USC MFA Fall 2016 Applicants

[Paul J.]

Anyone attending the Student Aid Webinar today?

 

[ThatDude]

Anyone attending the Student Aid Webinar today?

Hi Paul, I attended the webinar. The highlight for me was finding out that the admissions process is need blind. Also, I counted 80 participants,15 Latino names and 15 oriental names, just something I noticed as I was interested in how many people would be applying for the diversity scholarships.

 

[AxelBelle]

Hi Paul, I attended the webinar. The highlight for me was finding out that the admissions process is need blind. Also, I counted 80 participants,15 Latino names and 15 oriental names, just something I noticed as I was interested in how many people would be applying for the diversity scholarships.

Yeah, that sounds about right. I was pretty upset that they didn't offer any half/full scholarships, even for the diversity ones. $60,000 per year is a hefty investment.

Does USC meet 100% of need? I got most of my undergrad paid through financial aid at my school. I'm wondering if it's a similar process.

 

[ThatDude]

Yeah, that sounds about right. I was pretty upset that they didn't offer any half/full scholarships, even for the diversity ones. $60,000 per year is a hefty investment.

Does USC meet 100% of need? I got most of my undergrad paid through financial aid at my school. I'm wondering if it's a similar process.

Now I'm wondering the same...looks like I'll have to sign up to the next webinar to find out One thing to note is that many financial students do provide private loans to graduate students. I know many don't do so for undergrad but do for grad school. Barring any discrepancies in your credit report, I'm guessing that being admitted into USC would go a long way into being approved for the private loans.

 

[ThatDude]

Interesting article from 2014 http://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiem...for-graduate-school/#2715e4857a0b78a4124f23cf

Last Paragraph:
Graduate students can borrow up to $20,500 per year in a graduate Stafford Loan, which carries a 6.21% interest rate and 1.072% origination fee. If you need to borrow beyond that amount and wish to borrow federally, you’re facing that 7.21% rate on the Grad Plus loan plus a 4.288% origination fee. You can turn the Stafford’s 6.21% rate into a 5.96% rate by signing up for auto-debit when the loan enters repayment, so maxing out the Stafford before turning to other funding sources makes sense. But if you need more than $20,500, you might wonder: is it worth it to forgo federal protections on a Grad Plus loan in favor of a cheaper private loan?

 

[Paul J.]

Did you guys get any info on when would repayment start on federal loans? I was kind of surprised that the actual tuition part of the budget was "only" a tad over 30k. I was kind of in the understanding that tuition for USC (as well as NYU and Columbia) were more in the 50k range per year. Guess that counts as a positive surprise if correctly understood.

 

[AxelBelle]

It's around $30,000 per semester.

 

[Paul J.]

What I thought - but this screen grab is from the financial aid webinar:

 

[AxelBelle]

Yeah, you're right! Tuition and fees ends up being around 35,000. If you hustled you're way through scholarships and possibly a good paying summer job, you might actually be able to make ends meet and stay away from staggering debt!

 

[AxelBelle]

Is anyone having trouble logging in to the USC Financial Aid webinar?

 

[supertramp19]

N/A

 

[siriusdanger]

Hey everyone!
Thanks for posting webinar info. I've had to work during every single one of them :/

Is anyone else wishing they could tweak their application now? I am feelin it hard.

 

[ThatDude]

Hey everyone!
Thanks for posting webinar info. I've had to work during every single one of them :/

Is anyone else wishing they could tweak their application now? I am feelin it hard.

Let me first congratulate you for stepping out of the shadows, I see this is your first post Welcome!

If I could go back, I would probably tweak my UCLA application. In particular, I would submit the recommendation requests earlier and tweak a portion of a treatment. I applied to the UCLA and USC producing programs but don't expect to hear back from UCLA. It turns out that you have to have your recommendations in on the application deadline of Nov 1st, unlike USC which gives you some time after their Nov 15th deadline. Therefore, my application was classified as incomplete on the UCLA deadline date. Although the person I corresponded with didn't confirm that my application had been eliminated from consideration, their curt responses made me lose hope.

I'm a lot more confident in my USC application, which isn't saying much. The only thing that I would change is my 3rd recommendation source; I chose a person without industry experience but who could attest to my character and work ethic. Overall, I'm confident that I was able to communicate my goals and who I am; so much so that I won't reapply to either program if not admitted and will look towards Tisch, Columbia, Chapman, and LMU instead. I'll just have to get a start on the GRE's this go around.

Whatever may happen, I'm excited about the upcoming weeks. So many cliffhangers in my life that will be answered, it's going to feel like I'm binging on Netflix

 

[Solomon_E]

Let me first congratulate you for stepping out of the shadows, I see this is your first post Welcome!

If I could go back, I would probably tweak my UCLA application. In particular, I would submit the recommendation requests earlier and tweak a portion of a treatment. I applied to the UCLA and USC producing programs but don't expect to hear back from UCLA. It turns out that you have to have your recommendations in on the application deadline of Nov 1st, unlike USC which gives you some time after their Nov 15th deadline. Therefore, my application was classified as incomplete on the UCLA deadline date. Although the person I corresponded with didn't confirm that my application had been eliminated from consideration, their curt responses made me lose hope.

That's interesting about UCLA needing the recommendations in on the deadline of Nov. 1st. I'm sorry that happened, and I hope you get accepted to USC. In my case, I didn't apply to UCLA because I didn't think two of my letter writers could get their letters sent in by Nov. 1st. I had a feeling it was too risky to apply to UCLA for that reason, and oddly enough those same two letter writers ended up needing to be replaced (one got life threateningly ill and one went AWOL from many people she knows). Fortunately, my replacement letter writers got their recommendations sent to USC within a timeframe USC was happy with.

As for going back and tweaking my application, yes, I might tweak something in it. If I could, I'd also warn myself about those two letter writers needing to be replaced before it happened to save myself a lot of time and stress in November. But I'm satisfied with my personal statement and I'm glad for that.

 

[CReynes]

When is everyone expecting to hear back? I'm also a 2016 USC MFA applicant for writing for film and television.

 

[CReynes]

Edit:
accidental double post

 

[Paul J.]

@CReynes welcome to the forums! Still the waiting game here as well....

Remember to fill out your info in the spreadsheet we have up to gather info and follow where we are at with each school!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-QPRZ-gc15WuHBmlxorJiTS1z-8vE-7uUttLDdxHtE0/edit#gid=0

 

[CReynes]

@CReynes welcome to the forums! Still the waiting game here as well....

Remember to fill out your info in the spreadsheet we have up to gather info and follow where we are at with each school!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-QPRZ-gc15WuHBmlxorJiTS1z-8vE-7uUttLDdxHtE0/edit#gid=0

Hey Paul -- the spreadsheet seems to have applicants from 2015. Is there one that students in this current admissions cycle are using?

 

[Paul J.]

It is in the same document, just under another tab. Should be at the top of your screen (or bottom..,). But you can check out last years interview dates and acception rates for reference!

 

[panda]

Hey Paul -- the spreadsheet seems to have applicants from 2015. Is there one that students in this current admissions cycle are using?

There should be a tab within the Google doc for Fall 2016 applicants. Welcome to the forums, glad to see another MFA writing applicant. Did you apply to any other programs, or just the one?