One fateful Friday in late February of last year, I was leaving my workplace to go back to campus and received an email from Brandeis regarding an “update on my application.” As I was walking down the stairs to the backdoor exit, I opened the email and went to my application. Thinking back on it, I’m sure I should have been more nervous. But at the moment, I was so tuckered out from a long day’s work, I opened up the email as casually as possible. However, when I discovered that I got into Heller, I stopped in my tracks immediately. I remember texting my closest friends and FaceTiming my parents.
“Congrats on brandice,” my friend told me, whose ability to remember the school I applied to mattered more than spelling Brandeis wrong.
I remember my sister being ecstatic over text, and my parents having extremely different reactions. My father’s first question immediately was “how much does it cost?,” a question that Heller Admissions can help answer for prospective students and parents (please don’t judge my shameless plug). My mother, on the other hand, was bawling at the idea of me moving to a different state for school. Nonetheless, I believe they were all proud of me.
Once I received my decision from Heller, I was faced with a difficult decision. I had to choose between this program and another social policy program in New York. Either way, I would have had to move because I had lived at home all my life, needed to change my environment to really focus on my graduate education, and experience new things in life overall. After weighing my options and consulting with many people whose opinions I value, I ended choosing Heller.
The biggest factor that caused me to hesitate with Brandeis was name recognition. The other program was from a school that all my friends knew and had a high ranking in social policy programs, and no one but my professors had known of Brandeis’ esteemed academic reputation. But name recognition only gets you so far, in my opinion. One should choose their program for what it truly offers. With Heller’s program, I would be able to experience the vast opportunities the Greater Boston area has to offer and the diverse student body of Heller. The program at Heller was also better for me in terms of financial aid and the opportunity to network with those in the international development community, which is the field I strive to have a career in.
When it comes to choosing which program or school one wants to attend, what really matters is if one believes they can make the most out of where they are attending.