Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Decisions, decisions...
Right now, I find myself with a bit of a dilemma. I got accepted to the University of Minnesota a couple of weeks ago and now I have two very good, nearly equal options to choose from. Obviously, it's a very nice problem to have (picking between two Top-20 schools), but it really complicates things more than I was expecting. Here is what I've come up with so far:
Minnesota:
Pros -
Instate tuition is ~$20k less than that of GW
Cost of living is much less in MN than D.C. as well
Perfect dual-degree programs for my interests and background
Cons -
It's in MN and I've been here nearly my entire life
Does the degree travel to the east or west coasts?
Very "good enough" attitude around the campus (based on my personal observations) that would not be good for me... I think I will do much better with a more competitive, professional, intellectual atmosphere around me.
George Washington:
Pros -
Location!! It's four blocks from the White House
Contacts are right there (obviously an extention of the Location) - Legislators, judges, NGOs, etc. etc. That professors will have personal relationships with
Very good Environmental Law program (most likely I would do this and not a dual degree anyway)
D.C. is a bigger city with much more life and much closer to so many other things
Cons -
Expensive (compared to MN)
Cost of living (compared to MN)
Quality of life? D.C. Has a crime rate along the lines of New Orleans... not sure we want to do that again
Well, those are the main things on my mind right now. I'm pretty sure we don't want to stay in MN after I get done with my school, otherwise, it would be a no-brainer. I'm basically weighing cost vs. location.... Hopefully, I hear back from Georgetown or Columbia or NYU or Northwestern anyway. That'd make things much easier! I did send additional information to each of the waitlist or deferred schools including an additional LOR from a personal friend and my performance appraisals from my job. My hope was that they could overlook my grades in college and see I've since matured and gained some sense of responsibility and professionalism....We'll see how that works out.
In other news, I finally received a rejection letter. It just came yesterday. The strange thing was that it was from one of my "safety" schools, the University of Maryland. They have a good health law program and are located near D.C., but otherwise, I don't even know much about them except they're "ranked" around number 40. So, it wasn't a heart-breaker or anything. At this point, I wouldn't have attended there had I been accepted anyway. I've read that some schools will reject applicants that they are pretty sure will attend a better school (called "yield protecting") in order to make their "yield" of accepted students that actually attend appear better for the US News rankings. Maybe that's what they were doing or maybe they just didn't like my supremely poor GPA... who knows. The point is, I'm not going to Maryland.
Well, now I just wait again. Hopefully next time I'll be able to say for sure (at least as of that moment) which school I'll be attending come September. Until then, cheers.
Minnesota:
Pros -
Instate tuition is ~$20k less than that of GW
Cost of living is much less in MN than D.C. as well
Perfect dual-degree programs for my interests and background
Cons -
It's in MN and I've been here nearly my entire life
Does the degree travel to the east or west coasts?
Very "good enough" attitude around the campus (based on my personal observations) that would not be good for me... I think I will do much better with a more competitive, professional, intellectual atmosphere around me.
George Washington:
Pros -
Location!! It's four blocks from the White House
Contacts are right there (obviously an extention of the Location) - Legislators, judges, NGOs, etc. etc. That professors will have personal relationships with
Very good Environmental Law program (most likely I would do this and not a dual degree anyway)
D.C. is a bigger city with much more life and much closer to so many other things
Cons -
Expensive (compared to MN)
Cost of living (compared to MN)
Quality of life? D.C. Has a crime rate along the lines of New Orleans... not sure we want to do that again
Well, those are the main things on my mind right now. I'm pretty sure we don't want to stay in MN after I get done with my school, otherwise, it would be a no-brainer. I'm basically weighing cost vs. location.... Hopefully, I hear back from Georgetown or Columbia or NYU or Northwestern anyway. That'd make things much easier! I did send additional information to each of the waitlist or deferred schools including an additional LOR from a personal friend and my performance appraisals from my job. My hope was that they could overlook my grades in college and see I've since matured and gained some sense of responsibility and professionalism....We'll see how that works out.
In other news, I finally received a rejection letter. It just came yesterday. The strange thing was that it was from one of my "safety" schools, the University of Maryland. They have a good health law program and are located near D.C., but otherwise, I don't even know much about them except they're "ranked" around number 40. So, it wasn't a heart-breaker or anything. At this point, I wouldn't have attended there had I been accepted anyway. I've read that some schools will reject applicants that they are pretty sure will attend a better school (called "yield protecting") in order to make their "yield" of accepted students that actually attend appear better for the US News rankings. Maybe that's what they were doing or maybe they just didn't like my supremely poor GPA... who knows. The point is, I'm not going to Maryland.
Well, now I just wait again. Hopefully next time I'll be able to say for sure (at least as of that moment) which school I'll be attending come September. Until then, cheers.
