USC ROSSIER PASA

[Darth.Vegan]

Anyone else get an acceptance yesterday? I'm pretty excited although the program is stupid expensive.

[higheredhopeful]

I did. I'm excited too, but a couple of things turn me off about the program:

 

1) they are weirdly non-transparent about compensation for their graduate assistantships. I asked someone in admissions about whether or not GA compensation includes tuition remission, and his answer was something like, "yes, they usually do, but we don't post how much they include because we want people to apply for them who actually are passionate about the position and not in it just for the tuition remission."

 

..... right, because we're paying the application fee and applying to the program and willing to take out thousands in loans because we're not passionate about student affairs.

 

2) just seems a bit disorganized. like setting the deadline to apply for GAs before we found out our acceptance/rejection to the program. kind of a waste of time for the applicants and the staff reviewing the applications.

 

edit: I realize those qualms are a bit petty. I did talk to two wonderful people from the school at an Idealist Grad Fair earlier last year. Won't be able to go visit unfortunately since their visit days coincide with NYU's (which are required for admission to the program.)

Edited February 21, 2015 by higheredhopeful

[Darth.Vegan]

Yeah, I feel you on those concerns. It's obviously a prestigious program, but some more transparency about funding would be nice. It would basically be impossible for me to attend financially without a high percentage tuition remission and/or stipend to cover living expenses.