will they offer me the fellowship if I put off enrollment for a year? I think I'm going to call them soon about this... Edited March 22, 2012 by grtheman

[rose1]

The Philip Merrill hasn't been awarded yet? Why did you tell me that?! I was in the "acceptance" phase of grief about getting no aid from SAIS. You've put me all the way back to "denial."

How many people do you think applied for that fellowship?

[dcenergygirl]

just you and me rose, and we'll both get it

[rose1]

just you and me rose, and we'll both get it

Hahahaha <3

[charlotte_asia]

just you and me rose, and we'll both get it

I submitted an application but instead of responding to the prompt I said how much rose1 and dcenergygirl deserve this scholarship. Hope that helped them decide

[dcenergygirl]

I submitted an application but instead of responding to the prompt I said how much rose1 and dcenergygirl deserve this scholarship. Hope that helped them decide

you're too sweet. and best of luck to everyone competing.

[rose1]

We clearly need a grad cafe reunion at a DC bar when all this is over for a celebratory drink (or 12).

[grtheman]

Just got off the phone with admissions. Deferring for financial reasons is not really permitted, one needs to have a new, career-relevant job offer or project arise, or a family emergency, etc. You have until May 1st to apply for deferral (once you've paid your deposit and everything). Also, funding is generally offered at the same level, though they don't guarantee anything. http://www.sais-jhu.edu/admissions/apply/deferrals.htm

[IRToni]

For those wondering: The website sais that deferred candidates will usually get the same amount of fellowship that they originally held, rarely more, but they try to match them. No betting on it, but I'm guessing that most people get their original award.

Deferring for financial reasons is probably not that easy, that's why I'm trying to line up a job and or great paid internship for next year. I'm hoping that with my relatively little work experience etc., they'd be willing to let me defer if I have a great, paid internship with a competitive organization. I'll call them about that though.

ETA: grtheman beat me to it. I'll see if I can be succesful. Do you know if they want proof of the job or something? What about deferral for language study?

Edited March 22, 2012 by IRToni

[grtheman]

IR Toni: Do you mind sharing if you were awarded aid? I'm nervous about risking any of my fellowship money so I'm hesitating on even pursuing deferral as an option. Not sure about your last two questions. I'll be interested to know how your chat with admissions goes.

[IRToni]

I was awarded 20.000 in aid. I'm going in under the assumption that they'll award the same kind of funding. For the unlikely case that that's not the case and I get less, but I get one of the fellowships that I'll be applying to, I'll still be about 30k in debt, as opposed to the 70k it would come out to know. Sending in 3.000 bucks for deferring is a lot though. I'll have to really think about that in some more detail. I'll talk to some of my recommenders about it and will also talk to the SAIS admission office. Since they explicitly state that offers will usually be matched, I feel like the chances I'm taking with that (assuming my chances for outside fellowship are as high as I predict) are far smaller than the chances I would be taking with going there and hoping for more second-year funding and a TA/RA. I'm not an Econ major either. I have languages working for me, but all of the languages I can speak/read are quite common (German, Chinese, French, Japanese, Spanish), so not sure how good my chances are with that. That's just me rationalizing though. I still might take one of my cheaper options. SAIS is, however, my dream school and they do exactly what I want to do. I'll see. First: Talking to lots of people about it.

grtheman: What about you? I see you were awarded aid from SAIS as well :-). Are you thinking of deferring, too?

ETA: I want to first talk to some of my professors. As soon as I talked to SAIS, I'll of course share whatever info they give me with you lot.

Edited March 23, 2012 by IRToni

[rose1]

rose1, that's awesome to hear. All the SAIS alums I have spoken with over the past few months/even year or so come away with really really positive experiences. I really do like the fact that you mentioned the funded opportunities, such as trips and internships. Did you get a sense those were tied to a particular program? Several folks I have talked to have encouraged me to, if I attend, switch a regional program instead of thematic, as they are stronger (according to them) and have more resources (aside from IDEV).

Regarding living in DC, for those of you who haven't before, I just want to say I absolutely LOVE living in DC. Walking past the Capitol in the morning, going to neighborhood fairs and festivals, farmers markets at Eastern Market and Dupont and Foggy Bottom, dropping in on Congressional hearings and lectures at Carnegie and Brookings, jogging along the Mall, downtown Alexandria, biking to Mount Vernon, the cherry blossoms.... I'm such a sucker for that city! Yes, New York is New York and one of the most incredible places in the world, but I think there's something very special about DC.

The girl I spoke with was concentrating in International Law, and went on a free trip to Sri Lanka last year, so no, I didn't get the impression that funding was available mostly for regional concentrations. I HAVE heard from other sources that the Latin American and Asian concentrations in particular have a lot of resources. Personally all my work has been in Latin America (totally by accident) and I'm trying to branch out a bit, so i will not be choosing a regional concentration. My life has been a regional concentration! Also, DC is only a cheap Chinatown bus ticket away form NYC, should I have an urge to visit The City.

Is anyone else annoyed that the SAIS admitted student day is a Wednesday? I'm going to have to take off a ridiculous amount of work to attend.

[dcenergygirl]

Is anyone else annoyed that the SAIS admitted student day is a Wednesday? I'm going to have to take off a ridiculous amount of work to attend.

agreed! also pain in the ass that SIPA and SAIS admissions days are back to back...

[krzT]

Hi everyone! This is my first post, but I've been lurking for a while. Congrats to all the new SAIS admits!

I'm facing a dilemma and I'd really like to get your valuable input. I applied to one of SAIS' dual degree programs (MBA with Wharton). I'm in at SAIS (IDEV, which I'm SO EXCITED ABOUT!) and I'm waiting to hear back from Wharton, but I feel like it's a pretty long shot. I've also been admitted to dual degree at Georgetown (McDonough MBA and GPPI). This is my dilemma: I've been offered no $$ at SAIS while I have scholarships at both GT schools. If I were to get into Wharton, I'd hands down take the SAIS/Wharton dual degree and take the debt hit. But since my desire to get an MBA plays a role, would it be better to take the GT dual degree over SAIS alone? (this seems like a really dumb question now that I'm typing it out...but I've seriously been struggling with this for a few days now!)

Does anyone else have this issue? I'd love any wisdom anyone might share.

Edited March 23, 2012 by krzT

[rose1]

Yes. Yes it would be better to get TWO degrees for CHEAPER from GEORGETOWN.

That being said, obviously do what you feel is right.

[grtheman]

I was awarded 20.000 in aid. I'm going in under the assumption that they'll award the same kind of funding. For the unlikely case that that's not the case and I get less, but I get one of the fellowships that I'll be applying to, I'll still be about 30k in debt, as opposed to the 70k it would come out to know. Sending in 3.000 bucks for deferring is a lot though. I'll have to really think about that in some more detail. I'll talk to some of my recommenders about it and will also talk to the SAIS admission office. Since they explicitly state that offers will usually be matched, I feel like the chances I'm taking with that (assuming my chances for outside fellowship are as high as I predict) are far smaller than the chances I would be taking with going there and hoping for more second-year funding and a TA/RA. I'm not an Econ major either. I have languages working for me, but all of the languages I can speak/read are quite common (German, Chinese, French, Japanese, Spanish), so not sure how good my chances are with that. That's just me rationalizing though. I still might take one of my cheaper options. SAIS is, however, my dream school and they do exactly what I want to do. I'll see. First: Talking to lots of people about it.

grtheman: What about you? I see you were awarded aid from SAIS as well :-). Are you thinking of deferring, too?

ETA: I want to first talk to some of my professors. As soon as I talked to SAIS, I'll of course share whatever info they give me with you lot.

I was awarded the same amount of funding as you. After two years of volunteering abroad for practically nothing, I'm loathing the prospect of borrowing money for living expenses on top of the federal loans. That's a good point you make of using a deferral year to apply for more outside fellowships, are you thinking about anything in particular at this point like Rangel and Pickering (I dropped the ball on those last year...)? At the very least, because I know I want to go to SAIS this year or next no matter what, I'll be sending in my $500 deposit in the next week or so, soon after I solidify my thinking on which program to pick. I'm amazed that you can speak/read 5 languages, I'm only bilingual with Mandarin. Let's share information on this forum as we learn more about the deferral process, and more specifically, how likely it is that we can preserve our fellowship if we put enrollment off for a year!

Edited March 24, 2012 by grtheman

[gzdzcca]

I'm amazed that you can speak/read 5 languages, I'm only bilingual with Mandarin.

6 actually, you omitted English

[IR_Lion]

So can anyone help me out I'm really freaking out here. I was originally accepted into the SAIS program 3 semesters at the DC campus and 2 in Nanjing and I was hoping to know if I can just switch to the the 2 year program at DC? I recently returned from a business trip in China where I had the chance to fly down to Nanjing and visit the JHU center. Well I saw classes dumbed down because nearly every single foreigner there was "HSK" (the Chinese TOEFL) fluent but in the real world could not function in an academic environment in Chinese. I want my specialty at DC to be Japan AND China studies and was hoping to discuss the chance of this with the SAIS administration. While I'm not Asian I'm nearly native in Mandarin Chinese (if it comes to the admin questioning my language abilities since people tend to "exaggerate" their abilities when it comes to Asian languages I can show evidence supporting my claims. I was a published author in Chinese at a top Chinese university literary festival and have given talks on alternative energy investments all over China) and fluent in Japanese and was hoping to use that fact to buttress my argument for a double concentration since I heard its really hard to do especially if you weren't an economics major in undergraduate. I studied Political Science and East Asian Languages from a top 10 school in '09 and was asked to by SAIS to take their summer economics stuff. I'm really upset about the quality of students at the Nanjing campus and am worried that I won't get the full benefit of SAIS because I'd be basically doing nothing for 2 semesters but don't know how to ask SAIS if I can switch programs without stirring up drama. Does anyone have any ideas? SAIS has been my dream school since I can remember(my father, mother, both my uncles, and one of my aunts went there so there is a huge SAIS pride in the family) and I was really demoralized after visiting nanjing. Quick view of my stats.

Program Applied To (MPA, MPP, IR, etc.):IR

Schools Applied To: SAIS, SIPA, UCSD, Waseda University (Japanese taught IR masters), Peking University (Chinese taught IR masters), Georgetown SFS, Tufts

Schools Admitted To: SAIS, SIPA, UCSD, Waseda, Peking University, SFS, Tufts

Schools Rejected From: None

Still Waiting: None

Undergraduate institution: Top 10

Undergraduate GPA: 3.6 overall; 3.8 major

Undergraduate Major: Political Science, East Asian Languages & Culture

Last 60 hours of undergraduate GPA:

Study abroad: China (one semester, 3 summers) Japan (one semester)

GRE Quantitative Score: 670

GRE Verbal Score: 790

GRE AW Score: 5.5

Years Out of Undergrad (if applicable): 3

Years of Work Experience: 3

Describe Relevant Work Experience: Investment analyst in alternative energy based in Shanghai for 2 years then was moved to NYC last year

Languages: English (native), Mandarin (99.99999999% native), Japanese (fluent), Korean (beginning), Thai (intermediate), Khmer (Beginner)

Quant: 0 Econ all the Quant I have is what I picked up from my job

International Exposure: Worked and studied all over East Asia. Internships at various think tanks in China as well as being the only undergrad foreigner invited to be a research assistant at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences when I was a sophomore.

Strength of SOP (be honest, describe the process, etc): Demonstrated my interest in IR and my passion for Asian politics. I discussed the lack of transparency in the Chinese military as the main element of American foreign policy specialists viewing China as a revisionist power, Japan's goals of becoming a "normal" nation and how it can benefit America in southeast Asia, as well as my own experiences in Asian politics.

Strength of LOR (be honest, describe the process, etc): 3 Recommendations: 1 big shot professor from my University that specializes in domestic Chinese politics that wrote me a glowing recommendation, my Chinese professor that stated I was the only non asian student she had ever taught that mastered a flawless standard Chinese accent as a sign of my tenacity and work ethic, 1 from my current boss that also consults for the UN in energy matters that joked around he would write me a horrible rec in order to make sure I stay at the company but wrote me a fantastic LOR.

Others: I love pudding!

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Edited March 25, 2012 by IR_Lion