Archive for Application Tips – Page 40

2012 Applicant facts #1

SIPA’s diverse student body is one of its greatest attributes. Each year we receive applications from nearly 100 different countries from applicants with varied academic and professional backgrounds.

As you await your decisions, we thought it would be fun to post a few entries based on factoids about this year’s applicant pool.

This first post has some information on the citizenship of the Fall 2012 applicants. Columbia and SIPA, in particular, has one of the most international student bodies in the world. Columbia University ranks third in the United States in terms of international student enrollment and SIPA commonly enrolls students from more than 100 countries per year.

This year applicants for our two-year programs hail from 98 different countries.  This figure, however, does not include U.S. Permanent Residents.  Many Permanent Residents represent countries not reflected in the 103 countries below.

Afghanistan
Albania
Argentina
Armenia
Australia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Belarus
Belgium
Bhutan
Bolivia
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Brazil
Bulgaria
Burma
Cameroon
Canada
Chile
Colombia
Costa Rica
Croatia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Denmark
Ecuador
Egypt
El Salvador
Ethiopia
Finland
France
Georgia
Germany
Ghana
Greece
Guinea
Honduras
Hungary
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Iran
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Jamaica
Japan
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Kuwait
Latvia
Lebanon
Malawi
Mexico
Mongolia
Morocco
Mozambique
Nepal
The Netherlands
New Zealand
Niger
Nigeria
Norway
Pakistan
Paraguay
People’s Republic of China
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Saudi Arabia
Serbia
Sierra Leone
Singapore
Slovenia
South Africa
South Korea
Spain
Sri Lanka
Sweden
Switzerland
Syria
Taiwan
Tanzania
Thailand
Trinidad and Tobago
Tunisia
Turkey
Uganda
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom
United States
Uruguay
Venezuela
Vietnam
Zambia
Zimbabwe

When will I know?

As of this morning… 39% of the applications submitted have been reviewed by the Admissions Committee.

Admission decisions for our 2-year full time MIA and MPA programs will begin to roll out on March 14th.

 

 

Fellowships

We are almost at the end; admission decisions for our 2-year MIA/MPA fall 2012 entering class will be released in mid-March.  Admittance into the program of your dreams can be bittersweet if you do not have the money to pay for it. So if you haven’t started already, you should be researching ways to fund your education now.

We post fellowship opportunities that come our way in our external (non-Columbia SIPA) fellowship database so check it out.  Many fellowships have application deadlines so don’t wait.

A day in Admissions

9am: [large] coffee in hand, I was ready to conquer the applications I left sitting on my desk the night before…

then the day got started…

9:30am: followed up on some emails.  counted days left before majority of the admission decisions are released in March <panic>.

10am: Fellowship Committee Meeting — reevaluating how funds are dispersed for 1st and 2nd year students.

11am: crunched some application numbers — approximately 90% of applications submitted are complete.  If you haven’t sent in your missing documents — you know who you are — please send them in.

12pm: MIA/MPA information Session today —  Thank you for joining us!

2pm – 5pm: I blocked a couple of hours today to read files but with the multiple interruptions throughout the day from conversations about Disneyland and peanut M&Ms (an office favorite) to calming over anxious callers to mandatory computer software updates… I was only able to live vicariously through a few applicants as they talked about their commitment to public service and their exploration of the world and of themselves… Unfortunately, by the end of the day the stack did not get much shorter — not a very productive reading day.

5pm:  take a break to recap the day on the Admissions Blog, which I have dreadfully neglected for weeks.

6pm:  somehow more files have found their way into my office.   Guess I will have some interesting reading this weekend (while my babies nap).

Are you ready?

Great things await you… but first you need to submit your application.

Today (January 5th) is the application deadline for our MIA/MPA two year degree program.  Make sure you have all your “i” dotted and “t” crossed before you hit the “SUBMIT” button.

Decision notifications are posted to the application Web site.  You will receive an email when the decision is available.  Admitted candidates will receive a hard copy of the admission letter.  We do not mail hard copy letters to applicants who are not admitted.  Decisions are communicated in early March.  All applications are read during the same period (beginning now), therefore all decisions are released roughly around the same time.

Good luck!

 

"The most global public policy school, where an international community of students and faculty address world challenges."

—Merit E. Janow, Dean, SIPA, Professor of Practice, International and Economic Law and International Affairs

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