Princeton WWS App Q's

[yellina122]

Hey guys! I haven't had any luck getting in touch with Princeton's admissions team by email (I suppose I could just call?) but I was hoping some of you might be able to answer my last-minute application questions.

First- should the Policy Memo be annotated? Right now I have annotations for all the hard facts I cite and footnotes at the end, but I'm not sure if that will be useful for the admissions team, or even necessary.

Second- where on their resume would they want past internships and research assistantships taken during college? Their blog post on this: http://wws.princeton.edu/admissions/wws-blog/item/2015-application-countdown-conclusion-résumé-diversity is kind of vague. My best guess is the "Personal Background" section. Thoughts? 

Third- also for the resume, do they want a list of "interests" as part of the personal background- like playing guitar and writing short stories? Their blog post made it seem like they want that included but I wasn't sure how to go about it.

Finally- the online application has a section for "Publications/Original Work." Could or should this include non-scholarly work- like articles or blog posts I've had published? 

 

Any assistance you all can offer will be greatly appreciated!

[nycpolicy]

I don't remember where, but I read somewhere that annotations are not necessary. 

On another note, what exactly does Princeton mean by 'Department' when they say it should be on each page of the SOP/Policy memo etc? 

[Revolutionary]

On one of their blog posts, they said the resume should be annotated. What does an annotated resume mean? A resume with citations?

[yoh_rrg]

15 hours ago, yellina122 said:

Hey guys! I haven't had any luck getting in touch with Princeton's admissions team by email (I suppose I could just call?) but I was hoping some of you might be able to answer my last-minute application questions.

First- should the Policy Memo be annotated? Right now I have annotations for all the hard facts I cite and footnotes at the end, but I'm not sure if that will be useful for the admissions team, or even necessary.

Second- where on their resume would they want past internships and research assistantships taken during college? Their blog post on this: http://wws.princeton.edu/admissions/wws-blog/item/2015-application-countdown-conclusion-résumé-diversity is kind of vague. My best guess is the "Personal Background" section. Thoughts? 

Third- also for the resume, do they want a list of "interests" as part of the personal background- like playing guitar and writing short stories? Their blog post made it seem like they want that included but I wasn't sure how to go about it.

Finally- the online application has a section for "Publications/Original Work." Could or should this include non-scholarly work- like articles or blog posts I've had published? 

 

Any assistance you all can offer will be greatly appreciated!

So I'm no expert but I'll let you know what I'm doing if it just makes you feel better about your first question. I honestly don't know what to make of the others because I think their resume format is really odd. Regarding question one, I've read posts from people who did it both ways, but ultimately I decided to provide footnotes. Regardless of if it's necessary (I doubt they'll check), I think it's a way of showing that my data isn't totally out of thin air and frankly I see being able to cite sources as a writing skill that they want to know we have. I am not providing a works cited page, however, in order to keep with the page limits.

12 hours ago, aaprabhakar said:

I don't remember where, but I read somewhere that annotations are not necessary. 

On another note, what exactly does Princeton mean by 'Department' when they say it should be on each page of the SOP/Policy memo etc? 

For "Department" I wrote "Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs." The application site is not WWS-specific so I imagine if they accidentally assigned an essay to a reader from a different department they want it to be easy for them to quickly identify the problem and send it back to the right person. This is just my guess on having read applications for other organizations in the past-- sometimes things end up going to the wrong place and you don't want to get through half their statement before you realize they think they're applying to a completely different program than the one you're reading for.

 

[Revolutionary]

3 hours ago, yoh_rrg said:

 I am not providing a works cited page, however, in order to keep with the page limits.

I assumed the works cited page would not count towards the 4 page limit? I have it as page 5 :/

[yellina122]

17 minutes ago, Revolutionary said:

I assumed the works cited page would not count towards the 4 page limit? I have it as page 5 :/

Yeah, I have works cited as my page 5, and I'm assuming they won't count it towards the limit. To be fair, I'm also going somewhat over 4 pages, due to that "approximately"! Considering making all my periods and commas a slightly smaller font.....

[Revolutionary]

18 minutes ago, yellina122 said:

Yeah, I have works cited as my page 5, and I'm assuming they won't count it towards the limit. To be fair, I'm also going somewhat over 4 pages, due to that "approximately"! Considering making all my periods and commas a slightly smaller font.....

Yeah their font is the other grey area.

 

11 or the standard 12? That's the question haha, makes a world of difference and they haven't said anything on it

[nycpolicy]

1 minute ago, Revolutionary said:

Yeah their font is the other grey area.

 

11 or the standard 12? That's the question haha, makes a world of difference and they haven't said anything on it

Damn that completely slipped my mind. I have it at 11 right now :/ 

[yellina122]

I'm sticking with 11 since they specifically said "no smaller than 11" for one of the other sections... the personal statement maybe? 

[yellina122]

Hey guys, heard back from Princeton on the policy memo! 

Here's what they said: "policy Memos are not required to have citations or be annotated, but feel free to do so.  Neither will count in the total page count for a Policy Memo.  Also, the Publications/Original Work section is not required for WWS applicants."

[Revolutionary]

3 minutes ago, yellina122 said:

Hey guys, heard back from Princeton on the policy memo! 

Here's what they said: "policy Memos are not required to have citations or be annotated, but feel free to do so.  Neither will count in the total page count for a Policy Memo.  Also, the Publications/Original Work section is not required for WWS applicants."

Great, thanks for sharing this!

[Prester John]

8 hours ago, Revolutionary said:

I assumed the works cited page would not count towards the 4 page limit? I have it as page 5 :/

Same here. 4 pages of write up and one page for references.

[Prester John]

A few doubts.

1. How many MPAs do they take in a year? Although the site says 65-70, the admissions pdf says 160.

2. For the submitted ones, has the test scores come as of yet?

 

[op1920]

1 hour ago, Prester John said:

A few doubts.

1. How many MPAs do they take in a year? Although the site says 65-70, the admissions pdf says 160.

2. For the submitted ones, has the test scores come as of yet?

 

The 160 is across both years (70-80 MPA1s (MPAs in their first year), 70-80 MPA2s (MPAs in their second year.)

[nycpolicy]

A fundamental doubt: Is it okay for your topic and recommendations to be based on something that you worked on professionally? The guidelines do state that the topic should be of significance to your professional goals which in this case it is, but as a reread, I'm wondering if there is a line between an issue you already know a lot about and have worked on verses exploring something different. 

Thoughts? 

[op1920]

You should write about something you already know a lot about and that fits in with the rest of your application (i.e. if you've worked on health care policy for a number of years, you should explore something *specific* within health care policy -- the more specific, the better)

[yellina122]

16 minutes ago, aaprabhakar said:

A fundamental doubt: Is it okay for your topic and recommendations to be based on something that you worked on professionally? The guidelines do state that the topic should be of significance to your professional goals which in this case it is, but as a reread, I'm wondering if there is a line between an issue you already know a lot about and have worked on verses exploring something different. 

Thoughts? 

I think it would be 100% fine for your focus to be on something you know about professionally. My understanding is that the policy memo is meant more as a way to gauge writing abilities and ability to think analytically.  Even if it's a topic you know a good deal about, you could use the memo as an opportunity to delve more deeply into counterarguments you maybe wouldn't have encountered professionally. Or spend more time talking about implementation since you would have seen it firsthand.

[Revolutionary]

Hi guys, just wanted to confirm, since I don't live at EST, the application will close exactly 23 hours from the time I post this, right?

[yoh_rrg]

3 hours ago, Revolutionary said:

Hi guys, just wanted to confirm, since I don't live at EST, the application will close exactly 23 hours from the time I post this, right?

Should be-- I'm also in a very different time zone and on one of my other applications a recommender waited until 4 a.m. my time (i.e. before midnight EST) and it still went through. Since it specifically says "Eastern Standard Time" on the website I would take that at it's word.

[Revolutionary]

Guys, I've submitted my application but my checklist on the collegeweb app is completely blank even though I've sent my scores and recommendations a long time ago.

Is it the same case with you guys?

[yellina122]

My checklist doesn't have anything actually checked off, though it does have dates of receipt next to everything I submitted.  It also says at the top that it could take 5-7 business days to show up, so I wouldn't be too worried! Maybe check back in with the admissions team next week if nothing changes.

[Oscar21]

Is anyone including any information in the additional information (optional) section?

[Revolutionary]

1 hour ago, yellina122 said:

My checklist doesn't have anything actually checked off, though it does have dates of receipt next to everything I submitted.  It also says at the top that it could take 5-7 business days to show up, so I wouldn't be too worried! Maybe check back in with the admissions team next week if nothing changes.

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I just read that plus realized that I have the receipt dates as well. only the scores fields are blank; guess they'll be updated later.

[Revolutionary]

By the way we weren't supposed to submit a "writing sample" right? It's on the checklist?

[gelatinskeleton]

I'm including additional poli sci courses that did not fit in the portal under Additional Information. I asked the admissions team and they confirmed this is the correct place (include just the overflow courses that did not fit in the portal, not all your relevant courses) I don't think we are supposed to submit a writing sample, just the memo. 

Other applications have a box asking  "do you have any concerns that you would like to address". I've usually put in an explanation of my gap in employment (moving, finding a job, and waiting for a security clearance) and explanation that I am currently taking a stats course and the transcript has not been issued yet. I don't recall seeing a similar box in the portal, is this also an "additional information" document? 

Also, I go back and forth, but I got some C+ grades in stats/econ early on as an undergrad, in part because I got mono one semester but also because my test taking quant abilities were sub-par (ie I was convinced i sucked at math and had the tendency to freak out during tests, that was fun). I improved my quant skills by the end of college with some A's in econ/161 GRE scores/quantitative research. In other applications I have written a brief and honest explanation of this and the actions I took to improve , but I don't know if doing that was a good idea. What do you all think?