Help needed with deciding

[sandeep_fes]

i have received admit letters from UNC, Chapel Hill, Arizona State University and CU-Boulder; in Ecology, sustainability and Political Science respectively. In all the three, my focus is to look into governance of natural resources. Am unable to decide as to which of these universities should i opt for. As i mentioned, i am keen to look at natural resource management/governance as part of my phd. Please help!!

[RCtheSS]

How do the funding packages offered by each program compare?

Do you have a POI at each program whose ongoing research interests align with your own? 

[sandeep_fes]

Hi...thanks for the response. I do not know the funding package yet. But yes i do have a professor who is interested in working with me, in each of these universities. Also, i wanted to ask...i have applied for Duke too for their environmental policy program. I got a gre of 318, toefl of 114 and have about 8 years of work ex. Also, have about 10 publications to my name. any guess as to what my chances there could be?

[sam2016]

On 2/12/2016 at 3:59 AM, sandeep_fes said:

Hi...thanks for the response. I do not know the funding package yet. But yes i do have a professor who is interested in working with me, in each of these universities. Also, i wanted to ask...i have applied for Duke too for their environmental policy program. I got a gre of 318, toefl of 114 and have about 8 years of work ex. Also, have about 10 publications to my name. any guess as to what my chances there could be?

I hope I am not too late in responding to your query..

From the sound of it, it looks like you have similar options in all three universities. So, maybe you should look at other factors like climate and job market in addition to research. I know for a fact that Boulder and NC have good job markets after graduation. Boulder generally has a number of research institutes and being located there will certainly be an advantage strategically. Also, NC has three universities in that region closely located to each other. So, you will be able to leverage greatly on the network there (especially that of Duke, has a great env. school). As for climate, I personally love NC's climate in general. Winters in Denver can be a little too harsh. That being said, both Boulder and NC are beautiful places with a lot of hiking options. Arizona is popular for hiking as well, but the summers are too extreme for my liking. And as far as professional networks in Arizona are concerned, I am not too convinced they have a great research network. The university is too "commercially" run for my liking (although it is a public university). But, that's my personal opinion and people may disagree with me..

In any case, you seem to have great choices ahead..good luck and congratulations!