BD123

Previous Schools (Name, type, or tier): Small, private liberal arts college in the south east, ranked among top 40 Previous Degrees and GPAs: BA, 3.8 (3.9 major/last two years), PBK etc... GRE Scores (Verbal/Quantitative/Analytical Writing): 160/161/5.0 Previous Work Experience (Years, Type): Teaching 2 years as part of TFA Math/Econ Background: In college I took Stats, Calc, Micro, Macro, and Quantitative Research Methods Foreign Language Background (if applicable to your program): Intended Field of Study in Grad School: Social/Ed Policy Long Term Professional Goals: Working in some way with Ed Reform be it through a state dept of ed, with a politician, or non-profit. Schools Applied to & Results: I applied to so many schools... here are the highlights Duke MPP (accepted with funding), Michigan Ford (accepted with funding), Wisconsin LaFollette (accepted), Harvard GSE (accepted), UGA MPA (accepted with funding + stipend), Vanderbilt Peabody (accepted with funding) Ultimate Decision & Why: Duke Sanford: I am totally excited about their quantitative approach to social policy, the strength of their career services, and the fact that I will have some semblance of professional and personal balance as I have relationships with people in the area! Further, social policy rather than education policy will leave me well equipped to be versatile in the job market. After talking with faculty members I was sold. Advice for Future Applicants: Know what you want going in. I didn't and had applied to 13 schools for 4 different degrees and several jobs all over the country. When I had too many options I freaked out. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad problem but if you focus on what you want before you go in the decision process as well as your application will come more naturally.

MIT and Yale (among others) have FREE open, online courses. Here is the link to one stats course: http://ocw.mit.edu/c...ns-spring-2009/ I just google "MIT opencourseware" and it was the first link. Search around a bit to find the class that you are looking for! I'm taking an econ class on there right now to brush up on what I have forgotten from undergrad and it's thorough enough to get the job done quite well Good luck!

Ford was my last school and I am in! So thrilled and surprised!

Yep I guess the demographic they're choosing isn't on these forums! Any one know how it works if we opted to be rolled into the Master's admission process as well? Does that just automatically happen?

I also got 10K per year... way I understood it was that it's per year and that they will double check after your first year to see if you still qualify... I imagine there's a minimum GPA or something to go with it.

Has anyone heard? Starting to get anxious...