HKS 2017

[Poli92]

Did anyone who applied not receive these two emails? 

[coffeebean13]

Just got an email from HKS that it was sent to us by mistake. 

" You may have received an e-mail from Harvard University IT asking you to activate a HarvardKey account. This e-mail was sent in error and we ask that you please disregard this message. We have not released any decisions at this time. You will receive an e-mail from appstatus@hks.harvard.edu in mid-March regarding your application status. Please follow our Admissions Blog for official updates. "

Edited February 7, 2017 by coffeebean13

[Obecalp]

But the question is, was it a mistake because they sent it to the entire list of applicants or because they sent it to the accepted applicants whose information they haven't released yet. 

Note that it says the haven't released any decisions, not that they haven't made any decisions. 

[ubuntu_91]

13 minutes ago, Obecalp said:

But the question is, was it a mistake because they sent it to the entire list of applicants or because they sent it to the accepted applicants whose information they haven't released yet. 

Note that it says the haven't released any decisions, not that they haven't made any decisions. 

well, that's why poli92 asked if anyone applied but not received those emails... I don't think those emails mean anything. They only admit a handful of applicant and about 10 people on gradcafe confirmed that they got the same emails!

[poefan]

Some really wild speculation going on here.

I guess the mail was first sent to the admitted applicants and after realising the mistake adcom sent it to all the applicants. We need to check now who got the mail earliest. Just a wild speculation from me:)

Guys I know these wild speculations gives us HOPE but we need to realise that what is meant to be happens no matter what. We all must be qualified and accomplished individuals since we have dreamt of the best in the world, Harvard. Lets relax do some yoga or workout and keep on our journey to make this world a better place through our work.

[BosNole1636]

I received both emails today before noon EST. 

HKS also published this blog today explaining the email mishap, which should put to rest any speculation concerning the meaning of the email: 

"We recently learned that Harvard University Information Technology (HUIT) inadvertently sent an email notice regarding security protocol to prevent online attacks to all HKS Master’s program applicants on February 7. This e-mail was sent in error and did not originate from Admissions Office at Harvard Kennedy School.

The Admission Office utilizes a specific software platform for receiving and processing applications, but applicant information is also stored in a central university software system. The email message was generated from the central system, not our admission system. The email message sent by HUIT was sent to all HKS Master’s applicants, not any particular subset of applicants.

We have not made final admission decisions at this time. The Admissions Committees have several weeks of work still ahead. Each applicant will receive an e-mail from appstatus@hks.harvard.edu in mid-March regarding your application status. Only after receiving this email will you be able to log into our system and see your admission decision. Updates on our progress will be posted on this blog. We hope that this clarifies any questions. "

[dwestlakeg]

I also received both the two-step verification and the error email, at  11:12am EST and  11:56am EST, respectively.

[dwestlakeg]

As we wait, I'd love any feedback on whether or not my profile would be competitive for the MPP.

 

Strengths:

• Professional experience: almost 6 years working in public education (Teach For America alum, worked on leadership team at a high-performing non-profit charter school, now a recruiter for TFA)

• Letters of recommendation: 1 from my current manager, 2 from former teammates that I managed. I feel confident that they'll speak well to my passion and credentials for public service and policy.

 

Weaknesses:

• 3.54 GPA from a small, relatively unknown liberal arts college (top 100 ranked among liberal arts colleges)

• Non-quantitative background. History major in college, only a few quant. classes taken (B in statistics, A in microeconomics, A in intro to computer science, C+ in calculus)

 

Neutrals:

• GRE scores:

  • Verbal = 162 (90th %ile)
  • Quantitative = 160 (76th %ile)
  • Writing = 4.5 (82nd %ile)

• Essays: mostly focused on my privilege and identity as a white, straight male and what I can do to lift voices / advocate for those who don't share my identities of privilege.

[poefan]

Have any mpa id applicant heard back from HKS regarding Joint Japan - World bank scholarship?

[poefan]

On 08/02/2017 at 11:24 PM, dwestlakeg said:

As we wait, I'd love any feedback on whether or not my profile would be competitive for the MPP.

 

Strengths:

• Professional experience: almost 6 years working in public education (Teach For America alum, worked on leadership team at a high-performing non-profit charter school, now a recruiter for TFA)

• Letters of recommendation: 1 from my current manager, 2 from former teammates that I managed. I feel confident that they'll speak well to my passion and credentials for public service and policy.

 

Weaknesses:

• 3.54 GPA from a small, relatively unknown liberal arts college (top 100 ranked among liberal arts colleges)

• Non-quantitative background. History major in college, only a few quant. classes taken (B in statistics, A in microeconomics, A in intro to computer science, C+ in calculus)

 

Neutrals:

• GRE scores:

  • Verbal = 162 (90th %ile)
  • Quantitative = 160 (76th %ile)
  • Writing = 4.5 (82nd %ile)

• Essays: mostly focused on my privilege and identity as a white, straight male and what I can do to lift voices / advocate for those who don't share my identities of privilege.

You do have a very competitive profile. Your GRE score is in the range and so is your gpa (based on the previous year selected applicants profile as reported in public forums). You have six years of work ex which is also much more than the average of three for mpp class.

[poefan]

HKS hopeful and others would agree that this time around the thread is not that active as compared to previous year threads.

I feel not many international students have applied this season. I guess POTUS effect:))...just kidding.

[HKS hopeful]

11 hours ago, poefan said:

HKS hopeful and others would agree that this time around the thread is not that active as compared to previous year threads.

I feel not many international students have applied this season. I guess POTUS effect:))...just kidding.

Last year thread traffic didn't pick up until mid Feb. I expect increased activity towards the end of the month as release date approaches and panic sets in. lol

Last year on Feb 14th, traffic picked up after David King (from HKS Admissions Committee ) posted this in the HKS 2016 thread. See below.

Best wishes to all who applied this year. Fingers and toes crossed for all of you. 

From David King on Feb 14 2016 in the "HKS 2016" thread:

"Hi there, HKS hopeful.  I haven't been on this site in many many months, and I'm glad that I checked in now to see your post.  I don't know anything about where the MPP or MPA/ID committees are - but I want you to know that the MPA committees (for MPA2 and MCMPA) are on track.  Every file has been read independently by two committee members.  Written comments have been entered for each applicant, and we've had several full committee meetings to make sure that we're all looking out for the same sorts of things.  We are now in the "in review" process - during which every file with substantially differing scores are discussed by the two initial readers.  Some of those cases will soon come to the full committee for discussion.  We meet as a group on Tuesdays and Thursdays - and we're making good progress. As in years past, I'm sorry to say, the overwhelming majority of applicants will not be offered admission.  And as in years past, I want to underscore that we're not mesmerized by GREs and GPAs. HKS will almost certainly end up saying "no" to applicants with perfect board scores and "yes" to applicants who struggled at times. We look for an applicant's clear fit to our mission.  Bottom line.. keep your hopes alive... and chill (if you're the kind of person who can) until mid-March. Everyone will find out, one way or the other, on the same day.  You - and I - are both looking forward to that day."

[poefan]

For mpa id international students from developing countries.

Hi guys, I received the following mail.

Dear MPA/ID Applicant,

 

Thank you for completing the preliminary checklist for the Joint Japan/World Bank Graduate Scholarship.  We received a large number of responses.  We regret that we were not able to include you on the shortlist of candidates recommended to the JJ/WBGSP Secretariat.

 

With this mail my chances this year looks very bleak. Was banking a lot on this particular scholarship. Applicants shortlisted congratulations and do you mind sharing your profile so that can learn and improve on my application for next year.

[STN]

Hi poefan, sorry.

I didn't make it either - they shortlisted me last year but ended up being waitlisted to the program. But you think not making it to the Joint Japan/World Bank Graduate Scholarship implies the final decision to not be in favor or are you referring to funding constraints for yourself?

Edited February 18, 2017 by STN

[poefan]

2 hours ago, STN said:

Hi poefan, sorry.

I didn't make it either - they shortlisted me last year but ended up being waitlisted to the program. But you think not making it to the Joint Japan/World Bank Graduate Scholarship implies the final decision to not be in favor or are you referring to funding constraints for yourself?

Hi STN

In my opinion not getting shortlist do have a correlation with final decision as upto 8 scholarships are awarded each year and they would have given shortlist to a minimum of 40 applicants and obviously these 40 odd applicants would be the one with better chances of either selection or atleast a waitlist (HKS would not like to bet a full scholarship on someone whom they are unlikely to admit). 

MPA ID class size is around 70 out of which 50 are international students from developing countries and out of this 50 around 20 will represent private sector. Which means only 30 applicants in a mpaid class come from developing countries and have public service experience ( similar to the criteria as laid down by joint japan/ world bank).

With 40 against 30 It do make chances of selection bleak for non shorlisted applicants but there would be outliers and hopefully you are one of them since you were waitlisted last year and have applied for the second time. All the best to you.

[devx]

19 minutes ago, poefan said:

Hi STN

In my opinion not getting shortlist do have a correlation with final decision as upto 8 scholarships are awarded each year and they would have given shortlist to a minimum of 40 applicants and obviously these 40 odd applicants would be the one with better chances of either selection or atleast a waitlist (HKS would not like to bet a full scholarship on someone whom they are unlikely to admit). 

MPA ID class size is around 70 out of which 50 are international students from developing countries and out of this 50 around 20 will represent private sector. Which means only 30 applicants in a mpaid class come from developing countries and have public service experience ( similar to the criteria as laid down by joint japan/ world bank).

With 40 against 30 It do make chances of selection bleak for non shorlisted applicants but there would be outliers and hopefully you are one of them since you were waitlisted last year and have applied for the second time. All the best to you.

Hey, I'm wondering on what criteria have you based your data of 40 people being shortlisted? Any official source? Is is not that anybody with ~3yrs of public sector experience in the developing world would get shortlisted? I am assuming the process of shortlisting and admissions process for MPA-ID would be independent of each other. But then, you may some insight that I may not.  

[MC/MPA Hopeful]

2017 MC-MPA calling! Anyone here applied?

[poefan]

1 hour ago, devx said:

Hey, I'm wondering on what criteria have you based your data of 40 people being shortlisted? Any official source? Is is not that anybody with ~3yrs of public sector experience in the developing world would get shortlisted? I am assuming the process of shortlisting and admissions process for MPA-ID would be independent of each other. But then, you may some insight that I may not.  

Hi devx

40  is just an assumption made by me on the basis of hks acceptance rate of around 20%. 

No they have not given shortlist to all applicants having a work experience of 3 years or more in the public sector which includes me and STN and even their official mail says that they have received large no of applicants and have shortlisted few.

[poefan]

Also to add on the process of shortlist and admission process for mpaid is surely based on one criteria and that is the quality of an application. An applicant who is shortlisted for scholarship will clearly be ahead of other applicants when it comes to admission decisions too and this holds more true in the case of mpa id as class size is small.

A Michael Phelps will definetely have high chances of winning in other events as he has proved himself in the olympics that he is the best.

[Optimus007]

Hi everyone ! I am new to this forum. I see we are all in the same boat, impatiently waiting admission decisions I am a joint HBS / MPA/ID applicant for fall 2017.

 

I see there is lot of discussion on different topics here. To help us kill time, I wanted to share some observation / thoughts on two recent topics. I welcome any thoughts that could expand on this discussion. These are just my thoughts and in no way amount to any kind of evidence.

 

HarvardKey Error Email

As some of you I also received one as well, followed by another email explaining that it was a mistake. Maybe it is just me, but I did not get that other email mentioning the admission decisions, I would not have thought much of it. But since they mention that, I started thinking.

1) First, if everyone who was affected by this error also received another email from HKS admission office saying that it was a mistake, then why did they feel the need to go public with this on their blog? I do not imagine they were swamped with phone calls, because that email explained nicely it was an error. Given that all affected students were informed of the error, what does going public on this achieve from them, except make them look very disorganized and incompetent?

 

2) From the official post on the HKS blog: "The Admission Office utilizes a specific software platform for receiving and processing applications, but applicant information is also stored in a central university software system. The email message was generated from the central system, not our admission system. The email message sent by HUIT was sent to all HKS Master’s applicants, not any particular subset of applicants."

-Well I am also a joint HBS applicant and I did not receive an email from the HBS admission office saying Harvard IT made an error. We know that these HKS and HBS admission processes are separate from each other, so why did not I receive the email from HBS admission also? How come supposedly HKS applicant information is stored in the central system, but HBS applicant information is not? Well, interestingly, I was rejected from HBS just days or a         week before the error email went out. So, while I am on their applicant list, I am not on their admitted or shortlisted applicant list. Interesting, isn't it!

3) We can assume this is the first time that this kind of error happened at Harvard, because if the same error happened before, the system would have been fixed before. But that makes us wonder, how come this kind of error did not happen before? Did HKS just recently start storing applicant information on the central system?

4) Are there other schools under Harvard whose admission offices store applicant information in the central system (there must be)? if so, they also must have been also affected by this error but were they??? Do you know anyone who applied to HBS, HLS or other and got the same error email?

MPA/ID Need-blind Admission

My personal take on this, again from extensive research and observation of current and former students: This is a fairy tale for little kids. Given limited resources of the school, the financial need is certainly a consideration in their process. Obviously, I do not have a proof but I have observations and questions:

1) If it is need-blind, why do not they release their admission decisions sooner,  instead of waiting for the financial aid / scholarships decisions also? If MPA/ID admission committee is short-listing and recommending applicants for Word Bank program in early February, then they must have finished their admission review by then to be able to do this. Would they be short-listing applicants who they are not even sure would be admitted to the program? No.

2) Between 6-7 admission committee members it does not take that long to review 150 or so applications. As point of reference, HBS emailed all the rejections 3 weeks after the application deadline and they get 15,000+ applications (I know they do not read all of them, but still MPA ID practically takes from Dec 1 to late March - almost four months!).

3) Let's say admission is really need based and they admit 70 applicants to the program. For the sake of example, let's say of these 70, half come from developing countries and they are not sponsor by their governments. They also do not get full scholarship from HKS, so they cannot afford to pay the remaining portion. Let's say they have to defer admission for next year, in order to find the funding. Think about this kind of scenario, the program extends offers to 70 students, but half of them do not attend that year because of financial reasons. I am not aware that MPA/ID has a wait list, so that they can admit those students if this happens. Then, why would they be taking this kind of risk any given year? They need to consider if the student would be able to attend when they make a decision in order to maintain the quality of the program. They need to know with some level of probability that the student will be able to pay or that they would ultimately be able to offer him more financial aid later (which I also heard of happening in the past).

Anyways, I am just thinking out loud on these topics and sharing with you. I welcome your thoughts and discussion. Sorry for typos.

 

 

[d4r56]

Regarding the HKS financial aid application (which is due this Friday): it seems like it's pretty straightforward/easy to complete unless you're writing an essay for one of the fellowships.

I'm assuming the fellowships are extremely competitive and I'm not sure that I want to spend the next couple of days writing an essay for something I likely won't get -- not to mention I'm not even sure if I'll get into the school itself! Does anyone know how competitive these fellowships are? Of course, I'm sure it varies depending on which fellowship you're talking about (I'm thinking about the "Center for Public Leadership" fellowships in particular.)

I think most of the merit-based aid that is awarded comes from a different pool of money(?)

[tinpants12]

2 hours ago, d4r56 said:

I'm assuming the fellowships are extremely competitive and I'm not sure that I want to spend the next couple of days writing an essay for something I likely won't get -- not to mention I'm not even sure if I'll get into the school itself! Does anyone know how competitive these fellowships are? Of course, I'm sure it varies depending on which fellowship you're talking about (I'm thinking about the "Center for Public Leadership" fellowships in particular.)

I think most of the merit-based aid that is awarded comes from a different pool of money(?)

The Center for Public Leadership fellowships look very competitive. You can see profiles of current fellows here. I literally laughed out loud when I read one incredible biography after another, thinking, "yeah, they'll give me a fellowship when hell freezes over."

But think of it this way: You're spending 2 hours on something that is potentially worth $160,000. Give yourself a tiny chance of getting it - let's say .05% probability of success. The wage (80,000dollars/hour) multiplied by the probability of success (.0005) is $40/hr. And this tiny probability of success (.05%) represents 1 in 2000 applicants being awarded a fellowship, which is certainly too low. 

...Also, if this math doesn't make sense, than I really need this fellowship so I can learn how to do this...

Go for it! Or not. Less competition for me. 

[d4r56]

1 hour ago, tinpants12 said:

The Center for Public Leadership fellowships look very competitive. You can see profiles of current fellows here. I literally laughed out loud when I read one incredible biography after another, thinking, "yeah, they'll give me a fellowship when hell freezes over."

But think of it this way: You're spending 2 hours on something that is potentially worth $160,000. Give yourself a tiny chance of getting it - let's say .05% probability of success. The wage (80,000dollars/hour) multiplied by the probability of success (.0005) is $40/hr. And this tiny probability of success (.05%) represents 1 in 2000 applicants being awarded a fellowship, which is certainly too low. 

...Also, if this math doesn't make sense, than I really need this fellowship so I can learn how to do this...

Go for it! Or not. Less competition for me. 

 

Haha...yeah - interesting way to think about it. Thanks for the link! Extremely competitive indeed...

[Obecalp]

So my thought with the fellowships is that it's important to do them, even knowing there is no chance whatsoever that I will get them. I figure that if I get in, but don't get enough merit aid (drawn from a different pool) and want to call to see if there is anything that they can do to increase that, it's much more compelling if I made the attempt  to get these fellowships. Why should they consider upping my merit aid if I didn't put in the effort for aid that was made available? 

[Theo20]

Hi, guys! Applying MPP here.

Do you guys think it hurts my chance that I submit GMAT score, instead of GRE, in my application?